"Befriending" Other Teachers: Communities of Teaching and the Ethos of Curricular Leadership

I unashamedly tried to borrow some of Marshall Gregory's teacherly ethos in August 2000 when I spoke to the new teaching assistants (TAs) in my department just before the semester began. I had been inspired by Gregory's (2001) insightful, passionate description of good teaching, and I wanted, in turn, to inspire these new teachers. I read them portions of Gregory's manuscript (thanks, Marshall--I hadn't even asked your permission), particularly the parts on how curriculum isn't the important thing; teaching is. Here's part of what I read:

All teachers need to remember that exposing students to a well-thought-out curriculum is not the same thing as educating them, if educating them means, as I think it does, helping them learn how to integrate the contents of the curriculum into their minds, hearts, and everyday lives. Much of the time, academic considerations of education bracket off to the side the all-important fact that teaching not only influences but often determines what students make of the curriculum. . . .

. . . the effects of curriculum should never be considered in isolation from the kind of pedagogy that delivers that curriculum. (69-73)

But since honesty is one of Gregory's ethotic principles of good teaching that I should try to follow, I'll be honest about why I quoted this passage to these new teachers. It followed my explanation of the new curriculum of first-year writing that they would begin teaching the next week. I had been part of the team that designed that curriculum. I was invested in it, not only because of what I considered its pedagogical advantages--its concentrated attention to the actual work of writing and its focus on academic and public discourse--but also because of my commitment to the whole curriculum of the First-Year Composition Program: its coherence, its credibility, and its chances of succeeding. In other words, my agenda that morning was not only to help these new teachers teach well but to help them teach this particular course. To put it baldly, I wanted the composition curriculum to change, and the likelihood of change rested in this group of teachers.

One of the veteran teachers leading this workshop said to me afterward: "That was great, Kate, but you know, you might have achieved the exact opposite of your goals just now. We're trying to get these teachers to sign on to this new curriculum, and you just told them that curriculum doesn't matter." Oops. But I don't think Gregory says that. I borrowed his eloquent words because to me they say that teaching and curriculum cannot be separated, that teachers must believe in the curriculum that they and others teach.

To quote Gregory again, "Teaching not only influences but often determines what students make of the curriculum." In this response to his important insights, I want to substitute the word teachers for students in that sentence and explore the implications of thinking about curricular leadership. I will apply Gregory's ideas to two pedagogical areas, both of them outside my own classrooms, where I am engaged in the teaching of other teachers. As a curriculum designer in one context and a leader charged with curricular change but not curriculum design in another, I am especially attuned to Gregory's warnings about how little curriculum actually accomplishes; however, I want to add the caveat that teaching always occurs in a community of other teachers, as well as in a community of learners. The bond that holds this community together often centers on a commitment not to good teaching but to a curriculum.

I'll offer a quick bit of context and description of my curricular "design" and "leadership" roles, and I hope my discussion of two contexts together won't be confusing; I want to talk about them both because I think they illustrate intersecting communities of teaching and because they represent...