Sept 16 Grant & Zeichner: On becoming a reflective teacher Entrance Slip

I think much of the article is timeless. It's about human nature, societal constructs, and the author is not hesitant on being critical about it. For instance, tis one particular description "teachers who are unreflective about their work uncritically accepts this everyday reality in schools and concentrate their efforts on finding the most effective and efficient means to achieve ends and to solve problems that have largely been defined for them by others" (104)   . It was quite a touching quote, and replace teachers with say student, or just anyone in general and the same would hold true for most. I think we like comfort. We like to do what we know, and it might be a survival instinct that we stay in a safe and comfortable place when we can, and in doing so we don't question and reflect as much. There was another bit in the article about "this impression management is understandable and is a natural consequence of existing power relationships in teacher education" (105), and I think all teacher candidates can relate to with all these progressive theories and techniques taught at UBC, followed by going into a school which is likely to not follow exactly what is shown to us, and having to navigate through the differences while demonstrating that our teaching aligns with the values expected. I'm sure the debate is ongoing, but the article mentioned in the beginning about the most effective instructional methods and classroom structure for students being unclear. I think it might be dated, as some courses in our program (EPSE in mind) show us that progressive, student-centered, universal approaches to teaching yield the best results. 

In essence, the article does not promise a sure way to be a good teacher, but rather guides us into reflective about how we can improve our teaching. Some questions are inspirational: the resources we choose to include, and not to include, have an impact and unconscious bias coming from us. We might be preaching Eurocentric ideas without realizing, and we might not be offering the same level of access to everyone. It opens my mind and is blunt about who's responsibility it is. Chances are it will be on the teacher to do the reflection and critical thinking and to improve on the ways of teaching because we are in a privileged position to do so.