Dispositions and Portfolio Development: Is There a Connection?

As Is The Teacher, So Is The School Horace Mann long ago made the following important point: as is the teacher so is the school. By implication then, teacher characteristics, attitudes, concepts of self, and intellectual and interpersonal dispositions in large measure determine both the formal and the informal curriculum of the classroom. The formal curriculum is represented by materials, lesson plans, and objectives, but the informal curriculum is the atmosphere, or climate in the classroom, as indicated by important teacher characteristics (Sprinthall, Reiman, Thies-Sprinthall, 1996). Characteristics of effective teachers which evolve from their dispositions are the impetus for successful teaching and learning. Those characteristics focus on attributes such as being an encourager, possessing a caring attitude, being open-minded, and a listener. As teacher educators we should be concerned not only with teaching methodology, classroom management/discipline, lesson design and assessment, but the teacher as a person. There needs to be concern for the person, not only people in the abstract, not only theories about traits, learning styles and cultural background; teachers meet persons in their classrooms. Teachers prepared in teacher education programs encounter uniquely formed individuals, each different from any other person in the world, a person with his or her own particular story. The person who teaches is not a mere cog in a machine or someone who blindly follows the formulas of textbook writers, exam makers, or administrators (Huebner, 1996). Teachers are professional educators who expect to transform young people, to inspire them to think, to feel, and to take social action as citizens in a democratic society (Colton & Sparks-Langer, 1993). These professionals declare their teaching purpose with broad goals that target information processing and problem solving rather than narrow objectives that specify the degree to which discrete skills and bits of information must be mastered. Their teaching demonstrates a conviction that children should become more virtuous people for having the opportunity to learn (Fenstermacher, 1990). As they take classroom action, these professionals regularly display concern for young people's present and future welfare. In order for teachers to be more than "mere" cogs they must possess the dispositions to teach the person. When veteran or preservice teachers are asked to list desired dispositions for today's classroom teachers, responses often include these traits: caring individual, listener, lifelong learner, and compassionate. Given the dynamics of today's public school classrooms and the call for improved teacher preparation, how can teacher educators help preservice teachers realize their beliefs about teaching and desired dispositions and internalize them as their own? The purpose for this manuscript is to generate thought for teacher educators and encourage them to reflect on the practice of preparing teachers. Within this paper the reader will find definitions for dispositions and descriptions of how teacher education programs may or may not help preservice teachers recognize desired dispositions. Additionally, there will be discussion of how portfolio development may be one avenue to assist preservice teachers in realizing their beliefs about teaching and the dispositions desired for effective teaching. Dispositions Defined The search for a definition of teaching dispositions provided varied interpretations which led the author to believe that usage of the term disposition is inconsistent at best. From the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 1973, disposition is defined as the following: 1. One's customary manner of emotional response; temperament "She has a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous. " (Jane Austen) 2. A tendency or inclination, especially when habitual: "A disposition to drink and aversion to humdrum toil was no novelty in early Kenya. …