The Place of Description in Understanding and Transforming Classroom Relationships

Abstract

In this article, the author illustrates how the Descriptive Process can assist teachers in shifting relationships with students because it requires both associative and reflective processes. Drawing on discussions from a teacher study group, she illustrates how associative processes can lead to a strengthening of connection with self. Similarly, she demonstrates how the process of reflection, which requires a synthesizing of the external world with the coming to know of self, can trigger a shift in thinking and a change in action. These intertwined processes, embedded in an interpretive community, and a keen attention focused on a student, can activate a deepening of relationship.

Notes

¹For further reading on the notion of “magic” as related to reflective and associative processes, see Raider-Roth (2011).