Teachers Embracing the Magic: How Do Effective Teachers Make Use of Their Intuitive Knowledge?

Abstract

The pilot study investigates intuitive knowledge through in-depth interviews and observations of one effective first grade teacher. This qualitative investigation attempts to define intuitive knowledge, explore its development within effective teachers, and examine its observable characteristics in a classroom setting. Capturing and describing teachers' intuitive knowledge is a difficult task because the topic is very abstract and the qualities intangible. Yet, as one first grade teacher demonstrates, these qualities may have the most profound effect upon the personal growth and development of our students. For many of us it [personal practical knowledge] was an acknowledgement that had been missing as we lived out our lives in the prescriptive environments of schools where our stories as teachers had not been valued and the kind of knowledge we possessed had not been given voice (Clandinin, 1993, p. 1).