| This qualitative study creates portraits of high school English teachers with thirty plus years in the field to enable new and experienced English teachers to examine the careers of those at the peak of their profession.; Three individual interviews were held with each participant; all interviews were audio taped, and portraits of them were captured for illumination to depict good teachers and the experiences that they had along the way. The study was based upon the work of Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot and Jessica Hoffman Davis' The Art and Science of Portraiture (1997).; All tapes were listened to and transcribed to note emerging views of the participants over three decades of their careers. Questioning focused on their earliest thoughts from their career choices to the fourth decade of their teaching, including decisions regarding retirement.; As the interviews progressed, similar emerging themes were noted and cataloged, dissonant moments were highlighted, and developing portraits were brought into focus.; These participants knew early in life what they were about, focused upon becoming English teachers, honed their craft, pursued higher degrees, and cared about their charges enough to demand excellence in their writing, speaking, reading, and listening. All of them faced crises along the way and grew through them to become, even in retirement, vital examples of the best public school English teachers.; From this study we can learn how good teachers are created. All exhibit strength, strong personality, intellect, and endurance, but it is how they face choices and react to crises that determine their place among the best high school English teachers. Although someone else would have to determine my place in teaching, my parallel experiences provide me with an opportunity to understand what their careers represent. I am in the unique position to see important elements of their portraits that an outsider might not recognize as meaningful, even might not see. Teaching, after all, is an individual endeavor, most times practiced alone, even when done in the same building as a hundred other teachers. We seldom get the opportunity for any length of time to view personal portraits of the other people who share our profession. |
