Screening the Psycho-Dynamics of Learning to Teach: A Study of Depression in Teacher Education

Screening the Psycho-Dynamics of Learning to Teach is a psychoanalytic study about the status of depression in teacher education. How do films that depict depressed teachers and students offer educationalists a resource for working through depression in pedagogy? I suggest that the interminable process of learning to teach requires teachers to encounter loss, vulnerability, and sadness. Yet, the ubiquity of these emotional conditions means that depression, as a psychical defense against strong emotions, pervades the profession of teaching and prevents teachers and learners from thinking creatively. With the problem of the teachers depression in mind, I turn to three recent films about depressed educational subjects, Monsieur Lazhar (2011), Half Nelson (2006), and Mona Lisa Smile (2004) to examine both how popular representations of education depict depression in teaching and how these representations may be used as a resource for making significance of the extraordinary and mundane emotional conflicts of learning to teach. I frame my discussion of depression using the psychoanalytic theories of the dead mother (Green, 1980) and the dead teacher (Farley, 2014) in order to think about how new teachers (lost) desire affects teaching and learning relations. In each chapter, I analyze one film using one psychoanalytic concept that is relevant to pedagogy: transference in Half Nelson, identification in Mona Lisa Smile, and melancholia in Monsieur Lazhar. Alternatively, these chapters each analyze one depressed figure who haunts the scene of education: the teacher in Half Nelson who is in transference with a caring student repeats the unconscious fantasy of the emotionally dead mother; the new teacher in Mona Lisa Smile identifies with feminist historical fantasies in order to sustain her teaching desire for the depressed student(s); and, the depressed teacher in Monsieur Lazhar finds a surviving maternal teacher through whom he learns to symbolize and mourn his losses in teaching. The final chapter turns from visual analysis of the films to a discussion of the films as sites of viewer pedagogy. I suggest finally that viewer emotional responses to the films often repeat the psychodynamics of pedagogy represented on screen. Film pedagogy thus creates a space for viewers to remember, repeat, and work through the emotional conflicts of teaching and learning

Proceedings of the 3rd Biennial Conference of the Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) 2015: advancing efficient methodologies through community partnerships and team science

It is well documented that the majority of adults, children and families in need of evidence-based behavioral health interventionsi do not receive them [1, 2] and that few robust empirically supported methods for implementing evidence-based practices (EBPs) exist. The Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) represents a burgeoning effort to advance the innovation and rigor of implementation research and is uniquely focused on bringing together researchers and stakeholders committed to evaluating the implementation of complex evidence-based behavioral health interventions. Through its diverse activities and membership, SIRC aims to foster the promise of implementation research to better serve the behavioral health needs of the population by identifying rigorous, relevant, and efficient strategies that successfully transfer scientific evidence to clinical knowledge for use in real world settings [3]. SIRC began as a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded conference series in 2010 (previously titled the “Seattle Implementation Research Conference”; $150,000 USD for 3 conferences in 2011, 2013, and 2015) with the recognition that there were multiple researchers and stakeholdersi working in parallel on innovative implementation science projects in behavioral health, but that formal channels for communicating and collaborating with one another were relatively unavailable. There was a significant need for a forum within which implementation researchers and stakeholders could learn from one another, refine approaches to science and practice, and develop an implementation research agenda using common measures, methods, and research principles to improve both the frequency and quality with which behavioral health treatment implementation is evaluated. SIRC’s membership growth is a testament to this identified need with more than 1000 members from 2011 to the present.ii SIRC’s primary objectives are to: (1) foster communication and collaboration across diverse groups, including implementation researchers, intermediariesi, as well as community stakeholders (SIRC uses the term “EBP champions” for these groups) – and to do so across multiple career levels (e.g., students, early career faculty, established investigators); and (2) enhance and disseminate rigorous measures and methodologies for implementing EBPs and evaluating EBP implementation efforts. These objectives are well aligned with Glasgow and colleagues’ [4] five core tenets deemed critical for advancing implementation science: collaboration, efficiency and speed, rigor and relevance, improved capacity, and cumulative knowledge. SIRC advances these objectives and tenets through in-person conferences, which bring together multidisciplinary implementation researchers and those implementing evidence-based behavioral health interventions in the community to share their work and create professional connections and collaborations

Origins of Replication Determine Plasmid Copy Number.

<p>The origins of replication used in the study are listed with their descriptions and part numbers in the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. The means and standard deviations of PCN values were determined by qPCR and yields of minipreps.</p

Relative Fitness of Genotypes as a Function of Theophylline Production.

<p>Theophylline production as measured by LC-MS analysis is listed for the three genotypes with the highest fitness and two genotypes with very low fitness.</p

Results of Programmed Evolution.

<p>The number and genotype of colonies analyzed after Programmed Evolution from three replicate plate experiments.</p

Results of Programmed Evolution.

<p>(A) The starting population with equal amounts of all 24 strains was spread on LB agar plates with the indicated antibiotic and a disk treated as indicated. (B) Top row: spots of cells on LB agar with ampicillin for all 24 starting strains (left) and examples of clones after Programmed Evolution (right). Middle row: Agarose gels with PCR products to determine PCN for all 24 strains (left) and examples after Programmed Evolution (right). The 750 bp band for the low copy origin and the 500 bp band for the high copy origin are indicated by arrows. Bottom row: Agarose gels with PCR products to chaperone genotype for all 24 strains (left) and examples after Programmed Evolution (right). (C) The graph shows relative frequency of each of the genotype before (top) and after (bottom) Programmed Evolution. The order of chaperone plasmids along the left to right horizontal axis is pG-Tf2, pTf16, pG-KJE8, pGro7, pKJE7, and no chaperone. The order of genotype combinations along the other horizontal axis from back to front is high strength promoter/RBS + high copy origin; high strength promoter/RBS + low copy origin; low strength promoter/RBS + high copy origin; and low strength promoter/RBS + low copy origin.</p

Starting Population for Programmed Evolution.

<p>(A) An ampicillin resistance plasmid carries variation in the strength of promoters and RBS elements as well as the low and high copy number origins of replication. (B) A chloramphenicol resistance plasmid carries chaperones DNA KJE, Trigger Factor, and Gro ESL chaperones individually and in two combinations (see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0118322#sec004" target="_blank">Methods</a> for details).</p

Biosensor and Fitness Modules.

<p>(A) The Biosensor Module contains a promoter, a riboswitch that binds to theophylline, and a GFP gene. (B) Cells with the indicated genotypes were incubated with caffeine or theophylline. Fluorescence of cells grown in theophylline or caffeine was divided by absorbance at 590 nm (relative fluorescence) to correct for variation in cell density. (C) Relative fluorescence as a function of time in cells with and without the biosensor grown in 2.5 mM theophylline. (D) The Fitness Module contains a promoter, a riboswitch that binds theophylline, and the tetracycline resistance gene (<i>tetA</i>). (E) Cell growth in media containing tetracycline and either theophylline or caffeine as indicated.</p

Programmed Evolution.

<p>The Combinatorics Module facilitates variation of elements controlling orthogonal metabolism. Genetic variation is illustrated by different colors of bacteria. The Fitness Module defines fitness as orthogonal metabolic output and cell growth, and imposes negative selection on bacteria with low metabolic output, shown by elimination of some of the colored bacteria. A Biosensor Module is used to measure the metabolic output of the population or individual cells. Programmed Evolution can be repeated for successive cycles.</p

Optimization of Metabolic Pathways.

<p>(A) Orthogonal metabolic output in a bacterial cell is depicted as a function (<i>f</i>) of the genetic circuit controlling metabolism and additional variables. (B) Two gene expression cassettes are drawn that encode enzymes controlling a metabolic pathway. Promoters, ribosome binding sites, and alleles for the two cassettes are chosen from a library of elements.</p