Mireille Falardeau et Michel Loranger Le choix de stratégies ... - CSSE

BOOK REVIEWS / RECENSIONS 469
aligned with that of Donald Schön. Newman encourages her students and readers
to engage in “reflection on action” while continually demonstrating her ability
to participate in “reflection in action.” The reader has an opportunity to read
about the processes she engages in as she observes, reflects, and acts once she
has recognized what is problematic.
The necessity for delineating one’s theoretical perspective more carefully can
be illustrated by one brief, albeit rather crucial, example. Consider the multiple
meanings associated with the word “critical.” Newman’s use of the label “critical
reflection” cannot be assumed to align this work with those, like Zeichner and
Liston (1987), who argue that whatever issue is identified as problematic, the
reflection must move beyond the problematics of the immediate situation into an
awareness of political and ethical possibilities.
Although the book offers general insights into learning and teaching, it is
nonetheless about particular students (graduates and professionals) in a particular
context (a university summer institute). The conversations in which Newman
engages, the reflection, knowledge building, and subsequent writing, all must be
understood in their context specificity. Yet although the students are described
generally at the beginning of the book, and although it is possible to build
profiles of the participants as the book evolves, what is left unexplored are the
implications of their backgrounds, in terms of race, class, culture, and gender, for
the events of the summer institute. If we consider the book as a moment in the
construction of educational knowledge, this gives rise to epistemological and
political concerns about the presence of privilege. What might a critical reflection
reveal concerning the perspectives of those who construct knowledge in this book
and those on whose experiences this knowledge is constructed?
Overall, Interwoven Conversations is an important text that attends to a need
in teacher education literature, a need that Short (1992) identified when she
stated that “missing from most of these reports is any reflection by university
educators on what they have learned and how the projects have changed them
as teachers and researchers” (p. 35). This book provides the reader with a rare
opportunity to explore the rich conversations Newman has with herself and with
others. If you accept the invitation she extends in the preface, to read the book
both aesthetically, so you can make connections to your own life, and fast, so the
narrative elements connect, you will have an opportunity to engage in self-reflection
that will ultimately lead to the creation of new conversations.
REFERENCES
Elbow, P. (1973). Writing without teachers. London: Oxford University Press.
Short, K. (1992). “Living the process”: Creating a learning community among educators. Teaching
Education, 4(2), 34–42.
Zeichner, K., & Liston,D. (1987). Teaching student teachers to reflect. Harvard Educational Review,
57, 23–48.