Emergent Teaching
A Path of Creativity, Significance, and Transformation
By (author) Sam Crowell faculty for the earth cha, David Reid-Marr
Publication date:
10 January 2013Length of book:
168 pagesPublisher
R&L EducationDimensions:
236x158mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9781475802542
Emergent Teaching inspires teachers to teach with more spontaneity and creativity within an educational environment that is highly constrained. It demonstrates, through descriptive stories, creative strategies and provides an intellectual foundation for emergent teaching. The authors show how teachers can relate subject matter to students’ lives and experience. They illustrate rituals and processes that help establish a caring learning community. Finally, the book applies the theories of complexity and chaos while reaffirming the natural wisdom that teachers possess within themselves. The authors have chosen a narrative format that “models” rather than “tells,” and encourages readers to connect to their own stories and experiences.
The book is consistent with the theoretical understandings and research in the complexity sciences but takes a narrative approach, giving examples and illustrations of ideas through stories, myths, and parables that act as metaphors and illustrations. Key topics and practices embedded in these stories include:
The book is consistent with the theoretical understandings and research in the complexity sciences but takes a narrative approach, giving examples and illustrations of ideas through stories, myths, and parables that act as metaphors and illustrations. Key topics and practices embedded in these stories include:
- teaching the whole person
- strategies for creative teaching
- new understandings of process
- meaning-centered learning
- building community in the classroom
- strengthening the student/teacher relationship
- project-based learning
- using art and nature in teaching
- embodied learning
- incorporating story and narrative in teaching
- rites of passage
- embracing the unpredictable, uncharted spaces in teaching
As states adopt common core standards and school districts ponder scripted curriculum that allegedly ensures that such standards are met, some classroom teachers have sought alternate routes. Emergent Teaching results from teachers' understanding that they can influence but cannot control what occurs in the classroom. Instead, Crowell and Reid-Marr assert that although teachers may anticipate certain patterns, classroom practice largely involves assisting learners to discover personal significance and creating a sense of belonging. Organized into ten chapters, the book defines emergent teaching and then examines some central tenets of the approach, including the experience of non-separation, event-centric teaching, non-linear instruction, the emergence of understanding, and the roles of play and joy in the classroom. Within these contexts, Crowell and Reid-Marr explore how teachers may encourage creativity, build relevance, and link emergence to the curriculum and other holistic concerns. Clearly written and full of useful examples of emergent teaching in action, the book is a great complement to A. S. Neill and Albert Lamb's Summerhill School (1994) or Maxine Greene's Releasing the Imagination. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.