“Letting Go” vs. “Holding On”: Teacher Educators' Transformative Experiences with the Kite Syndrome
Source: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 9, Issue 2, 2013, pages 152-162
This collaborative self-study introduces a learning experience regarding the meaning of our roles as teacher educators in an open-space learning environment. The study documents a learning process in which the authors framed and reframed their understanding of the meaning of their roles as they changed perspectives and reconsidered practices.
They engaged in a process that enabled them to value different learning processes and generate meaningful insights, using a metaphor, the Kite Syndrome, that helped them reinterpret the learning situation. The focus of their transformative experiences was the tension between holding on and letting go; the result was significant changes of beliefs, values, and practices as they framed and reframed their understanding of their roles. They summarize their learning by explaining how they now see theirselves not as experts but as zipped-expert mentors, ready to unzip their expertise as required to support their students' professional learning.