Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Diamond, C.T. Patrick & Mullen, Carol A. (Eds.) (1999). The postmodern educator: Arts based inquiries and teacher development

 

Diamond, C.T. Patrick & Mullen, Carol A. (Eds.) (1999). The postmodern educator: Arts based inquiries and teacher development. NY: Peter Lang. Vol 89 of Kincheloe, Joe L. & Steinberg, Shirley R. (Eds). Studies in the postmodern theory of education. NY: Peter Lang.

466 pp.

$38.90       ISBN 0-8204-4101-5

Reviewed by Marilyn Page
The Pennsylvania State University

September 25, 2002

This is not your ordinary book about teacher development and teacher as researcher. And it would be an understatement to say that this book examines alternative forms of research or even to describe it, as the authors do, as a book about arts-based inquiry. This book is not about pushing the envelope of research approaches; it is a book about ripping into that envelope and making sure it contains the support and alternative models for those who haven't found a home in a traditional quantitative or qualitative paradigm and for those who think and know in different ways. The authors define and present the rationale for approaches to educational research that involve metaphor, fable, riddles, poetry, personal narrative, story board, short stories, timelines, puppeteering and other artistic concepts. The authors attempt to describe, and encourage teachers to participate in inventing, the postmodern research of the future.

At the core of arts-based inquiry is the concept of teacher researcher development through gaining deep understanding of self and others and inviting responses to those findings. Solipsism, the theory that the self is the only reality that can be known and verified, is the foundation of this approach. The authors propose that examining oneself through arts-based inquiry and media is an acceptable form of qualitative research; in doing so, the authors revisit the polarity of the two prominent paradigms of teacher development and educational research; that is: 1) the belief that the truth is known and knowable and therefore needs to be delivered in the form of external mandates and accountability to ensure teacher development; and 2) that truth is subjective and the strongest and deepest teacher growth is developmental, internal, and limitless.

Part I of The postmodern educator develops and responds to the question: Why should teachers be involved in arts-based inquiry? Part II provides multiple examples of arts-based inquiry models and the probable and expected impact of such processes on teacher development. The thirteen contributing authors are from Canada, the United States, and Australia and include university faculty, K-12 teachers, a professional puppeteer, and a university student. Diamond and Mullen co-author Part I. One or the other or both co-author twelve of the sixteen chapters in Part II in which the authors move through the processes and possible outcomes of the futuristic and sometimes fantasy world of metaphors, poetry, illustrations, personal narrative, and other forms of self-discovery and arts-based inquiry,

Part I provides at least three models that would be helpful in developmentally grounded programs of teacher growth and it focuses particularly on how teachers become strong researchers. The authors propose that the three models will propel teachers to gain deeper self-understanding and will propel them to use that new self knowledge to drive themselves into new realms of teaching, learning, and research productivity. The first model asks teachers to look at three teacher self components and the tensions among these selves. In this process, teachers define: the teacher researcher I am; the teacher researcher I hope to become; and the teacher researcher I fear to be (p. 74). Teachers use visual and textual strategies to uncover and know these selves and thus to be able to transform their teaching and researching. Teachers working through the second model develop an autobiographical timeline on which they group events into positive and negative spaces; the teachers then categorize these events into phases; and then they name the phases. After completing the timeline, teachers interpret and reinterpret the phases to gain awareness of their own growth or lack of such and then re-envision the timeline as a shape or form (such as a butterfly, for example) that can invite one to grow and provide directions for change (p. 80). A third model has teachers drawing their teaching and research life as a winding river, labeling slow and fast points along that river, and then using that new understanding of self process to develop new approaches to teaching and research (p. 80).

The authors provide here a new and vibrant spin on the dreary and haggard dichotomy of the quantitative vs. qualitative research wars. Here is a different, more colorful, and more creative way to explore both what constitutes meaningful inquiry and what can be a transforming developmental strategy for educators.

It is another way for educators to examine and understand research and its purposes and applications; it is a complementary, rather than conflicting, approach to gaining new knowledge. The underlying theme is that knowledge of teacher self is as critical as knowledge about subject matter or curriculum processes and more valuable than top down teacher preparation procedures.

For teachers who know and see in other than traditional ways, this book provides support and substantial rationale for inquiry through a multitude of artistic media. For traditional minded teachers and researchers it poses a vigorous mind exercise as they are able, if willing, to examine approaches outside what they now know. For anyone leading or conceptualizing a teacher development process or program, this book is full of ideas that can promote teacher self-awareness. Teacher mentors can find exercises for novice teachers and themselves to foster personal and professional awareness and further development of critical questions for inquiry. For graduate students who seek to pursue a different kind of dissertation, here is the support and the names they need. And for those in top-down, delivered, other-directed teacher preparation programs, maybe this will encourage further examination of what constitutes meaningful approaches to educational inquiry; maybe it will stretch visions.

Warning: this is not for the faint or paralyzed of mind. At times, the pages feel like a flume ride or a roller coaster ride to Alice's Wonderland or Disney's fantasy World. For some, it may seem like child's play. At times, the metaphors are so thick and so frequent, the meaning gets difficult to decipher. Diamond takes up the offensive in support of the kind of self inquiry promoted in the book and defends this approach against those who would claim it is too self absorbed. However, there are times, especially in Chapter 7—Reciting and reviewing the educator self Exhibition of five self works—when it is overly self-indulgent. A little goes a long way and here a lot goes way too far. Diamond seems to be a pied piper of the self narrative as his former students pop into his writing often and become his co-inquirers. But part way through this chapter, enough....

There is a place and room in educational inquiry for a variety of approaches to knowing and researching. What is missing here is a deliberate and scholarly description or definition of documented outcomes of this kind of artistic inquiry. Does it lead to stronger student learning and how would that be measured?

Does it really help teachers develop, transform? If so, where and what are the sustained results? Who defines “transform?” And who defines “positive and productive transformation?” And who defines “student learning?” Do responses to these questions lead automatically back to the seemingly perpetual debate over the positions and paradigms of modern vs. postmodern, traditional vs. constructivist (Marlowe & Page, 1998), quantitative vs. qualitative, right vs. left, right-brained vs. left-brained?

The publication date (1999) may be problematic. On the other hand, perhaps the proposed concepts are not only timeless but ahead of their times. Other authors and scholars more recently also have explored new and different approaches to educational research and doctoral preparation (Young, L.J., 2001; Pallas, A.M., 2001; Metz, M.H., 2001; Page, R.N., 2001; Johnson, B., 2001) and to reform in teacher preparation and professional development (Cochran-Smith, M. & Fries, M.K., 2001). But, have the events of and since September 11, 2001 given impetus to the educational conservative train already in motion for several years? Or will these events lead educators to think about research and professional development in new ways? Will new voices of and approaches to self knowledge and inquiry become stronger or will they be stifled and meet their demise as Diamond and Mullen claim the modernists have met theirs? The postmodern educator provides you with a mosaic of ideas from which to re-think, re-question, and re-formulate beliefs and actions in teacher education and personal development.

Enjoy the journey.

References

Cochran-Smith, M. & Fries, M.K. (2001). Sticks, stones, and ideology: The discourse of reform in teacher education. Educational Researcher, 30(8), 3-15.

Johnson, B. (2001). Toward a new classification of non-experimental quantitative research. Educational Researcher, 30 (2), 3-13.

Marlowe, B. & Page, M. (1998). Creating and sustaining the constructivist classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Metz, M.H. (2001). Intellectual border crossing in graduate education: A report from the field. Educational Researcher, 30 (5), 12-18.

Pallas, A. M. (2001). Preparing education doctoral students for epistemological diversity. Educational Researcher, 30 (5), 6-11.

Page, R.N. (2001). Reshaping graduate preparation in educational research methods: One school's experience. Educational Researcher, 30(5), 19-25.

Young, L.J. (2001). Border crossing and other journeys: Re-envisioning the doctoral preparation of education researchers. Educational Researcher, 30 (5), 3-5.

About the Reviewer

Marilyn Page, Ed.D.
Former Director of the Seashore Teacher Residency Pilot Project for Novice Teachers in the State of Washington
Graduate Faculty
Curriculum and Instruction
Social Studies Education
College of Education
The Pennsylvania State University
168 Chambers
University Park, PA 16802

 

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