Teachers' Visions: The Role of Personal Ideals in School Reform

This paper explores how the concept of ``teachers' vision'' – or, teachers' images of ideal classroom practice – may be used to help us better understand the development of teachers' work and their careers. Drawing upon data from surveys and interviews with high school teachers, the author describes four different types of visions. By examining differences in the focus, range and distance of those visions, she shows how vision can serve as a guide for directing practice as well as a means of measuring how far teachers may be from their ideals. In the process, she suggests that teachers' visions can help explain what assumptions teachers make; what they learn about those assumptions; why and how they may choose to change their practice; and even whether or not they elect to remain in the profession. In conclusion, the paper considers how vision might function as a powerful tool for helping teachers surface and interrogate their beliefs as well as to imagine and elaborate pathways to promising new practices.