Abstract
This chapter explores the path to crafting the volume and the relationships between chapters. The chapter also delves into how the editors view this book’s place among the practices of teaching and teacher-education literature. The chapter posits that the professionalization of teaching and teacher education in South Asia will arguably serve as a linchpin in enhancing children’s educational opportunities. Finally, our hope for how to read the book and render it into practice is also addressed.
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Notes
- 1.
This illustration stems from my interpretations of decades of research and scholarly leadership dedicated to articulating the complex nature of the work of teaching (e.g., Cohen, Raudenbush, & Ball, 2003; Fenstermacher, 1994; Lampert, 2001; Shulman, 1987; as well as those cited above). An important ingredient in this view is that teachers are “adaptive experts” (Bransford et al. 2005). Bransford et al. contrast this view with “routine experts,” who have a core set of competencies that they develop and hone over a professional life building ever more precision and efficiency. “Adaptive experts,” on the other hand, continually restructure core ideas and beliefs, and expand and extend their competencies to fit with these new positions. Adaptive expertise requires an ability to innovate, have flexible skills and knowledge, and develop awareness.
- 2.
This did not occur with ease, of course. As an example, Pollock cites a classic account of how the Kāmaśāstra in its most accessible form came to be.
We are told that Prājapati enunciated the “means of achieving the three ends of life” (trivargasādhana) in one hundred-thousand chapters at the beginning of time, when he created them. Svayambhuva Manu separated out the one section dealing with dharma, Brhaspati the one dealing with artha, while Nandi, the servant of Siva, formulated a kāmasūtra in one thousand chapters. Svetaketu, son of Uddalaka, abridged this into five hundred chapters, Babhravya of Pancala into two hundred and fifty chapters with seven topics. Different people thereupon separately reworked the seven topics. …Vatsyayana took up the task of summarizing the whole subject in a single small volume. (Pollock, 1985, p. 513)
- 3.
Rāmānuja was an eleventh-Century scholar. His most famous work is the Brahma Sutra Bhashya— a commentary on the Brahma Sutras.
- 4.
For example in the Manusmriti, directives are given on greeting others. While this is practical in feel, it also articulates the theoretical construction of hierarchy.
After the salutation, a brahman who greets an elder must pronounce his own name, saying “I am so and so.” …. A brahman should be saluted in return as follows: “May you live long, sir”; the vowel /a/ must be added at the end of the name of the addressee, the preceding syllable being lengthened to three morae…. A brahman who does not know the proper form of returning a greeting should not be saluted by learned men… To his maternal and paternal uncles, fathers-in-law, officiating priests, and other venerable people, he must say, “I am so and so,” and rise before them, even if they are younger than he. (Manusmriti 2,122 in Pollock, 1985, p. 500)
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Setty, R. (2019). An Introduction to Focusing on Practice. In: Setty, R., Iyengar, R., Witenstein, M.A., Byker, E.J., Kidwai, H. (eds) Teaching and Teacher Education. South Asian Education Policy, Research, and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26879-4_1
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