Becoming a Reflective Practitioner

The Teacher as a “Reflective Practitioner”

When one refers to issues of maturity, it can be considered a gray area, because if someone asks what it means to be emotionally or socially mature, one may get different responses depending on who you ask.  It is generally accepted that human beings have an innate sense of right and wrong. However, when it comes to social norms that depends on the culture, ecology and environment to which a person has been exposed. Educators and students alike bring their social norms into the classroom. This results in a heterogeneous mix of social behaviors that somehow must become a safe environment for the teacher and the students.

Tacit Knowledge and Social Norms

Whether teachers are aware of it or not, they are establishing social norms of behavior in their classrooms. Regardless of the rules that are posted around the room, students are taking their major cues based on the teacher’s behavior. In other words, what they do and say has a greater impact and influence that what is written down. Children, being the astute observers that they naturally are, tend to learn by watching. A teacher’s behavior is guided by their own experience and maturity level. A teacher needs to have self awareness, reflecting on their own behavior and recognizing their role in this critical aspect of a child’s scholastic experience.

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