Looking The Tiger In The Eye By Wegwert

When many students are young, they have this belief that their teachers only exist within the classroom and have no life outside of school. As kids grow up, they realize teachers are ordinary people that experience the same feelings as anyone else. Within the realm of education, teachers must design a professional identity that they portray while working. What shapes this identity? Joseph Wegwert, an associate professor at Northern Arizona University, says teachers’ professional identities are fear-based. Wegwert efficiently and logically argues that teacher identities and practice are constructed from generalized vocational fears.

In 2014, Wegwert wrote an article for a journal, Childhood Education, called Looking the Tiger in the Eye: Overcoming

He discusses a common belief that students are incapable of self-regulation and thus need constant positive or negative reinforcement. "A common assumption in the discourse of classroom management/control is that young people require behavioral control through active adult surveillance, regulation, and intervention" (Wegwert 2014, p. 139). Wegwert then cites the use of rewards and punishments is ineffective, despite its prevalence. The sources and research he references aids the argument against the assumption of classroom control. Wegwert concludes the section with personal advice: “Words matter and it can be very powerful to use language as a strategy to re-frame unquestioned assumptions and introduce new strategies” (Wegwert, 2014, p 139). His solution is that a change in vocabulary will spark a change in attitude towards student management. The imagery used to promote this, however, sounds fanciful and might affect the readers’ perception of Wegwert’s seriousness. Phrases such as “educational choreographers in the dance of becoming” (Wegwert, 2014, p. 139) are different from the previous pedagogical jargon. Nevertheless, the solution posited seems like a good start to

Some would say that controversy should be avoided as not to offend parents or community members. Wegwert disagrees and argues that this belief values political neutrality over education. Teachers might be averse to engaging with a controversial curriculum based on the fear of outsider censorship and possible repercussions. He then includes a couple of examples and criticisms, which all contribute to one major point: “To avoid interrogating the complexities of real issues and the real world is to engage in miseducation” (Wegwert, 2014, p. 141). He even suggests that neutral curriculum creates a culture of conflict avoidance, as opposed to conflict