The dialogues of teacher education: Entering and influencing preservice teachers' internal conversations (Research Report 91-4

It is often far easier to join a conversation already in progress between individuals who are accustomed to talking together than it is to start up a conversation from scratch with a stranger. Joining an ongoing conversation simply requires paying attention to contextualizations that have already been established, catching the drift of the arguments, and asking for pieces of the conversation missed earlier. While joining in demands considerable social skill, it is a feat most of us are able to achieve regularly without angering or annoying those with whom we wish to converse. Imagine the reactions, however, should we walk into an ongoing conversation, ignore it as if we were oblivious to its existence, impose on the participants an entirely new topic of conversation, and assume their enthusiastic responses and participation. Young children make this sort of social blunder and are told, "Wait your turn, " or "Can't you see I'm talking? " by parents who feel more than justified in so socializing their children. Preservice teachers seldom feel similarly justified. When our teacher education courses impose topics for reading and study which to them seem irrelevant, unnecessary, and unconnected to any of the issues they assume constitute learning to teach, few of them can or would tell us, "Wait. If you want to be a part of this conversation, listen for a while and then join in. Interruptin