Kumar: Chapters 1 & 2

     Kumar begins his Beyond Methods book with a very interesting take on the role of teachers in and outside of the classroom.  He delves into David Hansen's idea of teaching being considered a "vocation" as opposed to a career or profession.  Before reading this chapter, I always looked at occupations on a scale from job to career; a job being very low on the scale, and a career being at the top, having meaning and purpose.  After seeing Hansen's take on the matter, I was open to this new idea of a teacher being one who serves his/her students.  Initially, the vocational term did not seem as gratifying as a career or profession, but after reading I began to realize the role teachers would play in their community.  

    Kumar addresses the role of teachers in three categories:  Passive technicians, reflective practitioners, and transformative intellectuals.  These roles seem to develop through the former to the latter. They vary greatly in teacher interaction, but differ most in regards to critical thinking.  Kumar described passive technicians as "implementers of education." While they may have access to a large base of knowledge provided by experts in the field, they are restricted heavily on an autonomous level.  They are also very limited on the level of student interaction.  When reading about passive technicians, I felt that this philosophy of teaching was very rigid and stagnant.   While experts were coming up with educational material, students had very limited access to other ideas.  They were only given material of the experts.  This inhibited newer ideas and a sense of critical thinking.  I believe that the subsequent description of the reflective practitioner improved on the lack of critical thinking.

    Teachers seen as a reflective practitioner did develop a better sense of critical thinking, only in a sense of an introspective level.  Teachers were able to question tradition and long lasting beliefs.  They were able to thinking critically on theories given by experts in their field. The main drawback however goes back to the the idea of critical thinking.  The emphasis of the critical thinking lies solely on the teacher, rather than the classroom.  The classroom may have improved in a sense of challenging old, traditional ideas of passive technicians, but was still lacking in the realm of helping students achieve critical thinking.

    The transformative intellectual encompasses many aspects of the previously mentioned roles and improves on them.  A transformative intellectual brings about historical, social, and political problems and attempts to deal with these communities int he classroom.  I felt that this philosophy was especially important given the multicultural element of the classroom and real world.  Different cultures are bound to give varying perspectives to injustices in the world. Calling upon these injustices, while looking at ways to address these problems encourages both students and teachers alike to think critically, in an attempt to "work towards a more humane life" Without this critical outlook, students and teachers would have a poorer sense of community, and fall into the prior roles of tradition, as portrayed by the passive technician.