Reflection, Contemplation and Teacher Problem Solving in the World(s) of the Classroom

Abstract

Thinking is at the heart of teaching and learning. In this chapter,we explore how two connected modes of thinking—contemplative and reflective—may inform the practice of teachers, and highlight the importance of this for beginning teachers especially. More than a century ago, philosopher John Dewey published the first edition of How We Think. A key feature of Dewey’s work is that reflection is only one mode of thinking, the more obvious and visible mode, as made clear in Donald Schön’s characterisations of The Reflective Practitioner. There is another mode of thinking, one to which Dewey gives different names—affective, qualitative—a mode central to John P. Miller’s views in The Contemplativ..