Buchmann 1989

Source:   RESEARCH STUDY/ARTICLE

APA Citation:

Buchmann, M. (1989). The careful vision: How practical is contemplation in teaching? American Journal of Education, 98(1), 35-61.

Author bio:

Professor and senior researcher at the Institute for Research on Teaching, College Education, Michigan State University

Central Argument/Thesis:

The author suggests that conceptions of teacher thinking must be expanded beyond planning and decision-making 35

Describing contemplation as careful attention and wonderstruck beholding, the author examines subject matter and children as objects of teachers’ contemplative concern 35

This collective, moral concept invokes intrinsic ends and ideas of perfection: constitutive fidelities of teaching that are made available in contemplation 35

Discussion – Conclusion:

To understand teacher thinking rather than define it by stipulation, we need ‘to stop and think’ and attend to the diverse contexts in which people talk about thinking and thoughts … to examine contemplation – its stance, requirements, and objects – and to look at its contributions to the active life in teaching in terms of human flourishing: thinking and living well 37

In looking at thinking … we have returned to a major concern of researchers and teacher educators: teachers’ capacity to determine right courses of action and the dispositions and processes that presumably underlie that capacity … we have enlarged the scope and meaning of thinking, weakening its links to the choosing will and ‘hard headed’ expertise. In doing so, we have touched on a variety of thought processes such as imagination, remembering, judging, interpreting, and caring. 41

In broadening and diversifying the picture of thinking, we have made room for wonderment and feeling while coming up repeatedly against the concept of ‘attention’ related to the binding claims that people, ideas, or events have on our consideration: whether thought eventuates in projects, dissolves into further thought, or slowly peters out 41

Notable Quotes (w/page numbers):

The contemplative life may involve a kind of application in cogitation or meditation. but contemplation is the point where activity comes to rest; its essential qualities are those of a wonderstruck beholding, as we attend to some desirable or lovable good – especially any truth whatever – and dwell on it. This requires clarity of vision and serenity in a quiet kind of looking 47

Contemplation engages the emotions, the will, and the moral virtues, only insofar as these dispose one toward peace and purity of heart and help one direct one’s attention to worthy objects 47

Teaching calls for contemplation, as a kind of ‘devoted thinking’ in which one is not possessed by one’s will or ideas 56

If contemplative thought is, in principle, at the heart of teaching, it depends, for its flourishing, on political and practical wisdom, being vulnerable to impediment, as to its occurrence and quality, the more fully it is integrated into the active life 57

Project notes: