Product Description

Kate Evans' book is the first ever study of lesbian and gay pre-service teachers. It includes experiences as a student of teaching in the university, as well as teachers or assistant teachers in public schools. Integrating personal stories from interviews with broader global theories on notions of identity and queer theory, she gives a moving and insightful look at the positions these teachers hold. Her study provides for thought-provoking debate on the negotiation of self and subjectivity and gives valuable perspective to this growing field in education.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1357153 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

Review
This is an exciting and important book . . . Kate Evans has advanced significantly our understanding of the pedagogical politics of emotion. -- from the foreword by William F. Pinar, author of Queer Theory in Education
What else can we feel like when we feel like teaching? All at once, Evans' surprising and important study shows us the utter complications of the public and the private, of what happens when the teacher's self becomes both a unit of study, and a relation called desire. We meet crucial and new questions for teacher education: what does sexuality have to do with teaching? If sexuality is inextricably tied to and made from our sense of self and others how can we think from the matter of eros in learning and teaching? Evans' moves are bold, engaging, and compassionate in her study of learning from the emotional work of gay teachers. -- Deborah P. Britzman, Professor of Education and Social and Political Thought, York University, Toronto.
Our author inaugurates new directions for teacher education: not those that instruct identity-- although she offers a lively history of this dreary insistence-- but rather this study raises original questions that invite the cinematic scenery of identity to unfold in slow motion and so compose that accidental mix-up of education, desire, prohibition, character, with the stuff of queer dreams. With skill, humor, and verve, Evans invites readers behind the scenes of queer theory in education to ponder the ethical work of learning from gay-identified teachers. Let us welcome this queer ethnography for it enlivens and sets to work the libidinal qualities of teaching and learning in a field called teacher education. -- Deborah P. Britzman, Professor of Education and Social and Political Thought, York University, Toronto.
Kate Evans uses key insights of 'queer theory' to understand the experiences of LGBT teachers and, in the process, sheds light on both subjects. Those interested in both the real world experiences of LGBT educators andin developing a theoretical framework for understanding them will find this a fascinating read. -- Kevin Jennings, Executive Director, GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network)
In a carefully nuanced text, Evans mixes interviews, theory and personal biography to help us understand how we might negotiate the difficult terrain of self and identity. The text moves back and forth from the local to the global so that we are constantly trying to understand how teachers make sense of their selves, and how our personal identities impact our work as teachers. This is a book full of thoughtful insights that forces us to reflect on our own lives. -- Bill Tierney Wilbur Kieffer Professor of Higher Education
This book uses key insights from queer theory to understand the experiences of LGBT teachers and, in the process, sheds light on both subjects. Those interested in both the 'real world' experiences of LGBT educators and in developing a theoretical framework for understanding them will find this a fascinating read. -- Kevin Jennings, Executive Director, Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN)
Kate Evans inaugurates new directions for teacher education: not those that instruct identity-although she offers a lively history of this dreary insistence-but rather, those that invite the cinematic scenery of identity to unfold in slow motion, and so compose that accidental mix of education, desire, prohibition, character, with the stuff of queer dreams. -- Deborah P. Britzman, Professor of Education and Social and Political Though, York University, Toronto
In this nuanced text, Kate Evans helps us understand how we negotiate the difficult terrain of self and identity, and how our identities impact our work as teachers. Evans' keen insights force us to reflect on our own lives. -- Bill Tierney, Wilbur Kieffer Professor of Higher Education, University of Southern California
I highly recommend that all supervisors of student teachers, cooperating teachers, and preservice teachers read Evans'book since it will provide an excellent framework for understanding the heteronormativity prevalent in our universities, teacher education programs, and public schools today... This book is a must read for all teacher educators and preservice teachers. It begins to break the silence that has been condoned for too long. -- Teacher's College Record

About the Author
Kate Evans is Assistant Professor of Education at San Jose State University.

Customer Reviews

What lies within you
Sometimes you judge a book by its cover. Sometimes you read the book and discover so much more. If education is experience. And the essence of experience is self-reliance. Then you should experience this book for yourself.

On the surface the book is about teaching and homosexuality. But what it is really about is something that we can all understand and use to better ourselves. It is about your identity and how you censor and project yourself to others - how much or little do you reveal. It questions why we do what we do in order to make ourselves fit a role in order to gain acceptance.

Have you ever experienced a rite of passage? Such as becoming an adult, parent or receiving a driver's license. If you have faced such transitions in your life, this book is for you! You will learn a lot from the discussion about how these changes affect how you perceive others and they you.

If the duty of a writer is to dig into the psyche and mythologize our environment, Kate Evans has done that with this book. It is universal for all kinds of transitions and times in your life. Or as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it...

"What lies behind you and what lies before you are small matters compared to what lies within you."

The changing self
Identity, sexuality, and emotion in learning to teach, is the subtitle to this remarkable book, Negotiating the Self, written by Kate Evans. Evans examines the experiences of gay and lesbian teachers in the school setting. She uses several different pre-service teachers and their experiences of teaching to convey the message of the difficulties homosexual educators have in the school systems. Then Evans goes further in this realm of experiencing difficulties while teaching to include any teacher, regardless of race, sexual orientation, religion, or creed. Every educator negotiations themselves during teaching because of their own personal identities that they do not wish to reveal to their students.
Why do teachers withhold or avoid answering certain questions their students' pose? This was a key question that I held throughout the entire reading and I still have not answered it. Evan's writing allows the reader to question and think about the conditions she sets forth in her writing about the gay and lesbian pre-service teachers and how they relate to the readers own life, no matter the sexual orientation. Negotiations take place to maintain the social order that is present in any school system, that is the avoidance or not answering a personal question that is posed by a student.
In conclusion, this is an excellent read that makes the reader consider the constraints placed upon them that may involve their sexual orientation, religion, political position, and any other factors that are considered personal by the educator. How one answers, does not answer a question, or withholds information is a process of negotiating the self in relationship to others, which affect all the people involved in the interaction. Evans offers a point of view that openly addresses issues that educators face on a daily basis. Read it to find out how you negotiate yourself!

Excellent!
I originally was not interested in reading this book, but I am glad I did read it. I was entertained and compelled to stop and reflect on how and why we send the messages we do. The journey travels on four different lives that have pain, personal struggles, and laughter, which are things that we all share. Just like any other good book, I couldn¡¯t put it down until I found out what became of these four people. Unlike a fictional story, Kate Evans eloquently narrates the stories, and brings the importance of the common theme, self-identity, to the more national issue of the education and gay/lesbian mix.

The book centers on gay and lesbian teachers in-training, but more importantly, it looks into the way we interact with one another. We get to see a rare look into these professionals through their self-examination and interviews with Kate Evans. This book is a thought-provoking look into negotiating the self.

¡°What happens when one¡¯s senses of self interact with a new role or identity?¡± (Evans, p. 5) I found this to be a major question the Kate Evans addresses. How would you answer this question? How do you believe the one¡¯s sense of self interacts with a new role or identity? Imagine going back to school after years of being out of school, or becoming a parent for the first time. Events like these will affect how you think, interact with others, and who you are. You will forever be changed. Just because the issues in this book are about education and homosexuality, it is still relevant to communities other than the gay and lesbian community and the education community. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to know one¡¯s self better, to examine why we behave the way we do.