30When Lortie’s sociological study of teaching, School-teacher, was published in 1975, it was heralded assome of the most trenchant, unique, and helpful researchever done on […] teaching. (Larson, 1976, p. 642)In the nearly three decades since, Lortie’s work has beencited time and again in studies of teaching and teacher edu-cation, in both general studies and studies specific tomathematics education. The portion of Lortie’s work thathas garnered more attention than any other is his notion ofthe “apprenticeship of observation” (p. 61) and his oft-quoted remark thatthe average student has spent 13,000 hours in directcontact with classroom teachers by the time he [sic]graduates from high school”. (p. 61)The catchphrase “apprenticeship of observation” has sincebecome synonymous with the claim that “teachers teach theway they were taught” (e.g., Heaton and Mickelson, 2002, p.51) and has been widely used to explain the apparent lackof influence of teacher education programs on teachers’beliefs and practices. However, we are apt to side withWideen, Mayer-Smith and Moon (1998), who referred tothis frequently cited passage as an example of “snark syn-drome” (Byrne, 1993), an idea that takes on the air ofauthority through repetition, instead of empirical evidence. We question the explanatory power that has been granted tothe apprenticeship of observation by revisiting Lortie’s claimsand provide evidence that there are ways in which the cul-tural transmission model can be disrupted. We both revisitLortie’s text and intersperse data from mathematics autobi-ographies written by pre-service elementary teachers duringtheir first week of a mathematics methods class. The assign-ment was open-ended, but the students were given severalsuggestions of topics on which they might comment. Includedamong these suggestions were an analysis of who/what influ-enced their views of mathematics and their description of anideal teacher. The prompt that Lortie gave his participants wasto describe an outstanding teacher they had.Apprenticeship of observation for LortieLortie introduced the term apprenticeship of observation inchapter 3, on the limits of socialization in preparing teachersfor the classroom, of Schoolteacher. He noted, There are ways in which being a student is like serv-ing an apprenticeship in teaching; students haveprotracted face-to-face and consequential interactionswith established teachers. (p. 61)He then went on immediately and extensively to temper theuse of the metaphor of apprenticeship, noting that his use ofthe term stands in stark contrast to the traditional notion ofan apprenticeship in a trade in which the apprentice is privyto the thinking and reasoning of the master while observingthe master at work. In a traditional apprenticeship, the master coaches theapprentice as he learns to ply the trade. This is absent inclassroom interactions because students are not privy to theirteachers’ reasons for and reflections upon their actions.Rather, students are on the receiving end of what teachers doand are therefore only in a position to notice teachers’actions and their influence on them as students. They arenot in a position to be reflective and analytical about whatthey see, nor do they necessarily have cause to do so. Thus,students are likely to express pleasure, appreciation, dislikeor other affective responses toward a teacher or particularpractices but not to assess thoughtfully the quality of theteaching they experience. Despite Lortie’s careful analysis of the use of the termapprenticeship, he then went on to make a rather grand claimabout the cultural transmission of teaching practices. Hespeculated that teachers’ practices are based on imitation oftheir teachers, “which, being generalized across individu-als, becomes tradition” and “transcends generations” (p. 63).Lortie seemed to be aware that this claim was intuitive butunfounded because he asserted that “It would take complexresearch to confirm this analysis” (p. 63). Despite Lortie’scaution, many an author has invoked Lortie’s generalization,thus perpetuating the “snark syndrome”. While Lortie’sclaim is intuitively appealing and sensible (perhaps account-ing in part for why mathematics classrooms today seem sosimilar to schools of days gone by (Romberg and Carpen-ter, 1986)), this model fails to provide an adequateexplanation for how teaching practices get replicated.Instantiations of apprenticeship of observationLortie’s use of the term apprenticeship of observation seemsto pertain to the general milieu of teaching, rather than tospecific instances of teaching and learning. For example,Lortie suggested that students acquire generalized notions ofwhat “good” and “bad” teaching is based on how particularkinds of teaching have affected them. Pre-service teachersoften describe good mathematics teachers as those whomade mathematics fun, connected mathematics to the realworld, and cared about their students. Our data supports thisnotion of a generalized view of teaching, and many studiessuggest that these notions are linked to beliefs about teach-LORTIE’S APPRENTICESHIP OFOBSERVATION REVISITEDDENISE S. MEWBORN, ANDREW M. TYMINSKI [1]For the Learning of Mathematics 26, 3 (November, 2006)FLM Publishing Association, Edmonton, Alberta, CanadaFLM 26(3) 10/2/06 10:20 AM Page 3031ing and learning (Thompson, 1992). For example, one pre-service teacher, Mandy, described her high school calculusteacher this way:Ms. Anderson was the best teacher I have had in the areaof getting us to visualize problems and apply them toreal life. She also was one of the best teachers I had ingeneral, because she knew each of us personally, andbased her teaching off that. […] Ms. Anderson [is] oneof the reasons that I am going into the teaching profes-sion. She made learning fun, and she loved her students,two characteristics I feel are necessary to be a goodteacher. […] The ideal teacher is one who makes learn-ing fun, shows the students that learning applies to realworld situations, and cares about the students.Students often describe bad teachers as those who lack thepatience to explain a concept until all students understandit, present boring and repetitious lessons, and teach straightfrom the textbook. Morgan described her middle and highschool mathematics classes (age 11-17years) with disdain:In middle and high school math classes bored me. Iremember sleeping every day