Teachers Teaching

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorUniversity, Bachelor's November 2001

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This project's purpose is to investigate how the goal of becoming a teacher emerges. The study used interviews to develop goal histories for 8 preservice teachers. There tended to be 4 sources of influence for their goal to become a teacher: (a) family influences, (b) teacher influence, (c) peer influences, (d) teaching experiences. The categories developed from the interviews to describe the types of influences those sources provided were (a) suggesting that the person become a teacher, (b) encouraging the person to become a teacher, (c) modeling teacher behavior, (d) exposing the person to teaching experiences, (e) discouraging the person from becoming a teacher. In addition, influences such as critical incidents, emotions, and social-historical factors, such as the status and pay of teachers, were prominent in the goal histories of the participants. Finally, the results of the study are discussed within the context of goals and self-directed behavior.

Goals are defined in the present study as subjective representations of what on would like to have happen and what one would like to avoid in the future.

These subjective representations are important organizing processes for thinking, acting, and emoting. In literature, goals are said to be key organizational processes that influence people's thoughts, memories, and interpretations of what they see in the world. Goals provide direction for thoughts, behavior, and strategies. Finally, feelings such as anger, anxiety, joy, and pride are experienced in the relationship to people's goals. Goals play an important role in people's daily lives and in many current theories in education and psychology. During the process of the experiment all the participants dealt with phenomenological philosophy, helping them to direct them to their energy into becoming a teacher. Money played an interesting role in the process of the experiment. Sandra (one of the participants stated...