Responsive Teaching

Bowers, CA & Flinders DJ (1990) Responsive Teaching. An Ecological Approach to Classroom Patterns of Language, Culture, and Thought. Teachers College press, Columbia University, New York and London.

Insight: unit of survival ≠ individual but = organism + envrionment
s. 94-
Bateson, G.
→ classroom = system / language – pathways / continuous process of adjustment.
s. 99 …no longer adequate.
The teacher’s responsibility for the ecology of ideas…
…most of the mental process is unconscious.
”Communicative competence”
Deutero-learning
Learning to learn
Interactive → teaching as a process of ’managing’
PRIMARY SOCIALIZATION
s. 106 The gatekeeper
printed word → special sense of authority
s. 115 ’The ecology of ideas is threatened when…’
s. 118 ’The difficulty is increased…’
Many thought patterns are useful, others are tradition (min formulering)
’A concern with context leads to a recognition that interpretation, …, is the basis of knowledge.’
s. 127 ’framing as still another dimension of the language-culture-thought ecology characteristic of classroom life.’
FRAMING (humour, self-disclosure, dialogue strategies)
- Implicitness
- Dynamism
- Essentiality
- Cultural context
- Dual influence
Relational concerns, e.g., trust, respect, dialogue, caring, sensitivity to relationships.
Receptive role
Reframing strategies s. 154-
Idea unit / every 2 seconds / 7 spoken English words (s. 172)
s. 226 ’…but we suspect that the overriding concern will be with repairing the damage to the ecosystems caused by the Western mindset and with responding to the resulting disruptions in the fabric of cultural life.’

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