According to the text, developing your teacher identity is undertaken through the following processes:
- telling and listening to stories about teaching
- imagining how you will be a teacher
- deciding how to interact with students, colleagues and parents
- integrating our identity with what and how we teach
When I imagine how I will be a teacher, no metaphors come to mind. To me, the image of teaching is such a dynamic one that I don’t believe it needs a metaphor to describe it. A teacher can be your first kindergarten teacher who was caring and kind, who gently (or perhaps not so gently) lead you into the world of schooling. A grade five teacher may be more energetic and exciting, full of maths and writing exercises. High school teachers are more specific. A drama teacher is loud and colourful, a science teacher is in the lab with bunsen burners and testtubes. Everyone has such vivid images of their teachers that to create a metaphor for one or all teachers would be to generalise and take away the wonderful vibrant images we have. When I think of myself as a teacher, it is not as a gardener or a chess player but as a combination of all of my favourite teachers and their qualities and personalities. Perhaps then that is my metaphor or image of a teacher, not as an abstract likening to something else but made up of images specific to me that no one else could see or understand more clearly than me.
How easy it is to get distracted on YouTube! The textbook mentioned Summer Heights High as a set of stories related to the school environment. I started watching one clip on YouTube and then spent the next ten minutes watching more clips from the show. I think one of the reasons this show was so popular is that it so accurately portrays high school life. Everyone knows a Mr G and I’m sure that every high school teacher has struggled with Jonahs and Ja’mies. Chris Lilley provides a character for everyone to sympathise with. From a student teacher’s perspective, this show and other stories we are told, (from horror stories to lightbulb moments), are an extension of the apprenticeship of observation. We watch our teachers while in school and then we hear about the other side of teaching through these anecdotal stories we are told.
Jumping in the Deep End 