Reconciling the Congruent and ContrastingRoles of Social Work Teacher,

Student and Practitioner:An Experiential Account

of Three Doctoral StudentsTamara SussmanKevin StoddartEunice Gorman

ABSTRACT. Social work educators who are balancing the congruentroles of teacher and social work practitioner and the contrasting roles ofstudent and teacher face unique challenges that have not been captured inthe literature. This paper represents an experiential account of three doc-toral candidates who were teaching while simultaneously occupying theroles of full-time students and social work practitioners. We propose thatexamining boundary management between teachers and students in thecontext of these three roles and the implicit or explicit epistemology ar-ticulated in carrying out these roles will highlight the complexities ofmaintaining a comfortable relational stance with students. [Article cop-ies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service:1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <docdelivery@haworthpress.com>Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc.All rights reserved.].

Tamara Sussman, MSW, RSW, is a PhD Candidate, Faculty of Social Work, Uni-versity of Toronto, 246 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1, Canada(E-mail: tamara.sussman@utoronto.ca). Kevin P. Stoddart, MSW, RSW, PhD, is inprivate practice (E-mail: stoddart@aspergers.net). Eunice Gorman, MSW, RSW, is aPhD Candidate, Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto (E-mail: eunice.gorman@utoronto.ca).

The authors would like to acknowledge Professor Marion Bogo, Faculty of SocialWork, University of Toronto, for guiding them through a journey of reflective learning.

Journal of Teaching in Social Work, Vol. 24(1/2) 2004http://www.haworthpress.com/web/JTSW

2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.Digital Object Identifier: 10.1300/J067v24n01_10 161

KEYWORDS. Doctoral student teachers, social work education, stu-dent-teacher boundaries

I am still a learner, not a teacher, feeding somewhat omnivo-rously, browsing both stalk and leaves; but I shall perhaps be en-abled to speak with more precision and authority by and by, ifphilosophy and sentiment are not buried under a multitude of de-tails.

–Henry David Thoreau

INTRODUCTION

Emerging social work educators who balance the roles of newteacher, clinical practitioner and graduate student are faced with uniquechallenges that often go unnoticed and that have not been captured inthe social work education literature. While numerous social work edu-cators have explored the fit between practicing and teaching socialwork (Dore, 1993; Gottfried, 1995; Kurland, 1991), this role congru-ence has not been examined in the case of student teachers who are si-multaneously occupying the roles of graduate student, teacher andpractitioner. Further, student instructors who have published personalteaching accounts have not focused on the contrasting features of theirroles as teachers and learners and the resulting impact upon their teach-ing experience (Amirault, 1995; Brown, 1999).

As PhD candidates who team-taught the same first-year MSW prac-tice course, we came to realize that learning to teach often involves dif-ficult boundary struggles between our students and ourselves. We feelthat these boundary dilemmas are exacerbated when new teachers oc-cupy contrasting and complementary roles within the same institution.Further, these tensions are complicated by potentially competingepistemologies in these roles.

In this reflective article, we share our experiences of teaching a socialwork practice course while at the same time occupying the roles ofgraduate student and social work practitioner. By reflecting on our ownteaching experiences, we have proposed a conceptual scheme that high-lights how our multiple roles complicated the way we related to our stu-dents (see Figure 1). Potentially, access to our model will assist otherstudent instructors to reflect on their own experiences and will facilitate

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increased awareness of these struggles in other departments of socialwork.

Although our journey began with a search for a clear solution to the di-lemmas created by our congruent and contrasting roles, we now knowthat there is no end point to the work of managing teacher-student bound-

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ACADEMIC CULTURERational, technical knowledge valued over experiential knowledgePositivist teaching and learning environment

SELF

Practice wisdomPersonal histories

Personal epistemologies

SW PractitionerPractice skillsExperiential knowledge

Student LearnerEmpty vesselPositivist expectations

TeacherDidactic Instructor/AssessorBank clerkPositivist-expectations

Role Model/FacilitatorPractice skillsExperiential-knowledge

StudentsEmpty vesselsPositivist expectations

Contrasting RolesCongruent RolesCongruent Roles: May lead to boundary crossingContrasting Roles: May lead to ridgid boundariesCongruent & Contrasting Roles: May lead to BOTH clearly delineated boundariesAND boundary crossing

FIGURE 1. The Congruent and Contrasting Roles of Student Teachersof Social Work Practice

aries and no clear reconciliation of the accompanying congruent and con-trasting roles. Instead, we have learned to be satisfied with “not knowing”and, thus, to embrace this iterative process, to which this discussion be-longs. Doing otherwise would limit valuable learning opportunities.

UNDERSTANDING AND MANAGING OUR CONGRUENTAND CONTRASTING ROLES

Our “reflection on action” (Schon, 1983) was precipitated by a teach-ing course for doctoral students who were interested in preparing for theteaching component of the professorate. Valuing our personal knowl-edge (Erault, 1994), the course instructor facilitated a process of criticalreflection by inviting us to “elaborate, refine and modify [our] existingknowledge through reflection on its meaning and usefulness for partic-ular [teaching] situations” (Bogo, 2001). In encouraging a four-stagecycle of learning, our professor called upon us to (a) share teaching sto-ries and strategies (concrete learning), (b) observe our own and others’teaching practices, (c) present and reflect upon critical teaching andlearning incidents and (d) discuss educational theory (abstract concep-tualization) (Kolb, 1984). Both class participants and the instructor de-scribed the richness of this classroom experience as a “play within aplay.” We were students learning about teaching, while simultaneouslycritically observing our professor teach and using the knowledge wehad gained from her. Our personal reflections on our own teaching werelocated in the here and now and in the context of our own subjective ex-perience of the classroom as learners. To maximize reflective learning,a supportive, safe environment was created in which to explore andrethink challenging teaching experiences (Calderhead & Gates, 1993;Taylor, 1997). This learning process enabled us to engage in the reflec-tions presented in this paper.

We had two key roles in the faculty of social work. Foremost, wewere full-time students who were reentering an institution of higherlearning after several years of professional, direct practice. Second, wewere student instructors, hired for our clinical expertise and responsiblefor teaching two paired first-year MSW practice courses. The morningcourse was designed to introduce students to the theory and practice ofsocial work, while the afternoon course focused on counselling skillsand interviewing techniques. In a given year, two of the three of us wereresponsible for teaching these two courses. Because we, the student in-structors, were jointly responsible for the two courses (which involved

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the same group of students), we were able to rely on one another forpeer support–a luxury not often afforded to other student instructors.The two courses had four sections each. Full-time faculty taught the ad-ditional sections. Since we were planning and delivering all lectures inour section, we were seen by our students as course instructors ratherthan teaching assistants. Each year, the two of us that were hired toteach were part of a teaching team with faculty members which in-volved meeting periodically to discuss consistency between sections,student issues, and course assignments.

Our roles as students and teachers were comprised of contrasting roleidentities (Ashforth, 2000). As PhD students in a research-based institu-tion, we felt like empty vessels devoid of knowledge. Most of our re-quired first-year courses were intended to deposit information aboutresearch methods into our otherwise “empty accounts” (Friere, 1970).Some professors implied that social workers know little about research,confirming our own sense of emptiness. Because we were also instruc-tors in an institution that placed more value on knowledge developedthrough theory and research than on knowledge acquired through prac-tice experience, we felt as if we were expected to be experts. Beingdeemed “bank clerks” of social work practice made us feel fraudulent.How could we be both empty and full simultaneously? We recognizethat our contrasting role identities were exacerbated by the context inwhich we were teaching and learning. As such, student instructors atnon-research-based institutions may experience their student andteacher identities differently.

Role incongruence was evident within the role of instructor. As in-structors of clinical practice, we were (a) facilitators of discussions,(b) role models of clinical practice, (c) traditional didactic instructorsand (d) assessors (Webb, 1997). These four roles were not always com-patible. For example, as role models of clinical practice, we illustratedstrength-building by pointing out the skills and expertise that studentsbrought to class. After determining the extent of their skills, we encour-aged the students to build upon these strengths. We were also trying todemonstrate empathy, nonjudgmental acceptance and the creation of asafe environment. However, we were additionally required to assessour students’ academic performances. This meant judging them in rela-tion to where we felt they ought to be. The power associated with grad-ing students’ performances made us feel uncomfortable and seemedcontrary to our efforts to be supportive role models. These role tensionswere especially evident when students disagreed with our evaluationsand suggested that we were not seeing or appreciating their strengths.

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Our identity as practitioners, on the other hand, was highly congruentwith our identity as role models and course facilitators. In all three roles,we saw ourselves as insightful, sensitive, competent and empathic.While this congruence made our role transitions fluid, it created thechallenge of role blurring (Ashford, 2000). There were certainly paral-lels between modeling direct practice and intervening as direct practi-tioners (Webb, 1997). But there were also subtle differences that if notrecognized, could lead to role blurring.

As direct practitioners, for example, we were cognizant of the impor-tance of establishing relationships with our students based on concern,respect, empathy and the contracting of tasks and goals (Bordin, 1979).While emotional aspects of the student-teacher relationship are also im-portant (Lowman, 1994), instructors must draw a clear line betweenhelping students express themselves and encouraging them in appropri-ate self-disclosure. In our experience, troubled students did not alwaysappreciate this line. When they heard us voice concern about them, theyrecognized that we had professional expertise and began to disclosepersonal information. While it was tempting and often flattering to havestudents approach us this way, we had to learn how to psychologicallydifferentiate between our roles as instructors modeling practice and ourroles as practitioners intervening with clients.

Our roles as students further exacerbated our struggle between actingas practitioners versus acting as role models. Being students in a ratio-nal, technical university amplified our sense of emptiness. We often feltde-skilled and incompetent. To cope with this stress, we tended to de-value our student roles and elevate our practitioner roles (Pearlin &Schooler, 1978). Hence, we would often believe (and say to each other)that the evidence of our success in school (measured in less than ade-quate ways) was less significant than the years of clinical practice wehad worked, providing evidence that we were good social work practi-tioners. The use of this coping process, however, meant that we stronglyidentified with our roles as practitioners, making the separation be-tween practitioner and teacher roles even more challenging.

Balancing different roles is often facilitated when these roles are prac-ticed with different groups of individuals. While the role of parent and therole of employer may necessitate similar role functions, for example,these roles are exercised with different individuals with whom one hasdisparate responsibilities and emotional investments. These differencestend to facilitate fluid and natural role transitions. Choosing between con-trasting roles when relating to the same person(s) may be more emotion-ally and/or psychologically challenging (Kaslow & Kaslow, 1992). Like

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all teachers of clinical practice, we had to deliberately determine whichteaching role was more salient at the time and choose between these roleswhile relating to the same individuals (our students). Unlike other full-time instructors, however, we had to do so without letting our student per-sonas interfere with our decisions.

Further, “switching cognitive gears” (Louis & Sutton, 1991) by dis-engaging psychologically from one role identity and reengaging in asecond, dissimilar role identity can be facilitated by space and place. Agolf professional, for example, may be focused, driven and talentedwhen competing on a golf course but absent-minded and scattered in hishouse. The space of golf course and the space of home facilitate the psy-chological transition from one role to the other, making the experienceseem almost natural. However, we could not rely on physical space toassist us in the rapid cognitive shifting required by our contrasting rolesas students and teachers. We were teaching and studying in the sameclassrooms. In two cases, we walked out of our doctoral class (feelingsomewhat de-skilled) and down the hall to teach our classes. This in-ability to rely on space and place for role transitioning is unique to stu-dent teachers who are studying and teaching at the same institution.

Perhaps we were most ill-prepared for the part our students played inthe transitions between our various teaching roles. In classroom set-tings, students effectively communicate the role that they want teachersto play through responses such as anger, anxiety and withdrawal (Mannet al., 1970). On many occasions, for example, students were anxiousabout an upcoming paper and would pressure us to transition from ourfacilitator role (often when we were trying to encourage discussion on apractice issue) to our role as assessor by asking questions about thatpractice issue in relation to the assignment. Because we did not antici-pate these dynamics, we felt that we were succumbing to student pres-sures when we transitioned from facilitators to assessors. We nowrealize that transitioning between teaching roles in these instances is asign of teaching competence. At the time, however, our sense of ‘notknowing’ made these dynamics difficult to tolerate and often exacer-bated our feeling of incompetence.

MANAGING BOUNDARIES IN THE CONTEXTOF MULTIPLE ROLES

To successfully establish comfortable limits with our students, wehad to distinguish between our four different teaching roles: role mod-

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els, didactic instructors, facilitators and assessors, and our student andpractitioner roles. Managing the boundaries between these differentparts of self was necessary if we were to relate appropriately to our stu-dents. We came to understand that the contrasting and complimentaryfeatures of our role identities (exacerbated by the context in which theseroles were formed/transformed) complicated our ability to transitionamong our roles and manage the relational boundaries between our stu-dents and ourselves.

Boundaries between self and others are established and managedthrough implicit and explicit relationship rules. In teaching, as in clini-cal practice, defining the parameters of these “deliberate relationships”remains the responsibility of the more authoritative and must be guidedby the needs of the subordinate(s) (Chadda & Slonim, 1998; Hartmann,1997; Tom, 1997). We entered into a relationship with our students cog-nizant of these important issues, since we were trained practitioners.We were aware that as instructors we were obligated to manage the rela-tionship based upon our students’ needs, but our roles as students com-plicated this task because we were subordinates. In order to create asuccessful relationship with our students, we had to remind ourselvesthat we were in a position of power and authority.

Our students’ reactions to us made our ability to delineate betweenour roles as students and teachers all the more challenging. Their re-spect and admiration was seductive and promised to fulfill our need asstudents to be accepted and competent. Befriending them could meanthat our student selves were being nurtured. Although our clinical train-ing helped us see some of these tensions, the pull between our studentroles and our instructor roles made the psychological delineation be-tween these roles extremely difficult, thereby challenging our ability tomanage deliberate relationships with our students.

Nyquist and Sprague (1992) suggest that teaching assistants movethrough three developmental stages in their teaching careers. In the firststage, teaching assistants strongly identify with their students and areextremely sensitive to negative interactions with these students. Thisstrong identification, however, diminishes as student instructors gainteaching experience and gradually move through two other stages–dis-tancing themselves from students and developing collaborative rela-tionships with students. This progression happens as student teachersbegin to identify more closely with faculty.

While we believe that our identification with students diminishedover our years of teaching, we feel that linear, staged models such asthose suggested by Nyquist and Sprague (1992) simplify the circular di-

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lemmas of managing two conflicting roles. Student teachers are bothstudents and teachers and will continually negotiate (a) the transitionbetween these two roles and (b) the relational boundaries betweenthemselves and their students in the context of both roles. On any givenday, for example, a doctoral student may receive a poor evaluation on avalued piece of work. Feeling hurt and disillusioned, this instructor maybe vulnerable to positive or negative countertransference. The first in-volves seeing one’s students as vulnerable (like oneself) and, hence, re-sponding to students’ concerns by being nurturing, understanding oroverly lenient. The second involves distancing from students by inter-nally reaffirming one’s authority and power and seeking the high levelof performance that the doctoral student feels is being sought by theirown mentors. We experienced both tendencies as student teachers.

Negotiating our multiple teacher roles challenged the boundary man-agement between our teaching selves and our students further. We feltthis struggle most often when students voiced concerns about so-calledunfair course demands. In these instances, we experienced role confu-sion. As role models, we felt compelled to communicate compassionand empathy by listening to students who felt course demands weregreat. Conversely, as assessors we thought we needed to exercise our“expert” power and authority by reinforcing our belief that certain ex-pectations were important for student learning. We did not always knowwhich role was more appropriate in a given situation. Our struggle isbest depicted by an example from our teaching practice.

One of the requirements of the practice course that we taught (whichwas considered to be a precursor to the student practicum in the nextterm) was that students who missed classes had to make up for their ab-sences by completing small assignments. The intent was to model pro-fessionalism and to communicate to students that this course wasinstrumental to their preparation for the practicum. We clearly commu-nicated this expectation at the beginning of the semester. As studentsbecame more involved in the course and their workload increased, theybegan to question this policy. Some of our students told us they refusedto do these assignments or simply did not hand them in. As instructors,we struggled to balance being understanding of students’ stress (model-ing practice) and fulfilling our responsibility as assessors. We did notknow which role was more important to exercise and debated the im-portance of teaching students to fulfill their responsibilities and empa-thizing with their work demands. We finally agreed to forfeit theassignments for the remainder of the year after raising the issue with ourteaching team. We told the class that we were responding to their con-

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cerns regarding workload by eliminating the requirement of a make-upassignment for the remainder of the term. We did, however, emphasizethe rationale behind the implementation of this course requirement,thereby reminding students that professionalism remained an importantgoal for the course.

Managing the boundaries of a deliberate relationship also involves es-tablishing parameters around time and space. In our relationship with cli-ents, for example, we clearly contract with them regarding the limits ofour interactions (e.g., contact between sessions) and the physical space inwhich our interactions will occur (e.g., in our offices only or at the cli-ent’s home) (Clarke, Rompf, & Walker, 2001; Gutheil & Gabbard,1993). We were fortunate to begin our teaching career with this practiceknowledge. Our parameters, however, were limited by our context andthreatened by our student roles. As teaching assistants, we did not havecampus offices or phones so that students could reach us. Consequently,we gave our students our home telephone numbers and e-mail addresses,thus inviting students into our private spaces. We would not offer thesame type of accessibility to our clients and felt ill-prepared at times formanaging the boundary issues that arose. Some students, for example,called us during the weekends. This made us feel more accessible than weintended. Further, the Internet provided students with a twenty-four houropportunity to contact us, and the speed of our responses became an is-sue. We also had students voicing complaints via e-mail and were unsurehow much to engage in this conversation electronically and how much toinsist on face-to-face contact. While full-time faculty also face these In-ternet challenges, we wonder if these issues arise more frequently for stu-dent teachers who do not have permanent offices or faculty telephonenumbers where students can easily reach them.

Our time and space management was further complicated by the vul-nerability that we felt as students. It is well known that instructors dem-onstrating knowledge, expertise and empathy are highly valued bystudents (Kurland, 1991; Lowman, 1994). Because we identified withour students as empty accounts (especially in teaching), we had a ten-dency to overcompensate for our perceived lack of expertise by beingoverly kind and empathic towards them. We also had the experienceand knowledge of offering ourselves in the therapeutic relationship as aprimary agent of change. Just having started teaching, we were some-times too flexible around boundaries of time and space because wewanted to be accepted. While we communicated open boundaries, westill had unexpressed expectations around the extent to which studentsshould contact us (MacGillvray, 1997). Hence, we found ourselves ir-

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ritated with the students who insisted on calling us at inappropriatetimes. By failing to recognize and communicate our expectations, wedid not fulfill our responsibility of managing these relational bound-aries. We now appreciate that the seduction of acceptance may have in-terfered with our boundary management obligations.

Social work practitioners, like other clinical professionals, continu-ally make boundary decisions about how much to probe for feelings andhow far to probe beyond the presenting problem. We faced similar deci-sions in our role as course facilitators. For instance, we made constantchoices about how much to probe student anxieties around upcomingpapers, curriculum workload and performance anxiety associated withconducting role-plays in front of the class. In clinical practice, the deci-sion to probe one area and not another is determined by (a) one’s theo-retical approach to practice, and (b) one’s instincts (Hermansson,1997). Hence, a feminist practitioner will probe for oppressive struc-tures underlying the presenting problem but at the same time will beaware of ‘where the client is’ in framing his/her problem (Haddock,Zimmerman & MacPhee, 2000). A solution-focused practitioner willconversely stay with the client’s framing of the problem and probe forsolutions within their world (DeJong & Berg, 1998).

Unlike our clinical practice, no theoretical or epistemological frame-works guided us in teaching (Graham, 1997). We were, thus, relying onour conceptual knowledge from clinical practice and our instincts con-cerning which actions best fit certain situations (Brookfield, 1995).These impromptu decisions were further complicated by our roles asstudents. It was difficult to determine, for example, if we were inclinedto probe for feelings around student frustrations because we felt it wascongruent with our role as facilitator or because these complaints vali-dated our own student experiences. We were fortunate to rely on oneanother as a support network as we reflected upon these struggles.

The environment in which we taught social work practice forced usinto dual relationships, creating additional boundary tensions for us(Ryder & Hepworth, 1990; Tomm, 1993). Our clinical training hastaught us the importance of avoiding dual relationships with our clients(Kagle & Giebelhausen, 1994). In practice, we understand that be-friending clients or entering into business relationships with them isquestionable at best because we cannot escape the power dynamicspresent in our social work-client relationship. While both the Canadianand American Codes of Ethics for social work explicitly advise socialwork practitioners (CASW, 1994) and social work educators (NASW,1996) to avoid dual relationships, engaging in certain types of dual rela-

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tionships (e.g., being a student and a research assistant) is commonpractice in academia (Congress, 2001).

In our context, we were sitting on committees with our students and tak-ing courses from our teaching team colleagues. The dual affiliation withfaculty made it difficult for us to share our teaching vulnerabilities withteam members. We have come to appreciate that acknowledging theseoverlapping relationships is an important step towards boundary manage-ment and must be initiated by those in authority positions. Hence, while itwas our responsibility to name our dual relationships with our students andto discuss how we would manage these relationships, it was also our teach-ing team’s responsibility to establish these parameters with us.

Many authors write about the parallels between teaching and clinicalpractice, highlighting the transferability of skills from one profession toanother (Dore, 1993; Gottfried, 1995; Kurland, 1991; Webb, 1984).While we have suggested in this article that the similarities helped us,we acknowledge that they also rendered us vulnerable to role blurringand boundary violations. These threats were further heightened by ourpositions as students. Because we did not have the opportunity to reflectupon these role similarities and distinctions in our first few years ofteaching and because we had not been exposed to theories in pedagogy,we were constantly making boundary decisions based upon our concep-tual knowledge of social work practice and our gut instincts.

THE INFLUENCE OF EPISTEMOLOGY ON ROLESAND BOUNDARIES

Our boundaries and roles with our students were informed by ourepistemology of social work practice, theory and research and by thetranslation of that understanding into our teaching. Because social rolesand identities are shaped by sociopolitical structures (Pearlin, 1994), weend this reflection on action by describing the epistemological contextin which our roles as teachers, learners and practitioners were exer-cised. As developing social work educators, we became attuned to theepistemological culture in which we were teaching. Graham andAl-Krenawi (2000) identified the tension historically between the case-work courses and the core courses (i.e., theoretical foundations and re-search) in our faculty. It was also apparent to us that the foundationcourses were taught by full-time faculty and the casework courses weretaught by social work practitioners hired to teach one course (sessionalinstructors). This practice seemed to give clear messages about the kind

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of knowledge that was valued. While students themselves were there tolearn how to practice social work (Bogo, Raphael & Roberts, 1993), thefaculty seemed to place more value on theory building and research,staffing these latter courses with full-time professors who had consider-ably more influence on the curriculum than their less powerful sessionalcounterparts. We were attending a university and teaching and learning ina faculty that was steeped in a positivist tradition of research and science.

We, on the other hand, had entered the university as practitioners whowere working in the “swampy waters” of people’s real and complicatedlives (Schon, 1983). After years of practicing social work, we had cometo value our practice wisdom. Recognizing that “higher ground theories”(Schon, 1983) could not easily guide our practice, we had mixed feelingsabout entering a world of rational, evidence-based knowledge. Despitethis practice history and epistemological clash, we knew that the univer-sity context had the power to form and/or transform our role identities asteachers, students and practitioners.

As doctoral students, we were evolving by developing our ownepistemologies during the same period in our academic careers that webegan teaching. In fact, all of us took a course entitled “The Epistemol-ogy of Social Work Research” in the morning before we taught our af-ternoon class. Although a review and discussion of epistemologies fromDescartes to Foucault and the accompanying feeling of not knowingcould prove to be invigorating, they were also a stark juxtaposition tothe epistemology that our next class demanded of us–that of knowing. Itseemed to us that our students demanded expertise as they expressedanxiety about their own practice, just as we were anxious about ourteaching ability. They wanted us to deliver concrete answers and haddifficulty tolerating uncertainty. Many teaching days, the not knowingof our internal epistemological debate and the not knowing of teachingwere an unwelcome union, to say the least!

Our emerging epistemological views were also reflected in the tech-niques or approaches that we brought to our teaching (Graham, 1997).For example, each of us grappled with the issue of how directive weshould be in class discussions, or the extent of class time that should bedevoted to this type of learning. While trying to maintain the belief thatthere were basic, commonly accepted social work truths and values thathad been passed down to us by our educators, and that these in turn wereessential to our student’s future practice, we also wanted to honour thepreexisting knowledge and life experiences that our students had to of-fer. Openness to student experience contributed to the group construc-tion of valuable knowledge in the classroom milieu. We felt that an

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invitation to personally grapple with some of the issues of social workled to greater confidence in the students and a trusting of their own intu-ition. These classes, however, also served to elevate anxiety levels be-cause students who were schooled in a tradition of positivist thinkinghad to face the possibility that there are often no right answers in the so-cial work profession. As seasoned practitioners, we were somewhatmore comfortable with the many ways of knowing of practice. As de-veloping teachers and students, however, uncertainty was less tolerablebecause these identities were embedded in a culture that fostered the no-tion of expert knowledge. On days when we highly identified with ourroles as competent practitioners, these uncertainties were comfortableand we could manage and support our students’ anxieties and maintaina postmodern teaching stance, if we so chose, with relative ease andcomfort. On other days, however, when we were feeling more likeempty vessels that should be expert instructors, we were less tolerant ofour students’ uncertainties and reacted to rather than supported theiranxieties by reclaiming a positivist orientation. Taking the position ofpower and knowledge in these instances enabled us to create clearboundaries between our students and ourselves and allowed us to sepa-rate ourselves from their anxieties. If we attempted to maintain apostmodern teaching approach or embraced a critical paradigm duringthese times of identity conflict, we were left feeling extremely vulnera-ble. For example, we questioned whether our decision to meet studentcritiques and possibly change the direction of the course was truly be-cause we embraced a postmodern value of multiple truths and a criticaltheory perspective that questions existing power structure or becausewe were insecure about our own level of expertise and, therefore, couldnot but should have maintained our chosen direction for the class.

Our responsibilities to grade students based on criteria established byour teaching team constrained us in our exploration of teaching tech-niques. We were not free, for example, to negotiate evaluative proce-dures with students, as these were clearly predetermined. While wecould experiment with different teaching styles supported by differentepistemological standpoints, we could not completely define our rolesand boundaries because these were in many ways defined for us by ourteaching team. For example, an epistemological flexibility allowed oneof us to show the film American Beauty to illustrate family dynamicsand pathology. Both the resulting content of that class and the teachingprocess raised uncertainty about the students’ conceptions of what the“normal” family was. While such experiments in teaching made ourepistemologies more visible to us and allowed us to explicitly engage in an

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internal reflection on our beliefs, we could not use our epistemologicalflexibility to renegotiate course assignments and expectations. We weredeveloping teachers in a system that promoted positivist teaching practices.While we recognize that faculty themselves are constrained by the systemin which they function, we as students had even less freedom than our ten-ured and tenure-tracked counterparts to question these epistemological as-sumptions.

Reconciling the epistemologies accompanying our contrasting andcongruent roles as instructors, practitioners and students in an environ-ment that clearly valued expert knowledge added another layer of con-fusion to our teaching experience. As we come to appreciate the variousepistemological standpoints and their direct impact on teaching roles,boundaries and techniques, we can begin to unpack the role epistemol-ogy played in this current teaching experience and its future role in ourdevelopment as university instructors.

RECOGNIZING THE VALUE OF TRAININGAND SUPERVISION

The desire to teach is a primary reason for individuals to pursue a doc-torate in social work (Holland, Austin, Allen-Meares & Garvin,1991;Patchner, 1982; Holland & Frost, 1987). Directors of schools of socialwork maintain that they support this goal by offering doctoral students di-rect teaching experiences (Dinerman, Feldman & Ello, 1999; Valentine,Edwards et al., 1998). While gaining teaching experience is necessary inlearning a new profession, it is not sufficient alone (Sprague, 1992).Teachers in training must also be given opportunities to grapple with the-ories of pedagogy and reflect upon their own practice with a supervisor,mentor or instructor. Without the combination of theory and practice, op-portunities for transformative learning are missed.

Schools of social work who train practitioners at the BSW and MSWlevels continue to value reflective learning (Gould & Taylor, 1996;Papell & Skolnik, 1992). Unfortunately, the same value is not placed ontraining social work educators to teach. It is assumed, rather, thatthrough experience trained practitioners can transport their clinicalskills into their classrooms and become successful teachers. There aretwo problems with this assumption. First, teaching and social work rep-resent two distinct professions built upon different theoretical and em-pirical foundations. An experienced social worker may know nothing ofadult learning theories and learning styles. (We have all had the experi-

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ence of being subject to poor teaching by an excellent clinicalpractitioner.) Second, social work students are not expected to masterpractice by simply seeing clients. They are also mandated to engage in aprocess of supervision. Why do we have different standards for socialwork educators?

The value of reflective learning for new teachers (Sprague, 1992;Feiman-Nemser, 2000) and experienced teachers (Kraft & Palmer, 2000)is well documented in the literature. With established models in reflectivelearning (Vayda & Bogo, 1991; Gould & Taylor, 1996), schools of socialwork are well positioned to offer courses or ongoing supervision to studentteachers. The opportunity to engage with pedagological frameworks helpsstudent teachers learn to teach. Large workshops commonly offered byuniversity teaching centres often lack this reflective component and are notsufficient replacements for one-on-one mentoring or doctoral seminars.

CONCLUSION

We entered into our teaching roles with no formal training in peda-gogy. As such, we relied on our professional social work training andour experience as learners to guide our teaching practice. While theknowledge generated by these other roles informed our teaching, theidentities attached to these roles also complicated our efforts to manageboundaries between ourselves as teachers and the students in our class.Most of the boundary struggles we encountered were complicated byour tasks of transitioning from students to teachers and distinguishingbetween teaching and practice. These role transitions are unique to stu-dent teachers in helping professions. Had we not been involved in a re-flective learning opportunity (a doctoral teaching course), we would nothave uncovered the complexities involved in teaching while occupyingthe roles of students and practitioners. We suggest that schools of socialwork emphasize the value of teaching by providing doctoral studentswith both direct teaching and reflective learning opportunities. Throughthis process, student teachers, vulnerable to a variety of boundary com-plexities, will gain support and understanding. While we realize that noconceptual map can shield student teachers from the uneasiness ofboundary management, we hope that through our articulation of thecomplexity of congruent and conflicting roles, student teachers and thefaculties of social work that support them will more readily recognizethe unique challenges that student teachers face.

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