Editorial: An Invitation
Diane Gillespie is Professor in the Goodrich Scholarship Program at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. began this Special Issue with an invitation quite different from the one faculty so often receive. This was not an invitation to document teaching excellence, nor was it an invitation to tell an "institutionalized story," the "right story," the story that goes in a personnel file. Rather, it was an invitation to tell the story behind that story, the story of transformation that deepens understanding of the practice of teaching and learning. This is the story located in the web of connections among what is being taught, the sense of self, and the values that create the context for teaching and learning. This is the story about the most private world of teaching. This is a story seldom asked for. As a colleague recently noted, "It's not often that an institution asks who you are" (R. Brophy, personal communication, November 20,1993). As uncommon as this invitation might be, we believed there were faculty who had been waiting a long time for just this invitation. If the number of submissions for this Special Issue can be taken as an indication of this longing, then we were right. Still, to be invited is one thing; to tell the story is quite another. As the "Call for Narratives" went out, so too calls—and e-mails—about narratives began to come in. Some asked, "Just what do you want? What do you mean by teaching and leaming stories?" These questions and the discussions that followed taught us yet again that narrative is not a scholarly form familiar to many. Indeed, some of the submissions "didn ' t fit" the Special Issue because they were not narratives. Rather, they were akin to Russell Baker's first draft of what was to become his powerful boyhood memoir, "Growing Up." Zinsser (1995) describes Baker's first attempt as a "reporters book." It provided the historical context of Baker's boyhood —in this case, the Depression— and reported the experiences of those who lived during that time, much as a professor might describe a classroom and the experiences of those within it. But, as Zinsser notes, "What [Baker] left out... was his mother and himself—in short, the story" (p. 13). And so, too, many of the manuscripts we received were about interesting teaching situations, ones we and the reviewers wanted to know more about—and so often even wanted to be a part of. But they were "reporters' books," not narratives. The story simply wasn't there. Others did submit storied accounts, but as Diane Gillespie tells us in her article in this issue on writing narratives, these stories were still in the process of chewing themselves
The Relation between Teacher Self-Disclosure and Student Classroom Participation
We hypothesized that teacher self-disclosure would be positively associated with student classroom participation. This hypothesis is consistent with the reciprocity effect that suggests that self-disclosure by one person will elicit self-disclosure from another. Teachers and students in 64 undergraduate classes completed questionnaires that assessed teacher self-disclosure, class participation, and students' willingness to participate in class. Correlational analyses support the central hypothesis. We suggest that the positive relation between teacher self-disclosure and class participation may not be solely a function of the examples of class concepts that such disclosures provide but may be a function of the interpersonal atmosphere created by such disclosures. The applied implications of this research are discussed.
Marie Curie's doctoral thesis: Prelude to a Nobel Prize
This paper is a critical account for the most significant body of Marie Sklodowska Curie's scientific work, presented in the hopes that she be remembered for more of the "right" reasons. It also offers some new insights into her methods and results.