Mediating the Sources and Benefits of Teacher Self-Efficacy for Systemic Transformative Meaning-Making

Introduction

Teacher candidates preparing to become P-12 classroom teachers should be guided and supported to “educate the whole child” (Noddings, 2005). According to Noddings, schools throughout the history of the United States were “established as much for moral and social reasons as for academic instruction.” Noddings adds that “in his 1818 Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson included in the ‘objects of primary education’ such qualities as morals, understanding of duties to neighbors and country, knowledge of rights, and intelligence and faithfulness in social relations” (Jefferson, 1818, in Noddings, 2005) One hundred years later, in its 1918 report on the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, the National Education Association (NEA) identified seven aims of education: (1) health; (2) command of the fundamental processes; (3) worthy home membership; (4) vocation; (5) citizenship; (6) worthy use of leisure; and (7) ethical character (Kliebard, 1995, p. 98, in Noddings, 2005). Presenting a holistic approach to teaching, learning, and schooling (Cochran-Smith, 1991) as an integrated process, the NEA Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education became one of the most influential educational documents of the 20^th century (Schugurensky, 2005).

Concomitantly, during the late 19^th century and early 20^th century, John Dewey founded the Progressive Education Movement, a term “used to describe ideas and practices that aim to make schools more effective agencies of a democratic society” (John Dewey Project on Education, 2002) emphasizing the educational needs of the whole child inclusive of physical, social, emotional (affective), and intellectual (cognitive) growth and development (Zilversmit, 1993). Dewey’s “habits of the mind” (Dewey, 1916/1997, chap 4) encourage co-construction of new understanding, critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, experimentation, decision-making, community-building, action-taking, and responsibility…blending realism with idealism (Ghenea, 2015). Extending Dewey’s research and writing, educators strive to create contemporary classrooms centered on democracy manifested through self-action, interaction, and transaction (Glassman & Kang, 2011) promoting insights and inspirations applicable to self, others, and society.

Now, one hundred years after Dewey and two hundred years after Jefferson, these goals are evident in the five tenets established by the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) (2012) as shown in Table 1.