Reimagining The Call to Teach

This award-winning sequel to the internationally acclaimed classic, The Call to Teach, revisits the idea of teaching as a calling in light of contemporary expectations in education. Reimagining The Call to Teach brings to life an ethical approach to teaching that is informed by an understanding of teaching’s great purpose: to help the next generation forge a spirit of mutual care and concern while supporting each student’s distinctive way of being in the world. Hansen juxtaposes testimony from public school educators with ideas and examples drawn from philosophy, teacher education, research on teaching, literature, and other arts. He demonstrates that, despite pressing structural challenges in the educational system, teachers can bring their calling to life by supporting one another and by engaging in philosophical inquiry and self-cultivation. Rendered with Hansen’s customary eloquence, this dynamic book will be of interest to all who care about the dignity of teachers and teaching in our time.

Book Features:

• Provides a fresh and inspiring account of teaching as a calling.
• Draws creatively on a wide-range of sources, including extensive testimony from teachers.
• Focuses on an ethical approach to working with teachers called “bearing witness.”
• Highlights the important place of philosophy in being a teacher and a teacher educator.
• Uses an accessible and engaging style with rich examples throughout.

David T. Hansen is professor and director of the Program in Philosophy and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. His books include Ethical Visions of Education: Philosophies in Practice and A Life in Classrooms: Philip W. Jackson and the Practice of Education.

“Hansen hopes that moving away from current models will accelerate a desire to foster society’s well-being, educating students for lives of meaning and purpose. … A very important book for the present.”

—CHOICE

“Hansen’s lucid and eloquent description illuminates how and why teaching is a practice that forms and transforms lives in ways that are as unexpected as they are profound. Thank you, David Hansen, for showing us why teaching is so vital for human flourishing. Your insight that teaching is a calling resonates now more than ever.”
—Deborah Kerdeman, professor emerita, College of Education, University of Washington, Seattle

“David Hansen’s Reimagining The Call to Teach is a book that can edify and enrich the life of a teacher at any stage of their career. Understanding that great spiritual mysteries often hide in plain sight, Hansen explores the ways in which a life devoted to the edification of others redounds to the teacher's own great benefit. In what other profession can the call to develop one's own self also help others to do likewise? Reading David Hansen's book reawakens us to the existential possibilities of teaching—and reminds us that meaning is found in skillfully attuning to the everyday realities of ‘being with’ others.”
—Kyle Greenwalt, associate director of teacher preparation and associate professor, Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University

“David Hansen’s Reimagining The Call to Teach is a beautiful and thoughtful book that carefully attends to the rich complexities of the teaching endeavor. Hansen offers an inspiring and rigorous account of the calling that informs the practice of good teachers.”
—Kevin Gary, professor and chair, Department of Education, Valparaiso University

Contents (Tentative)

Acknowledgments

Preface

1. Contours of the Call to Teach
The Shape and Form of Vocation
Purpose, Function, and Tradition in Teaching
A Brief Look Back

2. The Call to Teach and the Practice of Teaching
Origins of the Inquiry into the Call to Teach
Passion Revisited and Truth in Teaching
Teaching is ‘Being With’
Questioning and Reflection in Service of Being With

3. Philosophy, Theory and Wisdom in Teaching
The Teacher’s Relation with Theory
Philosophy and Wisdom in Teaching
The Metaphorical and Poetic Language of Vocation
The Person Project
Concluding Note

4. Bearing Witness to Teaching and Teachers
Perception and Bearing Witness
Purpose and Trajectory in Witnessing
From Resonant Particulars to Dignity in Teaching
Having a Witness in Your Classroom: Earl’s Testimony
A Note of Anticipation

5. Teachers’ Testimonials and the Call to Teach
On the Sense of Vocation
Attunement and Being With
Challenges to the Practice’s Vitality
The Person in Education
Afterthought: Passion and Tradition in Teaching

6. The Call to the Ethical Practice of Teaching
Dimensions of the Ethical Practice of Teaching
The Call to Teach and Teacher Education
Bearing Witness in Teacher Education and Teacher Assessment
Postlude

Notes

References

Index

About the Author

2023 AESA Critics' Choice Book Award
2022 Choice Outstanding Academic Title