Teaching With Self-Reliance

By Carolyn Bunting

What does it take for teachers to improve as teachers? Who usually answers this question? Outside experts--members of study commissions, professors, researchers, staff developers, state education department personnel, superintendents, even politicians--everybody, it seems, but teachers themselves. When there's concern about the adequacy of teachers--and there almost always is--ideas for their improvement seem to come from those outside the classroom.

Yet shouldn't we be interested in teachers' ideas on the subject? After all, no one knows the classroom like teachers and, if given a chance, teachers might be able to do for themselves what the experts never seem quite able to do: move teachers toward greater self-reliance in improving their performance. Self-reliance, a concept as old as teaching itself, could be an important key to enduring teacher progress.

The elements of self-reliance are all around teachers, ready and waiting to be brought into a workable pattern. Collegiality, one of three components of self-reliance, occurs each time teachers talk together, observe one another, or extend help in any form. Reflection, a second component, takes place whenever a teacher thinks about his or her professional priorities or tries to solve a teaching problem. The third component of self-reliance, life experience, is continuously scripting lessons which can be carried...