Repost: Ethos and Pathos

I'm reposting this because someone from JSTOR spent some time reading it, and I'd like to take this opportunity to beg said person for free access.

That and, of course, it continues a train of thought that has been rolling across this blog lately.

At the end of what seems like a long chain of events, I asked, and answered yes to, this question about professionalizing teacher practice:

Is there one or more cultural "teaching scripts" that might tend to stymie the practice of collecting and critically analyzing specific best-practice knowledge linked to academic outcomes?

The question was, at the time, the end result of my thinking about Jenny D.'s terrific post, Chris Correa's input on the subject, and ideas presented by different commenters.

Regardless whether yes is the correct answer to that question or not, I'd like to follow up and suggest one script that I think may be a significant culprit. Of course, in doing so, I will be making a solid leap away from firm ground, because cultural scripts are constructs that one can observe only indirectly, if at all:

[Cultural scripts] are not proposed as rules of behaviour but as rules of interpretation and evaluation. It is open to individuals in concrete situations whether to follow (or appear to follow) culturally endorsed principles, and if so, to what extent; or whether to manipulate them, defy them, subvert them, rebel against them, play creatively with them, etc. Whether or not cultural scripts are being followed in behavioural terms, however, the claim is that they constitute a kind of shared interpretive "background."

One part of an "interpretive background" that I would suggest we share with regard to the idea of teaching is this:

Teaching is "ethotic" and "pathotic" persuasion.
That is, the input of teaching is gauged in terms of the character of teachers (ethos) and their ability to navigate and control the emotional, cognitive-psychological, and interpersonal dynamics of learning (pathos). "Logetic" persuasion (logos)—which involves consideration of the presentation and organization of content in isolation--is really not part of the script for teaching or is, at best, completely overshadowed.

Consider these ethotic/pathotic selection criteria for the National Teacher of the Year award as a bit of indirect evidence for the existence of this script:

Inspire students of all backgrounds and abilities to learn.

Have the respect and admiration of students, parents, and colleagues.

Play an active and useful role in the community as well as in the school.

Be poised, articulate, and possess the energy to withstand a taxing schedule.

In short, we tend to view better teaching exclusively as a function of better people, and almost never as a function of better information--a script which makes the compilation and dispensation of best-practice knowledge nearly unimaginable.

I would also suggest that this script plays a role in answering a question I asked here, about Direct Instruction:

It has consistently fascinated me over the last five or six years to see veteran educators' reactions to even a mention of DI—snarling, eye-rolling, etc.—because these reactions are often followed by admissions that "the program achieves remarkable results." How can it be that educators are so dismissive of something that so clearly improves student achievement?

In that post, it was my (obvious) intention to answer the question by suggesting that deciding on Direct Instruction might feel to educators like choosing the "fake" experiences of the Experience Machine--a hypothetical device that can provide users with manipulable, yet absolutely real, experiences--over "authentic" experiences, because Direct Instruction simply doesn't match educators' views of what "real" teaching is.

But the script mentioned above, although related to my answer, may be a more powerful way of explaining the phenomenon. Look at part of an exercise in this sample (PDF) from a Direct Instruction reading program (the words in italics are instructions to the teacher):

Everybody, find part A in your textbook. Wait. Touch column 1. Check. The words in column 1 are hard words that will be in your reading stories.

Touch under the first word. Check. The first word is difficult. What word? Signal. Difficult. Spell difficult. Signal. D-i-f-f-i-c-u-l-t. What word did you spell? Signal. Difficult.

Next word. Pause. That word is exhausted. What word? Signal. Exhausted. Spell exhausted. Signal. E-x-h-a-u-s-t-e-d. What word did you spell? Signal. Exhausted.

Where is our ethos? Where is our pathos?