“Letting Go” vs. “Holding On”: Teacher educators' transformative experiences with the Kite Syndrome

Abstract

This two-year, collaborative self-study introduces a learning experience regarding the meaning of our roles as teacher educators in an open-space learning environment. The study documents a learning process in which we framed and reframed our understanding of the meaning of our roles as we changed perspectives and reconsidered practices. We engaged in a process that enabled us to value different learning processes and generate meaningful insights, using a metaphor, the Kite Syndrome, that helped us reinterpret the learning situation. The focus of our transformative experiences was the tension between holding on and letting go; the result was significant changes of beliefs, values, and practices as we framed and reframed our understanding of our roles. We summarize our learning by explaining how we now see ourselves not as experts but as zipped-expert mentors, ready to unzip our expertise as required to support our students' professional learning.

Keywords:

• Kite Syndrome
• transformative learning
• mentor
• open-space learning
• teacher educator role