A Teacher’s Reflection Book: Exercises, Stories, Invitations Jean Koh Peters and Mark Weisberg ’61 | Carolina Academic Press, 2011
Time Out | In today’s fast-paced world, it is important to set aside time to reflect, especially for teachers. In A Teacher’s Reflection Book: Exercises, Stories, Invitations, Jean Koh Peters and Mark Weisberg ’61 guide teachers along the path to meaningful reflection on their vocation, classroom experience, and relationships with students and colleagues. Ms. Peters and Mr. Weisberg’s collaboration began 11 years ago, when together they started facilitating retreats for teachers. With the popularity of their retreats, they decided
For many of us, our days are full of what we might call nonmindful over activity. Life has become too much—even if it is too much of a good thing. Crammed with the important, the urgent, there is no space for reflecting, no pause to breathe, to process. A teacher moves from one event, activity, class, meeting, exam, conference, presentation, speech, to another, with constant input, constant output, and no time to take stock . . . Reflecting can provide an ongoing process in which teachers remain learners, learning from their rich experience with students, with the academy, and with their scholarship. In this cycle of teaching and learning, teachers renew their perspectives, redeem mistakes, and continue to develop and mature, no matter how experienced or expert they may be. Reflecting invites us to approach our subject with a beginner’s mind, which often leads us to fresh perspectives and renewed energy. 48
Spring 2012
to collaborate on A Teacher’s Reflection Book, to make the retreat experience available to a larger audience. The goal of the book was (and is) “to help dedicated teachers who were committed to reflection, but who simply couldn’t figure out how to work it into their daily lives, to find that time and structure for reflection.” A Teacher’s Reflection Book supports teachers as they seek meaningful, self-directed contemplation on their teaching lives. “At its best, reflection becomes purposeful, lifelong learning from experience, through witnessing that experience, examining it, illuminating and exploring it,” Ms. Peters and Mr. Weisberg write. “To reflect requires courage and a willingness to look at one’s experience honestly and to be open to the lessons it teaches.” Through exercises, writing prompts, and readings, A Teacher’s Reflection Book creates opportunities for teachers to reflect on their work. Starting with a chapter on how to develop intentional first encounters in the classroom, the book proceeds to define reflection and explain how to practice it meaningfully. It encourages teachers to develop an “individual reflection event,” to give them time for in depth reflection on an important issue or concern in their teaching lives. Ms. Peters and Mr. Weisberg also guide teachers on an exploration of quality listening, fear of judgment in the classroom, and teaching as a vocation, ending with “saying good-bye,” signaling a close to the retreat and re-entry into the world. A Teacher’s Reflection Book is a tool that can be used individually, in a group with friends or colleagues, or as a companion to reflection events and retreats. It encourages teachers to engage in regular reflection, responds to their needs as educators in a fast-paced world, and allows them to recommit themselves to their important profession.