Teacher self : the practice of humanistic education /

Continuing his research in the AERA's Special Interest Group, The Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices, Allender (formerly, Temple Univ.; author of Imagery in Teaching and Learning, 1991) offers this well-crafted book that aims to help teachers and students discover more about teaching and learning processes. Using narrative inquiry involving him and his students in a college course called the "Art and Science of Teaching," the author-teacher interweaves their related stories and voices to study the "teacher self" as the "basis for the development of a chapter on "Gestalt Theory for Teachers." This final chapter and the prologue and "Midterm Paper" chapter provide the relevant academic underpinnings of the other ten chapters. The book begins with the "Introductory "Lecture" in the author-teacher's voice, and the remaining chapters explore and exemplify this evolving Gestalt approach to teaching and learning by weaving together interrelated experiences of a college teacher and his students. Viewed first as plays or vignettes, the multiple voices of teacher and students are then developed into major topics; e.g., "experience experiments," "drawing ideas," "role playing," "human dominoes," "problem of realness," and "structure of freedom in classrooms." With relevant references and useful index, this book provides a creative exploration of the art and science of pedagogy for teachers and teachers in training. Lower-division undergraduates and above. R. L. Brod University of Montana