| Through an examination of the identity of the cooperating teacher, this study interrogates the relationships that exist between the pedagogical and the practical in pre-service teacher education, specifically within the phenomenon of student teaching. An investigation of the lifeworld of the cooperating teacher, exclusively through her use of language, reveals the experience of living one's expectations for another (the student teacher). Through a close examination of the identity of the cooperating teacher as mentor, a complex and dynamic relationship between two people is revealed, comprised of a myriad of power implications. To understand what it means to be a cooperating teacher is to understand the meaning structures that have come to restrict, challenge, or question the nature of mentoring and, consequently, student teaching. This study takes investigative and analytical methodologies towards a more nuanced approach to performing research, specifically through Mark Vagle's post-intentional phenomenology, Gunther Kress's multimodal discourse analysis, Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis, and critical arts-based research in the style of Postcolonial activist artist, Jean Michel Basquiat. The result becomes multimodal critical discourse analysis- visual critical paintings that: 1) Challenge the dominant notion of research as that of written or spoken language and 2) Interrogate the power positions revealed in and through the language of the cooperating teacher participants. |
