“Yet the Root of the Matter is Not in Them”: Reclaiming the Lost Soul of Inspirational Teaching

This essay by Dirck Roosevelt and Jim Garrison seeks to reclaim the lost soul of teaching by examining distortions wrought upon or threatening it by practice‐based teacher education (PBTE) and like developments. The notion that teaching centers upon mastery of “core” practices understood as routinely skilled performance is inadequate to the almost intractable complexity of teaching. After critiquing PBTE and associated forces, especially the performance assessment edTPA™, Roosevelt and Garrison turn to John Dewey's notion of the teacher as “inspirer and director of soul‐life.” Among other important attributes involved in forming the soul of inspirational teaching, the authors discuss moral perception of the needs, desires, and interests of unique individuals participating in specific situations, and also moral imagination, which allows teachers to see beyond the actual to conceive better possibilities. Roosevelt and Garrison conclude with depictions of two student‐teachers, one troubled by her inability to hear the souls of students and another experiencing the loss of his teaching soul.