Teaching As a Performing Art

The reader may be familiar with the quip that books are not finished, they are abandoned. In the case of this book I can say that I know that it is not finished, if by finished is meant that I have covered all the major points in depth and did not neglect the viewpoints of others. That is by way of saying that it was not my intention to write a scholarly treatise, and for several reasons. For one thing, the literature on teachers as performing artists is sparse compared to that concerned with the selection and training of those in the conventional performing arts. The second reason, derived from the first, is that I decided that my focus in this book should be on clarifying several things: Why teaching should be taken seriously as a performing art; why teacher preparatory programs are part of the problem and not the solution; the resistance that should be expected to a truly radical reconceptualization of the selection and training of teachers; and why some of my concrete proposals will be viewed as impractical or require too long a term time-perspective for those (educators and the political community) posessed of the quick-fix mentality. in this book I have tried to confront each source of resistance and criticism. Needless to say this book is basically wrong of self-defeating in the rationale for the selection and training methods of teacher preparatory programs. Those who think that way are responsible for whatever cosmetic changes have been introduced into these programs over the decades, with the consequence that the more things have changed the more they have remained the same.