Announcing the Alan C. Purves Award Winner (Volume 34)Author(s): Thomas M. McCann, Dianne Chambers, Evelyn Hanssen, Susan Howell and Lisa CrossStanziSource: Research in the Teaching of English, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Feb., 2001), pp. 290-291Published by: National Council of Teachers of EnglishStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40171489 .

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Announcing the Alan C. Purves Award Winner (Volume 34)

Thomas M. McCann, Chair, Purves Award Committee

Community High School District 94, West Chicago, Illinois

Dianne Chambers Elmhurst College

Evelyn Hanssen South Middle School, Aurora, Colorado

Susan Howell Carbondale Community High School, Carbondale, Illinois

Lisa Cross Stanzi David C. Barrow Elementary School, Athens, Georgia

We are pleased to announce that Diane

Stephens of the University of South Carolina is the winner of the Alan C. Purves Award forVolume 34 of Research in the Teaching of English for her article

"Learning (about Learning) from Four Teachers." The award recognizes an article published in RTE that is likely to have the greatest impact on classroom

practice. A plaque and a lifetime sub-

scription to RTE were presented to Professor Stephens in a special cer-

emony at the 2000 Annual Convention of the National Council of Teachers of

English in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. All of us on the committee for the

Alan C. Purves Award are veteran teachers who share the common expe- rience of having other decision makers in schools select and deliver in-service

instruction for them. From the teacher's

perspective that instruction often takes the form of sitting in one place for insufferable lengths and listening to someone present information, claims, and recommendations.

Many in-service participants rec-

ognize an irony when teachers are

taught in a way that contradicts the

ways that consultants espouse as best

practices for teaching anyone. The re- search reported in the article by Diane

Stephens and her colleagues reminds us that an approach to instruction that is

good for students is an approach that is

good for teachers. It is often the case that research that appeals to the readers as reporting significant results is re- search that makes us think that the conclusions and implications make such

290 Research in the Teaching of English • Volume 35 • February 2001

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good sense that we should have thought of them ourselves.This is the case with this article. It should be apparent that

learning becomes meaningful in pre- service and in-service training when the recipients of the training test claims and recommendations against their own

experience. In examining the teacher as learner,

Stephens and her colleagues report a

process during which a new experience presents a challenge to previously as- sumed understandings. The learner could dismiss the new experience as an

anomaly or inaccuracy, or the doubt raised by the experience could prompt questions that the learner pursues con-

sciously through observation, data col- lection, and hypothesis testing. For reflective teachers, this is a daily process: The teacher makes attempts, observes the effects on learners, reflects on the

meaning of the experience, and makes

adjustments or validates practices. The research represented in this

article examines the pressing question of how to help teachers become learn- ers in their own classrooms in order to construct new strategies and tech-

niques that meet the needs of indi- vidual students. The answer is not the

tidy packaging of "best practices" to be consumed whole by the pre-service or

experienced teacher without opportu- nities and structures for reflection about the efficacy of the proposed practices. Stephens and her colleagues remind us that it is of primary importance that teachers be student watchers. As careful observers of students, teachers test as-

sumptions against experience, thereby

becoming learners themselves, which is an important foundation as educators continue to attempt to renew their

teaching practices. While the field has talked about

inquiry-based learning and student- centered learning for some time, it has not considered the teacher as learner within his or her own classroom. As

Stephens and her colleagues observe, teachers' learning is actually supported when one recognizes that doubt and tension are not necessarily bad but are the agents that direct significant ques- tions that guide reflection. Of course, if the teacher is to be sustained as a learner, supports need to be in place in schools. Colleagues play an important role in observing teachers and students, in assisting in the collection of data, and in engaging in dialogues about the

meaning of what one observes. The article defines a theory that

could have profound significance in classrooms because it suggests ways to nurture and support teachers who can

adapt to students' ever-changing needs and varied learning styles over the course of a career. Given the increas-

ingly rapid social and technological changes taking place in our world, it is

impossible to say what students will need from us and how they will learn best five or ten or twenty years from now. A potential impact of the article is the hope of the authors that teachers will engage in their own "self-sustain-

ing generative inquiry" that will guide behavior and decisions about instruc- tion in the future.

Announcing the Alan C. Purves Award Winner 291

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