Dialogic Praxis in Teacher Preparation

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Dialogic Praxis in Teacher Preparation: A Discourse Analysis of Mentoring Talk Author(s): Deborah Bieler Source: English Education, Vol. 42, No. 4 (July 2010), pp. 391-426Published by: National Council of Teachers of EnglishStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23018019Accessed: 13-03-2015 05:52 UTC

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Dialogic Praxis in Teacher Preparation: A Discourse Analysis of Mentoring Talk

Deborah Bieler

Mentor was an old friend of Odysseus, to whom the King /Odysseus] had entrusted his

whole household when he sailed, with orders to defer to aged Laertes [Odysseus's father] and keep everything intact. (Homer, 1946, 1.43)

In

Homer's epic, Odysseus, before leaving on a long journey, asks Mentor, his old familv friend, to be in charee durine his absence. Althoueh most I his old family friend, to be in charge during his absence. Although most

common usages of the term mentor assume that Odysseus asked Mentor

to provide guidance for his son, Telemachus, and that Mentor did so with

wisdom and vigor, no evidence for this actually exists in the text. To the con

trary, a closer reading reveals that (1) Odysseus never asks Mentor to advise

Telemachus, and (2) Telemachus suffers great distress after he initially fails

to lead the kingdom well and is essentially left alone when chaos breaks out:

A son, when his father has gone, has many difficulties to cope with at

home, especially if there is no one else to help him, as is the case with

Telemachus, whose father is abroad and who has no other friends in the

place to protect him from injustice. (1946,1.68)

It is not until the goddess Athene assumes Mentor s form that Telemachus

actually receives any assistance. Later, Athene "eliminates the middle

man" by inhabiting the body of Telemachus and just doing the work of the

kingdom herself. One of Athene's legacies in modern teacher preparation is

that mentors are widely presumed to be knowers and actors, while student

teachers are commonly seen as not-knowers and acted-upon. Unfortunately,

this, too, ignores an early passage in which Telemachus insists that he is

truly "old enough to learn from others what has happened [in the kingdom]

and to feel my own strength at last" (1.45, italics added). In spite of his self

English Education, july 2010 391


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English Education ,V 42 N4, July 2010

assessment, no onegod or humangives Telemachus the opportunity to act

on his own behalf, and his role for much of the remaining text is essentially

that of a pawn. This reading of The Odyssey raises a question: How can we

create teacher preparation experiences that provide better opportunities

for new teachers to "feel their own strength," to begin their careers with

strong senses of themselves as actors and knowers? The deep mythic roots

of mentoring and cultural understanding of the term (Cochran-Smith &

Paris, 1995; Roberts, 1999) render mentoring reform difficult, as the lay

ers of hierarchy in The Odyssey (the gods, Odysseus, Laertes, Mentor, and

Telemachus) closely parallel current educational hierarchies (the federal

and state governments, teacher preparation administrators, mentors, and

student teachers). These daunting layers can inhibit the agency of student

teachers, who inhabit the lowest tier.

During the 2002-2005 school year, as a university mentor of four

English student teachers, I desired to move beyond the Homerian legacy and

create a mentoring space with student teachers. Holding a surplus view of

student teachersin contrast to a "deficit perspective" (Ogbu, 1981), I valued

student teachers' holistic identities and supported them as they sought to

effect educational change (Bieler, 2004). I strove to emphasize "problem pos

ing" and avoid "banking" (Freire, 1970/2000), and I studied our discourse

to explore what happens when such an attempt

The deficit-oriented language and is made. This study examined the complexities

images often used to describe Of' mentoring discourse and agentive teacher

Student teachers suggest that preparation. I argue that such an examination is

they are being "trained" to be necessary to better prepare student teachers to

comfortable in the role of being en8ae agentively with the powerful status quo in

"trained " schools. I begin by discussing the intersections of

current thinking about mentoring and dialogue,

and I describe how these intersections suggest productive avenues for analyz

ing mentoring discourse. I then use a conceptualization of "dialogic praxis"

to look closely at one instance of mentoring talk. Finally, I suggest this study's

implications for teacher preparation research, practice, and policy.

Putting Dialogue Scholarship in "Dialogue" with Mentoring

Scholarship

Images in the literature generally characterize student teachers as a strug

gling, somewhat uncritical, populationcertainly not as the intellectuals

Giroux (1994) argues that teachers ought to be. The deficit-oriented language

and images often used to describe student teachers suggest that they are

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Bieler > Dialogic Praxis in Teacher Preparation

being trained to be comfortable in the role of being "trained." Character

izing student teachers as active and critical rather than merely struggling to

survive is more likely to create an activist teaching profession (Sachs, 2003)

that strives to create a more just society both within and beyond the class

room. Four metaphors (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) for student teachers' needs

and the associated mentoring roles are prominent in teacher preparation

scholarship: (1) student teachers as having deficits and mentors as remedia

tors (Rust, 1988; Slick, 1998; Tom, 1997); (2) student teachers as performers

of their knowledge and skills and mentors as coaches (Hoover, O'Shea, &

Carroll, 1988); (3) student teachers as psychologically needy and mentors

as counselors (Hawkey, 1997; Hoover, O'Shea, and Carroll, 1988); and (4)

student teachers as uncritical perpetuators of the status quo and mentors

as promoters of school reform (Borko & Mayfield, 1995; Richardson, 1996;

Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998). Such characterizations of mentoring

illustrate the persistence of the banking model (Freire, 1970/2000) of "su

pervision," in which any outcomes are seen as the result of the knowledge,

commitments, or efforts of the mentor (e.g., Hawkey, 1998; Hoover, O'Shea,

& Carroll, 1988). In a sense, the persistent language of causality illustrates a

lingering behaviorism, perhaps a relic of mentoring's clinical, supervisory

roots, and points to the need for empirical work on student teacher agency,

which Murray (1997) defines as "the satisfying power to take meaningful

action and see the results of our decisions and choices" (p. 381).

Though many studies make compelling reference to the transforma

tive potential of dialogic practice in reforming U.S. teacher preparation

programs (e.g., Danielewicz, 2001; Fenimore-Smith, 2004; Roth & Tobin,

2002), the notion of dialogue is often only vaguely defined, usually assumed

to be synonymous with talk or conversation and antithetical to monologue,

lecture, and transmissionor banking or depositing (Freire, 1970/2000).

Critical and feminist theorists (e.g., Boler, 2005b; Burbules, 1993; Burbules &

Rice, 1991; Ellsworth, 1989,1997; Freire, 1997; Macedo, 1996; Sidorkin, 1999),

however, have debated the nature of dialogue. Although the scholarships of

mentoring and dialogue theory have not historically been in conversation,

useful insights can be gained by reading the mentoring literature through

the lenses these debates provide. For example, in describing how to achieve

the goals held by critical feminist educators, Weiler (1988) names as fun

damental "a commitment both to critique and analysisboth of texts and

social relationshipsand to a political commitment to building a more just

society" as well as "valuing humanity . . . recognizing the value of others

(in this case students) and of one's self' (p. 115). Other critical feminists add

to these commitments the significance of local, individual voices and lived

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English Education, V42 N4, July 2010

experiences and the need for all human beings to struggle, together, against

social oppression (hooks, 1994; Jordan, 2002). In this way, feminist theory

has complicated critical theory's traditional oppressor/oppressed binary

by emphasizing the capacity of all human beings to be both oppressor and

oppressed (Ellsworth, 1997); this complication is central to understanding

issues of power that can affect the mentoring relationship.

Interestingly, much of the scholarly critique and suspicion of dialogue

examines limitations of dialogue in classroom settings (e.g., Berlak, 2005;

Erickson, 2005), where the workings of voice and silence are highly prob

lematic for all participants. Here, the kinds of differences conceptualized

in the criticized "dialogue across difference" fantasy are most often defined

primarily in terms of race/ethnicity and culture (e.g., Boler, 2005a). Empiri

cal work on dialogue across differences of power in out-of-school settings is

needed to further develop understandings of how power functions in and

through discourse. This article seeks to help fill this need by sharing findings

of an empirical study that examined an instance of talk between a university

mentor (myself) and a student teacher (Joss), who shared commitments to

liberatory (Freire, 1970/2000), transgressive (hooks, 1994), and socially re

sponsive (Jordan, 2002; Lorde, 1984) education. (All names are pseudonyms.)

This study considers an instance of an unfortunately common phenomenon:

a critical urban educator deciding whether to leave what he perceived to

be a hostile, unsupportive environment. Joss's dilemma throws complex is

sues of power and agency into relief. In this exploration of dialogue across

differences of position and power, I hope to raise questions about and move

beyond the reification of power differences in teacher preparation research

The experiences and discourses

of English teachers, particularly those involved in mentoring

relationships, are especially fruitful sites for studying dialogic

praxis and teacher agency.

and practice in order to suggest how dialogic

possibilities can strengthen the theoretical base

of mentoring practice and promote the develop

ment of agentive educators at all levels.

onsnips, are especially The experiences and discourses of English

iS for Studying dialogic teachers, particularly those involved in mentor

tis and teacher agency. 'n8 relationships, are especially fruitful sites for

studying dialogic praxis and teacher agency. The

English language arts, broadly defined, focus on the power of language

particularly as pertaining to issues of difference or conflictand those who

teach English are often drawn to the subject due to an interest in helping

students make sense of these issues. English teachers are taught to take words

seriouslyto analyze the material artifacts that showcase them, to examine

how they are produced and received, to appreciate their aesthetic qualities,

and to ask questions about those who produce, receive, and critique them.

394




English teachers are thus likely to be attuned to the ways that language

variously affords meaning-making, character interaction, relationships of

power, belief conveyance and questioning, and conflict and resolution. This

heightened awareness of language features and affordances is likely to be

evident in their reading of the world (Freire, 1987). For example, English

teachers must choose the extent to which they will adhere to the traditional

literary canon in their courses, a choice that is grounded in beliefs about

language and is thus not as prominent in more skill-progressive fields such as

mathematics and the sciences. Mentoring relationships, particularly among

English educators, can serve as generative sites in which to investigate the

field's current emphasis on dialogic and progressive pedagogies that high

light the importance of voice and critique.

The notion of dialogic praxis is informed by Bakhtin's (1981, 1984)

and Freire's (1970/2000) theories on dialogue as well as Freire's theories

on praxis. Both Bakhtinian and Freirean theories of dialogue focus on the

possibilities for individual agency with respect to social context. Freire's

sociopolitical work focuses on the possibilities for individual agency in re

lation to "the world," the broader culture of the ruling social class. Freire

(1970/2000) posits that dialogue is "the encounter between [individuals],

mediated by the world, in order to name the world" (p. 88) as "a challenge to

existing domination" (Shor & Freire, 1987, p. 99). Accordingly, his definition

of praxis"reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it"

(1970/2000, p. 51)is reform-oriented. Much of Bakhtin's literary scholar

ship, however, focuses on the interactions between and among individuals

with special attention to those with discordant worldviews. For Bakhtin, dis

course primarily offers a window to philosophical orientation, and his deep

admiration of the characters in Dostoevsky's novels stems from his belief that

these characters illustrate "a plurality of independent and unmerged voices

and consciousnesses, a genuine polyphony of fully valid voices . . . [that]

combine but are not merged in the unity of the event" (1984, p. 6), creating

"a world of autonomous subjects, not objects" (p. 7). These ideas lead me to

suggest that dialogic praxis is discursively reflecting on and working with

others to transform the world while upholding others' voices and agency (see

Figure 1). In dialectic with dialogic praxis is monologic practice, in which

one voice, or one person's practice, is dominant. Coulter (1999) notes that

"in monologue, meaning is not the product of interchange between speakers,

but the expression of one person's or group's ordering of experience" (p. 6).

My use of "praxis" and "practice" is intended to suggest the differing degrees

of self-reflexivity associated with dialogue and monologue, respectively.

395




Articulating, clarifying, and pursuing individual visions of change

Participants' discourse 2

Strengthening individual agency Cycle begins again

Figure 1. A conceptualization of dialogic praxis Figure l. A conceptualization of dialogic praxis

Dialogic praxis, then, is a careful balancing act. It is a transformative

stance that has the potential to describe and alter the nature not only of

educational spaces but also of teachers' and students' participation in out-of

school contexts. In this article, I discuss three primary findings concerning

dialogic praxis. First, in dialogic praxis, continual acts of negotiation are

regarded as central to the work of teaching and learning. Second, participat

ing in dialogic praxis affords opportunities to strengthen individual agency.

Third, dialogic praxis provides a space for participants to articulate, clarify,

and pursue individual visions for change. The study illustrates some of the

possibilities and challenges of dialogic mentoring praxis and suggests the

usefulness of discourse studies in enriching teacher preparation research

and practice.

Setting

Research Participants and Sites

This article draws from a larger practitioner inquiry study that I conducted

as a university-based mentor of four secondary English student teachers.

These student teachers were enrolled in a year-long graduate certification

program at an urban university in the northeastern United States from July

2002 to May 2003. At that time, the education school's official prospectus

listed the average age of its master's students as 26 and its student body as 63

percent Caucasian, 22 percent Asian American, 8 percent Latino/Latina, and

7 percent African American; it was also overwhelmingly female (80 percent).

396




The program s handbook stated that its mission is to produce competent,

confident, and committed educational leaders in urban school settings as a

matter of social justice." While this mission was not always made explicit

in the student teachers' daily experiences, the program routinely drew

like-minded students and teacher educators to the university's education

degree programs. The politically aware and urban-focused nature of these

programs served as a significant context for my mentoring practice. Student

teachers spent July and August taking courses and assisting in local summer

school programs. They then began a year-long student teaching placement

in September. During the fall semester, they spent half days in their school

placements and took a full courseload at the university. During the spring,

they spent full days in their placements and took two courses.

Joss, the student teacher who is the focus of this analysis, was placed at

Pare High School, a special-admissions school that, according to its materials,

seeks to "attract and challenge outstanding educators to guide students in

achieving the highest standard of academic excellence." During the year I

visited Pare, there was a banner across the inside of the school's entrance

that proclaimed "98% College Acceptance Rate," both a statement about its

past students and an incentive for its current students. Like other magnet

schools in which admission is competitive, Pare's students came from all

across the city, but according to its website, Pare was unique in its racial

composition, as African American students made up about 80 percent of

the student body.

Joss was a few years older than the other three student teachers and

was the only one married. His undergraduate majors were American stud

ies and English, and he had experience as a published short-story writer,

waiter, and stand-up comedian. I began mentoring after I had taught English

for eight years at a public urban high school, public suburban high school,

university, and college where I directed a writing center and taught provi

sionally accepted urban students. At the time of this study, I was a third-year

doctoral student and had had one year of mentoring experience. I endeavored

to align my mentoring practice with Freire's (1997) directive concerning

"authentic mentors":

The contradiction that the teacher must therefore deal with to be an

authentic mentor is that he or she needs not to be mentor. What I mean

is that to be an authentic mentor, the teacher should not adopt the role of

mentor [italics added]. In other words it is necessary that the teacher

understands that the authentic practice of the mentor resides in the fact

that the mentor refuses to take control of the life, dreams, and aspirations

of the mentee.... The fundamental task of the mentor is a liberatory task

397




. . . to transcend [the] merely instructive task and to assume the ethical

posture of a mentor who truly believes in the total autonomy, freedom, and development of those he or she mentors, (p. 324)

The notion of dialogic praxis discussed here adds to Freire's ideas about

authentic mentoring the idea that issues of power and control are enacted

through discourse.

The "moment of rupture that is the focus of this article occurred

during a conversation in which Joss and 1 struggled to determine a course

of action with regard to his classroom mentor Megan, the larger teacher

education program, and, ultimately, the prospect of an educational career.

We debated whether to disrupt a situation we perceived to be oppressive,

whether that disruption could be beneficial, and for whom. Specifically, we

disagreed about whether he should try to discuss with Megan, his classroom

mentor at Pare High School, the differences in their philosophies of educa

tion, which had become increasingly apparent and uncomfortable during

the first month of school.

The Background of Three Social Worlds:

"School is not a democracy"

Because all instances of discourse are best understood within the larger social

contexts in which they are situated (Gee, 1996), it is important to review

three primary contexts that played a significant role in this conversation.

The first social world that this text references is the relationship between

Joss and Megan. At the initial meeting between Joss, Megan, and methe

first time that either Joss or I had met herMegan described herself as the

"monarch" or "queen" of her urban classroom and saw great value in primar

ily teaching "the dead white men" (8/14/02). In the beginning of October,

an increasingly frustrated Joss began to consider seeking a different student

teaching placement for the remainder of the year in spite of his desire to

remain with this particular group of students, with whom he enjoyed a mu

tual respect. Though Joss was finishing plans for a poetry unit he was eager

to teach, a month's worth of daily interactions with Megan confirmed his

initial concerns that his and Megan's approaches to teaching did not seem

compatible. In fact, the day before our conversation, I listened as Joss and

the students discussed the importance of Black Boy's subtitle changes over

the years. When Megan reprimanded some student participants, reminding

them that they were in school and that "schoof is not a democracy" (10/8/02),

Joss and the students lowered their faces. In that moment, Megan's and

Joss's pedagogical incompatibility crystallized for me. Such interactions

398




raise the question of what happens when a student teacher committed to

transformative teaching is placed with a mentor teacher who sees no need

for transformation.

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English Education ,v 42 N4, July 2010

as a group, and conversed with each of them almost dailyin person, over

the phone, and over email. The scope of my mentoring work as well as the

number and volume of my data sources were expanded since I was also

conducting research on my practice. The data I collected included (a) over

200 daily fieldnotes taken during in-person and by-phone conferences, (b)

over 125 indexed audiotapes of weekly individual and small-group meetings,

(c) over 1,700 pages of email, (d) over 400 pages of audiotaped entrance and

exit interview transcripts, and (e) several hundred documents (e.g., jour

nal entries, lesson plans, letters of recommendation, papers for university

coursework, school artifacts, and handouts from university and high school

classes). Although the data I collected included fieldnotes that documented

both Megan's pedagogy and how the students experienced her teaching,

these were not the primary focus of my study, nor did I seek student consent.

I did seek the consent of the classroom mentors, and five of the six granted

it. Megan declined, and thus I did not include any of her verbal or nonver

bal communication in my study. I did, however, include data sources that

1 authored (such as fieldnotes) and those Joss authored (such as emails), in

which he sometimes ventriloquated her language (Wortham, 2001). Like all

discourse analyses, this study does not claim to present a complete repre

sentation of reality; instead, it explores the conversants' necessarily partial

understandings of reality. There are certainly many more sides of the story

than are represented here (e.g., Megan's and the Pare students'); however,

representing or analyzing them was outside the scope of this study.

In the preliminary phases of data analysis that led to the focus of

this article, I utilized interpretive methods for macroanalysis followed by

discourse analysis methods. I began by generating a broad list of possible

themes and codes (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995; LeCompte & Schensul,

1999; Weis & Fine, 2000) that I refined as 1 wrote analytic memos and looked

closely at my data for "typicality and atypicality" (Erickson, 1992) among

these themes and codes. When prominent codes, categories, and cross-cutting

themes began to emerge, I recoded all of my data, this time looking specifi

cally for and taking note of range and variation, discrepant cases, and "key

linkages" within each category (Erickson, 1986, p. 147). At that point, 1 began

to employ discourse analysis methods (e.g., Eggins & Slade, 1997; Gee, 1996,

1999; Wells, 1999) to explore more systematically the form and the substance

of the oral and written mentoring discourse. For example, I created indexi

cal interactional positioning charts (Wortham, 2001) to analyze the student

teachers' narrative events.

Analysis revealed that the category of "negotiating circumstances per

ceived to be oppressive" was the most frequently occurring category in my

400




mentoring discourse with all four student teachers. This article looks closely

at one "discrepant instance" (Erickson, 1998) that provides a particularly rich

illustration of the data in this prominent category. Though the student teach

ers and I typically agreed on negotiation strategies, such was not the case in

this instance. Analysis of such moments of rupture is especially promising

in illuminating discursive workings of power. Because I was interested in

discursive form and function, particularly with regard to issues of power, I

drew from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) methodology to examine how

mentoring discourse creates and represents the social worlds of the student

teacher and mentor (Gee, 2004; Rogers, 2004). Van Dijk(2002), for example,

notes that because "dominance may be enacted and reproduced by subtle,

daily, everyday forms of text and talk that appear 'natural' and quite 'accept

able,' ... CDA ... needs to focus on the discursive strategies that legitimate

control" (p. 110). Lewis (2006) adds that a "reconstructive use of CDA" is

helpful in revealing how literacy teachers "[work] to make and remake

themselves through their talk," particularly in "exchanges in which posi

tions were not fixed, but rather tentative, exploratory, and interdiscursive"

(p. 377). These qualities are certainly evident in mentoring.

To microanalyze the workings of power and positionality in this

moment of rupture, I sought methods that were generative in recursively

representing and analyzing both the form and the substance of mentoring

talk. I used Halliday's concept of conversational "moves" (Eggins & Slade,

1997, p. 186; Halliday, 1985) to locate the speakers' "everyday" but agentive

demonstrations of power during talk. These moves served as the primary

organizing principle in producing a transcript of our discourse, and because

I was most concerned with the social dynamics, I analyzed at the level of the

clause (Rogers, 2004). I organized our talk by conversational moves, which

are grouped by number and letter according to subject coherence (so that

2a and 2b concern the same subject, for example, but 5a represents the start

of a new subject). The moves whose numbers end with an "a" (as in 2a or

5a) have special significance: these are what Eggins and Slade (1997) call

"opening moves," which "function to initiate talk around a proposition" (p.

194). These are conversational moves that are acts of power and are thus of

particular significance in examining dialogic praxis as enacted in a mentor

ing relationship; thus, I indicate them with bold type. The conversational

moves are indicators of how we exerted our power and negotiated our re

lationships with one another. To represent this, I drew from Wells's (1999)

concept of "episodes," units of discourse concerned with "perform[ing]"

a singular "task" in the activity of talk (p. 257). Synonymous with Wells's

"episodes," Gee's (1996) "sections" are "larger units" of talk that have coher

40i




ent topics or themes (p. 110). My analysis was also influenced by Wortham's

(2001) notion of "chunks," or groupings of speech that "cohere as having

accomplished particular interactional positioning" (p. 45). I identified

these groupings by systematically identifying participants' indexical cues

and using them to suggest the relationships among Joss, me, and those who

are narrated in our discourse. Figure 2 provides an example of this level of

analysis and illustrates one way we performed interactional positioning in

this instance of talk.

The transcript includes seven topical sections and demonstrates a

continuous negotiation of both content and process. As is shown in Table 1,

how we expressed a commitment to dialogic praxis was sometimes in conflict

with how we enacted dialogic praxiscategories that were inspired, in part,

by Wortham's (2001) distinction between enactment and representation. An

overview of these dispositions is suggestive of the characteristics dialogic

praxis can include.

Findings

In this section, I present the study s three key findings. A statement of each

finding introduces sections of the transcript, which I then discuss with re

Mentoring conversation, or storytelling event

Figure 2. Interactional positioning indexed in the mentoring conversation Figure 2. Interactional positioning indexed in the mentoring conversation

402




Table l. Expressed and enacted dialogic praxis in joss and Deb's conversation Table l. Expressed and enacted dialogic praxis in Joss and Deb's conversation

Section Expressions of Dialogic Praxis

(The Content: What we talked about)

Enactments of Dialogic Praxis

(The Process: How we talked)

l

Desiring to create meaningful student learn

ing and to improve practice toward this end Believing that "there are things.. .[we can]

never know about [others'] experiences, oppressions, and understandings" (Ellsworth,

1989, p. 310) Desiring to disrupt oppression

Determining the initial tone and trajectory of the discursive interaction by the participant with the lesser amount of traditional power

2

Explicitlynamingofissuesof power, hierarchy, positionality

Rejecting teaching that transmits the status

quo (either actively or passively) or the

teaching of "empty things"

Identifying past obstacles and searching for

ways to overcome them Enacting agency by describing struggles to

and dissenting with the other participant Ratifying self-characterizations Aligning as allies (Re)positioning ourselves as actors/subjects

3

Desiring space to enact a transformative vision Demonstrating trust by revealing something personally significant

Expressing empathy

4

Imagining a more just world Desiring like-minded colleagues Placing importance on empowered voice and

the need to fight against silencing of voice

Creating space for sharing and interrogating participants' historical, holistic identities

Expressing support for others' wellness

5

Committing to purposeful living (i.e., "alive," not "sleepwalking" or being "dutiful")

Committing to transformative teaching, through raising the voices of people who are often unheard

Being aware of risks involved in social justice work

Reading the world critically (Freire, 1987) Connecting in and out of school worlds

6 Being aware of social justice work as a social

responsibility

(Re)affirming ourselves as change-makers

Coda Naming shared experiences and positionalities Reversing traditional "mentoring" roles

gard to dialogic praxis, using the lenses afforded by Freirean and Bakhtinian

notions of subjects and objects.

In dialogic praxis, continual acts of negotiation are central to the

work of teaching and learning.

Section i: "How did it fall on me to say these things?"

JOSS: DEB:

la Hello?

Hey, Deb, it's Joss.

I got your message.

Hey, Joss. Is there anything I can do

for you?

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English Education, V 42 N4, July 2010

No. 2c 3a I think you re right, though: the

logical next step is a conversation.

I just think she must be ignorant of

what's bothering you; I just really

don't know any other way to proceed

in this situation.

How did it fall on me to say these

things?

4a

I mean, if I were her, and someone

like me came along, I'd be like,

"Who are you?"

II)

4c 1 think that s consistent with what her response to you has been in the

past month and also what it might be

when you talk about this.

But yesterday, I gave her two

opportunities to [broach the subject

of our differences],

but she doesn't think what she's

doing is wrong.

)cl

)l>

)( I thmk you really need not to be

oppositional and make it clear that

you're not being accusatory.

You could say something like, "I was

thinking about this, and this is my

perspective ..

5d

In theory, it sounds fine. I just resent

it's a conversation I even have to

have. I can imagine it, and 1 agree, I

have to have it.

5e

In this introductory passage, in which Joss establishes the topic for the

discussion (3a), the disagreement with which Joss and I entered this conversa

tion is clear: I believed Joss should have an intentional talk with Megan, and

while Joss seemed to agree (3a, 5e), he also expressed hesitation ("though,"

3a; "logical," 3a; "In theory," 5e). When Joss began with the open statement,

"I got your message," essentially leaving the trajectory of the conversation

to me, I responded with an open question ("Is there anything I can do for

you?") that invited Joss to determine the direction of our talk. In this way,

I discursively created an opening for him to enact his agency. The majority

of my conversational moves during this introductory section, however, were

404




in the service of pushing my agenda of convincing Joss to talk willi Megan

soon. I reiterated that I thought Megan was most likely unaware of the exact

nature of Joss's discontent in his relationship with her (3b), and 1 agreed

with Joss that he was in a difficult position to initiate this conversation (4c).

In response to his use of the word "wrong," though I implicitly agreed with

his evaluation that Megan's teaching practices were oppressive, I explicitly

advised Joss to take a non-"oppositional," non-"accusatory" tone and even

boldly offered an example of the kind of tone I was imagining (5c-5d).

Evident in the language I used to push my agenda are numerous instances

of what some, such as Blau, Hall, and Strauss (1998), call "qualifiers," or

hedging language, such as "1 think" (3b, 4c, 5c), "just" (3b), "could" (5d),

and "might" (4c), which can indicate uncertainty and/or invitations to col

laboration. In spite of my qualifying language, my position seemed clear to

Joss, judging by his responses. My press for Joss to talk with Megan might be

seen as evidence of what Jones (2005) calls "a touching faith in the 'talking

cure' of dialogue" in which emancipatory educators like myself can naively

assume that engagement in dialogue is a panacea when the need to address

differences arises. As Jones and others (e.g., Berlak, 2005; Boler, 2005a) ar

gue, dialogue across differences is a complex, even dangerous, undertaking

that often involves serious risk to those participants with less powersuch

as student teachers.

Joss seemed to sense this complexity and danger and focused not on

the future meeting I imagined but rather on the potential distress involved

in such a meeting. Joss's usage of the past tense (4a, 5a) served not as social

qualifiers (as my hedgings did) but as ideational qualifiers. These conversa

tional moves in which he wondered how he ended up in this situation (4a)

and described why a recent attempt to talk with Megan was unsuccessful (5a)

functioned as resistance to my stance. However, the other striking feature

of Joss's moves here was his resignation to such a conversation. Although

he expressed exasperation over the circumstances (4a), commented on the

difficultyverging on absurdityof these circumstances (4b), and main

tained his "resent[ment|" of these circumstances (5e), he concluded this

section with "I agree. 1 have to have it" (5e). Aithough we appeared to have

reached a consensus, we went on to undermine that apparent agreement

as we considered the complexity of the resolution in the remaining discus

sion. It becomes clear that considerable social and philosophical tension,

particularly between our different beliefs about how dialogue is possible

across difference, lay just below the surface.

The idea that "what she's doing is wrong" (5b) references an interac

tion between Joss and Megan the day before this phone call, when 32 out of

405



English Education, V42 N4, July 2010

51 of their 11 th graders failed a literature test, given via Scan-Tron (a detail

discussed in the next section). Joss said that he asked Megan, "Why do you

think so many kids failed?" and that she responded, "These kids just don't

study; they just don't have the study skills." Joss concluded his narration of

this event with, "Help me. How is it possible that this woman, this teacher,

cannot see any responsibility here? That it's possible that it's not that the

kids didn't study (and I'm sure some didn't), but that she didn't teach it? It

was never made important, relevant, exciting?" (10/9a/2002).

The constant negotiation already evident in this conversation is a

hallmark of dialogic praxis. Dialogic praxis regards the social, cultural,

political, and philosophical wrestling in which we all engage as central,

not extraneous, to teaching and learning. In our conversation, for example,

conflict was present, whichliterary and discourse scholars agreenot only

advances the action but also reveals and shapes characters. Bakhtin's ideas

about the centripetal and centrifugal forces (1981, p. 272) that are always

present in discourse illuminate the multiple levels of negotiation present in

this example. While centripetal forces pulled Joss and me to follow traditional

mentoring conventions by agreeing and being acquiescent, centrifugal forces

drove us away from following fixed roles. Bakhtin's metaphor of centripetal

and centrifugal forces in discourse also sheds light on my struggle as a mentor

who wanted not to be a "mentor": I had conflicting hopes both to encourage

my student teachers to embrace my philosophies but also to develop their

individual agency. These hopes are evident in my discourse and illustrate

how the centripetal often overpowers the centrifugal (Coulter, 1999), making

sustained dialogue difficult. This kind of continual negotiation is, however,

an important feature of dialogic praxis. In the foilowing sections, the tension

between competing forces becomes clearer.

Section 2: "I think the other problem is that she's in a position of power"

On Friday, we [the students and Joss]

talked about the first hundred pages

of Black Boy, and we talked about

the idea of approving something

"either actively or passively" (p. 71),

so that was good.

Well, it was my last class on Friday,

and she had a class immediately

afterwards.

JOSS: DEB:

So could that have been a lead-in to a

possible conversation with Megan?

406




But I think it helped me realize that

there are things that we're complicit

in if we do nothing. 6e So what did you do during fifth period

[the planning period before the class

he taught]?

I smoked a cigarette outside and read.

It's just that any conversation I have

with Megan feels empty;

she sees empty things as teachable

things, and then her job is done.

6i Like teaching you how to use the Scan-Tron machine the other day?

Yes. b] 7a Well, maybe you could tell her at the

beginning of the day that you'd like

to sit down and talk with her during

fifth period.

I think the problem is making the

link between that passage of Black

Boy and this problem.

71)

7c 8a

Right,

and 1 think the other problem is that

she's in a position of power.

Exactly. 81)

She thinks that she has more

knowledge and experience and is

here to teach me, not be challenged

by me.

8c

8d mm hmm .. .

In this section, Joss made a series of moves to familiarize me with the

challenges he was negotiating: scheduling time to meet with Megan (6c),

disagreeing with Megan's approach to mentoring him (6g-6h), and liken

ing the complicity in Black Boy with his complicity in her classroom (7b).

With these examples, Joss not only provided a rationale for his reluctance

to meet with Megan, but he also referenced a considerable struggle over

his agencyhis ability to act. Joss's use of the word "complicit" implies at

once his feeling of powerlessness (since being "complicit," by definition, is

being an accomplice) and his negative opinion of Megan's teaching (since

"complicit" references negative action, usually crime). With his repeated

use of the word "empty," Joss drew a parallel between Megan's teaching

and mentoring and implied that "empty" practices position learners as

407



English Education , V 42 N 4, July 2010

passive recipients.

My talk in this section also focused primarily on Joss s agency as I

imagined possibilities in which he could have chosen (6b, 6e)or could

choose (7a)to initiate talk with Megan. These three conversational moves

positioned Joss as agentive, having the power to determine a course of action.

Though I emphasized Joss's agency more explicitly later in the conversa

tion (20a-20b), I began to deemphasize my press for him to act in the way I

imagined he should. My move in 7b-8a, in which I agreed with and took up

Joss's language of "the problem," was an important one: It evidences both

my sense that I had made my position clear to Joss and that I understood

his position and needed to tell his story. At that point, I positioned myself

"with" Joss differently, acting less as an adviser and more of a colleague

or empathetic listener. In my final two moves (8a, 8d), I ratified Joss's

characterization of himself as being silenced, and in doing so, attempted to

reestablish our alliance.

My performance of the mentor role in the conversation highlights

how difficult it can be for a mentoror any teacherto "[refuse] to take

control of the life ... of the mentee" (Freire, 1970/2000, p. 324). As I began

to relinquish control (8a), the fagade of unity faded as Joss immediately took

up the opportunity to refocus the conversation. In its place, a more genuine

negotiation between differing voices emergeswhich, as Bakhtin (1984)

notes, characterizes a relationship between two autonomous subjects (p. 7).

In the next section, Joss transitioned from lamenting the past to pondering

the future. The transition, because it was made by Joss, suggests that my in

sistence during the first two sections of our conversation may have initially

prevented Joss from taking our discussion where he intended or needed it

to go. Though Joss implied a tentative decision to act in spite of what he

perceived to be impossible circumstances (6d), he did enact agency in the

act of describing these circumstances. Engaging in description and even

dissent during this conversation provided Joss immediate and important

opportunities to position himself as an actor, an agent, amid otherwise silenc

ing circumstances. This kind of engagement is a form of dialectic inquiry,

an "individual ized pursuit of the inquirer's own questions via methods and

toward objectives that he or she designates"; it is both "motivated by the ex

perience and identification of tension and ... oriented toward changing the

circumstances that cause this tension" (Bieler & Burns Thomas, 2009). That

the university mentor/student teacher relationship can provide a space in

which student teachers can enact agency, even as student teachers rhetori

cally negotiate tensions, suggests a significant role for mentoring to play in

developing student teachers' ability to engage in dialogic praxis.

408




Participating in dialogic praxis can afford opportunities to

strengthen individual agency.

Section 3: "I'm articulating this for the first time right now"

JOSS: DEB:

I m excited about teaching Black

Boy, but it's depressing too. And I'm

also excited about the poetry unit.

But it's just not clear what my role

will be after that, for the rest of the

semester.

9a

9b I thought you would become the

lOth-grade teacher.

Me too. 9c

10a And the other thing is that l m

thinking of the poetry unit as mine. I

don't want to show it to her.

10b

11a

I understand.

Well, have you made arrangements

to visit Cornell High yet?

Yeah, for this coming Tuesday.

1 really think I'll either switch to

Cornell High or leave the program

entirely.

lib

12a

I'm articulating this for the first

time right now;

it's just been so difficult philo

sophically, emotionallyfor lots of

reasons.

12b

12c

It s been popping up at weird times,

like when Sharon (the fieldwork

coordinator] waved to me, and I felt

so much resentment toward her.

12e I know, Joss.

The ratifying conversational moves I made at the end of Section 2 (7c,

8a, and 8d) appear to have effectively indicated my support to Joss and cre

ated an opening in which Joss demonstrated his trust in me. He moved to a

more personal level and articulated his fearsof the future of his teaching

409




role at Pare (9a) and, more immediately, ot Megan s response to his poetry

unit (10a), in which student critique and creation were placed at the center

of the classroom. When I moved quickly from expressing empathy to opening

a space again for him to be agentive and focusing on a possible placement

site change, though (10b-lla), Joss made a similarly abrupt shift. After he

responded to my question (lib), he quickly noted the extent of his fear and

frustration by revealing that he was considering dropping out of the program

(12a), a revelation that greatly surprised and concerned me; my repeated

expression of empathy at the end of this section (12e) demonstrated the grav

ity I heard in his disclosure (12b-12d). The coincidence of Joss's revelation

with my opening of space suggests that my initial press for dialogue was,

ironically, monologic.

Although I eventually began to hear and understand Joss s historied

positionality, I initially fell into the snares of critical pedagogy that Ellsworth

(1989) notes, perhaps because I entered the conversation confident of my

philosophical alliance with Joss. Essentially, I assumed that I knew Joss; I

assumed for too long that he would agree with the path I suggested, so truly

hearing and responding to Joss's protests took me longer than it should

have. My faulty assumption here is reminiscent of Weiler's (1991) critique

of Freirean educators, particularly their "assumption that the teacher is 'on

the same side' as the oppressed, and that as teachers and students engage

together in dialogue about the world, they will uncover together the same

reality, the same oppression, the same liberation" (p. 454). I believe that my

initial contributions, sadly, provided an empirical example of some of the

characteristics Ellsworth and Weiler critiqued.

1 his section ot our dialogue can be thought of as the dramatic climax,

recalling a term literary scholars use to refer to the moment of greatest

emotional tension in a literary text, or what Gee (1999) calls a crisis, which

"builds the problem to the point of requiring a resolution" (p. 112). Joss's

weighty revelation about considering withdrawing from the program marked

a turning point in the conversation. As Joss described why he needed either

to "switch" schools or "leave the program entirely," he located his frustration

not only within Megan's classroom at Pare (the geographical "location" of

our talk before 10b) but also more broadly within the teacher preparation

program. Joss's revelation and acts of location indicated that space had

become available in which he could be an agentive participant and thus

marked a transition to a more polyphonous interaction (Bakhtin, 1984).

IflO




Section 4: "I'm sick of it, feeling, like, alone"

JOSS: I) ' : 15a But at this point, what would make

the program right?

The last thing 1 want to do is leave; 13b

leaving is so typical in my life. 13c

But none of my questions "fit" the 14a

situation I'm in.

I'm sick of it, feeling, like, alone. 14b

1 want to start a charter school, you 14c

know?

I mean, what I'm going through is

just like being a high school student;

I felt like my voice was constantly

being silenced.

You know, being a stand-up comic

was me attempting to re-empower

my voice, and coming to a teacher

education program felt like an

extension of that. But it has ended up being a complete 14f

silencing!!

I just don t want to play anymore. 14g

I'm exhausted. 14h

Joss's response to my invitation at the beginning of this section also

illustrates a pattern in this conversation that was similar to the exchanges

in 5d-6a, 6b-6c, 6e-6g, and 7a-7b. In essence, whenever I suggested or

implied possibilities for talking with Megan (as in 13a), Joss responded by

describing obstacles (as in 13b). Perhaps Joss intuitively knew, better than

I, what Jones (2003) concludes: "desires for shared communication must be

mediated more by cautious critique and limited expectations than by urgent

and ultimately self defeating optimism" (p. 67). My question in 13a provides

an important example of the beliefs about dialogue that undergird this con

versation: here, I conflated reconciliation, or "meeting," with "dialogue."

With my question, I was advocating for not only a meeting between Joss and

his classroom mentor, but a "meeting" between Joss's goals and the teacher

preparation program's provisions; my question was an attempt to realize

a more just teacher preparation program. The emergence of this pattern

demonstrates the extent to which I initially placed hope in the panacea or

4ii



English Education , V 42 N4, July 2010

"talking cure" of dialogue (Jones, 2005). Perhaps, as Jones's work suggests,

my hope was, in some ways, a result of my privileged position: I personally

had little to lose as a result of Joss's conversation with Megan; it was of little

risk to me. The same was not true for Joss.

The autobiographical turn Joss took m this section was an instance of

self-authoring (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner & Cain, 1998), a highly agentive

activity that suggests his participation in dialogic praxis. In the next sec

tion, Joss shifted the focus of our conversation from the past to the present.

Joss's dilemma about whether to leave Pare and/or the teacher preparation

program illustrates a problem faced by many critical educators: whether to

stay in an oppressive environment and work for changeor leave and work

for change elsewhere.

Dialogic praxis provides a space for participants to articulate,

clarify, and pursue individual visions for change.

Section 5: "I just want to be alive!"

JOSS:

You know, on TV last year, one of the

Buffy episodes was a musical, and

I was just reading the lyrics to the

first song, called "Going through the

Motions," which they all sang while

they were in a graveyard.

Some of Buffy s lines are: "I go out

and fight the fight / Still I feel the

same estrangement / Nothing here is

real / Nothing here is right.. . / I've

just been going through the motions

.. . / Sleepwalking through my life's

endeavor . .. / And 1 just want to be

alive!"

Right,

so one option is just to play the

dutiful student.

But at the same time, I can't.

It's against all that I believe in.

I5a

15b

15d

16a

161)

16c

17a

17b

ORB:

Wow, that really does sound similar to

what you're experiencing right now.

So how do you not "go through the

motions" and stay in the program?

Or are you saying those things are

mutually exclusive?

412




No, I don't think they re either/or. 17c

17d

18a

I think you re right.

But what is it you want or need to

accomplish here? Do you need an

education degree or certification to

do what you want to do? I think 1 11 be trying to walk through

an educational minefield.

181)

18c

18d

18e

You want to stay in education.

Yeah, I think so.

1 want to be doing this with kids,

getting their voices out there too.

Yeah, but they are going through the

motions right now.

Joss was and is a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a philosophi

cally rich TV series that ran from 1997-2003. He often expressed a special

admiration for Buffy, the main character, who devoted her life to fighting

evil, primarily in and around schools. In his quoting of Buffy song lyrics,

Joss aligned himself with the main character of the show, Buffy Summers,

and also, implicitly, with the sentiment of her lyrics; he may also have been

suggesting the song's graveyard setting as a metaphor for his current situ

ation. Joss's impassioned reference to a TV show at an extremely difficult

time demonstrates his skill in making illuminating connections between

words and worlds (Freire, 1987, p. 3). Through the lyrics and the remainder

of his comments in this section, Joss outlined two possible paths to take,

following the opposition of death and life in the song "Going through the

Motions." The first possible path, "play[ing] the dutiful student" (16a), is a

passive stance in which he would "[go] through the motions" (15a), "feel

. . . estrangement," and "[sleepwalk] through [his] life's endeavors" (15b).

This path parallels his description in Section 4 of "being silenced" (14d). The

other path is an active or even activist stance, in which Joss would "fight the

fight" and "be alive" (15b) in alignment with Buffy; this path represented

a commitment to intentional, purposeful living (i.e., not "sleepwalking"

or being "dutiful"). When he suggested that his purpose included fighting

for a more just world by "doing this with kids, getting their voices out there

too" (18e), Joss demonstrated his awareness that, by pursuing this path, he

would incur significant riskor, as he put it, "walk through an educational

minefield" (18b). By likening his silenced positionality to those of many high

school students (14d, 15b, 16a, 18e, 18g), Joss articulated and clarified his

dilemma and thus took an important step toward resolution.

That doesn t sound like "sleepwalking

to me.

413




My clarifying question, "So how do you not 'go through the motions

and stay in the program?" (17a), paralleled my earlier question, "What would

make the program right?" (13a). In both, I asked Joss to imagine what a

positive teacher preparation program experience would look like, consistent

with my advocacy for reconciliation or "meeting," as previously described.

Joss's statement that his situation was not "either/or" is significant as a mo

ment in which a student teacher articulated that his reality was much more

complex than the binary his mentor was using to frame it. When we agreed

that passive and active stances were not necessarily "mutually exclusive"

(17b), I shifted our focus to his long-term goals (18a). My comment "That

doesn't sound like sleepwalking to me" (18f) attempted to acknowledge

Joss's struggles and to support his goals. The intertwining of past, present,

and future was indicative of Joss's self-authoring of his vision for change.

Here and in the next section, Joss mined the past for direction for the future

as he articulated, clarified, and pursued his individual vision for change.

Section 6: "You have the power"

JOSS:

It s just that this would be completely

easy to hang up.

I didn't wait tables for the hell of it; I

retreated into this world where I had

no responsibilities.

After I did my 9/11 joke on 9/19

[2001], I quit doing stand-up and

went back to waiting tables, you

know?

And now l m here, and moving here

shattered my family.

I made my wife move, and it's

terrible; I detonated a nasty

emotional bomb.

I'm so upset with Sharon because her

hand forced mine.

19a

19b

19c

I9d

19e

L9f

19g

20a

201)

DEB:

Right.

I'm thinking now, though, of what

spaces there are for you now where

you can enact your agency.

It seems to me that you have the

power to have a conversation with

Meganand you also have the

power to change your location if

that's what you decide to do.

414




The form and substance of Section 6 parallel and illuminate those of

Sections 4 and 5, when Joss recounted and analyzed the active choices (when

he didn't "leave") and passive choices (when he did "leave"). This segment

powerfully illustrates Joss's ironic dilemma: though he chose to attend this

teacher preparation program, enacting his agency and making a life-altering

decision to take a stand and live a purposeful life of social justice work, Joss

found himself, once enrolled in the program, as powerless, at the mercy of

someone else's agency. Paradoxically, Joss's agentive decision to attend the

program rendered him without agency, and he began to imagine "leaving"

the program as a way of regaining his power to act and to make decisions

that affected his life.

Our conversation included numerous references to and examples

of "staying in" and "leaving" sites of perceived oppression, as well as less

obvious references to "active" and "passive" ways of engaging with such

sites. A continuum of the four resulting possibilities (active staying, active

leaving, passive staying, and passive leaving), as shown in Figure 3, suggests

a framework for understanding the range of actions that might be taken in

response to perceived oppression. For example, not taking action is often

intentional, as is illustrated by Joss's choice to wait tables (19b). All four

responses do not, however, provide examples of engaging in dialogic praxis

with the site of perceived oppression since, as the "passive" examples show,

the commitment to transform is not always present. While it appears that

"active staying" is most similar to dialogic praxis, at issue in Joss's and my

disagreement is to what extent "active leaving" is appropriate for critical edu

catorswhether and why "leaving" can be transformative. The line between

"active leaving" and "passive leaving" is particularly blurry. For example,

whether Joss would switch placement sites as an act of resistance or escape

is a question of intentionality, and neither easily discernable nor necessarily

constant. The question we considered here"Can truly progressive, critical

educators leave oppressive environments for greener pastures?"is one of

the most complex, difficult questions I have encountered as an educator.

At the end of this section (20a-20b), I tried to suggest that Joss should

not settle for a passive stance in his student teaching experience. I reminded

him of his power to choose what to do next, whether talking with Megan or

requesting a placement site change. My counsel in 20b starkly contrasts my

counsel in 3b, when I presented only one option for Joss to consider. The

difference between these examples of mentoring talk powerfully illustrate

that when mentors engage in dialogic praxis, they can open up space for

student teachers to determine and to pursue their own goals.

415



English Education ,V 42 N4, july 2010

V \ Dialogue

Change Voice

Active

(taking action)

Passive

(not taking action)

Staying

(remaining in a situation

perceived to be

oppressive)

Active Staying

Fighting perceived oppression front within situation; engag ing in intentional disruption of perceived oppression

Examples: discussing differences with

Megan (5c-5d) creating and implementing

his poetry unit (lba) being a stand-up comjc

(lAe) enrolling in the teacher \

preparation program (14e)\

Passive Staying

Being complicit in perceived oppression; participating in situation but not interrupting perceived oppression

Examples: not raising questions

about Megan's use of Scan-Tron tests (6g-6j)

"playing the dutiful stu dent" (16a)

Leaving

(not remaining in a situation

perceived to be

oppressive)

Active Leaving

Removing oneself from per ceived oppression as a form of resistance

Examples: withdrawing from the

teacher preparation pro gram (12a)

changing his field place ment site (12a; 20b)

\ Passive Leaving

Retreating from perceived oppression due to desire to

escape and/or not to take

responsibility

Examples^ smoking outside and read

ing during fifth period (60 waiting tables (19b-19c)

Monologue Stasis^ Silence1.

Figure 3. A framework for identifying the range of possible agentive choices in

response to oppression

Figure 3. A framework for identifying the range of possible agentive choices in

response to oppression

4i6




Coda: "I am experiencing the same kind of feelings right now, too

JOSS: DEB:

21a I mean, I am experiencing the

same kind of feelings right now too,

questioning whether to stay or not,

even though I've already spent three

years here.

Some bad things happened to me just

last week, and I've been crying since

Wednesday night.

21b

21c but I think I've decided to finish my

program because I've invested so

much in it already, you know?

What do you want to do after you re

finished?

11a

What was your original intent? 22b

22c I wanted to be a teacher educator, to

work primarily with people learning

to teach.

2 hi But right now I'm not sure about

much of anything at all.

You can have a job at my charter

school.

22e

22f

22g

25a

23b

Right. 1 hanks.

All right;

I gotta go. Bye.

All right. Bye.

When I understood Joss s imminent decision in the broader context he

provided, and in an attempt to support Joss and indirectly share my hope that

he would not "leave" the program, I shared a vague personal parallel about

my own struggle about "whether to stay or not" (21a). In this conversational

move I shared a story to suggest that being "already... invested" in a gradu

ate program was one possible reason for Joss to stay (21c). The sharing of my

story provides depth to my prior empathetic expressions (e.g., 10b and 12e)

as coming not from a place of somewhat distant, cerebral comprehension

but rather from a place of alliancea place of "I'm with you" (Joss, email,

3/10/03; 3/17/03)that can result from the naming of shared experiences

and shared positionalities. Additionally, my vague phrase "some bad things"

(21 b) revealed just enough information to express empathy but kept the focus

of the conversation on Joss, though an opening did exist for Joss to probe for

specifics if he had desired to do so.

417




At the conclusion or coda (Labov, 1972) of this conversation, Joss

and I reversed traditional mentoring roles as well as the roles we'd been

enacting in much of this conversation: I described a personal educational

struggle (21a-21c); Joss asked me about my career goals and my intentions

(22a-22b); my response paralleled Joss's clarity of purpose but uncertainty

of direction (22c-22d); and Joss expressed support for meeven positioning

himself as agentive in the fictitious role of charter school founder (14c, 22e).

Though Joss's job offer was a light-hearted attempt to begin "wrapping up"

the conversation by referencing a prior topic (Schegloff & Sacks, 1973), and

though my personal story of struggle lacked the depth and detail of Joss's,

the closing moments seemed to reestablish our alliance and offer comfort

for the journey ahead.

Discussion: Conceptualizing Dialogic Praxis in Teacher

Preparation

I wouldn I have made it through this year without you. ... I knew who

supported me, and that was you. . . . My favorite moments in Buffy are

when they do the slow-mo . . . , everyone lines up in a bowling alley pin

thing, where there's like five people, and they start walking down a hall

way. It's like the superhero moment. That's how I felt that day. Going in

there together meant a lot to me. That's huge. That was huge. (Joss, final

interview, 5/14/03)

Joss eventually chose not to meet with Megan, and he completed

his student teaching at another high school. Before he left Pare, though, I

accompanied him as he entered Megan's classroom to say good-bye to the

10th graders. Here and elsewhere, Joss's language and stories reveal an

illustrative continuum between dialogic praxis and monologic practice,

the distinctions between which are not always clear-cut (see Table 2). This

continuum demonstrates possible points of tension in educators' livesnot

only in the contexts in which they teach but also within themselves. Joss wove

a storyline about his long-term struggle with agency and how his current

circumstances lit into a pattern; in doing so, he illustrated how his struggle

with agency resulted from a tension between his desire to engage in dialogic

praxis and the choices he made, at times, toward a more monologic practice.

1 hese tensions are also evident in the different ways that Joss and I

operationalized our ideas about dialogue during this conversation. Although

I thought my solution was more dialogic and Joss's more monologic, Joss

saw my solution as impossible. In retrospect, I recognize that, actually, my

idea might have led to continued monologue, while his idea might have

418




Table 2. Dialogic praxis in dialectic with monologic practice

Dialogic praxis Monologic practice

problem-posing (Freire, 1970/2000)

How do 1 situate myself in rela tion to knowledge?

banking (Freire, 1970/2000)

yielding to centrifugal forces (Bakhtin, 1981)

How comfortable do 1 want, or

need, to be in order to thrive?

yielding to centripetal forces (Bakhtin, 1981)

developing and sup porting individual voice (i4e, i8e)

How am 1 positioned as a

subject or an object? How am 1

positioning others?

silencing/being silenced

(i4d)

fighting perceived oppression (15b)

To what degree do 1 think

change is needed? How much do 1 want to effect

change?

being complicit (6d)

being alive (15b)

How much engergy do 1 have, or want, to expend on effecting

change?

going through the

motions, sleepwalking (15b)

staying (17a) Where can 1 do the most good? leaving (13c)

enacting agency (20a)

What risk is involved ifl take action?

How much risk am 1 willing to take?

playing the dutiful student (16a)

avoiding responsibility (19b)

Table 2. Dialogic praxis in dialectic with monologic practice

allowed him to engage in dialogic praxis. The presence of these competing

ideas and interpretations is characteristic of a dialogic mentoring relation

ship that is not monopolized by one person's views. As Nystrand, Gamoran,

Kachur, and Prendergast (1997) argue, "Discourse is not dialogue because

speakers take turns, but because it is continually structured by tension,

even conflict, between the conversants, between self and other, as one voice

'refracts' another" (p. 8). Though Joss and I imagined different responses to

perceived oppression, a shared commitment to dialogic praxis enabled us

to embrace the tension and focus on his agentive choices. As Palmer (2007)

notes, "mentoring is a mutuality" in which "the qualities of the mentor [are]

revealed ... and the qualities of the student are drawn out in a way that is

equally revealing" (p. 22). At the same time, as this study suggests, just as

in classrooms, mentoring relationships are characterized by inescapable

power differences that can "perpetuate relations of domination" (Ellsworth,

1989, p. 298).

41Q



English Education, V 42 N4, july 2010

During the "moment of rupture" presented here, my desires to engage

in transformative mentoring, to participate in dialogic praxis with Joss, and

to avoid interfering with Joss's agency were in conflict. Although 1 considered

urging Joss to speak with Megan, or even meeting with Megan myself, to

engage Joss's agency, I concluded that following either of these paths would

have silenced Joss rather than honored his agency. In the latter portion of

our conversation, I engaged in what Nystrand et al. (1997) claim "matters

most," which is "taking students' input seriously, so that a context for the

kind of dialogue that leads to learning can take place" (p. 88). It could be

argued that, although I was unaware of it at the time, my own learning as

a mentor is observable in this transcript as I began taking Joss's input more

seriously by moving along the continuum away from monologue and toward

dialogue. As Table 5 demonstrates, before the conversation's dramatic climax

in which Joss revealed that he was considering leaving the program, he made

twice as many "opening moves" as I did. After the climax, however, Joss

and I made a similar number of opening moves. Though the total number

of Joss's opening moves exceeded mine, the shift suggests that the power of

initiating talk was shared more equitably in the second half of the conversa

tion and that, therefore, our talk more closely approximated dialogic praxis.

Future longitudinal research is needed both to determine the effects

of new teacher agency on student outcomes and to establish how engage

ment in dialogic praxis can equip and sustain new teachers who desire to

work for change in our schools. Are, for example, agentive new teachers less

vulnerable to teacher attrition?

Creating a teacher preparation model that prioritizes the growth of

student teacher agency would help us reclaim teaching as a transformative

profession (Sachs, 2003) in which "new forms of work organization are es

Table 3. Frequency of opening moves before and after discursive climax

Joss Deb Total

Opening moves made 2a, 3a, 4a, 5a, 6a, 9a, 10a, 12a,

14a, 15a, 16a, 19a, 22a, 23a

la, 7a, 8a, 11a, 13a, 17a, 18a, 20a, 21a

23

Frequency before 12e 8 (75%) 4 (25%) 12 (52%)

Frequency after 12e 6 (55%) 5 (45%) 11 (48%)

Total 14 (61%) 9 (39%) 23 (100%)

Table 3. Frequency of opening moves before and after discursive climax

420




tabhshed between teachers, in particular that... teacher privatism, isolation

and individualism [are] dispensed with" (p. 15). Mentoring may, in fact, be

a key site from which to promote this "new professionalism" (Hargreaves,

1994). For example, returning to the lines from The Odyssey with which this

article opened, Odysseus's primary objective was to "keep everything intact,"

a goal shared by many classroom mentors who cautiously hand the classroom

rei ns over to student teachers. The findings of this study indicate that student

teachers are likely to benefit when both university and classroom mentors not

only are open to the possibility that student teach

ers might make different choices than they would "'"^e findings challenge

but also embrace the opportunity to negotiate, educators to consider I

together, the inevitable moments of tension that cnaracierisiics or mgr

will result from such differences. This study's fied" mentors, and the

findings also suggest (hat programs take mentor of mentoring, might in<

hiring and development more seriously and in agency, criticality, and

keeping with their goals and philosophies. The

findings challenge teacher educators to consider how the characteristics of

"highly qualified" mentors, and the outcomes of mentoring, might include

agency, criticality, and listening.

Dialogic praxis in mentoring relationships can provide an important

space for both mentor and student teacher to i magine and rehearse agentive

action in contexts outside the mentoring relationship. Acknowledging and

providing opportunities for the strengthening of agency can create an experi

ence in which student teachers are understood to be contributing colleagues

rather than students in need of evaluation, thereby helping mend what

some perceive to be the artificial nature of the traditional student teaching

experience (Cochran-Smith, 1991) and creating a smoother transition from

student teaching to first-year teaching (Fecho, 2000). Although mentoring

conversations may appear to serve as places to pause from action and reflect,

this study suggests that significant meaning making and agentive identity

making can occur. When both student teacher and mentor work to position

and keep the student teacher as agentive as possible, such work is in the ser

vice of "people [being] able to influence their own lives[,] ... to have access

to tools and technology, and to believe in their own present capabilities and

imagined futures" (Hull & Katz, 2006, p. 73). When mentors and student

teachers enact commitments to fostering agency, they re-create and affirm

their identities as agentive educators (Holland et al., 1998).

This study addresses a case of an English student teacher facing a

decision about whether to leave a teaching situation that he perceived to be

oppressive. While such grueling decisions are not uncommon, they should

The findings challenge teacher

educators to consider how the

characteristics of "highly quali fied" mentors, and the outcomes

of mentoring, might include

agency, criticality, and listening.

421



English Education, V 42 N4, July 2010

not happen during student teaching, when it is incumbent upon teacher edu

cators to provide a supportive, agentive experience characterized by dialogic

praxis. In one-on-one mentoring relationships, student teachers make mean

ing about their earliest teaching experiences and make decisions about their

practice, which, as illustrated here, can profoundly shape their pedagogical

development, view of the profession, and agency as educators. It is time to

pull the deep roots of the Homerian legacy out of student teacher mentoring,

once and for all, by explicitly and transparently cultivating dialogic praxis

oriented mentoring relationships so that the newest members of our field

can "feel their own strength at last," as Homer's Telemachus aspired to do.

Acknowledgments I would like to offer my deep gratitude to Joss for his assistance with this project and continued frien

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