Teaching Teachers: Reflections on an Adventure in Mutual Learning

Imagine shifting the paradigm of the traditional teacher-as-authority dynamic, and instead forging an altogether different, highly collaborative way of both teaching and learning. What if educators embraced the notion that words don’t teach; experiences do? So began the journey of educator Janet Hagen, who sought to revisit the conventional power structure by way of a master of education program, during which the author was able to filter and learn from feminist pedagogies. Her autobiographical book, Teaching Teachers: Reflections on an Adventure in Mutual Learning, shares what she learned, and what she taught, in an environment as committed to “being” as it was to “doing.” A celebration of learning through the teachers' and the author’s reflections and interpretations of their experiences as teacher, learner, and researcher, Teaching Teachers: Reflections on an Adventure in Mutual Learning shares invaluable insight on approaching the classroom in an altogether different way, and the perspective that emerged from the time the master’s group of teachers, and Hagen spent together. It offers an autobiographic retrospective that considers individual and group experiences of teacher change and renewal from the teachers' and Hagen’s subjective involvement over a period of twenty-two months in a graduate group known as, Oak Haven. A firsthand account of the teaching experience, Hagen charts the twenty-two months of this field-based master’s program, during which she endeavored to apply feminist pedagogies to teachers' experiences. Through classroom journals, the collected insights of those in the program, and keen observations of the experience of both the children and the teachers, Hagen explores the benefits of community building and collaboration, shedding light on the tensions between the dynamic interactions of power, influence, and authority. What she discovered was a revelatory educational setting, in which everyone in the group was a teacher, learner, and researcher. Reflective, insightful, empathetic, humorous, and a touch political, this groundbreaking chronicle mines the attitudes and behaviors that we all take for granted in education and learning. It is certain to provoke the thoughts of anyone who teaches in college educational settings, as well undergraduate pre-service learners and graduate in-service learners. It’s an indispensable reference for anyone who is open to viewing teaching and learning as opportunities for transformational and freeing acts.

Janet Hagen began her career as a speech therapist in K-12 schools in the Chicago area. She earned master's degrees in counseling and administration & supervision, and a doctorate in instructional leadership as a way of legitimizing her railing against traditional schooling structures as discussed in her autobiographical book, Teaching Teachers: Reflections on an Adventure in Mutual Learning. Since retiring from her fulltime adventure, Janet continues to teach as an associate faculty member for Northern Arizona University and Mohave Community College. Two cats, Hub and Router, and Elliot, a Chihuahua, are living with the author for remedial education.