I sometimes think that educational researchers, particularly applied linguists, would benefit greatly from taking occasional time out from their work to engage in what we might call ‘empathetic observation’. It’s rather a simple idea: An academic shadows a teacher at their place of work for a few days to learn as much as possible from the teacher.
I should emphasise here that I am not talking about ‘data collection’. No recording devices would be used, nor the detailed field notes that ethnographers love to compile. The observer would also aim, as much as possible, to leave behind their own personal interests or theoretical frameworks and to pay particular attention to those aspects of the teacher’s life that they know least about.
Why might this be useful?
The broad aim of empathetic observations would be for the observer to learn from the teacher, rather than ‘about’ them (the latter is the typical focus of data collection). The academic, in this sense, would become an apprentice to the teacher’s expertise – a reversal, as such, of the typically perceived relationship.
The specific aim would be for the observer to seek to understand the teacher – who they are, what they do and why. They would learn about the teacher as a whole person and their practice as integrated with their cognition, their emotions and those of the people they interact with on a daily basis, because all of these are essential to understanding any of the sub-components of this whole – components that many researchers actually study in relative isolation.
I suspect that such conditions would allow for useful learning to happen simply through the process of the researcher not researching – avoiding their normal mode of behaviour in ‘the field’ (as researchers sometimes call schools and classrooms), enabling them to notice all the things that they don’t actually research, and therefore may be neglecting or overlooking in their work.
Becoming academic
Two years into my ‘career’ in academia,1 after over 25 years of teaching and supporting teachers in what I still refer to as ‘real classrooms’, I’m feeling the challenge of distance from the classroom. By making this choice of term (real classrooms), I mean no offence to academics. Of course our classrooms are real too, but there is a difference between non-academic teaching (e.g., of languages, school subjects, etc.) and the more dislocated theorisation and discussion that happens in the lecture theatre or seminar room. Like others in this line of work, I lecture, do seminars and tutorials, mark assignments and supervise dissertations. I also do research and sometimes visit real classrooms to ‘collect data’. But this is not the same as teaching itself, particularly for those of us interested in learning in primary, secondary or adult education contexts.
The more I get into academia, the more I see my own process of ‘becoming academic’ (as David Crystal once put it; 2009) taking me further and further away from the realities, challenges and – importantly – the ways of talking and thinking of real teachers. I’m aware that there are others who have been in academia for much longer, and after relatively little time in the classroom before this. Many have less than five years of pre-academic classroom experience – and this is often seen as the minimum period for teacher expertise to develop (Berliner, 2004; Palmer et al., 2005). I sometimes wonder how much of an impact this has had on their ability to empathise with, and understand real teachers, and therefore to research in ways that are relevant and useful for them. For example, many academics seem legitimately puzzled as to why teachers don’t adopt the methodologies they propose, don’t give feedback to learners in the way they recommend, or organise their scheme of work according to the factors that many academics see as priorities.
Potential outcomes of empathetic observation
My suspicion is that three things might result from engaging in empathetic observation. I here discuss them from the perspective of an academic, even if I’m not sure where my current identity lies:
- Firstly, we would be able to empathise with the teacher in ways that the procedures of data collection may prevent us from doing. We would be able to enjoy a joke, reflect on a critical incident or share an insight without fear of influencing the subject, leaving a ‘research footprint’, or needing to distance ourselves from them or their peers. This may be key to really understanding teachers – the empathy bit.
- Secondly, we would see our own work in a new light. We might see links between the things we focus on in our research and writings and the things in their immediate vicinity (spatial or theoretical) that maybe we were aware of but perhaps neglected in our study designs, or didn’t want to see in our data. We might also notice possible relationships to things further away too, because these are all so often all linked in complex ways in education.
- And thirdly, we’d learn to think and speak (more) like a teacher (again). We’d get some practice of describing teaching using the less abstract, less pretentious language and concepts of practitioners. I feel this might have a knock on effect on our ability to communicate with teachers more effectively, which might help to reduce the much cited research-practice gap in education (e.g., Rose, 2019; Sato & Loewen, 2022), not only because of the impact on how we might communicate our own work to teachers, but also because of the impact on what we might research in future and how.
What’s in it for the teacher?
Nothing. That’s the potential problem. I don’t think it would be appropriate for the researcher to give ‘feedback’ to the teacher – few would be qualified and even fewer capable. And besides, this would influence the relationship in unhelpful ways, even before the feedback, preventing the researcher from apprenticing themselves to the teacher. Perhaps the presence of the observer and the many questions they ask might encourage more careful teacher reflection than normal, which might be beneficial. But I know from my own research that this depends primarily on the teacher – some do benefit, others don’t seem to (Anderson, 2019, 2023). No, the only potential reasons they’d do it is either for compensation (arguably also inappropriate) or because they’re happy and willing to help. Fortunately, most teachers are. So I’m hoping this won’t be a fatal flaw in my proposal…
An indecent proposal
Now the disclaimer – I’ve never done this, so I can’t guarantee that any of the above would happen. It’s just an idea. But I’d be willing to bet that any good researcher would learn something from the process. And personally, I’d be interested to try. Any offers out there? Feel free to let me know via email (here), rather than below, where I hope to get some critical responses and alternative suggestions.
Footnote
- I find it necessary to correct colleagues who keep calling me an ‘early-career researcher’; on the contrary, I’m a late-career academic. ↩︎
References
Anderson, J. (2019). In search of reflection-in-action: An exploratory study of the interactive reflection of four experienced teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 86, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2019.102879
Anderson, J. (2023). Teacher expertise in the global South: Theory, research and evidence. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009284837
Berliner, D. C. (2004). Describing the behavior and documenting the accomplishments of expert teachers. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 24(3), 200–212. https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467604265535
Crystal, D. (2009). Just A Phrase I’m Going Through: My Life in Language. Routledge.
Rose, H. (2019). Dismantling the ivory tower in TESOL: A renewed call for teaching-informed research. TESOL Quarterly, 53(3), 895-905. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.517
Palmer, D. J., Burdenski, T. K., Jr., & Gonzales, M. (2005). Identifying teacher expertise: An examination of researchers’ decision making. Educational Psychologist, 40(1), 13–25. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep4001_2
Sato, M., & Loewen, S. (2022). The research–practice dialogue in second language learning and teaching: Past, present, and future. The Modern Language Journal, 106(3), 509-527. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12791
Jason Anderson 