Abstract

It is a truism that the person in the role of teacher matters. Students learn this truth very early in school. Teachers’ testimonials underscore its reality. School administrators relearn it every time they think about collegiality. These commonplaces attest to the truth that it is persons, not roles as such, who educate, or who fail to do so, as the case may be. It takes a human being to bring to life the many-sided nature of the role.As obvious as these points may appear, they beg the question of what it means to be a person in the role of teacher. What does it mean to invest one’s person in the role? What does it mean to allow the role to affect the very person one is becoming? What does it mean to fuse person...