Crossroads of the Classroom : Narrative Intersections of Teacher Knowledge and Subject Matter 9781786357977, 9781786357960, 9781787146372

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CROSSROADS OF THE CLASSROOM: NARRATIVE INTERSECTIONS OF TEACHER KNOWLEDGE AND SUBJECT MATTER

ADVANCES IN RESEARCH ON TEACHING Series Editor: Volumes 1
11: Jere Brophy Volumes 12
28: Stefinee Pinnegar Recent Volumes: Volume 18

Emotion and School: Understanding How the Hidden Curriculum Influences Relationships, Leadership, Teaching, and Learning

Volume 19

From Teacher Thinking to Teachers and Teaching: The Evolution of a Research Community

Volume 20

Innovations in Science Teacher Education in the Asia Pacific

Volume 21

Research on Preparing Preservice Teachers to Work Effectively with Emergent Bilinguals

Volume 22A International Teacher Education: Promising Pedagogies (Part A) Volume 22B International Teacher Education: Promising Pedagogies (Part B) Volume 22C International Teacher Education: Promising Pedagogies (Part C) Volume 23

Narrative Conceptions of Knowledge: Towards Understanding Teacher Attrition

Volume 24

Research on Preparing Inservice Teachers to Work Effectively with Emergent Bilinguals

Volume 25

Exploring Pedagogies for Diverse Learners Online

Volume 26

Knowing, Becoming, Doing as Teacher Educators: Identity, Intimate Scholarship, Inquiry

Volume 27

Innovations in English Language Arts Teacher Education

ADVANCES IN RESEARCH ON TEACHING VOLUME 28

CROSSROADS OF THE CLASSROOM: NARRATIVE INTERSECTIONS OF TEACHER KNOWLEDGE AND SUBJECT MATTER EDITED BY

VICKI ROSS Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA

ELAINE CHAN University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA

DIXIE K. KEYES Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR, USA

United Kingdom
North America
Japan India
Malaysia
China

Emerald Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2017 Copyright r 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited Reprints and permissions service Contact: [email protected] No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-78635-797-7 (Print) ISBN: 978-1-78635-796-0 (Online) ISBN: 978-1-78714-637-2 (Epub) ISSN: 1479-3687 (Series)

ISOQAR certified Management System, awarded to Emerald for adherence to Environmental standard ISO 14001:2004. Certificate Number 1985 ISO 14001

CONTENTS LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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TEACHERS’ STORIES OF NAVIGATING THE INTERSECTION OF SUBJECT MATTER AND TEACHER KNOWLEDGE Elaine Chan, Vicki Ross and Dixie K. Keyes SECTION I: ENTERING THE CROSSROADS THROUGH STORIES AT THE ELEMENTARY LEVEL Dixie K. Keyes, Elaine Chan, Vicki Ross and Joey Persinger VARIEGATED STORIES OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: STRIKING A/N IM/BALANCE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS CONTENT KNOWLEDGE AND TEACHER KNOWLEDGE Vicki Ross, Shannon Guerrero and Elissa Fenton STORIES AND STATISTICS: A MIXED PICTURE OF GENDER EQUITY IN MATHEMATICS Kathleen Jablon Stoehr, Kathy Carter and Amanda Sugimoto A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE: PRACTICE TEACHING IN FIFTH-GRADE MATH Michelle Novelli and Vicki Ross

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CONTENTS

CHOOSING THE BEST ALTERNATIVE: THE BRANCHING PATHWAYS OF CONSEQUENCES IN SOCIAL STUDIES CURRICULUM CHOICE-MAKING Joey Persinger and Vicki Ross SECTION II: ENTERING THE CROSSROADS THROUGH STORIES FROM THE SECONDARY LEVEL Vicki Ross, Elaine Chan, Dixie K. Keyes and Trudy Cardinal SING IT OVER: MEDITATIONS ON “BEST-LOVED SELF” AND SUSTAINING IN SECONDARY ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS Chestin Auzenne-Curl

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TEACHING THAT “PROMOTES DIVERSITY”: THE POTENTIAL OF DISRUPTIVE NARRATIVES Dottie Bossman

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STORIES OF AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS TEACHER IN A HIGH NEED SECONDARY SCHOOL: A NARRATIVE INQUIRY INTO HER BEST-LOVED SELF Jing Li and Kayla Davenport Logan

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HEALTH, PHYSICAL EDUCATION CONTENT, AND TEACHER KNOWLEDGE/IDENTITY Colleen Fadale and Pamela Powell

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SECTION III: ENTERING THE CROSSROADS THROUGH STORIES FROM TEACHER PREPARATION Elaine Chan, Dixie K. Keyes, Vicki Ross and Trudy Cardinal A NARRATIVE INQUIRY OF OTHER IN SPECIAL EDUCATION: TENSIONS OF SUBJECT MATTER KNOWLEDGE IN RELATION TO TEACHER KNOWLEDGE Laura Franklin

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Contents

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INTERWEAVING NARRATIVES OF PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL SELVES OF A BEGINNING TEACHER IN INDIA Bobby Abrol

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“TRADITIONAL TEACHING METHOD STILL HOLDS WATER”: NARRATIVE INQUIRY OF STUDENT TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES AT THE INTERSECTION OF TEACHER KNOWLEDGE AND SUBJECT MATTER KNOWLEDGE Gang Zhu

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INDIGENOUS EDUCATION, RELATIONAL PEDAGOGY, AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVE INQUIRY: A REFLECTIVE JOURNEY OF TEACHING TEACHERS Trudy Cardinal and Sulya Fenichel

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NARRATIVE RESONANCE AMONG STORIES: CROSSROADS OF THE CLASSROOM, CURRICULUM-MAKERS, AND COMPLEXITIES OF DELIBERATION Dixie K. Keyes, Elaine Chan and Vicki Ross

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

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INDEX

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Bobby Abrol

College of Education, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

Chestin Auzenne-Curl

College of Education, University of Houston, Baytown, TX, USA

Dottie Bossman

Unaffiliated

Trudy Cardinal

Department of Elementary Education, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Kathy Carter

College of Education, University of Arizona, AZ, USA

Elaine Chan

College of Education and Human Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA

Colleen Fadale

Curriculum and Instruction Program, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ

Sulya Fenichel

Faculty of Education, Department of Elementary Education, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Elissa Fenton

Avondale School District, Avondale, AZ, USA

Laura Franklin

Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership, College of Education & Counseling, Wayne State College, Wayne, NE, USA

Shannon Guerrero

Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA ix

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Dixie K. Keyes

School of Teacher Education and Leadership, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR, USA

Jing Li

College of Education and Human Development, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

Kayla Davenport Logan

College of Education, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

Michelle Novelli

Department of Teaching and Learning, College of Education, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA

Joey Persinger

Curriculum and Instruction Doctoral Program, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA

Pamela Powell

Department of Teaching and Learning, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA

Vicki Ross

Department of Teaching and Learning, College of Education, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA

Kathleen Jablon Stoehr Department of Education, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, USA Amanda Sugimoto

Curriculum and Instruction Department, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA

Gang Zhu

College of Education and Human Development, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project has been an illuminating adventure. We thank Stefinee Pinnegar for her confidence in allowing us the freedom to follow our vision. This project has not only grown our skills as writers and editors, it also provided us an opportunity to showcase the insights of a cadre of talented scholars, many of whom are at the beginning of their academic careers. Stefinee’s support, guidance, and faith in us has deeply inspired us. We thank the Emerald Publishing Group, for their support and patience as we continue to learn about the vagaries of book editing. Our scholar friends Cheryl Craig, Mary Lynn Hamilton, and Mary Rice provided strong and helpful feedback through our work with this group of authors. The manuscript is stronger from their guidance and contributions. We also acknowledge and thank Michael Connelly and Cheryl Craig, both of whom have demonstrated through word and deed the importance and process of developing scholarship in the field. And last, but not least, we thank our families for their ongoing support without which this work could not have been possible.

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TEACHERS’ STORIES OF NAVIGATING THE INTERSECTION OF SUBJECT MATTER AND TEACHER KNOWLEDGE Elaine Chan, Vicki Ross and Dixie K. Keyes The more definitely and sincerely it is held that education is a development within, by, and for experience, the more important it is that there shall be clear conceptions of what experience is. Unless experience is so conceived that the result is a plan for deciding upon subject-matter, upon methods of instruction and discipline, and upon material equipment and social organization of the school, it is wholly in the air. Dewey (1938, p. 28)

We begin this examination of the intersections of subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge with a focus on an experience.

VICKI’S STORY: TEACHING AS INQUIRY My first semester as an assistant professor was my most difficult. I was a new teacher educator, having recently graduated from an institution that

Crossroads of the Classroom: Narrative Intersections of Teacher Knowledge and Subject Matter Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 28, 1
14 Copyright r 2017 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1108/S1479-368720160000028008

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did not encourage graduate students to teach university courses. I had never taught an undergraduate course. I spent the summer constructing course syllabi. I taught two sections of math methods to two cohorts of 32 students each. I selected articles from the field of mathematics education that I believed to be meaningful, and had students explore their understanding of the content material, make connections to the text, and between the text and related literature. We also constructed mathematics autobiographies and participated in peer teaching activities in class. Surprisingly to me, the students found what I was asking them to do to be irrelevant. They were not long in letting me know that the course was not meeting their needs. One student wrote in her evaluation, “This is a methods course, not a philosophy course.” Another student wrote, “I would like the course to be based more on methods and less on theories.” The relationship that developed between these students and myself was strained. I struggled those first few weeks, moving between hurt feelings, anger, and dismissal of their complaints. I spent a lot of time that semester talking with my colleague, Bev, who had many years of experience teaching at the college level. Her advice saved me. She explained, You need to treat this like an inquiry. You need to be a researcher. This is a landscape story. Pull yourself up out of your teacher commonplace
pull yourself out of the injured teacher place
and examine the commonplaces of this situation. Look at who your students are, what they are telling you (Bev Brewer, personal communication, 2002). Vicki followed her colleague’s advice and tried to hear what her students were telling her. Reflection upon this time in teaching highlighted to Vicki the extent to which these initial teaching experiences captured many of the tensions in the intersection between subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge. Elaine experienced similar tensions with her students as they navigated the intersections between teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge in their preservice teacher education classes.

ELAINE’S STORY: HOW HELPFUL IS “TEACHER KNOWLEDGE” FOR TEACHING? I find myself asking, if the article is unable to present quick and practical solutions for the classroom teacher, then what is the purpose in reading it?

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This question, captured the sentiments of some of the students in the combined Masters and teacher certification program at her university. The students had been told of the importance of the course for the capstone school-based teacher knowledge research projects required to complete their Masters program. As the course instructor, Elaine saw the significance of the material for her students; she imagined that readings would engage students in thought-provoking discussions about teaching and curriculum, and provide insight into how curricular practices may be shaped by historical, societal, political, and social influences. She had identified their year-long student teaching sites as an ideal place for them to reflect upon the potential role of prior experiences of teaching and learning in shaping their current ideas about teaching. This assignment also provided the students with an opportunity to consider ways in which their own teacher knowledge may be expressed in their teaching practices, at a fleeting time in their careers when so much of their professional lives was novel to them. When Elaine read the above words from a student assignment, she was worried about how best to engage her students in learning about curriculum theory. The connection she perceived between ideas of curriculum theorists, teaching practices, and preparation to write their capstone research projects did not seem obvious to her students. Vicki and Elaine’s stories highlight the potential for tensions between teacher knowledge and subject matter instruction among teachers and their students.

OBJECTIVES FOR THE VOLUME In this volume, we explore and make visible the intersection of subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge in the narratives of teachers. This complex interaction between these two bodies of knowledge is often studied but remains not well understood. More specifically, we • illustrate the complex and nuanced relationship between subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge; • demonstrate ways in which teachers may use narrative terms to better understand their classroom lives and practice; • uncover the tensions that underlie the work of teachers in classrooms as they help their students construct knowledge; and

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• illuminate meaning and develop connections between narrative understandings of teacher knowledge, identity, and practice in relationship to conceptions of subject matter knowledge. We focus on examining the interplay between teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge using a narrative inquiry theoretical foundation, detailing complexities of classroom practice in the intersection of teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge. The authors, in their respective chapters, acknowledge, unpack, and explore tensions and nuances of bringing knowledge frameworks to bear on professional decision-making at the primary, secondary, and post-secondary levels. Through detailed exploration of various interpretations of teaching stories presented, the authors dissect, in their writing, the epistemology and ontology of narrative inquiry.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS We interweave the conceptual threads of teacher knowledge, subject matter knowledge, identity, and development with the fabric of the professional lives of teachers. As we discussed these tensions with one another, we recognized that they could be understood in terms of Schwab’s (1973/1978) curriculum commonplaces. We use Schwab’s (1973/1978) curricular commonplaces as a lens to examine tensions associated with conceptions of teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge in teacher education. Schwab (1973/1978) stated that defensible educational thought must take account of four commonplaces of equal rank: the learner, the teacher, the milieu, and the subject matter. None of these can be omitted without omitting a vital factor in educational thought and practice. (p. 371)

Vicki used Schwab’s (1973/1978) commonplaces as an analytic tool to inform her understanding of the tensions she experienced during her first semester as a teacher educator. In examining these tensions, she recognized that her colleague’s advice to use the commonplaces helped her to become a better teacher educator. [Her] students were anxious about developing teaching skills; they were nervous about failing in the classroom, and needed from her the practical, “nuts and bolts” kinds of knowledge about classroom practice. The “nuts and bolts” kind of knowledge needed to be part of their subject matter in their teacher education classes. Vicki’s students, in essence, had difficulty focusing their attention on learning to appreciate complexities of learning to teach
such as reflecting upon the development of their teacher knowledge in this case,
when the need for effective practices to teach math to their elementary

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level students in upcoming student teaching
their subject matter knowledge
seemed to be more pressing. Schwab’s (1973/1978) assertion of the importance of considering the student, teacher, milieu, and subject matter in the development of curriculum also informed Elaine’s understanding of the tensions underlying her students’ difficulties in embracing their assigned research project work. As Elaine reflected upon the students’ response to their research assignment, she realized that she had also overlooked the importance of taking into consideration the role of the student, in their current milieu. Elaine believed that familiarity with curriculum scholars would help students to identify theoretical frameworks on which to connect their current student teaching experiences but she had overlooked the tensions of their divided roles as both Masters and teacher certification students. Vicki and Elaine had imagined research and discussion about teaching and learning as an opportunity for our teacher education students to reflect upon their professional growth; meanwhile, what was pressing for the students was their upcoming foray into full-time student teaching in order to become certified teachers. It was difficult for the preservice teachers to overcome the sense of urgency for practical knowledge as they prepared for student teaching placements. Elaine’s students had difficulty appreciating the call to learn about curriculum theorists and Vicki’s students had difficulty reflecting upon the intricacies of learning to teach math, when they were consumed with finding practical ways to survive the uncertainty of their upcoming student teacher placements to fulfill requirements for their degree program. In retrospect, we better understood these tensions as attempts to arrive at a difficult balance between providing preservice teachers with knowledge about their subject area and knowledge about teaching, while not fully recognizing the inherent challenge of achieving this balance. The intersection of knowledge in these two areas is further complicated by factors such as student needs and goals, particularities of school and community contexts, teacher experience and professional identities, and curriculum that is shaped by social, societal, and political influences, to name a few. Each of these stories captures tensions in the relationship between teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge. Reflection upon these tensions raises questions about whether the knowledge we are encouraging our preservice teacher/education students to develop would, in fact, provide them with what they need in order to complete their programs successfully and move on to teaching. We were worried whether the teacher knowledge research, about which we had been reading for over a decade in graduate studies in Education, and in which we wholeheartedly believed, could, in fact,

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be validated if teachers themselves did not recognize it as helpful and meaningful. While two of the introductory stories presented here are focused on the implementation of teacher education curriculum for preservice teachers, a parallel tension between subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge is captured vividly in the work featured in the chapters of this volume, of practicing teachers in classrooms as they navigate curriculum design and implementation.

REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE A brief overview of literature addressing the intersections of teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge offers a glimpse of ways in which terms were developed to reflect a growing understanding of complexities of learning to teach through the development of a body of professional knowledge. We ground our examination of the intersections of teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge in the notion of “personal practical knowledge,” coined by Connelly and Clandinin (1988) to describe the knowledge from which teachers draw to inform their curricular decisions while working with their students. This body of knowledge, comprised of both subject matter knowledge and knowledge gained from a lifetime of experience, includes professional experiences of teaching and learning while also encompassing a rich body of knowledge gained from experiences beyond the classroom. We draw primarily in this volume on Connelly and Clandinin’s (1988) notion of “personal practical knowledge,” given its natural fit with the narrative inquiry-based consideration of the work examining intersections of teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge featured in this volume. Furthermore, Connelly and Clandinin’s (1988) work in “personal practical knowledge” has a foundation in the work by Schwab (1959/1978, 1969, 1973/1978), thereby highlighting another point of connection with many of the authors whose work is featured in this volume who have also found Schwab’s ideas to be a fruitful grounding for their investigations into the relationship between teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge. These concepts were recognized as growing out of Schwab’s (1959/1978) work outlining the “impossible role of teachers” and contributing to a larger body of work that included Shulman’s (1986) notion of “pedagogical content knowledge,” and work to better understand practical knowledge in the areas of mathematics instruction (Heaton, 2000; Hill, Loewenberg Ball, & Schilling, 2008; Lampert, 1991), English (Howey & Grossman, 1989), and

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science (Magnusson, Krajcik, & Borko, 1999). This body of research reflects the growing recognition of the nuanced complexities of teachers’ work of drawing upon multiple kinds of knowledge to inform their teaching.

CROSSROADS AS A METAPHOR FOR THINKING ABOUT THE INTERSECTIONS OF SUBJECT MATTER AND TEACHER KNOWLEDGE In the midst of our work together to prepare this volume, a unifying metaphor of “crossroads” emerged and has contributed to shaping how we conceptualize and discuss the intersections between subject matter and teacher knowledge. This metaphor of crossroads, with Clandinin and Rosiek’s (2006) reference to temporal, spatial, and social
personal dimensions (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) as “commonplaces of narrative inquiry,” provided a way to contextualize the “stories of experience” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) of teachers featured in the chapters of this volume. To begin with, the notion of temporality as a narrative commonplace (Clandinin & Rosiek, 2006) provides a framework for recognizing that individuals arrive at a particular point in time from a history of past experiences, before moving those continuities of experience into their future aspirations. The notion of place as another narrative commonplace (Clandinin & Rosiek, 2006) is also recognized in this metaphor. More specifically, the image of crossroads inherently invokes a sense of physical place, in that each one of us creates our own image of this physical coming together of two roads that is grounded in a memory or construct of an actual place. Finally, the metaphor of crossroads recognizes the potential of personal
social influences in contributing to understanding and expression of knowledge. Our understandings of as a place where pathways intersect and are shaped by prior social interactions, that in turn develop and shape the way in which current interactions play out, are in line with Clandinin and Rosiek’s (2006) recognition of a social
personal commonplace in narrative research. Traffic laws have been created and internalized, social conventions are in place. At a fundamental level, these points of interaction at the crossroads are social constructions, which individuals imbue with meaning and action. And, more profoundly, humans have taken this seemingly mundane element of life and given it literary, artistic, and religious meanings that evoke larger human meaning-making. Having thus linked

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our metaphor to our narrative inquiry framework, we share the ways that we engage this metaphor to shape this volume. Crossroads as: MEETING POINT as a point of exchange where ideas may be shared; COMMON GROUND where similarities (and differences) in perspective may be realized; DECISION POINT where (curricular) decisions may be made. The idea of “crossroads,” as we have thought about the metaphor and image, has taken on three connotations for us. First, we imagine crossroads as a point of decision. As a person is moving in one direction, there are other directions
and destinations
open to him or her at the crossroads. Questions about Which way to go? Where do I want to be? arise. A crossroad demands a decision. Crossroads also represent a meeting point, a place of exchange. People moving in many directions may pass through the intersection where the crossroads meet; alternatively, they might also decide to settle at the crossroads. Ideas, innovations, cultures, and more, can be shared at the crossroads; the crossroads are a natural point of intersection. This brings us to the third way in which we are considering the notion of crossroads in this volume. Intersections, or crossroads, if you will, can be considered common ground. Thinking back to math methods, for example, we are reminded of set theory and the differences between the union of two sets and the intersection of two sets. The intersection where the two circles of a Venn diagram overlap
the common ground
represents that which is shared. A crossroad may be interpreted as a place where two roads going in different directions meet with one another. This sense of an event or incident as a point in time, place, and within a social
personal interaction, comes across in the writing about experiences of tensions between subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge featured in each of the chapters.

INTRODUCTION OF THE CHAPTERS We present this volume as a collection of writing where authors address the intersection between subject matter and teacher knowledge, highlighting complexities of this relationship in detailed ways to describe their own particular contexts of teaching. In each chapter, teachers/narrative inquirers demonstrate the process of narrative inquiry, using experience-centered approaches of narrative

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methodology to examine complexities of teaching and teacher education. In the process, they highlight the centrality of narrative and experience in the living and practicing of their work at the intersections of teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge. We see this work as contributing to the advancement of knowledge about educator lives and their/our ways of knowing while opening spaces for communities of narrative scholars. In Section I, “Entering the Crossroads through Stories at the Elementary Level,” the authors present and examine the intersection of subject matter and teacher knowledge in elementary teaching contexts, from the perspective of preservice teachers and their supervisors/teacher educators or about prof development experiences. Ross, Guerrero, and Fenton consider tensions associated with professional development offered by content area specialists for teachers in the teaching of fifth grade science curriculum in their chapter, “Variegated Stories of Professional Development: Striking a/n Im/Balance between Science and Mathematics Content Knowledge and Teacher Knowledge.” Stoehr, Carter, and Sugimoto consider the potential of reconstructing experience as a way of re-storying math anxiety, in their chapter entitled “Stories and Statistics: A Mixed Picture of Gender Equity in Mathematics.” Novelli and Ross, in their chapter, “A Glimpse into the Future: Practice Teaching in Fifth Grade Math” explore the theory
practice divide in a fifth grade Math class, while Persinger and Ross address complexities of the intersection of subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge when a Social Studies teacher grapples with finding balance in her curriculum-making space, in their chapter “Choosing the Best Alternative: The Branching Pathways of Consequences in Social Studies Curriculum Choice-Making.” In Section II, “Entering the Crossroads through Stories from the Secondary Level,” Auzenne-Curl, in her chapter “Sing it Over: Meditations on “Best-Loved Self” and Sustaining in Secondary English Language Arts,” shares a collection of reflections on the broader concept of her “story to live by” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Craig, 2008, 2014) as a beginning English Language Arts teacher. Then, in “Teaching that “Promotes Diversity”: The Potential of Disruptive Narratives,” Bossman explores the complexities of teaching that promotes diversity, when the term diversity shifts from a tolerance of difference to framing the experience as disruptive and potentially transformative. Li and Logan through “seeing big” (Greene, 1995) examined nuances of personal and professional identity, in their chapter, “Stories of an English Language Arts Teacher in a High Need Secondary School: A Narrative Inquiry into Her Best-Loved Self.” They explored the particulars of their participant’s teaching career,

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the contextual factors, emotional processes, and her relationship with her administration, subject matter, and students. Their research opens a view into teacher decisions that contributed to her constructing a “story to stay by” (Craig, 2014; Ross & Prior, 2014). Fadale and Powell, explore teacher identity in the area of secondary school physical education using narrative inquiry in their chapter, “Health, Physical Education Content and Teacher Knowledge/Identity,” describing the world of teaching in a marginalized subject matter area. In Section III, “Entering the Crossroads through Stories from Teacher Preparation,” Franklin, in her chapter, “A Narrative Inquiry of Other in Special Education: Tensions of Subject Matter Knowledge in Relation to Teacher Knowledge,” explores the notion of “Other” in special education. She considers ways in which tensions at the intersections of subject matter knowledge, as shaped by professional guidelines and expectations for special education teachers, intersect with teacher knowledge gained from long-term experiences with a family member with special education needs. Abrol examines the process of transitioning from student teacher to early-career teachers in her chapter, “Interweaving Narratives of Personal and Professional Selves of a Beginning Teacher in India.” Zhu, in his chapter, “Traditional Teaching Method Still Holds Water”: Narrative Inquiry of Student Teachers’ Professional Identities at the Intersection of Teacher Knowledge and Subject Matter Knowledge” examines the influence of a knowledge community within a teacher education program in China in shaping a student teacher’s knowledge. And finally, Cardinal and Fenichel, in their chapter “Indigenous Education, Relational Pedagogy, and Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry: A Reflective Journey of Teaching Teachers,” reflect upon details of coconstructing a language arts curriculum in ways that honor Indigenous language and culture. The authors’ stories of living with the tensions between subject matter and teacher knowledge that emerge in their practices are shared, examined in detail, and reflected upon in their writing.

EXAMINING INTERSECTIONS OF TEACHER KNOWLEDGE AND SUBJECT MATTER KNOWLEDGE USING NARRATIVE INQUIRY APPROACHES Through examination of their stories holistically and strategically, the authors consider the terms of narrative inquiry, notions of identity and knowledge, and exigencies of practice. In each of the studies featured in this

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volume, the authors rely on narrative inquiry methodology to examine relational plotlines between teachers and their students that underlie teaching and teacher education (Clandinin, Murphy, Huber, & Murray Orr, 2009). These stories capture tensions in the development of teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge. This work acknowledges Cochran Smith’s (2003) call to learn more about the “unforgiving complexity of teaching” and offers further glimpses of the complexities of learning to teach referred to in Brandt’s (1992), Gatti’s (2016), and Zeichner and Liston’s (2013) work.

DIXIE’S STORY: TEACHER KNOWLEDGE AS LEARNING FROM TENSIONS We conclude with a final story, where Dixie highlighted a time when seeming tensions in the implementation of subject matter instruction enhanced and informed teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge. As a high school English teacher, teaching writing skills was a large subject matter focus for me. In my high school, as in most, the types of English classes are layered: Accelerated Placement, College Bound, and “regular.” I have always despised the term “regular” for that “lower” layer of classes because those are the classes I taught, and I know the students were not appropriately characterized as “regular.” For many of the students, their first language was Spanish and they were still developing English language knowledge, especially when it came to subject matter terminology. I was amazed by how they fluidly moved back and forth between two languages. Central in my teacher knowledge and resonant of the ways in which I had grown into my 9th and 10th year of teaching was my understanding that my students may not have high achievements according to the grand narrative of school, but they had incredible stories of life on the border (the Rio Grande Valley), of warm family celebrations and gatherings, and of hard times defeated by love. Furthermore, my collective knowledge of subject matter, methods, and techniques was expansive and deep enough to be able to individualize suggestions and pathways for students as they wrote varied personal narratives, essays, and literary pieces. One student, in particular, who I will call Damien, was a revered neighborhood soccer player. He was not especially interested in writing, but he always gave all assignments a go and responded to teacher suggestions. For this particular assignment, we dove into a personal narrative

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writing on the topic of “adversity,” and I led students in a brainstorming session where each writer created a metaphor for idea of adversity. I hoped they would expand this metaphor into an effective introduction for their writing pieces. Damien compared the idea of adversity to playing soccer. Then, he chose to write about a time when his mother became very ill. He wrote: There’s a lot of problems in life you have to deal with. Just when you think that everything is alright trouble comes and intercepts your good time. Just like in soccer, if you’re making good passes and then the other team intercepts it you start feeling bad. It was just like that time my brother and me had to take care of my mom. We thought we were gonna do that forever. But my brother and me defended ourselves against adversity. We did everything possible to make it better for my mom. It’s sort of like when the other team in soccer has a free kick and you have to defend your goal. We didn’t let adversity take over us.

I was impressed that Damien not only used one of the highest forms of thinking (metaphorical) to begin his narrative, but also he used the metaphor as a conceptual hook throughout the piece. Damien’s understanding and reflection of his own personal growth during the time when he took care of his mother developed through his experiences with soccer. He seemed to be reaching for success and achievement as he described how he and his brother worked hard to ensure their mother’s safekeeping during her illness. Because of success in his specialty sport, he had a conceptual peg that assisted him in detailing the events of an adverse time in his life. Damien presented details of his experiences that would help others to empathize with his plight, to feel the pressure of his situation. Soccer became a vehicle for sharing his narrative of adversity. Dixie’s sharing of Damien’s story of writing depicts how the breadth and depth of teacher knowledge, accumulated over a period of time, can be used as a bridge to reach students who may not yet know success in school or in a specific content area. Dixie learned to connect, fundamentally, to student stories
to their lives
with the subject matter, and trusted that growth would happen. Readers will find this idea of drawing upon multiple facets of knowledge
teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge, respectively
underlying much of the teachers’ work featured in following chapters. Dixie’s recognition of the potential for engaging a student in subject matter content through engagement in knowledge about the student highlighted further complexities at the intersection of teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge. We end with Dixie’s story to offer a glimpse of ways in which some of these complexities may resurface in the following chapters.

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REFERENCES Brandt, R. S. (1992). On research on teaching: A conversation with Lee Shulman. Educational Leadership, 49(7), 14
19. Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Clandinin, D. J., Murphy, M. S., Huber, J., & Murray Orr, A. (2009). Negotiating narrative inquiries: Living in a tension-filled midst. The Journal of Educational Research, 103(2), 81
90. Clandinin, D. J., & Rosiek, J. (2006). Mapping a landscape of narrative inquiry: Borderland spaces and tensions. In D. J. Clandinin (Ed.). Handbook of narrative inquiry: Mapping a methodology (pp. 35
80). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cochran Smith, M. (2003). The unforgiving complexity of teaching: Avoiding simplicity in the age of accountability. Journal of Teacher Education, 54(1), 3
5. Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1988). Teachers as curriculum planners: Narratives of experience. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2–14. Craig, C. J. (2014). From stories of staying to stories of leaving: A US beginning teacher’s experience. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 46(1), 81
115. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Gatti, L. (2016). Toward a framework of resources for learning to teach: Rethinking U.S. teacher preparation. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Heaton, R. M. (2000). Teaching mathematics to the new standards: Relearning the dance. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Hill, H. C., Loewenberg Ball, D., & Schilling, S. G. (2008). Unpacking pedagogical content knowledge: Conceptualizing and measuring teachers’ topic-specific knowledge of students. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 39(4), 372
400. Howey, K. R., & Grossman, P. L. (1989). A study in contrast: Sources of pedagogical content knowledge for secondary English. Journal of Teacher Education, 40(5), 24
31. Lampert, M. (1991). Connecting mathematical teaching and learning. In E. Fennema, T. P. Carpenter, & S. J. Lamon (Eds.), Integrating research on teaching and learning mathematics (pp. 121
152). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Magnusson, S., Krajcik, J., & Borko, H. (1999). Nature, sources, and development of pedagogical content knowledge for science teaching. In J. Gess-Newsome & N. G. Lederman (Eds.), Pedagogical content knowledge and science education (pp. 95
132). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Ross, V., & Prior, J. (2014, April). Early career teacher retention: Stories of staying. AERA Annual Meeting. Philadelphia, PA: American Educational Research Association. Schwab, J. J. (1959/1978). The “impossible” role of the teacher in progressive education. In I. Westbury & N. J. Wilkof (Eds.), Science, curriculum, and liberal education: Selected essays (pp. 167
183). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Schwab, J. J. (1969). The practical: A language for curriculum. School Review, 78, 1
23.

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Schwab, J. J. (1973/1978). Translation into curriculum. In I. Westbury & N. Wilkof (Eds.). Science, curriculum, and liberal education: Selected essays (pp. 365
383). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4
14. Zeichner, K. M., & Liston, D. P. (2013). Reflective teaching: An introduction (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

SECTION I: ENTERING THE CROSSROADS THROUGH STORIES AT THE ELEMENTARY LEVEL Dixie K. Keyes, Elaine Chan, Vicki Ross and Joey Persinger

Joey Persinger: The thing about a crossroads is that it can be a dangerous place. One is said to meet the devil there, ready to trade for an elusive talent one can’t help but pursue. At the crossroads, one can stumble upon the unmarked graves of criminals, buried outside town boundaries and outside the law. Teaching too can be dangerous, a place where the need to foster change, to chase down truth, or to opt for safety can collide, overlapping in road upon road like the high-rising junctures of competing interstates. The image of the crossroads brings to mind Dorothy, her red slippers twinkling against a paved yellow road, the arms of a scarecrow directing her first one way, then another. How does one know the best direction? We’ve heard it is impossible to travel one road then return to try again.

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In an unmarked crossroads on a still evening, one can stand in the exact middle, arms spread, spinning slowly. To the left and right there stand tall grasses, but in the crossroads, in the moment of being where time and circumstance overlap, there is no hiding. Perhaps the slow spin in the midst of the lonely roads reveals a direction that pushes one forward. The decision is made to face the danger, to embrace opportunity with those wide spread arms. Dixie, Section I Editor: As we enter the crossroads of the stories in Section I, we find our “characters” are teachers, preservice teachers, young people in schools, and teacher educators. Of particular focus, though, are the inquiries into the “how” of acquiring and continuing content knowledge development or interactions between content knowledge and teacher knowledge for teacher candidates, practicing teachers, and teacher educators. In each chapter, narratives of experience pull us into the lives of these educators as we consider with them curriculum commonplaces (Schwab). The commonplaces enlighten us as to the “setting” or context/milieu of the stories being reconstructed, the complexities of subject matter at the crossroads, and the learners who live the curriculum at hand. We find ourselves in the midst of these intersecting plotlines with the twists and tensions lived experiences often bring. Novelli and Ross help us envision the “plotline intersections” they observed from the experiences of their preservice teachers who were shifting from procedural development and knowledge to spaces that brought forward conceptual development and knowledge. The tensions in their narratives involved realizations by the preservice teachers of the personal energy demands and content knowledge requirements they needed to be effective on the school landscape. Their context had to change from the university landscape to the school landscape for this teacher knowledge to develop. The instructors (Novelli and Ross) also relived their stories, noting tensions involving their influence on the school landscape as opposed to the university landscape. Finding themselves at a crossroads of the classroom, they stopped to make meaning, living in the three-dimensional space of narrative inquiry. Stoehr et al.’s chapter offers a literature review of math anxiety in women teachers, one that teases out a “mixed picture.” Unsure of the impact of such anxiety and how prevalent it was, they turn to reconstructing experience, from the past to present, as they have their preservice teachers retell “wellremembered events” in past experiences with math. This inquiry centers on the bumping up of content knowledge directly into teacher knowledge by drawing forward awareness of math anxiety and the tension it causes as

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female preservice teachers move closer to classrooms of their own. This tension at the crossroads where teacher educators arrived to inquire into the past lives of their students exists due to concerns that math anxiety in preservice teachers may be passed on to future students. This tension leads to hopeful ways and new ways of knowing for teacher education programs to discover ways to build confidence in math. Persinger and Ross enter the crossroads of the classroom through controversy. Most, if not all, educators have encountered controversial curriculum topics and have deliberated about choices as they consider content standards, their communities, families, and their students’ academic and cognitive growth. Sometimes teachers cannot predict if complaints from the family may arise or from the students themselves. Sometimes a teacher finds herself on the defense. While studying cultures and major world religions in social studies classrooms, teachers can be caught in the middle of expectations from required standards, parental expectations of uncontroversial subject matter, and the confusions or wonderings of the students. Persinger and Ross meet at the crossroads to unveil a story of this vulnerability, capturing the deliberation and the meaning-making that ensued after the curriculum choice was made. Ross, Guerrero, and Fenton draw us into an interesting crossroads where perspectives on professional development, those of teachers thinking of their students and those of professional development providers meet. Pedagogy versus Content knowledge are pulled together with the players coming from different contexts and ways of knowing. Content and teacher knowledge working out of balance in professional development designed with the intent to create highly effective teachers in math and science. Reconstructed narratives explore the points at which these stories of experience bump up against each other. Exploring tensions in a curricular situation involving a federal grant initiative offers readers a space to make meaning regarding top-down initiatives that bring content experts into the professional lives of teachers. Again, Schwab’s curriculum commonplaces is considered as the authors look, through their narratives, at the perspective of the learner, the teacher, the subject matter, and the milieu. As I lived in these narratives through the editing process, I found myself troubled by the tensions in the narratives, thinking about those “competing interstates” Joey mentions above, but that is at it should be. When thinking like a narrative inquirer, I always find myself sinking into the narrative inquiry three-dimensional space which helps me imagine the temporal loops involved in most narratives, the personal and social aspects of those retelling the stories, and the complexities of place surrounding all. From there,

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in the midst of tension, we find ourselves. We often discover our moral selves. As Clandinin and Connelly describe. “… retelling sheds light on the question of dilemmas in teaching and curriculum and the ways in which curriculum is ultimately moral: it has to do with the ways in which we live our lives. That teachers are moral agents is important to our notion of the teacher as curriculum maker” (1992, p. 389). Note how the teachers, the preservice teachers, and the teacher educators in these narratives grow and/ or shift in their understandings of teaching (of their professional landscapes). We see how all the characters (the educators) within these narratives develop narrative authority. Only through narrative inquiry, where narrative is both method and content does narrative authority emerge among those willing to relive, retell and/or, restory parts of their lives. “… narrative authority becomes the expression, enactment, and development of a person’s narrative knowledge as individuals learn to authorize meaning in community with others” (Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002, p. 116). The authors in this section, and the others, have offered their narratives into the community of this volume, replete with tensions, deliberations, choices, consequences, but ultimately
hope. Always hope. Joey Persinger: A teacher is in her head and on the stage, planning while improvising, creating while evaluating. In the way that all of us breathe and blink, the teacher balances, sways, corrects, and moves forward. In the teaching day you might, like a speed demon on wild road trip, pass a hundred intersections that seem inconsequential, skip that chapter, send Jamie to the nurse, forget to mark Alex tardy. Today, the teacher decides she will shred the formative assessment, chuck the lesson plan, and follow that teachable moment. One can be called back to that inconsequential intersection suddenly heavy with meaning and consequence. From a blur of lines speeding past, we now examine every nuance, explore every pebble on the road, turn over every blade of weedy grass. This is now a crossroads. The decision made in an instant has kicked up the dust, which could be a long time in settling.

REFERENCES Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1992). Teacher as curriculum maker. In P. W. Jackson (Ed.), Handbook of research on curriculum. (pp. 363–401). New York, NY: Macmillan. Lyons, N., & LaBoskey, V. K. (Eds.). (2002). Narrative inquiry in practice: Advancing the knowledge of teaching. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Schwab, J. J. (1969). The practical: A language for curriculum. School Review, 78, 123.

VARIEGATED STORIES OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: STRIKING A/N IM/BALANCE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS CONTENT KNOWLEDGE AND TEACHER KNOWLEDGE Vicki Ross, Shannon Guerrero and Elissa Fenton ABSTRACT In this chapter, three educators recount experiences of professional development from different perspectives in order to examine the intersection of teacher knowledge and subject matter in the areas of science and mathematics education. Professional development projects are productive avenues for exploring this phenomenon. We share stories of experience from professional develop projects of teachers who were situated in different places on the professional knowledge landscape: one elementary school teacher, one teacher educator, and one mathematics educator.

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From these various vantage points, the relationship between mathematics and science content knowledge and teacher knowledge holds different complexities and complications. Issues related to balancing teacher knowledge with content knowledge in professional development emerge. Based on the stories of experience and the analysis of the narratives, deliberation of curriculum is seen to be a valuable concept when engaging in professional development with teachers. Further, Pragmatic Intellectual Space is proposed for productive approaches to professional development. Keywords: Professional development; science content knowledge; mathematics content knowledge; teacher knowledge; curriculum deliberation; stories of experience

SUBJECT MATTER KNOWLEDGE AND TEACHER KNOWLEDGE: STORYING AND RESTORYING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT In this chapter, Vicki, Shannon, and Elissa share their experiences from two quite different Mathematics Science Partnership (MSP) professional development workshops. While both projects were MSP funded, one story focuses on science content and is recounted by a teacher participant, Elissa. The second is told by a mathematics educator, Shannon, and teacher educator, Vicki, and captures their narrative experience (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988) as they work with teachers in a mathematics professional development project. To begin, Elissa shares her thoughts regarding her participation in a MSP program. Her words hint at some of the complexities and issues that necessarily arise at the intersection of teacher knowledge and subject matter. In this case, she refers to professional development endeavors related to creating highly effective teachers in science and mathematics. The program in which she is a participant focuses exclusively on science. I entered into this experience enthusiastically. I love science. I love to teach science. I love to watch my students learn science. I would consider myself to be fairly intelligent when it comes to science topics
I graduated with a minor in science from university. I’ve taken two methods courses on science instruction. I could teach this class, and do a better job!

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Elissa’s reflections, written at the end of the professional development program in which she was a participant, capture the dissatisfaction, teachers may feel, at times, when pursuing professional development if content knowledge and teacher knowledge are imbalanced.

CONTEXT OF INQUIRY: MSP PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM In order to understand the stories recounted in this chapter, we describe MSP as the backdrop that, in part, shapes the context of this work. In 2001, the federal government passed bipartisan legislation entitled the No Child Left Behind Act, reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. One central feature of this legislation was the stipulation that teachers were to be highly qualified, and, there were several ways that highly qualified status could be obtained or verified. To help states, districts, administrators, and teachers meet these mandated requirements, professional development monies began flowing out of the federal government’s Department of Education (DOE). One of the programs that came into existence, in 2002, was the MSP, and this initiative was designed to ensure that teachers had the content knowledge needed to assure that every child met grade level proficiency standards. According to the DOE’s website (US Department of Education, 2015) this program “funds professional development activities that are designed to improve teachers’ content knowledge and teaching skills, and that lead to improved student learning.” These MSP professional development programs were focused on teachers’ science and mathematics content knowledge, and were funded by the federal government. The federal dollars associated with this program were distributed to the states according to a system that took into account the number of schoolaged children and the level of high needs schools and districts. Our state annually received between 1 and 5 million dollars for MSP work. These grants were competitively awarded to partnerships which might take on different constituent institutions. Generally, the partnerships were made up of content specialists from university faculties in the areas of science, math, or engineering, teacher education faculty members, and school district or county extension office personnel. In the year in which Elissa was a participant, $3.9 million were awarded to our state to promote teachers’ content knowledge and teaching skills to improve student learning. In a very real

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sense, MSP projects provided an intersection of teacher knowledge and subject matter in science and mathematics at both an elementary school level, as well as at the secondary school level.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Having established this understanding of the MSP context, we move to a discussion of the theoretical framework through which we construct and reconstruct our experiences constructed and reconstructed and present them in this chapter. We believe that teacher knowledge, identity, and development are the conceptual threads with which we weave the fabric of our professional lives. In this study of intersecting stories of content knowledge and teacher knowledge, we examine how various forms of these constructions interact with one another in storying our lives as teachers and teacher educators. More specifically, we • present and reflect upon the process of living, telling, retelling, and reliving stories of teacher knowledge, identity, and development (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988, 1990; Craig & Ross, 2008; Ross & Chan, 2015); • offer Schwab’s curricular commonplaces (1969/1978) as a lens to examine tensions associated with conceptions of teacher knowledge. These perspectives on the curriculum include the teacher, the learner, the subject matter, and the milieu; and, • explore these tensions as a starting point for deliberation (Schwab, 1969/ 1978) about teacher knowledge and identity. As we embark upon this exploration of the ways these knowledge bases may sometimes bump against one another, we return to Elissa’s recounting of her experience with professional development.

ELISSA’S MSP EXPERIENCE I am a teacher with over a decade of experience in elementary school classrooms. I teach, currently in fifth grade, but at the time of this experience, I was teaching third grade. I heard about the MSP program through my school e-mail account. The e-mail stated that the program was designed to assist teachers as they teach science with literacy links. I chose to enroll … mostly for the stipend, but also because I enjoy teaching science.

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Our first session was held in October. There were 30 teachers in my section from four different districts. We met on one Saturday each month for 8 hours and had the option of attending additional activities on weekends when class did not meet. I did not attend the first class because I was ill. However, for the second class, a session titled “Nature of Science,” the group looked at black widow spiders and made observations of their behavior. To make up for the time I missed, I went to the extra session held downtown at the convention center. This community event, hosted by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), was intended to get parents, teachers, and children learning about science. Bill Nye, the Science Guy, made an appearance, and several vendors were present. I was less interested in Bill Nye and more interested in making my way through the vendor stations asking for freebies which they were only too happy to give me. In our third class, we were given a high school biology textbook and told to use this to study adaptation and evolution. These topics are not part of the third through fifth grade science standards, although this is the age bracket with which each teacher in the class works. Our study continued the following class period as well, as we once again broke out the spiders and watched them. Well into the school year, in April, we studied the human body, and learned about the different body systems. Our group presented on the nervous system: dendrites, myelin sheath, resting potential versus action potential. During this session, as a class, we also dissected owl pellets. I frequently engage my students in this activity. However, when presented to us as adults, we were given a tinfoil wrapped bundle, a Styrofoam plate, and two toothpicks. No gloves, no tweezers, no goggles, no Lysol wipes, nothing! We were expected to dig through this vomit package with our bare hands and toothpicks to find regurgitated bones amidst the fur and other lovelies. As we, the teachers at whom this professional development was directed, looked at the materials that we were to use with our students, and we realized how age-inappropriate they were, I volunteered to bring in the unit that I actually use to teach my students about the human body, as it would be more beneficial for all. The people, science experts from a nearby university, who planned this course, made assumptions that detracted from the value this professional development course might have had. They assumed that teachers are ignorant and cannot properly address science concepts. They believed, as nonelementary teachers themselves, that they could guide elementary teachers in their content and pedagogical choices. Suggesting that teachers take

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poisonous creatures into their classrooms (scorpions and black widow spiders) for the students’ learning benefit is absurd.

KNOWLEDGE, DEVELOPMENT, AND IDENTITY COMPLEXITIES HEARD IN ELISSA’S STORYING OF EXPERIENCE As we begin the process of making meaning of Elissa’s MSP professional development experience, the story we present above, we reflect upon the process of living, telling, retelling, and reliving stories of teacher knowledge, identity, and development. This chapter is an examination of the intersection of teacher knowledge and science subject matter, and the living and telling of this story is calling for reconstruction of experience with growth as the end in mind in terms of knowledge, identity, and development. At a fundamental level, the tension pulls taut in this story in a way that pits teacher knowledge and science content knowledge in a tug of war for legitimacy. MSP is built on a set of underlying assumptions regarding the proficiency, or lack thereof, of teachers’ knowledge of mathematics and science. The argument is simple: By increasing teachers’ knowledge of science and mathematics, we will improve students’ performance in these areas. This belief is evident in Elissa’s telling of this story. And this characterization of teacher knowledge, when brought to bear on professional development with teachers, explains much of the angst present in this narration. In offering a reconstruction that might push toward growth (Dewey, 1938), we examine this story through the curriculum commonplaces (Schwab, 1969/1978). Even at the outset, this analysis is murky. The boundaries blur between the roles of teacher, learner, subject matter, and context. Even as classroom teachers assume the role of learners, as they do in professional development settings, they still bring into those experiences their teacher knowledge. When science, given the limitless nature of its subjects and content, becomes the subject matter, who decides upon the topics? How are these decisions made? And, of course, why are these topics included? In this situation, where the classroom teacher steps into the role of learner, and the subject matter specialist becomes the teacher, tensions between the commonplaces bubble up. Perhaps, this analysis ought to have begun with the milieu. The context for this story is set by the assumptions from the MSP grant that stipalates students’ performance will be improved

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by increasing their teachers’ science and mathematics content knowledge. Clearly, from a curricular argument, an imbalance of the common places shapes this undertaking, and would better be addressed. through a process of deliberation. We turn our attention to these tensions as a beginning point for deliberation about teacher knowledge and identity. The first point of tension is between the goal of increasing the general background knowledge that teachers have in the area of science and mathematics versus the more targeted improvement of the specific knowledge needed for them to teach their grade level content knowledge effectively to their students. The inference is made that using the high school level, general science textbook is aimed more at the former rather than the latter objective. Likewise, the other foci in the sessions are more general in nature than focused on the grade level content and standards. And, further, while the content is more general, there seems to be little thought given to ascertaining the level of science knowledge that the teachers are bring into this course, which is problematic in that teachers who pursue content-related courses for their professional development are oftentimes already quite open to learning in those areas. In terms of impacting science and mathematics instruction in schools, likely a broader level of participation is needed, but to appeal to teachers, we believe, their knowledge and identity must, first, be valued. The dismissal of the content knowledge teachers may have threaded throughout this story, but so too did a lack of recognition of teacher knowledge for the most part. The tension that we perceive in this account may be attributable to the lack of understanding or recognition of the pedagogical understandings teachers construct, use, and shape their classroom practice. There are three core areas where teacher knowledge and identity are conflicted with the science content in this experience. The first is the safety concerns that teachers consider in their interactions with students and the environments they establish in their classrooms and school. This tension is heard in the dismissal of the idea of having scorpions or black widow spiders as classroom features and in the disapprobation of the manner in which the owl pellets were presented for study. The second area of conflict is found in the cultural issues which feature into teacher understandings of their classroom and students. In many cultures among the Native Americans, there are aspects of science teaching that are best to be culturally mediated, for example, owl pellets may be offensive to children from certain populations (i.e., Navajo). Cultural sensitivities are one aspect of understanding students and what is appropriate for instruction, but there are other age-related aspects that are fundamental to teachers’ work with

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the curriculum. Finally, there is the tension around the monies paid out for professional development of teachers. While much of the millions of federal dollars that fund the MSP grants is apportioned to teacher stipends, the cost associated with release days teachers would be removed from the classroom to attend professional development sessions is not take into account?

SHANNON’S STORYING OF MSP: A DIFFERENT SET OF ASSUMPTIONS Shannon begins her reflections on professional development with a different perspective on this issue of stipends used to promote teachers’ professional development. I often hear colleagues or other professional educators bemoaning the fact that teachers attend professional development for the money. I am actually okay with this. First, I know that there is no amount of money that will get the least engaged teachers in the field to give up several weeks in the summer and monthly weekends during the academic year. So, I work under the assumption that, though teachers might be there for the money, this is only one part of why they are coming for professional development. Second, teachers are some of the most overworked, undervalued, and underpaid professionals in our country, and I value their willingness to give up valuable summer and weekend time to come expand their pedagogical content knowledge and work on improving their craft. Somehow, we have it in our minds that teachers are supposed to be martyrs who spend all their extra income and free time sacrificing for the greater good by buying their own supplies and paying for their own professional learning. Coming to professional development programs because of the stipend does not make teachers mercenary; rather, it makes them professionals recognizing their due and doing what it takes to expand their knowledge base, promote collegiality between themselves and other professionals, and improve their instruction for the ultimate benefit of their students. As a former secondary mathematics teacher turned tenured mathematics education faculty member at a state university recognized for its education programs, I find myself continually drawn to professional development of teachers at all levels of K-12 mathematics education. Over the past 10 years during my career at the university level, I have been part of developing and

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delivering 14 projects that focused on mathematics content and pedagogybased professional development. I’ve worked with secondary teachers on Functions and Modeling, elementary teachers on Geometry, Numbers/ Operations, and Algebra in grades K-8, and middle school teachers on everything in between. Each project is driven and designed with an ultimate goal of developing depth of content understanding while modeling, discussing, and promoting effective pedagogy that moves the impetus of control and engagement from the teacher to the students. In recent years, much of my professional development work sought out by and provided to the region’s elementary and secondary schools has centered on incorporating the content and mathematical practices associated with Common Core into teachers’ existing practice. While various populations of teachers at the different grade levels have different professional development needs, the underlying component that drives all of my professional development work with teachers is recognizing the professional knowledge, skills, and dispositions of teachers as the foundation of my instruction. As a former secondary mathematics teacher, I think about what made me successful in the classroom and the types of learning experiences I found valuable, and designed my professional development around those tenets. Content is first and foremost and drives instruction, discussions, and activities. In addition, teachers have a vast array of knowledge and experiences that must be acknowledged and leveraged as part of professional development. As adult learners, it is imperative that any professional development efforts try to meet them where they are at and build on those prior experiences and professional knowledge rather than assuming that I, as the instructor, know all and know what’s best for my participants. Next, because many teachers are the product of a largely traditional mathematics instructional approach as students, they need to actually experience an instructional approach that emphasizes and models student-centered investigations, problem solving, and collaboration. This means that teachers must actively experience content-based lessons and activities as learners and then dissect their experiences as teachers, focusing on the pedagogy of each lesson or activity and how that approach promoted problem solving, conceptual understanding, and collaborative interaction. Finally, a careful selection of readings and discussions round out participants’ learning experiences with a solid conceptual framework grounded in growth mindset (of ourselves, as educators, and of our students), learning theory, and research-based best practice in mathematics teaching and learning. This approach allows my professional development projects to be actively engaging for participants, grounded in

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the classroom and determined by what is accessible and meaningful for participants. I make a concerted effort to help teachers see explicit connections between the content and pedagogy of the professional development program and their classroom instruction. This does not mean that my professional development projects utilize a bunch of classroom-ready blackline masters for teachers to “take and bake” from my project right into their classes. Thinking about the analogy of giving someone a fish rather than teaching them to fish, the focus of my professional development projects is to provide teachers with the skills, dispositions, and habits of mind that allow them to see connections between their own content development, the modeled pedagogy in which they engage, and the content and instructional approaches they use in their classrooms. As such, most of my projects focus on promoting deep conceptual understanding for participants through higher level tasks that help them answer questions about why and what if, rather than simply how. Teachers are then encouraged to make connections to their instruction and classroom content needs, but that connection is one that they need to figure out based on their own understanding of the content, the needs of their students, and other logistical or instructional factors that are specific to their teaching situation. In short, these projects are about improving teachers’ content and pedagogical understanding and empowering them to make the instructional decisions to put these experiences into play in their own classrooms. Too often, I feel teachers are dictated to and told how/what to do in their classrooms, without acknowledging their vast professional knowledge of content and instruction and the intimate understanding they have of their students, their schools, their resources, and their instructional needs.

MATHEMATICS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WITH SHANNON AND VICKI 7 a.m.
a quiet Saturday morning on campus. Shannon and I pull into the parking lot across the street from the math building. The planning for this day has been finalized for 2 weeks, but there are the last-minute preparations that must be completed before our teachers arrive. Coffees in hand, we make our way up the south staircase to the second floor and down the hallway. We divvy up the tasks: I take the room set-up responsibilities;

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Shannon tackles the paperwork and materials part. We work smoothly and well together; this is a hallmark of the many years we have known each other. Our colleague and collaborator, Amy, who is away on sabbatical, is missing today, and her absence is the only sticking point in our preparations for the day. Today is one of the Saturday workshops which we have scheduled periodically throughout the academic year. This grant is designed to meet the needs of teachers who work with third, fourth, and fifth grade students, and today we are particularly focusing on operations with fractions and the many ways of representing and solving those problems. During our first hour this morning, we have planned to have Shannon work through problem sets for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of fractions. Fractions are a topic that each of these grade levels has as a focus area in their standards and in the curriculum program the teachers are using. We are 30 minutes into our preparation time when the teachers begin arriving. The first ones come in lugging lunch bags and totes with their school mathematics curriculum documents, the resources we have provided for them over the past several months, and their coffee mugs and water bottles. There are cheerful greetings shared and family and community news is passed along. This is a group of teachers, many of whom we met over a decade ago during our very first MSP grant, who knows one another and have created a generous and kind learning community together. The first ones to arrive claim a seat at the pods of four desks pushed together, and begin saving spaces for friends, but mostly for school teammates. They look for Shannon to ask if they can choose their own seating. During the summer meetings, especially, oftentimes, the seating arrangements are changed daily or more often, to encourage collaboration and conversation among as many different teachers as possible. Teachers begin unpacking their materials at their desks. The room begins to fill.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FROM VICKI’S POINT OF VIEW Nearly a decade ago, I participated in working on my first MSP grant project. Two mathematics educators from the Mathematics and Statistics Department, Shannon and Amy, personnel from the County Education Support Office, and I, developed a proposal for professional development for teachers in our region. Our focus was mathematics in elementary

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schools. We began with a 2-week summer institute for the teachers during which time we focused on number sense, operations, and algebraic thinking, and geometry. During each day, we planned for instruction related to content in the focus areas, on pedagogical strategies related to the content, and we created a space for teachers to be exposed to and become grounded in the, then, new state standards. Once we completed the 2 weeks in the summer, the following academic year we visited teachers’ classrooms and conducted observations, which we used to evaluate the usefulness of our workshops and to plan for future follow-up with teachers. We scheduled several Saturday workshops throughout the academic year and brought these teachers together to focus on their mathematics content understandings and instruction and to discuss their implementation of the new standards.

THE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP BEGINS Shannon, at 8:00, steps to the front of the room to open our day. Districtwide, our teachers are implementing a new mathematics curriculum program. We have decided to begin by allowing teachers some time to reflect on how the process is going. Each teacher is to use two Post-it notes to think about and record one thing that is going well and one thing that is problematic. We have written on the board, Challenges and Celebrations, and teachers are invited to put their comments there. Shannon reads the Post-it note reflections aloud to the teachers, as she sorts the comments into groups that lump the ideas together. One challenge that is mentioned by several teachers is categorized under the idea of pacing of instruction. Moving to the thoughts that the teachers posted as celebrations in their work with the new mathematics resources, the group begins looking to the positive changes teachers are noticing. One category that Shannon organizes on the blackboard at the front of the room is student engagement. She collects the teachers’ Post-it notes related to this idea in this group. This opening segment of our professional development workshop is closed with a quick discussion regarding the process of reform and the time needed to make fundamental changes to teaching practices. From there, we move into the content portion of the morning. We have set aside an hour to work on content related to fractions. Teachers have

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brought their homework from our last session. One example of the problems teachers were working on is On the number line, a segment four units long is divided into five equal segments. Label the number line below. In the table groups are encouraged to discuss strategies and thinking about the problems. Several problem sets covering different aspects of concepts related to fractions. Keep the teachers focussed for an hour. We use multiple representations of fractions using area models, fraction bars, number lines, pattern blocks, tape diagrams, and set models. Across all the different models/representations, we emphasize the connections between models and the abstract representation of fractions and operations. So the models provide context and conceptual understanding, but the ultimate goal is to delve into the meaning and conceptual underpinnings of representing models and performing operations with them. Ultimately, we want to get at the why rather than just the how. The teachers work for nearly an hour on the different problems, explaining how they solved the problems and looking at different strategies used by other individuals. Then, we shift gears before lunch to focus on the importance of formative assessment and strategies for differentiating instruction using data collected as part of formative assessment. After a 30-minute lunch break, we close the session in planning groups to look at upcoming content and standards to be addressed. This time is always valued by the teachers.

SHANNON: ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT I do not presume to know everything there is to know about teaching and learning mathematics; and I don’t assume that I have the fix for every teacher that walks into my classroom (or that any teacher even needs a fix). But, I do believe in lifelong learning and that, as educators, once we believe we have teaching figured out, we should quit. I believe deeply that I still have a lot to learn about content, teaching, and creating the best learning experiences for my students. I believe the same of teachers in all content areas and at all grade levels. As such, I approach my professional development projects as collaborative experiences between myself and my participants. I can learn from them, in terms of their specific content needs and instructional contexts, the ways in which they engage with students, and

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the way they interpret and teach mathematics (it is often the case that a participant will show me a different way to approach a problem and I am completely blown away with their insights). Similarly, I have specialized skill sets and practical and theoretical backgrounds that make me good at helping them view their content and pedagogy from different angles so that they come away from the professional development experience with a deeper understanding of their content, their instruction, their students’ needs, and their ability to improve their instruction by tying it all together to create a more productive and engaging learning environment. I do not try to fix teachers or tell them what they need to do to be a better teacher. Rather, I expose them to learning experiences that make them question their own content understanding so that they can take it deeper. I model effective mathematics pedagogy that makes them question their own instructional approaches and wonder if there is a better way. I provide them with a community of learners that offers a supportive environment in which to question their status quo and engage in professional dialogue regarding shifts in what it means to do mathematics and what it means to be a good mathematics teacher.

END OF DAY REFLECTIONS: OUR TEACHERS’ STORYING OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT At the close of the day, when everyone else has gone home, the room is set to rights again, and there is a quiet that comes at the end of a busy day, Shannon and Vicki sit and read through the daily evaluation forms that the teachers complete before leaving. In the evaluation form we provide, we ask the teachers to reflect on what was helpful from the day’s activities, and what was not. We read comments that speak to the value of the content work we planned: • Going over division of a fraction by a fraction again with my grade level colleagues. We put our ideas together and it was very useful! • Fractions need to be taught with a lot of models, discussion, and struggle. There are thoughts about the pedagogy work we did: • Talking about the many types of assessment. Which is a type of knowledge we need and the fact that we can make it fit our own classroom needs and still be effective.

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• I need to ask more open-ended questions. • Looking at the progression documents
seeing the whole picture and how the pieces play in to one another. The teachers expressed the need for more planning time and classroom resources: • More time to collaborate at grade level regarding what we need to teach in the next 3
4 weeks. • I’d like more classroom resources I don’t have to create. These comments indicate a strong growth and development in terms of multiple knowledge bases: content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, selfknowledge, and curricular knowledge. And yet, as we are walking down the hall, our conversation turns to the grumble we overheard as the teachers were packing up to leave: One of the teachers participating in the professional development workshop was talking to a teacher at her school about how she does not have time to assess. “I don’t have time to add more to my teaching. I am already behind.” During the closing segment of the workshop, we had asked the teachers do a homework assignment. The task was to • create an assessment item; • score it using the four-pile sort method we had modeled during the day, so that they could; • look for patterns in student understanding, then; • differentiate instruction based on the different groupings and patterns in student responses; and • report on this assignment for the following workshop. This teacher felt the assignment was too long, and that she did not have time to do it. She clearly did not see that implementing an assessment and differentiating student assessment data as something that would enhance her instruction.

VICKI: ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT All those years ago, I remember that my primary motivator for my work in this professional development collaboration was, being new to the university and surroundings, that I wanted to find connections among my colleagues in the mathematics department, but more particularly to meet and

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work with teachers from the local schools. I believed then, and still do, that the relationships on both sides of this partnership are vitally influential on the work I do in the College of Education. Notwithstanding this commitment to building these relationships, I am cognizant of underlying pernicious tensions. I carry with me into situations of professional development a level of insecurity related to my mathematics content knowledge. I entered into my position through the elementary teacher door, not through the mathematics expert entrance. I remember watching my colleagues from the mathematics department teaching and finding their explanations and examples, their structured discussion very engaging and deeply constructed. I took lots of notes that summer over a decade ago. On the other hand, I feel a level of discomfort in professional development settings. I believe that change is internally driven, rather than externally mandated. I believe that teachers have tacit knowledge of their students, their classrooms, their schools and of themselves, and that classroom teachers, and the knowledge they construct and use, are often given short shrift in professional development contexts. I have a profound respect for the lives and work of teachers, and feel uncomfortable in a position of saying that I know more than they. These are tensions that come with me into MSP projects, or other professional development work that is founded on content knowledge. I teach mathematics methods courses in a College of Education. Each semester, I supervise practicum for my teacher candidates. As we visit schools, I see the difference that MSP grant work is having within our local schools. I talk with my students often about the differences between the ways that they were taught mathematics and the ways that they are going to be asked to teach mathematics. When they encounter these differences in school settings working with elementary school children and their teachers, my students come back to mathematics methods class with a deeper understanding of these differences.

RESTORYING TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: LEARNING FROM OUR EXPERIENCES As we think back on these variegated stories of professional development and begin to make meaning of the experiences we have shared, we are mindful of the age-old narrative device of creating protagonists and antagonists. There seems to us a propensity for humans, as storytellers, to construct ourselves as heroes within the stories of our own lives, and if not heroes, at least

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as sympathetic characters. Carter (1990) warned of this type of characterizations in writing of professional development of teachers in setting up one teacher as the “good” teacher and the other as a hapless
well-intentioned, but not living out reform agendas in accordance with the reformer’s intentions. She cautions us to reject this shallow narrative. In heeding her advice, in our two stories, we employ a narrative inquiry approach in this analysis
we begin by exploring the points at which these stories of experience bump up against each other. In the stories told by Shannon and Vicki, we perceive a difference in comfort and command of the mathematics subject matter content. Shannon is confident in placing content knowledge at the core of the professional development, whereas Vicki is much more tentative. We wonder about this difference. Perhaps, the dissonance is located within the different biographical positions we have assumed on the professional knowledge landscape. We believe our collaboration strengthens the work we do with elementary school teachers. We build on the strength to focus on the content knowledge as it connects with the standards our teacher participants address at their grade level band. In doing so, we hope to help teachers become more thoughtful and flexible in their mathematics instruction. And, this aspect of Shannon and Vicki’s experience when laid beside Elissa’s story pulls at tensions; tensions present in knowledge, identity and development. Pertaining to infusing subject matter knowledge, in both stories, we see this aspect most strikingly in Elissa’s experience as attention is given to content related to the human body. As we consider this part of the restorying, we begin to wonder about the absent voices in our explorations. We have no access to the account that the content specialist would give of his or her work. Have we storied and restoried the experiences in this chapter, in ways that affords to us the role of protagonist, and in so doing placed the other in the role of antagonist? Elissa’s is a tale told from one side. So, then, we wonder about the teachers in Shannon and Vicki’s workshop. We have a limited understanding from this account, but, if asked, what would these teachers’ stories be? At the intersection of content knowledge and teacher knowledge, would these teachers conceive of themselves as being valued, as knowledgeable and knowing?

CHAPTER CONCLUSIONS: PAUSING IN THE CENTER OF THE INTERSECTION These variegated stories of professional development necessarily encompass the intersection of subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge, and

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pull forward tensions in the interplay in relation to the concepts of knowledge, identity, and development. Exploring tensions in a curricular situation brings us to the notion of Schwab’s curriculum commonplaces. What might we conclude if we looked at these questions from the perspective of the learner, the teacher, the subject matter, and the milieu? The roles, and, therefore the perspectives are shifted in these stories: The teacher is the learner; the subject matter specialist is the teacher; the subject matter is understood differently by the stakeholders; and the context begins with the DOE. This chapter is a curriculum commonplaces mashup. To establish some order in this confusion, we call forward another Schwab concept, “deliberation” (1970/1978, p. 318), a process that would bring these necessary and vital aspects of the curriculum into balance with one another. Deliberation is a tool that we believe would help us strike a balance in the curriculum of professional development, particularly in the MSP framework. Ironically, Schwab brought these ideas of deliberation and balancing the commonplaces at the close of the last movement that foregrounded subject matter commonplace within the curriculum. Now, we find a similar situation within the programs designed to improve teacher quality. The argument essentially states that increasing content knowledge of teachers increases academic performance of students. By putting the content knowledge expert in the foreground, the deliberation is put out of balance. Schwab argued that “(c)oordination, not superordination-subordination is the proper relation of these four commonplaces” (Schwab, 1973/1978, p. 372). The curriculum deliberation is held in a superordination
subordination relationship between the scholar and the teacher. To manage the tension Schwab would recognize that they must learn something of the concerns, values, and operations which arise from each other’s experience. They must learn to honor these various groupings of concerns, values, and operations, and to adapt and diminish their own values enough to make room in their thinking for the others” (Schwab, 1973/1978, p. 365).

We see this tension in the angst expressed in Elissa’s recounting, and the lessening of that tension within the story of professional development told by Shannon and Vicki. In establishing the dominate role of content knowledge in these professional development situations, the process is opened for the mathematician or scientist “to impose the character and structure of is discipline as the correct model for the character and structure of the curriculum. Only if the representative with knowledge of and sympathy with, we argue in this chapter, “the (teacher as learner) intervenes as an equal in the deliberation is the discipline represented by the scholar likely to be treated

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as a resource of education rather than as a model for it” (Schwab, 1973/ 1978, p. 368). This exploration makes the case for restorying professional development as working in a “pragmatic intellectual space,” a concept Schwab (1959/1978) borrowed from Dewey. Schwab explains that “divided factors are placed in communication with one another without sacrificing the special character of each one” (p. 174). The pragmatic intellectual space pulls science and scholarship, art and aspiration, and the practical into a different relationship. Importantly, “facts are made more pliable by science and placed in the service of art and the practical” (p. 175). We see much promise in applying such a construct to the professional development of teachers. Pragmatic Intellectual Space might shape professional development activities in positive and productive ways, striking a better balance at this crossroads of curriculum.

REFERENCES Carter, K. (1990). The place of story in teaching and teacher education. Educational Researcher, 22(1), 5
12, 18. Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1988). Teachers as curriculum planners: Narratives of experience. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2
14. Craig, C. J., & Ross, V. (2008). Cultivating the image of teacher as curriculum maker. In F. M. Connelly, M. F. He, & J. Phillion (Eds.) The Sage handbook of curriculum (pp. 282
305). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York, NY: Macmillan. Ross, V., & Chan, E. (2015). Personal practical knowledge: A study of teachers educators. In J. Loughran, & M. L. Hamilton (Eds.), The international handbook of teacher education (Vol. 2, pp. 3–33). Singapore: Springer. Schwab, J. J. (1959/1978). The “impossible” role of the teacher in progressive education. In I. Westbury & N. J. Wilkoff (Eds.) Science, curriculum, and liberal education (pp. 167
183). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Schwab, J. J. (1970/1978). The practical: A language for curriculum. In I. Westbury, & N. J. Wilkoff (Eds.) Science, curriculum, and liberal education (pp. 287
321). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Schwab, J. J. (1973/1978). The practical: Translation into curriculum. In I. Westbury, & N. J. Wilkoff (Eds.) Science, curriculum, and liberal education (pp. 365
383). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. J. Schwab, I. Westbury, & N. J. Wilkof (Eds.), (1949/1978). Science, curriculmn, and liberal education. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. US Department of Education. (2015). Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/programs/mathsci/ faq.html#statute

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STORIES AND STATISTICS: A MIXED PICTURE OF GENDER EQUITY IN MATHEMATICS Kathleen Jablon Stoehr, Kathy Carter and Amanda Sugimoto ABSTRACT The goal of this chapter is to gain a better understanding of the experiences of mathematics anxiety that some women elementary preservice teachers encounter while learning mathematics during their own K-12 years. Specifically, this chapter is an analysis of the personal wellremembered events (WREs) told and recorded by women during their preservice teaching professional sequence. These narrative writings provide a powerful voice for the degree to which mathematics anxiety shape preservice teachers’ beliefs on what it means to learn mathematics. This intersection of teacher knowledge is important, as these are women who are on the professional track to teach mathematics. The focused analysis for this chapter is aimed at ways in which teacher preparation programs could broaden current views of women who have anxiety and confidence issues in mathematics. Keywords: Mathematics anxiety; teacher education; teacher knowledge; well-remembered events; metaphor Crossroads of the Classroom: Narrative Intersections of Teacher Knowledge and Subject Matter Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 28, 39
58 Copyright r 2017 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1108/S1479-368720160000028005

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INTRODUCTION I have had the opportunity to teach mathematics in first through seventh grades. Early on in my teaching career, what became clear to me was that the boys in my various classes tended to be excited about mathematics whereas many of the girls did not seem to feel very confident about their mathematical abilities. During parent
teacher conferences, a mother of a girl in my class would often state that she was not very good in mathematics and that she did not expect her daughter to excel in mathematics either. After all, the mother would add, she had been able to navigate her way through life just fine without a strong mathematics background. From my perspective, statements that make mathematics seem not attainable or necessary can give girls permission to exit themselves from being successful in mathematics. When I taught accelerated middle school mathematics, the girls in my class would enter the room as if they could not quite believe they were there and that somehow they managed to be recommended for the “smart kid” mathematics class. The boys would enter confidently and with a sense of assurance that they had every right to be in the fast-tracked class. While working together throughout the year, much effort was needed to convince the girls that they were capable mathematics students and that they had much to offer by sharing their mathematical reasoning and thinking. In other words, I hoped my teaching would send a message that being capable in mathematics did not inherently belong to the boys in the class. After 10 years of teaching children, I began a Ph.D. program in education. I was given the opportunity to teach preservice teachers, and what I observed in the area of mathematics is that many young women seemed to suffer from mathematics anxiety and confidence issues. Here I was again, only with the grown-up versions of the girls I had taught in my elementary and middle school mathematics classes. One preservice teacher shared with me that for her, she was not sure why but math was just always going to be one of those subjects that is really, really hard and makes her tense up. As a result of my various teaching experiences, I became interested in learning more about gender issues in mathematics and the anxiety and confidence problems I had seen many girls and young women experience. Alongside me, my colleagues and I began a research journey to examine the narratives that women elementary preservice teachers have to tell about their experiences of learning mathematics.

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Mathematics Anxiety and Women Elementary Preservice Teachers Mathematical anxiety in women who are entering the elementary teaching field is a subject that has gained the interest of mathematics teacher educators. Previous research has revealed that women who pursue elementary teaching careers are often individuals who themselves have confronted anxiety in mathematics during their own K-12 experiences (Ball, 1988; Brady & Bowd, 2005; McGlynn-Stewart, 2010; Sloan, 2010; Stoehr & Carter, 2011). There is great concern, as presently over 90% of all elementary school teachers in the United States are women (Beilock, Gunderson, Ramirez, & Levine, 2010). Fennema’s groundbreaking work that started in the1970s led mathematics researchers to seriously begin to consider gender equity issues in mathematics and to investigate what needed to be studied to ensure that girls could reach their full mathematical potential (Fennema, 1974). Unfortunately, as Fennema and Peterson (1985) discovered, gender-related issues in mathematics are “some of the most pervasive and persistent educational inequities that exist” (p. 17). For the past 20 years, scholars have successfully used narratives in the field of education as a research framework to provide a clear focus of how new teachers make sense of teaching, including how it relates to their own school experiences (Carter, 1993; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Stoehr, 2015; Stoehr, Carter, & Sugimoto, 2016). Narrative inquiry creates a means for teachers to talk and write about their storied lives while making connections to teaching (Carter, 1993; Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Doyle & Carter, 2003). In order to move forward toward a productive and meaningful understanding regarding the role mathematics anxiety plays in women elementary teachers, a narrative research agenda provides a mechanism to examine the cognitive understandings and personal sense-making strategies used by the participants to “converse” about their mathematical experiences, as students and teachers. The use of narratives is a powerful research tool that can be used to develop new understandings of mathematical anxiety in women who are elementary preservice teachers. It is these voices and stories of preservice teachers that potentially inform the mathematics teacher education community about the necessary work needed to equip elementary classrooms with competent and confident mathematics teachers. In this chapter, we examine experiences of mathematics anxiety that some women elementary preservice teachers narrate while learning mathematics during their own K-12 experiences. We also present evidence of how

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preservice teachers believe their own experiences of mathematics anxiety impacted their future mathematics teaching.

Stereotyping about Girls and Mathematics An important variable that has been linked to mathematics anxiety is stereotypes. Powerful stereotypes still exist that suggest boys are stronger in mathematics than girls (Boaler, 2008). Girls often believe they are not expected to excel in mathematics as they try to make sense of the stereotypical messages they receive from some parents, teachers, and peers (Boaler, 2008; Gavin & Reis, 2003). These stereotypical messages can lead to a detrimental academic effect on girls in mathematics classes (Gavin & Reis, 2003). Some teachers also help to perpetuate the stereotype that boys are stronger in mathematics than girls as they often overestimate boys’ potential in mathematics whereas they underestimate mathematical potential for girls (Goodell & Parker, 2001). Another concern with teachers believing the boys in their class are stronger in mathematics is that teachers may interact differently with the girls and have lower expectations for them. The result can lead to girls having negative feelings about their mathematical abilities (Beilock et al., 2010; Fennema, Carpenter, Jacobs, Franke, & Levi, 1998; Fennema, Peterson, Carpenter, & Lubinski, 1990). In addition, if teachers hold a stereotypical view of girls as being less capable than boys in mathematics and interact differently with girls than boys, then gender differences in mathematics achievement have a greater likelihood of developing because of the difference in expectations (Fennema et al., 1998).

Mathematics Achievements among Girls Promising academic progress has been made by girls in the area of mathematics. Recent quantitative outcomes suggest the equity issue in mathematics between boys and girls is no longer a concern (Corbett, Hill, & St. Rose, 2008; Gresham, 2007; Huebner, 2009, Liu, 2008; Vinson, 2001). National statistics in mathematics show that presently, girls do very well in mathematics, achieving at equal or even higher levels than boys (Boaler, 2008). There is great optimism for girls in mathematics (Huebner, 2009).

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However, a closer look at what standardized test scores actually reveal is warranted. McGraw, Lubienski, and Struchen’s (2006) analyzed the 2003 mathematics data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Their study revealed that there remain small but persistent gaps that favor boys. Although both boys and girls average scale scores have risen, the gender gap in mathematics remains, with significant differences that favor boys on average at the fourth, eighth, and twelfth grade levels (McGraw et al., 2006). In addition, the gender gap is not equally disbursed across the different mathematical content areas but varies as much as 5
7 points, depending on the strand (McGraw et al., 2006). Therefore, evaluating how girls are doing in mathematics when compared to boys by the use of a single test score does not tell the whole story. McGraw et al. (2006) also evaluated student questionnaires that were completed by the test takers during the 2003 NAEP testing period. The results of the evaluation unveiled that boys were more likely to state they liked mathematics and were good at mathematics as compared to the girls’ responses (McGraw et al., 2006). Clearly, more variables than test scores need to be examined in order to have a fuller understanding of why girls are less likely to like mathematics and feel successful in mathematics, as test scores tell only part of the story. Such a study that explores girls’ mathematics classroom experiences may lead to a better understanding of the mathematical anxiety that some women experience. In summary, the literature suggests that boys and girls may have variable experiences in the mathematics classroom. This is an important issue to consider as women elementary preservice teachers are preparing to teach mathematics. The documented K-12 experiences of women elementary teachers has provoked the teacher education community to explore how women’s experiences have shaped their mathematics experiences and how their experiences might impact their journey of learning to teach. To this end, we share our interpretations and findings from a multi-year narrative-based study of women elementary preservice teachers’ experiences in the K-12 mathematics classroom. Through the use of narrative writings, the focused analysis for this chapter is to gain a better understanding of issues of mathematics anxiety that some women elementary preservice teachers’ experience. With this information, perhaps teacher preparation programs could explore mathematics anxiety that some women elementary preservice teachers’ experience.

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GUIDING FRAMEWORK FOR CONCEPTUALIZING THIS CHAPTER To better understand this mixed picture of gender equity in mathematics, two distinct frames provide both the background and impetus for this chapter: (1) mathematics anxiety and (2) stories as a narrative research tool in teacher education.

What Is Mathematics Anxiety? Mathematical anxiety is more than just not liking mathematics (Vinson, 2001). “Mathematics anxiety refers to such unhealthy mood responses which occur when some students come upon mathematics problems and manifest themselves as being panicky and losing one’s head, depressed and helpless, nervous and fearful, and so on” (Luo, Wang, & Luo, 2009, pp. 12, 13). Physiological reactions such as sweaty palms, tight fists, being sick, vomiting, having dry lips, and a pale face can also occur which can result in students losing not only their interest in mathematics but also confidence in their ability to learn mathematics (Luo et al., 2009). Teachers who are anxious about mathematics often pass their own anxieties to their students, which can result in a perpetuation of the problem (Beilock et al., 2010; Vinson, 2001). Indeed Beilock et al. (2010) reported that mathematically anxious women elementary teachers often impact the mathematics achievements of the girls in their class. The study revealed the more anxious the teacher was about mathematics, the more likely the girls in the class were to believe boys were better at mathematics. Discarding this “mathematical baggage” is critical for preservice teachers (Brown, Mcnamara, Hanley, & Jones, 1999).

Narrative Research in Teacher Education Carter’s work (1993) gave credence to the use of narrative stories as an authentic research tool for teacher educators by paying specific attention to how stories support women’s understandings and knowledge in the realm of teacher and teacher education. As other education researchers were beginning to use stories as a viable method for studying what teachers know about teaching (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990;

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Gudmundsdottir, 1991), Carter’s (1993) analysis of the use of stories helped to create a permanent place for stories to be considered in teacher education research. Carter’s (1993) worked revealed that through the use of narratives, stories offer a way to authentically capture the complexities of what it means to teach from the voices of teachers as well as offer a way for preservice teachers to capture a glimpse of teaching. Carter (1993) carefully analyzed the use of story in teacher education research by addressing narrative stories from different perspectives. She states that stories have events, characters, and settings that hold significance for the storyteller. However, when story is viewed “as a mode of knowing” (p. 6) the transfer of knowledge and understanding can come from the telling of stories. Equally important, stories come as a result of experience upon which a model of understanding is built. Carter (1993) adds that teachers have “storied knowledge” (p. 7). As teachers spend more time in the classroom, a variety of experiences in curriculum, classroom processes, students’ behavior, and understandings become storied. New teachers, who gain their situated knowledge over time, tend to base their stories on events, which Carter (1993) refers to as “well-remembered events” (WREs). These WREs are occurrences that are derived from an individual’s experiences that revolve around a specific school event or situation that is especially salient or memorable to the person observing the event. Preservice teachers and new teachers who do not yet possess a wealth of situated knowledge may find it challenging to understand classroom events. Therefore, they may concentrate on learning to understand a specific teaching event in an effort to create meaning. Teacher educator researchers whose attention focuses on the WREs of preservice or new teachers may gain significant insight into the process of new teachers learning to teach (Carter, 1993). Carter (1993, 2003, 2012) suggests that teachers’ stories have the possibility to be valuable teaching tools for preservice teachers. She states that by using authentic teachers’ stories as case studies in teacher education classes, they have the potential to provide more vivid, realistic, and meaningful examples of teaching. In addition, teachers’ stories can serve as powerful instruments for teaching preservice teachers because they communicate the various facets, demands, and rewards of teaching. Moreover, her work illustrates that the use of story can offer teacher educators the opportunity to gather a better understanding from teachers in all stages of teaching of what it means to teach. More specifically for this study, narratives offer a way in which to gain a greater understanding of the mathematics experiences of women elementary preservice teachers.

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INSTRUCTIONAL CONTEXT Participants in this 5-year study included 228 undergraduate women elementary preservice teachers from a large Research 1 University located in the southwestern US region. The majority of the participants were White and were in their early twenties. They were enrolled in a semester-long generic methods course built from the research on classroom management, teaching strategies, teacher planning, and personal narrative in learning to teach. The overall purpose of the course was to enable students to (1) know and be able to use the standard practices of the profession; (2) have the knowledge structures and planning strategies necessary to recognize major classroom dilemmas and problems and to construct adequate solutions to these problems; and (3) understand how their life histories have shaped their personal conceptions of what it means to act as a teacher.

Narrative Applications Related to Subject Matter The participants in this study were asked to write a personal mathematics experience. In these narratives, termed “well-remembered events,” the preservice teachers were asked to describe and analyze a particularly salient mathematics event from their own experiences as students during their K-12 years. This genre of personal narrative was derived from Carter’s (1993, 1994) work on WREs as windows into the understandings preservice teachers have of teaching. The task consisted of a three-page paper organized around the following sections: (1) the selection of a particularly salient mathematics event from one’s past experiences in mathematics as a K-12 student; (2) a detailed and rich description of the remembered event including pertinent contextual details (i.e., grade level, subject matter, number of people present both active and observers, classroom setup), duration of the event, and a detailed account of the event itself; (3) an analysis of why the mathematics event was so memorable to them; and (4) a reflection on how the event shaped their developing understanding of what it means to be a teacher as well as what questions or concerns had arisen as a result of their analysis of their WRE. Career studies imply that teachers can often recall in considerable detail specific incidents that have been especially critical in their development (Sikes, Measor, & Woods, 1985). This suggests that having preservice teachers focus on specific WREs may be useful in understanding gender equity

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issues in mathematics that may still exist. Moreover, preservice teachers often discover during their teacher education programs that their future actions as teachers are connected to their beliefs about mathematics and themselves as mathematics learners (Stuart & Thurlow, 2000).

ANALYSIS A multi-phased analysis was used in an effort to capture the richness and nuances of the mathematics WREs without losing the larger themes and structures present in the compilation. After an initial reading of all 228 narratives, we began an iterative analysis (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992) by demarcating the basic story structures (i.e., positive mathematics experience, negative mathematics experiences, challenging mathematics experiences, turning point experiences, etc.). This phase of analysis allowed us to identify patterns along story structure lines (i.e., accomplishment, pride, humiliation, shame, embarrassment, turning points, etc.). Next, we began the thematic development of the narratives by utilizing an emergent coding scheme (Marshall & Rossman, 2006) to organize and sort the narratives. We sorted the narratives as being positive, negative, or neutral mathematics experiences. We then highlighted and labeled particular phrases or sentences of each narrative to summarize key patterns across participants’ mathematics experiences as well as capture their implications for teaching mathematics in their future classrooms. We then titled each thematic category using a composite of the preservice teachers own words to encapsulate the essence of the narratives.

FINDINGS The findings of this study suggest that many of the preservice teachers did not perceive themselves to be capable or confident mathematics students. When asked to recall an experience that occurred sometime during their K-12 schooling years in mathematics, the experience or the “wellremembered event” was overwhelmingly a negative one. In fact, 182 of the 228 narratives included at least one element of embarrassment, failure, humiliation, shame, or struggles in learning mathematics. Each thematic finding is presented below.

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Theme 1: Losing My Breath in the Mathematics Classroom The largest category of narratives (48) centered on incidents that created feelings of embarrassment, humiliation nervousness, or shame while attempting to learn mathematics. Many of these WREs also included descriptions of the physical sensations they encountered such as trembling, sweating, crying, shaking, frozen in place, unable to speak, racing heart, sinking feeling, burning red ears and face, lump in the throat, panic, and drawing a complete blank. One preservice teacher shared how her seventh grade teacher began each class by randomly calling on students to answer a mathematics question. When it was her turn to answer one of the problems she recalled: I was so nervous and startled by this that I lost my breath for a second. I looked around the room as calmly as I could trying to do the math really fast in my head …. This event really mattered to me because from this point on I felt uncomfortable in math. To this day, thinking about math makes me cringe.

Another preservice teacher wrote about a mathematics experience that occurred during her fourth grade year as she struggled to learn mixed fractions: I was trying desperately to fly under the radar and when Mr. M called out my apparent lack of understanding, I was utterly mortified. I did not care about learning mixed fractions at that point; I simply wanted to crawl under my desk or cry from embarrassment. I was trying to get him to stop making such a production of helping me that I even lied to him that I understood to get him to go away …. I was one of the slower students in math and would have appreciated him being more sensitive to that instead of using that opportunity to make a joke out of my inability to comprehend mixed fractions. When he threw open the blinds and yelled, “Do you see the light?” it was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life …. As a result of that incidence I was unable to ask him for his help ever again.

This preservice teacher stated that she wished Mr. M had waited for her to ask for his help when she was ready instead of him drawing the class’ attention to her lack of understanding of mixed fractions. Another preservice teacher wrote about her yearlong struggles with ninth grade algebra. When the day of the final arrived she recalled the following experience: I walked into class and sat at my desk. Mr. S began to hand out the finals and when he approached my desk he kept walking. He told everyone to begin, and then walked up to me and said, “Sit at the desk in the back corner of the room.” I gathered my belongings and sat down, and then he handed me the newspaper and said, “Don’t even bother taking the final, you’re going to just fail anyways, sit here and read this until class is

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over.” All the students pointed and laughed at me for a while and then they finally continued with their final …. Although this event only lasted a few minutes, it had a damaging impact throughout my life.

The public embarrassment that each of the three preservice teachers experienced seemed to fuel their belief that they were not capable mathematics students. Moreover, this belief continued to follow them through their K-12 mathematical experiences.

Theme 2: Compromised Female Mathematical Capital: Diminished Return on Investments Twenty-one participants recalled mathematics experiences with teachers who had low expectations for them. One preservice teacher shared her ninth grade experience of being unsupported by her teacher. She stated: Ms A. was not keen with the fact that she had a student entering her classroom with a learning disability …. I was moved to the back corner on the right side of the classroom near the bookshelf. No one sat there, nor did they ever want to. I was basically secluded. When the period ended, I asked Ms. A. why I was placed there and she said, “Because other students deserve to learn and succeed more than you do.” I was horrified and heart broken …. In all my time in her classroom, I was never called on and whenever my hand was raised in hopes of answering a question, I was blankly ignored.

Another preservice teacher shared an experience that occurred during her eighth grade math class review session: Ms. M wrote four math problems on the white board and instructed to solve them as quickly as possible. The first student who would solve the problems correctly would get bonus points added to their grade at the end of the semester. After a few minutes, I raised my hand catching Ms. M’s attention and signaling that I had completed the task. The next words I heard from Ms. M were, “[Student]? Are you sure? I don’t think it’s possible that you completed all the problems so quickly. I am sure you didn’t solve them correctly, as you are very weak in math. In fact, you are the weakest in this class.” All I could hear after that was my fellow students and my teacher laughing out loud …. This event impacted me in such a way that even today, if I solve a problem before any of my classmates, I don’t raise my hand due to lack of confidence.

These two narratives illustrate how devastating it can be for students when teachers send the message that they are not capable of learning mathematics. Students may become very anxious about learning mathematics if they are told they do not “deserve” or are too “weak” to successfully participate in this content area. Further, if teachers follow stereotypical images that men are better in mathematics than women,

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their respondent choices over time may bankrupt young women’s opportunities to grow in mathematics.

Theme 3: Race to the Finish But Stalled from the Start Twenty-three preservice teachers spoke of the embarrassment they experienced when presented with timed fact tests. Moreover, some participants recalled the humiliation they experienced in classrooms where each student’s progress was displayed for everyone to see. One participant shared her third grade experience of failing a timed multiplication test: The feeling of anxiety I got from taking these [tests] was through the roof and will stick with me forever …. These feelings made this event stick with me for more than 10 years. The first timed test I took impacted my math learning for the rest of my life, it made it a very stressful and unenjoyable experience for me. I have always felt anxiety when in a math class, and I think it stems from this experience.

Other preservice teachers remembered the humiliation they experienced in classrooms where each student’s progress was displayed for everyone to see. One preservice teacher said the following: I had to look at it everyday in math class, the giant neon-green poster at the front of the room. This was not a poster of Albert Einstein or of an inspirational quote; it was a chart of everyone in Mrs. H’s math class with stickers. The stickers were used to track every child’s progress with the timed table quizzes. The chart was also used as a subject of ridicule on the playground due to the fact that fourth graders also considered it to be an accurate representation of everyone’s IQ. Today, like every day this week, the poster showed I was the dumbest. I was the only student out of twenty-three in the class who was still stuck on multiples of seven.

Both preservice teachers added that to this day, they struggle to do mathematics quickly and on the spot. However, six preservice teachers in the study spoke positively about being able to compute quickly for timed tests or games that required one person to answer more rapidly than another. As one preservice teacher noted: One of my favorite multiplication drills was the infamous Around-the-World game. A little healthy competition and strength in math made for an exciting review. Many of the students dreaded this review activity, but another student, [A] and myself always looked forward to it.

Taken together these narratives of preservice teachers suggest that creating competition and competence in mathematics where one student is seen

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as a winner while another is seen as a loser should be carefully considered in the mathematics classroom.

Theme 4: Girl Gravity: Free Falling in Mathematical Confidence Sixteen preservice teachers wrote WREs that talked about the challenges they encountered as a result of being identified as a capable or fast-tracked mathematics student. Some of the participants encountered mathematics anxiety as they tried to maintain their elevated status while experiencing incidences of not understanding specific content. One preservice teacher spoke of having successful mathematics experiences until she encountered an elevated high school calculus class. She said: Calculus was something I just couldn’t grasp. This moment in class was a sort of tipping point for me. It was hard for me to want to do problems after this because I began to establish a mindset that every problem I was attempting was done wrong …. I no longer thought I was good enough at math to be able to solve them. Other preservice teachers spoke of the teasing they received from boys in their accelerated mathematics classes. One preservice teacher shared her experience of her teacher announcing that she received the highest grade in the class. She said: As soon as she [the teacher] said those words, two boys sitting behind me started saying things like teacher’s pet, over-achiever, nerd, and calling me names in front of the entire class because of the score I got. I remember after that moment Ms. J did not say anything but laughed at the comments the two boys made along with the rest of the class …. This impacted me because before this event I really enjoyed math and after it happened, I no longer cared about math because I was made fun of for doing it well …. I lost my confidence and then began to stop trying because of the fear I had of being made fun of again.

These two narratives highlight how tedious and often fragile the relationship can be between girls believing that not only can they do mathematics but that they can be highly successful mathematics students.

Theme 5: F ¼ Failure Forever A smaller subset of narratives (six) focused specifically on preservice teachers who recalled receiving an F on a mathematics assignment. They described feelings of great shame and embarrassment as well as believing that the F impacted their mathematical abilities from that point forward.

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One participant described the humiliation she felt as she received feedback on her third grade mathematics assignment. I remember being nervous as heck because even though I completed it, I had no idea if I did it right …. My name was then finally called and when I got up there, Mrs. R showed me my paper, took out her red pen, wrote a big, fat F, and circled it while simultaneously saying it out loud in her stern and scary voice. Ashamed, I took my paper and … upon turning around, all the eyes in the classroom were on me and the air was dead silent.

Seeing a “big, fat F” on her paper seemed to imply to this preservice teacher that this was her mathematics status. The shame she experienced as she felt the “dead silence” and the eyes of her classmates casted upon her appeared to ignite feelings of mathematics anxiety.

Theme 6: The Power of One: Making a Mathematical Difference Thirty-five narratives highlighted how important a teacher’s positive influence and calm and caring demeanor can be for struggling and anxious mathematics students. Moreover, the preservice teachers spoke powerfully about the positive impact of having a teacher believe they could be mathematically successful despite having had previous negative mathematics encounters. One preservice teacher recalled such an experience while taking algebra in seventh grade. She stated: I did not understand any concepts that were being taught …. Mr. M discreetly asked me to come in after school …. I walked into his classroom and I remember him having all of my previous (and extremely butchered) homework assignments lying out on all the desks. … Mr. M spent almost two hours explaining …. I remember as he explained each problem to me lights and whistles were going off in my head …. I ended up developing a love for algebra.

Another preservice teacher recalled being tracked in the “regular” mathematics class while her friends were placed in the “advanced” group. Already feeling less than capable in mathematics, she discovered that she received a C on her first chapter test. It was at this she sought the extra support of her teacher. She shared: As I entered through the wooden doors of Room 251, I felt my stomach turning as I approached Mrs. C alone during lunchtime. As soon as she greeted me with her graceful, kind presence I felt a sudden ease build up and I was no longer nervous. The butterflies in my stomach had disappeared …. We sat together at her desk and we proceeded to go over all of the problems I had missed …. After our first meeting I felt

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comfortable and confident that I would be able to receive the help I needed in order to succeed.

These preservice teachers spoke of clear instances where the guidance and support of their teachers allowed them to access the mathematics they needed to learn. Moreover, these type of experiences may have helped to whittle away some the past mathematics anxiety they encountered.

Theme 7: Luminosity Remembered: Stand Up and Stand Out Moments in Mathematics Twenty-eight narratives illustrated how powerful it can be for students to be publically recognized as a competent mathematics student, especially if individuals have had previous experiences with mathematics anxiety. One preservice teacher shared the following seventh grade mathematics experience: I dreaded walking into math class … I felt like I was the dumbest …. The time came for Mr. W to call on people to share their homework. I normally was apprehensive to raise my hand but that day my hand shot up so fast …. I walked up to the smart board and wrote my answer …. Everyone in the class started raising their hands. It seemed that they got a different answer. Mr. W started calling on other people and I felt embarrassed …. Mr. W called on three other people and then told the class that I was actually right …. I will always remember this moment because it changed my view of math.

Another preservice teacher recalled that mathematics was always a challenge for her, requiring her to spend a lot of time and effort in this content area. During a particularly difficult eighth grade algebra lesson, the students were given time in class to work on their homework problems. The preservice teacher stated: I started working on the first problem and after I read it I was able to compose an equation and then solve for the answer. Since I had a bad history with math in the first place I was skeptical about the accuracy of my answer, therefore, I approached Mrs. M’s desk to ask her to check my work. When she examined my paper, she smiled and said that my work was correct and so was the answer. I was so happy and shocked to hear her response. Then Ms. M went on to tell the class that I understood the concept and that they should ask me any questions they had …. I was stunned and proud of myself for understanding a difficult math concept. Then my classmates began to come up to me with questions about the homework problems and I confidently conveyed my knowledge to them with ease.

These narratives suggest that positive public recognition in the mathematics classroom may potentially create moments of mathematics success.

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This may be invaluable for students who do not see themselves as competent and competent mathematics students and may help to diffuse mathematics anxiety.

Theme 8: Mathematical Mirth: Where Meaning and Merriment Come Together Forty-five preservice teachers spoke of the importance of making mathematics fun and/or relevant. Some preservice teachers recalled learning fun songs to remember mathematic formulas. For example, one preservice teacher stated that half of our precalculus class (including herself) struggled to learn the quadratic formula. She said: Mr. S told us that he knew another way to memorize the formula and he believed that the rest of us would really benefit from it. He told us that the quadratic formula can be remembered in song form. We did not believe this was possible, but we were interested to see how the tune went. He then sang the song …. In my head, all I could think of was that song …. Today when someone asks what the formula is I will tell them right away because of that song.

Another preservice teacher recalled her eighth grade experience of learning positive and negative numbers. She stated: After we settled in our groups he [the teacher] announced my biggest fear. We would be sharing our homework answers with our tables to make sure we got them all right. I knew I had gotten none of them right and did not want to share …. After we shared the answers with the class Mr. C hung up a poster on the board, and finally positive and negative numbers made sense to me. The poster had pictures of smiley faces on it and was color-coded for positive and negative numbers …. It took Mr. C three minutes in front of the class to explain a concept I had struggled with for several days.

One preservice teacher shared how her feelings of mathematics anxiety subsided when the concept being taught seemed relevant and important for students to learn. She recalled successfully solving a third grade combination problem of socks, pants, and shorts: I believe this event impacted me so much because it was truly the first time I realized that math was being used in everyday life and that I could relate to the word problems that were being described. Ms. O made math relatable and meaningful.

These WREs indicate how students may be able to make stronger and more positive connections to mathematics when it is taught in a manner that is relevant and that students perceive as fun.

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CONCLUSION This study suggests that much can be learned about women elementary preservice teachers who experience mathematics anxiety during their K-12 years. There is a deep concern about whether teachers who experience mathematics anxiety can be successful in teaching mathematics (Bursal & Paznokas, 2006) with previous research suggesting that teachers who have mathematics anxiety may pass their anxiety onto their students (Beilock et al., 2010; Brady & Bowd, 2005; Sloan, 2010). Moreover, as Beilock et al.’s (2010) work illustrates, mathematically anxious women elementary teachers may impact the mathematics achievements of the girls in their class. Narratives such as WREs open a window for mathematics educators to peer inside of the issues that have created and quelled mathematics anxiety for preservice teachers’ K-12 mathematics experiences. The narratives examined in this study provide a powerful voice for rethinking the teacher education curriculum to better understand preservice teachers’ interpretations of, and responses to, experiences of mathematics anxiety. Of great importance is the need for teacher educators to create time and space in busy teacher preparation programs to address the issue of mathematics anxiety that some women elementary preservice teachers experience before they will be expected to teach mathematics in their own classrooms. Otherwise, preservice teachers may be at risk of entering the classroom illprepared to teach mathematics. With that said, future research exploring preservice teachers’ experiences in college mathematics courses and mathematics methods may be essential in gaining a deeper understanding of the prevalence and persistence of mathematics anxiety. By acknowledging preservice teachers’ anxiety during their professional sequence, teacher educators may increase the likelihood that novice teachers who experience mathematics anxiety may more fully embrace learning and/or consolidating the content during their teacher preparation programs. In closing, we argue that the intersection between mathematical content knowledge and teacher knowledge is important to understand. Teacher knowledge of what it means to teach mathematics may be influenced by teachers’ own experiences of learning mathematics. The narrative writings of the women elementary preservice teachers in this study illustrate that many of their experiences in learning mathematics led them to believe that not all students can “do” mathematics. Our study also reveals that preservice teachers’ negative experiences in learning mathematics seemed to

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impair a deep and rich understanding of mathematics that is of critical importance when teaching elementary mathematics. It is essential that all teachers have a strong foundational understanding of the intellectual, demanding, and challenging aspects of mathematics (Ma, 1999) so that all students (girls and boys) have the greatest potential for learning mathematics. The relationship between mathematics content knowledge and teacher knowledge is interconnected and delicate, with both requiring an understanding of the other.

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A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE: PRACTICE TEACHING IN FIFTHGRADE MATH Michelle Novelli and Vicki Ross ABSTRACT In this chapter, we explore two intersecting plotlines of teacher knowledge and content knowledge through an experience in which we engaged our teacher candidates during our mathematics methods course. Teacher candidates were tasked with the challenge of creating hands-on, interactive activities for small groups of fifth-grade students based on a selected Common Core State Standard for Mathematics (CCSS-M) related to the area of fractions. Responsible for both planning and preparing their activities, the teacher candidates were the curriculum designers. What we designed as the practice teaching activity involved a morning of planning and implementing a fraction activity with small groups of fifthgraders in short sessions, making adjustments, prompting and cueing students, extending learning, managing behaviors and distractibility
experiencing the early challenges and rewards of their first experiences in teaching
gaining practice and feedback. Forming the core of this chapter is a narrative construction of Michelle’s personal experience working with teacher candidates and fifth-grade students in practice

Crossroads of the Classroom: Narrative Intersections of Teacher Knowledge and Subject Matter Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 28, 59
75 Copyright r 2017 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1108/S1479-368720160000028006

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teaching spaces for the first time, discovering moments along with our students, when they bridged the expansive gap from living as education students to feeling like beginning teachers. Teacher candidates’ responses to the experience and reflections on their challenges and successes are shared. Keywords: Narrative inquiry; teacher knowledge; teacher identity; practicum; curriculum; planning and implementation

SHIFTING IDENTITIES: BECOMING TEACHERS, BEING TEACHERS “It helped you see us as teachers and not just students,” confided one of our teacher candidates to Michelle after a morning spent in the fifth-grade classroom. In our College of Education, among the many things that we, Michelle and Vicki, do that may take us in different directions, we do one thing in tandem: we teach the mathematics methods course for our undergraduate elementary teacher candidates. While mathematics as a subject/content area and teacher knowledge has a long and difficult history (Ball, 1990; Ma, 2010), in this narrative inquiry we explore the intersection of these two plotlines through an experience we share with our teacher candidates called practice teaching. We introduce this chapter by sharing one teacher candidate’s feedback on this activity, which is one aspect of our mathematics methods course, because the words tell of some of the identity shifts with which our students grapple as they assume, bit by bit, teacher identities. The experience we designed brings our students into fifth-grade classrooms to work with small groups of learners on math activities prepared by our teacher candidates. As we consider how the two plotlines of mathematics content knowledge and teacher knowledge intersect in our work with our teacher candidates, we share an illustrative example of what we call “practice teaching” experiences created with and for our students, and the hands-on work with students around the content standards for their grade level is part of our practicum assignments during the students’ mathematics methods course. Programmatically, our teacher candidates are expected to complete 45 hours of classroom-based practicum placements in each of the three semesters they are with us during their teacher preparation. Once accepted into the elementary education program, teacher candidates, typically, complete their mathematics methods course during their

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second semester. They come to our class after having completed their literacy methods coursework and their first semester practicum placements. During the semester that they spend with us, we require students in our math methods courses to complete two practice teaching experiences and to observe two model teaching demonstrations focused specifically on mathematics teaching and learning, and these hours are subsumed within the 45 classroom practicum hours. In this chapter, we focus on one of the practice teaching experiences we had with our students during a recent semester. For the required practice teaching experiences, teacher candidates prepare a mathematics education activity related to the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS-M) in the area of fractions which they plan to use to engage small groups of fifth-grade students. Our teacher candidates select a standard, create an activity they can present to a small group of students in 12 minutes, and then, gather and prepare their materials. While our students’ practicum placements are typically within the local school district, for this activity we visit a school that is a few hours away in an urban area with a different student population than they might otherwise encounter in order to introduce our students to another educational environment. The teacher candidates set up their learning space and materials and are provided the time to teach several small groups of students over the span of a morning. They experience what works and what does not as they interact with children around the math curriculum.

A NEW PLACE ON THE PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE LANDSCAPE: MICHELLE’S STORY OF HER FIRST PRACTICE TEACHING DAY Michelle is a new faculty member in our college of education. Until this semester, she had been working at a local elementary school teaching kindergarten. She brings a strong background in the elementary, early childhood, and special education fields. Besides having a decade of teaching experience and multiple teaching awards, she is a highly respected teacher in the district and local community. We feel fortunate to have her working with the teacher candidates on our campus. Nevertheless, this teacher educator identity is new to her, and her position on the landscape has shifted. It has been a year of new beginnings. We are going to share this experience through Michelle’s eyes.

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A Dark and Quiet Beginning Our first practice teaching “session” was hours away from campus, and we departed in the dark of an early morning with two carloads of college students. During the driving time, I chatted with the three teacher candidates who were riding with me in a university vehicle. All the while, I secretly wondered what practice teaching actually looked like, and how it might possibly differ from typical, more common practicum experiences. We hit rush hour traffic, and the students complained, while I was quietly thinking about how the stop and go helped slow me down and calm my nerves. What were we getting into? I always told myself, as a kindergarten teacher (and, as a very short individual myself), that fifth-graders (who tower over me) were far too big to teach, and I wondered if the teacher candidates would notice that I was as “green” and inexperienced with fifthgraders as I was with them. The thought of officially working with elementary students again was enough to help me overlook the fears of noticeable inexperience, and I silently promised myself that if I found myself in a tough situation, I would just think of the fifth-graders as oversized, sophisticated kindergartners. I could do this, I silently reassured myself, and then our internet map sent us down a dead end.

Walking around a School Context When we eventually arrived at our destination, the appearance of the newer K-8 school was striking. For the past 14 years, I worked in a building built in the 1950s for roughly 500 students. This remarkably large, new two-story building with solar panels to cover parking and pristine playground equipment stood in sharp contrast to my memory of the school that I called “home” for so many years. We all crowded into the reception area at the front of the school, signing in as visitors. Fifth-grade tour guides took small groups of teacher candidates on tours of the school, and I was impressed with their poise and ability to welcome a bunch of college students to their school. Giant kindergartners, they were not, but I was impressed. Working with these students would be a joy. First though, our teacher candidates were treated to a rolling out of a proverbial red carpet. The director of human resources for the school district made a point to meet us in the library to, basically, make a pitch for the growing school district and pass out information on applying for

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teaching positions. Standing off to the side, looking over the professionally dressed, quietly anxious but very impressive group of teacher candidates, I couldn’t help but smile. These same students who showed up to class in gym clothes and messy buns were polished, put together, and asking excellent questions. In that moment, I caught my first glimpse of the teachers in the teacher candidates. Eventually, our fifth-grade guides led us to the building that contained the fifth-grade classes. The type of diversity here at this truly urban Title I school was markedly different than the “diverse” schools with which we were used to working in our small university town. What a wonderful opportunity this would be! During the last minute organization and preparations, I was excited for the students. While they were a bundle of nerves, not certain what to expect nor how to be teachers to unfamiliar students, my anticipation was also difficult to ignore, and I remember thinking a few times that I needed to settle that excitement so I could help nervous teacher candidates in the last minutes before our kick off. I couldn’t help it, though: this new experience was going to be something wonderful. I had a sense of what the teacher candidates would soon experience, and my excitement was hard to conceal.

USING NARRATIVE INQUIRY TO MAKE MEANING OF EXPERIENCE As described by Clandinin and Caine (2013), a well-established theoretical framework built on Dewey’s experiential philosophy grounds this narrative inquiry application in this examination of subject matter knowledge intersecting with teacher knowledge. Dewey’s central constructs create a dovetailing point of connection with the terms that frame a narrative inquiry understanding of experience. Narratives are a first level interpretation of experience. Stories are used to make meaning of experience. And, as we do here, then, narrative inquiry is the study of stories. Clandinin and Connelly (2000) framed this idea of thinking narratively, arguing that experiences happen along three intersecting lines or continuums; temporal, personal and social interaction, and place. Using a narrative inquiry threedimensional space encompasses the idea of identities being constructed and reconstructed over time through the stories we tell of, both to ourselves and others. While using this temporal aspect of narratives, such a conceptualization also integrates the individual within his or her social environment;

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as Dewey (1918) phrased it, the individual and society are inseparable shaping forces on one another, forming a personal and social dialectic. Elsewhere, Clandinin and Caine (2013, p. 173) refer to this dimension as “sociality.” The third dimension is the idea that narratives, or our stories of experience, are situated in particular places (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Dewey’s (1938) idea of place is captured in his thinking around situation or the external conditions of an experience.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATION: ROOTED IN DEWEY’S PHILOSOPHY OF EXPERIENCE We use Dewey’s philosophy of experience to frame our meaning-making in this chapter. From Dewey (1938), interaction and continuities come together to create a learning experience. Within the interaction, each of our teacher candidates, as well as both of us, as instructors, bring our own continuities of experience, our histories and their resultant identities, as well as our tentative steps into the future, to this practice teaching day. Likewise, “in the mix” of this interaction are the internal conditions of the fifth-grade teachers and students with whom we are engaging. Also, as we compose this story of experience, we move through shifting situations comprised of very different external conditions. Within this experience, our teaching lives cross over into two contexts
the university landscape and the public school landscape. Importantly too, we note that other places are carried within each of these individuals sharing in this experience, possibly impacting the interactions.

THINKING NARRATIVELY ABOUT MICHELLE’S STORY As we turn to make meaning of this experience, we attend first to the temporal element. Michelle begins her story with our departure from the university parking lot; she is leaving in the very early, very dark, morning. Michelle’s narrative takes her audience along with her on a predawn drive. As we travel along the interstate highway with her and the students who are riding in her car, she backgrounds for us the social chatting that is audible in the car and pulls to the surface her emotions and thoughts about the upcoming day. The personal and social tap out different rhythms in her car

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ride: Michelle shares her anxiety of working with two groups of students, our teacher candidates and the fifth-grade students. Through this sharing of her internal dialog, we see how Michelle pulls into the exigencies of the present and her autobiographical past as she looks for familiar ways of being with learners based on the 14 years she spent in the elementary classroom. We hear, too, of the differences in place that Michelle’s story relates. Perhaps, these differences are not what we are expecting
the difference between university and public school setting (as experienced on these practice teaching days). Rather, Michelle’s story focuses more directly on her perception of differences between the schools in the district in which Michelle spent her teaching career and the school in which our teacher candidates are engaging in practice teaching. We note these dissimilarities are noticeable enough to be recorded in her recounting as she describes the school building as a newer K-8 facility and the red carpet that is rolled out for our students. Her detailing of the contrasts is related to the variation in the types of diversity that the teacher candidates are encountering in this setting. She brings the audience with her as she and the teacher candidates gather in the school’s front office and then are directed to the library where Michelle notes a shift she sees in our teacher candidates’ identities. She begins to see within our students the teachers who the head of human relations for the district is eager to meet and recruit. Michelle, moving along the temporal dimension into her past, indicates that this practice teaching experience does not feel like the practicum experiences in which she has been involved previously. In this analysis of the beginning of her narrative of experience, we find Michelle time traveling, moving into her past with her kindergartners, interacting within a new school environment, in the present, calling up teacher knowledge constructed in and from her past, and then, in the moment of reflection moving into the future as she considers our current students as the teachers they are becoming.

MICHELLE WATCHES AS COLLEGE STUDENTS METAMORPHOSE INTO TEACHERS As teacher candidates explained their interactive (game-based) activities to fifth-graders for the first time, I realized that I really needed to step back. Not only were teacher candidates presenting their activities for the first

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time
to new students in a new school environment
but they had an almost giddy instructor adding to their early anxiety. Again, my energy, while well-intentioned, was compounding teacher candidates’ nervous energy, so I literally stepped back and enjoyed a sort of wide-lens view of the classrooms. Looking at a handful of teacher candidates in each fifth-grade classroom, the organization of the morning was obvious
and appreciated. While I was as new to this idea of practice teaching as the teacher candidates were, it was hard to ignore a very obvious, organized system that helped to get all of the students
elementary and university
in place. Small circular stickers, similar to those seen at garage sales, were used to basically code classes by color. Each class had a different-colored dot sticker, and then numbers were placed on the colored dots. The first seven small groups of students started in the classroom with the red stickers, for instance. The first seven teacher candidates were also each wearing a red dot sticker with its own number. The teacher candidate with the number 7 sticker began practice teaching with the group of fifth-graders with 7 on their stickers. To facilitate transitions between activities and games, the teacher candidates were organized sequentially within each of the four classrooms, so that fifth-graders could easily move from Group 1 to Group 2 after 10
12 minutes passed. It did not take long to notice that the fifth-graders were organized, as well. Before we arrived, the fifth-grade teachers were asked to divide their classes into a grand total of 28 small groups
one for each teacher candidate, as we started the morning. The groups were strategically, and heterogeneously, grouped with at least one peer model, or group leader, in each small group, which was incredibly helpful considering the students were virtual strangers to the teacher candidates. Even the most impulsive or behaviorally challenging student was less intimidating for teacher candidates in the small groups since students were carefully organized; the intent was that the teacher candidates would mostly likely experience success with their management skills. As anticipated, the first rotation between groups was the most confusing, although with the careful, numerically ordered placement in the classrooms, most students had a short transition from group to group. The highest number in each classroom was the group that moved to the next room, having the longest walk and the biggest transition. It was helpful to have an adult accompany the first rotation from one room to another
especially since students are so often used to having the majority of instruction in a single classroom. By the third rotation, however, students were

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moving like clockwork. It was impressive to see over a hundred fifthgraders efficiently moving from one activity to another. As enjoyable as it was to see the fifth-graders during practice teaching
and they truly were focused and engaged, eager, in their learning
without question, there was no comparison in seeing the teacher candidates teaching their games and activities and interacting with students. I realized after closely watching one teacher candidate the very first time she presented her activity that I needed to step back in those initial implementations so that the teacher candidates could figure some logistical issues out by themselves. While I meant to be helpful and encouraging, I quickly realized that teacher candidates perceived that I was evaluating
even in those first moments
when my intention was facilitation or support. So, for about three rotations, I literally stood back and observed from afar. That panoramic view allowed me to see a room full of interactive, standards-based games that were in direct contrast to a worksheetdominated world about which teacher candidates lamented. It wasn’t quiet with seven different games running simultaneously, but along with cheering for game-winning moves and encouraging student players, instruction could be overheard as well. Little sound bites of teacher candidates presenting an activity or an additional challenge could be heard throughout the game periods, all the way up until clean up and rotation to the next game. It would be misleading and somewhat dishonest not to note some “rookie” mistakes, including an abundance of Bingo games. Apparently, “Bingo” is the default setting for “games that students can play while practicing specific math skills.” As instructors, our challenge was to spread out the Bingo games among the four participating classrooms so that back-toback Bingo games could be avoided. One particularly impactful moment did occur when one teacher candidate who admittedly “threw together” her Bingo game the night before practice teaching was placed on the opposite side of a classroom with another teacher candidate who had a more polished game overall with laminated Bingo cards and reusable markers. While the goal of the activity was certainly not for teacher candidates to compare themselves to other teacher candidates, they were in an authentic environment with young students, and they experienced the student response to planning and preparation. Some surprises were undeniable. One teacher candidate who consistently turned in her assignments early and completed nearly perfect work went into the practice teaching day with self-assurance. Faced with actual students, however, she literally froze, seeming to be overwhelmed by the task at hand. In spite of my efforts to step back and let these beginning teachers

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find their footing, I interjected myself with this individual. After a short pep talk and some modeling, she slowly began to relax and interact like a teacher, but it was interesting to see how the flawless-on-paper teacher candidate had clear and definite moments for growth when tasked with teaching children. I had my own moment of shock and uncertainty when it was obvious that a teacher candidate was incorrectly instructing her small group. Both of us opened up the opportunity of participating in practice teaching to all of the sections of elementary math methods courses
not just our own
and while we went over with other math methods instructors how we worked with teacher candidates to prepare for practice teaching, we weren’t entirely certain what other instructors said to their classes. A teacher candidate, unknown to either of us, needed some quick intervention. What to do? Something had to be said quickly
no doubt
but it would be embarrassing to this virtual stranger for us to intervene in front of elementary students. I audibly sighed as one of the fifth-grade teachers quickly talked to the teacher candidate in between groups. In part because I didn’t want the teacher candidate to feel singled out, and admittedly, also acknowledging being incredibly uncomfortable, I opted to facilitate moving groups during that transition, avoiding the helpful and necessary interaction. (Leave it to an elementary teacher to get things done!) As instructors, we found that watching our students engage with fifthgraders was powerful. We were able to see the application of concepts discussed in class. Within our classes with teacher candidates, we might talk about the importance of prompting and cuing students, but during the games, teacher candidates experienced the authentic need for careful, effective prompting. A handful of teacher candidates were clearly so concerned with their activity and their presentation that they had a game show host mentality as they interacted with students. It was almost as if the teacher candidates had a script that they memorized, and when the students asked questions or needed support, the teacher candidates were not prepared for these kinds of impromptu interactions. Seeing that moment of recognition, as the teacher candidates realized there was more to teaching than a memorized presentation, provided a strong validation of practice teaching. All but a few of our teacher candidates made the adjustment and engaged in more genuine ways with fifth-graders. We are mindful of Dewey’s philosophy of experience as we reflected on the fifth-grade fraction work that our teacher candidates were engaging in with these elementary school students. When interaction and continuities come together, learning experiences are created.

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On those occasions when a teacher candidate needed modeling or prompting of leading questions, it was easy to step in for a moment, clearly model an instructional strategy, and then quickly step out, being sure to follow up and check the teacher candidate’s implementation. Authentic application was a huge opportunity afforded by practice teaching. The growth for teacher candidates during the course of one morning of teaching was undeniable. The students repeatedly mentioned a “butterfly” method for multiplying fractions, and teacher candidates were intrigued. Some asked, “Why don’t we know about this?” and I encouraged them to find out more about the interesting
and cute
procedure. Fifth-graders were eager to attempt to demonstrate the “steps” in this complicated series of calculations. Later, teacher candidates commented on the procedural focus of the strategy and noted that the vast majority of students either didn’t understand the strategy, made calculation errors, or were so distracted by drawing a butterfly around the fractions that they skipped several steps. This later became an authentic follow-up conversation on teaching concepts as opposed to teaching procedures
even cute ones. By the end of the third rotation, teacher candidates had visible confidence and increased skill with their games. At this point, instructor proximity was less of an issue, as teacher candidates were focused on student learning and had immediate albeit brief experience with effective instructional strategies. Demonstrations were streamlined, examples provided became both concise and precise, and teacher candidates were really shining in the ownership of their activities. When the morning was over and fifth-graders needed to go to lunch, students actually objected, and remarks of, “No!” or “Aw, already?” were heard after the warning for the last rotation was announced. While fifthgraders helped teacher candidates clean up materials and put the classrooms back to their usual set ups, several fifth-graders were overheard saying, “That was the best math ever!” or “That was so much fun!” A few fifth-graders offered high fives, fist pumps, or hugs to teacher candidates as we left the classrooms.

MAKING MEANING OF OUR STUDENTS’ REFLECTIONS ON PRACTICE TEACHING DAY As our students shift to the upstairs fifth-grade hallway, other shifts both in understanding and identity are made. Michelle speaks of needing to step

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back. She tells of how the teacher candidates struggled the first two or three times through the rotations. They had multiple opportunities to take in information about how students are engaging with the activity and adapt or change to fit the students and their learning needs. The personal and social dialectic came into play as Michelle refocused her gaze not on our students, but on the future teachers they were becoming, to see within them that emerging identity. Further, Michelle’s expression of the need to step back highlights the troublesome nature of the differential between teacher educators and our teacher candidates. Her narrative details both that and how being too close to our students, at the early steps, makes them shy away from the everpresent threat of poor grades for performance that is highly complex and contextually determined. Michelle’s account of practice teaching illustrates the just plain demanding work of leaving one identity behind and assuming a new one in its place (from college student to teacher). Facing the vulnerability of the teacher candidates who feel the pressure of the evaluative nature of our presence, we offer support and guidance while at the same time enacting our evaluative identities. During our time at the university for coursework, there are so few moments in which we see our students interacting with children, yet when those moments come, our role as those who prepare the next generation of teachers centers us in the authenticity of what we do. Who will they be? How will they be? Where might our support help? For example, what might be helpful for the student not well prepared for the day with fifth-graders? The teaching in which our students engage on this day is developed on the university landscape. The activities are to be aligned with the CCSS-M for fifth-grade. When our students come into our courses they have no to very little prior exposure to the CCSS-M content domains or the mathematical practices. There are a few students who understand the notion of teaching for conceptual development, but many have experienced a procedural approach to the learning of mathematics. Many of our teacher candidates have had little time spent with elementary students beyond third grade. Many of our university students are leery of working with children who are entering puberty, or who may be as tall as, or taller than, some of teacher candidates may be themselves. Additionally, being assigned to prepare an interactive activity for fifth-graders is a different way of approaching mathematics teaching and learning, having grown up on typically, fairly worksheet-driven instruction. These statements are stereotypical since not all of our students have identical backgrounds and continuities of experience; collectively and individually, they bring a diversity of experience to

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our coursework. But, this characterization typifies some of the areas where our students feel some dissonance with what they are being expected to do for the practice teaching experience. This dissonance may hint at the perception our students share of the theory and practice divide. Then, we see Michelle noting the kinds of preparation in place which involves noticing what a teacher would do in understanding a complicated classroom learning event. She is quite detailed in her explanation of how this day was organized. She notices the types of groupings set in place. She recognizes the planning needed and done. This is constructed teacher knowledge that shapes her perception within a learning situation.

TEACHER CANDIDATES’ REFLECT ON THE PRACTICE TEACHING DAY As much as the fifth-graders had heartfelt smiles throughout the morning, the teacher candidates wore genuine, if perhaps a bit worn, smiles at the end of the morning. We had a quick debrief at the end of the teaching rotations with fifth-graders, and teacher candidates were exhausted but joyful. One teacher candidate summarized, “We didn’t know what we were getting into. Once we were with kids, it was great.” Another teacher candidate added, “I’ve never done anything like that.” Sure enough, this experience was unique, but the benefits were hard to ignore. Reflecting on the experience of practice teaching, a teacher candidate noted, “I enjoyed the small group instruction. I got a better feel for how students learn.” Yet, another teacher candidate added, “I liked actually having to plan and implement” activities, with another teacher candidate sharing, “That’s my first time being a teacher. I loved it.” The ownership of activities added to a sense of empowerment for teacher candidates, captured in one candidate’s comment, “It was great getting to plan and prep for my lesson.” The added responsibility inspired creativity, as one teacher candidate shared, “I liked the option of how we could be creative. In our practica we just get, ‘Here’s your lesson
go teach.’” That sentiment was matched with other statements, including, “It was more beneficial than other practica where teachers plan for you.” In terms of reflective teaching, a teacher candidate skillfully noted, “We got to see one of our lessons carried out. I got to see some holes.”

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Teachers, at all experience levels, can’t “fill in” instructional “holes” unless first given the opportunity to realize that some holes exist. Looking at written lesson plans, experienced teachers readily see these holes, often related to learner differences, including how to support a student who is struggling with basic multiplication or addition skills, while challenging the student in the same small group who whizzes through the fraction problems with ease. Other mistakes are much simpler, including misjudging the amount of time required to practice a certain skill, either assuming students will work more quickly or not having enough planned to fill the instructional time. These same instructional “holes” are common in both student teaching and in early careers as new teachers develop a better understanding of their students as learners. Practice teaching could be that first opportunity for teacher candidates to reflect on their knowledge of preparing for their learners and anticipating variables. In terms of instructional opportunities, a teacher candidate honestly reflected, “You don’t realize how hard it is until you actually do it.” The challenge of teaching “an activity in a short amount of time” was a demanding task. As instructors we can say repeatedly that timing lessons and pacing are ongoing challenges, but providing the opportunity for teacher candidates to actually experience the demands of effective pacing in an authentic context seemed to bring cautionary words to life. One teacher candidate really honed in on her selected strategies, summarizing, “I worked with one student first. We would do one together then I would have them all do it.” While teacher candidates may pick up on how practicum mentor teachers choose to instruct small groups, other candidates may miss those details. When it comes to teaching a game to students, instructional strategies cannot be overlooked
teacher candidates must be thinking about implementation as they are actually teaching fifthgrade students. Similarly, while we, as instructors, may talk repeatedly about differentiation and its importance in our methods courses, being forced to actually differentiate activities for students who are sitting in the teacher candidates’ small groups brings our talks to a completely different level. It was noted, “We had to teach students at all different levels.” Teacher candidates could not miss the opportunity/challenge presented, stating, “I was learning how to differentiate.” Similarly, teacher candidates noted, “I had to adapt on the fly.” Another teacher candidate elaborated, “We were actually doing differentiation. I had a non-English speaker in my small group and had to adapt.” While we have talked numerous times in our methods courses about instruction for students who do not speak English, experiencing

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instructing a student who does not speak English has a much greater impact. Overall, teacher candidates appreciated the practice teaching experience, noting, “This was a lot more powerful” [than traditional practicum experiences]. In contrast to discussions about the challenge of encouraging students in math, particularly as they get older and seem more inclined to give up and decide that math is not for them, teacher candidates excitedly announced, “It was so much fun! We tried really hard to make math fun.” Another candidate added the benefits of practice teaching for young students, noting, “Kids were more engaged. Kids were excited
ready to go.” The benefits were felt by all students involved, including teacher candidates who shared, “It helped you see us as teachers and not just students.” Another student called practice teaching “the best experience I have had this semester.” Yet another teacher candidate shared that practice teaching “makes you remember why we’re here
why we’re doing this.”

MAKING MEANING FROM STUDENT REFLECTIVE COMMENTS Teacher candidates described some of the differences they experienced between the regular practicum placement work with which they are familiar and the expectations for practice teaching day. While we recognize that the work the candidates are doing is not the fully complex and demanding work that teachers do, there are pieces of this experience that do more closely approximate it: planning, implementing, and self-assessing instruction. Oftentimes, our students in their practica do not have these opportunities. In addition to gaining an exposure to a wide range of learners’ ability levels and learning to match instruction to the fifth-graders’ needs, there is also the opportunity to find holes in instruction, and to reflect on their performances in planning and enacting instructional activities. Further, students have the authentic feel of the physical and cognitive demands of teaching. Students leave their practice teaching day exhausted. Seemingly, a content/subject matter knowledge plotline may be perceived to run through the cognitive realm, and the intersecting teacher knowledge plotline runs through a more personal, emotional, and physical, encompassing realm. In the moment of intersecting, splices of content knowledge becomes enveloped and integrated into a plotline of teacher knowledge. So, the plotlines

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of content knowledge evident in the preparation of lessons and the teacher knowledge to meet the needs of differentiation required encounter the personal energy demands required of teacher knowledge and form an intersection in this experience. As we consider the intersecting plotlines in this narrative of experience of subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge in the practice teaching experience, we next turn to the divide between theory and practice of which our students sometimes complain: Students argue that the coursework they do at the university does not connect well with their experiences in elementary schools. Some argue that students’ perceptions of a rift between theory and practice is a myth, contending that all practice is based on the theory. Rather than dismissing students’ views, conversely, we explore this belief by first accepting that this perception is important. Our students understand their narratives of experience in a discontinuous way and that divide shapes their identity-making. Rather than calling this “a myth” and using that word as an epitaph to dismiss this description of their experience, we rather see this as a metaphor our students use to shape their world. As we reflect on ways that these two worlds come together as related by the students and captured in Michelle’s story, as their instructors, we present thoughts on the why and how of pacing instruction, cueing students, scaffolding student learning, and differentiating instruction, providing opportunities for our teacher candidates to bring their two realities together. In the living of these concepts in a practice teaching setting, these ideas are brought together in the teaching and learning of mathematics. These plotlines intersect in this experience.

CONCLUSION The narrative inquiry three-dimensional space provides a means to think narratively about this experience. Exploring the temporal, social and personal, and place dimensions allows us to inquire into teacher knowledge as it interacts with subject matter knowledge
bringing us considerations of the intersection of these two plotlines in the stories of our teacher candidates, but also in our analysis of and reflection on this learning experience called practice teaching. Expectedly, because the experience explored through this chapter is one based in schools, there is a thread of subject matter
mathematics content knowledge
and, there are moments that focus on the how and why of teaching methods. One challenge that

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students encountered at this intersection was seen as they interacted with children in what we saw as the game show host role, not recognizing when instructional scaffolding would be appropriate. Learning to interact with fifth-grade students in a learning situation is a struggle we saw some of our teacher candidates encountering. A second, more pernicious tension, is that teacher candidates must step across the gulf between procedural instruction (with which they are very familiar having grown up through an accountability approach in schooling) into a more conceptually grounded way of teaching. Experience is at the core of narrative inquiry, and Dewey’s philosophical understanding of experience infuses the idea of “thinking narratively.” Through Michelle’s recounting of this day, the woven together elements of time, place, and individual autobiographical constructions come together to help us understand more deeply the experience of practice teaching. Each individual brings into this day, in the fifth-grade classroom, a unique set of attitudes, habits, and beliefs, and hopefully, takes away an appreciation for the complexity and intensity found in the intersecting plotlines of subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge.

REFERENCES Ball, D. L. (1990). The mathematical understandings that prospective teachers bring to teacher education. The Elementary School Journal, 449
466. Clandinin, D. J., & Caine, V. (2013). Narrative inquiry. Reviewing qualitative research in the social sciences. In A. A. Trainor & E. Graue (Eds.). New York, NY: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Dewey, J. (1918). My pedagogic creed. School Journal, 54, 77
80. Retrieved from http:// dewey.pragmatism.org/creed.htm Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York, NY: Collier Books. Ma, L. (2010). Knowing and teaching elementary mathematics: Teachers’ understanding of fundamental mathematics in China and the United States (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

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CHOOSING THE BEST ALTERNATIVE: THE BRANCHING PATHWAYS OF CONSEQUENCES IN SOCIAL STUDIES CURRICULUM CHOICE-MAKING Joey Persinger and Vicki Ross ABSTRACT Through this exploration of subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge, we present two stories of teaching social studies in the sixth grade. Using a narrative inquiry approach, we share the complexities and complications of teaching children content within standards related to world history and religions. We call on the writings of Schwab to consider these experiences. Using Schwab’s concepts of deliberation, the balanced negotiation between the commonplaces of curriculum in a meaning-making process, first, exposes tensions and the teacher’s acts of negotiating between the learners’ needs and the subject matter (the standards). The teacher stretches to meet the requirements of the standards

Crossroads of the Classroom: Narrative Intersections of Teacher Knowledge and Subject Matter Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 28, 77
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in different ways that take care of herself and her students. Schwab’s commonplaces are used in a more straightforward exploration of the second story. The interplay between the commonplaces is less nuanced and less deeply understood, coalescing in tensions between the commonplaces. The stories and our analyses illustrate Schwab’s assertion that there is no right alternative. Daily, and moment-to-moment, teachers are in the position of deliberating
making the best choice of many alternatives. “Ramifying consequences must be traced to all parts of the curriculum” (Schwab, 1978, p. 319). Schwab, we find, counsels that the consequences of a chosen action must be considered by all those who must live with those consequences. Keywords: Narrative inquiry; social studies education; elementary school contexts; curriculum commonplaces; deliberation; teacher knowledge

INHERENT TENSIONS IN CURRICULUM CHOICE-MAKING In a middle school social studies classroom, a veteran teacher, Joey, wrestles with the messiness of curriculum. Like the “invisible glass walls” Connelly and Clandinin reference in Teachers as Curriculum Planners (1988), the walls of curriculum only became noticeable as she bumped up against them. This teacher, her learners, and concerns about the milieu twine together to unravel subject matter. As the authors inquire into the push-pull of needs and responsibilities within the classroom world which teacher and students inhabit, the “details of place, of the nuanced warps in time, and the complex shifts between personal and social observations and their relations” (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 91) are explored. Joey, the teacher who lives the stories we recount in this chapter, recalls saying to her student teacher, “We want to make sure every part of your lesson is defensible in the standards. We want to make sure we’re ready in case it becomes an issue.” The it in this story was the study of Islam as a world religion. But, the topic could be any of a number of curriculum choices a teacher makes during her day-to-day classroom practice.

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Public education in the United States has a long history of controversy erupting over certain issues: topics which require teachers to balance between state and/or local district or board level expectations and the particular needs and desires of parents regarding the education of their children. Religion and associated theological understandings are often at the root of the contentions, and disputes may transpire in nearly any subject or area of the curriculum. Science education is brimming with controversial topics. Perhaps, most widely known is the debate in schools and at the board and district level between the teaching of evolution and instruction related to intelligent design. Teachers are advised that “Like any sensitive issue, it’s important that the teacher addresses the issue and handles it respectfully but also supports the position that is founded on good science” (Carley, in Allen, 2006, n.p.). Within their classroom practice, teachers hold this tension. For example, when asked, teachers reported that, when teaching about creationism versus evolution in their classrooms, “As long as we don’t make too much of it, and we let students know there still is ‘a Creator’
but that we’re just going to talk about how the development of species might have happened
then there is no problem” (DeBoer, in Allen, 2006, n.p.). Oftentimes, controversy erupts over the selection of reading materials. The reasons, according to Aurnague-Despain and Bass (cited in Cromwell, 2005, n.p.) may be attributed to topics of: • • • • •

sex and drug education; literature showing children challenging parents and authorities; teaching evolution without reference to creationism; showing women behaving in nontraditional ways; and “invasions of privacy”
projects requiring students to share personal information.

Parent-initiated efforts to have books removed from board/district approved lists are often successful, (Cromwell, 2005) and are generally tied to the aforementioned issues. As social studies is the area through which cultures and major world religions weave through standards, the possibility of having an issue arise between external expectations, materials, and parents’ desires and expectations, even a teacher’s personal commitments and beliefs, is almost to be expected. That expectation is at the root of the tension in this story. Social studies knowledge spans a range of contested and contestable topics. Religious and political beliefs are deeply held and often disputed areas in public conversations, and particularly thorny

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when those aspects of human experience spill over into the public school classroom. Focusing on religion as an element of a cultural conglomerate, in this narrative exploration of a sixth-grade social studies curriculum, we share two stories. Through these stories, we hope to come to a deeper understanding of the intersection
the “it” referenced above
of any number of topics that have the potential of becoming “an issue” between subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge as lived in the day-today world of the classroom.

CONSTRUCTING A NARRATIVE UNDERSTANDING OF EXPERIENCE IN A SOCIAL STUDIES CLASSROOM The subject matter area we underscore in this chapter, sixth-grade social studies, offers a rewarding avenue of application for a narrative framework. We sense reverberations of and with Dewey’s philosophy of experience (Dewey, 1938; Clandinin, 2013). We argue that social studies may be understood as a study of human experience, that via the subject matter of social studies, teachers and learners
through the curriculum
enter into the continuity of humankind. Within this field of subject matter knowledge, students and their teachers grapple with the questions
Who am I? Why? Where am I going?
which overlay the narrative inquiry processes of coming to understand oneself. As Connelly and Clandinin advise: For each of us, the more we understand ourselves and can articulate reasons why we are what we are, do what we do, and are headed where we have chosen, the more meaningful our curriculum will be. The process of making sense and meaning of our curriculum, that is, of the narratives of our experience, is both difficult and rewarding. (1988, p. 11)

In line with this argument, which connects narrative understanding of an individual’s sense of identity with the social studies subject curriculum, social studies teachers provide a window through which their students see and study the world of human interaction. The ensuing teacher stories present social studies curriculum lived in Joey’s sixth-grade classroom where students explore world history and religion.

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CURRICULUM CHOICE-MAKING AND SOCIAL STUDIES IN THE SIXTH-GRADE CLASSROOM: JOEY’S STORY I stepped back into the classroom after 4 years of doing other things, things that seemed more important, more valued than “just teaching.” I was an instructional coach and a specialist, the kinds of titles that imply greater knowledge and hold greater influence. This was work that took me away from children and the excitement of learning together. When my job was classroom teaching, I laughed every day; in my new higher status role, I felt disconnected and was miserable much of the time. When given the chance to take over a sixth-grade English and social studies position, I leapt for it, though the school year was already underway. My sixth-grade students were a month or so into the environment of middle school and still a bit tentative. The transition for students into the larger, more anonymous, overwhelming world of middle school was palpable with tensions for them, and for me. In the high accountability era since the passage of the No Child Left Behind legislation (NCLB), primarily I had been an elementary school teacher. Reading, mathematics, and test preparation were the expected consumers of classroom time in my schools. The occasional science experiment (also periodically tested) was the only “extra” that sometimes crept in. In elementary school classrooms especially, NCLB legislation had a strong impact on the curriculum. With a much stronger push toward assessment in reading and mathematics, our classrooms taught mandated 90-minute blocks for both subjects and an additional 60-minute block for writing. That meant each day’s remaining 45 minutes (often chunked into bits) was shared between art, P.E., social studies, science, community building, intervention, birthday parties and any other not-assessed “extra” that comprised classroom life. Though a veteran teacher, having been at it over 20 years, in these circumstances, I hadn’t done much social studies teaching. Yet, in middle school, students were newly exposed to experiences in all of the forgotten curriculum. My new sixth graders’ base of knowledge was weak, as they were newly exposed to experiences in all of the forgotten curriculum. I felt their pain as I too was rusty, unused to thinking outside the NCLB box. Now hired to teach sixth-grade social studies, I explored curriculum. Its focus is world history, including world religions and the early development of humankind. This was new to me, but exciting to embark upon. I started

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my students right at the beginning with humankind’s earliest history. During our initial study of the Paleolithic era, a young man in my class, Cooper, repeatedly expressed concern about some of the content.

THE CONTEXT IN WHICH JOEY’S CLASSROOM SITS I work in a small city with a primarily White and widely diverse socioeconomic population. My middle school is situated in the part of town largely peopled with the city’s minority, and generally poorer, families. Our school population is roughly divided into thirds: kids who are White, Native American, and Hispanic. Our school is further divided into Academies which require applications for acceptance. A student can enroll in the experiential outdoor Academy, the college bound Academy, or the smallest Academy designed around cultural exploration. Those students who don’t apply to or are not accepted by an academy are placed in the cohort where I teach which has no specialized curriculum focus. General consensus is that everyone has an equal chance to apply and be accepted. I consider this analogous to the college application process, and have concerns about who does and does not have access through experience, information, or cultural knowledge. The reality is that though the school’s population is evenly split, the Academy populations are not. My cohort (we don’t have an Academy name, but are colloquially called The Leftovers) is largely made up of students who are Native American and Hispanic. There is a sprinkling of middle-class students, many of whom are new to our town. They often enroll without knowing about the Academy system and typically transfer to a named Academy during the year. I had two sections of social studies, one that met just after lunch while the other was the last class of the day. My post-lunch class was widely diverse. There were two gifted, high-performing students, both from middle-class families, both new to the district. Additionally, in the class were eight students identified under special education who needed varying degrees of accommodations and modification. Two students also requiring accommodations were second language learners. There were other students in the class of course, with different, but just as salient needs. As is too frequently the case with a higher poverty population, there was a sprinkling of students who had experienced homelessness or the death or imprisonment of a close family member. As the semester unfolded, it turned out that this class was the “easier” of the two.

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My eighth hour social studies class was more homogenous. There were two students with identified learning disorders, two involved in our behavioral support program, and one student who was involved with the English as a second language program. In general, the group functioned more toward a middle. However, Cooper and Emily, whom we follow in the remainder of this story, were both in this class. The conflict I felt between the religious positions of these two students and the curriculum lingered below the surface, and I was unable to resolve my conflicted feelings between best practices of engagement and keeping a lid on potential tensions. As the semester continued, I shaped my instruction with distance from religious discussions in the later class. As a constructivist, honoring student questions and curiosity comprises a great part of my instructional work. Despite this, there were times when I limited this kind of exploration based on my concern about Cooper’s or Emily’s responses.

RETURNING TO JOEY’S EXPERIENCE Cooper is White, smart, articulate, likable, privileged. He is a member of a traditional conservative religion. Although he didn’t discuss this, it was brought to my attention during a team meeting about our grade-level camping trip, an overnight visit that Cooper’s family wouldn’t allow him to attend. My awareness of Cooper’s religious background led me to pay more attention to the nature of his questions: “How do you know the Earth is that old? How do you know the scientists aren’t wrong when they say we all came from Africa? How can you say that Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) is like a human? Are you saying people are monkeys?” Cooper’s critical thinking questions were tough ones. They were his attempts to sift through information toward a genuine inquiry after truth. Though I know this about learners, in part I interpreted Cooper’s questions through the veil of my anxiety about his religious background, viewing his questions more as interrogation than inquiry. I was not confident enough with this curriculum content to guide him; my limited experience with social studies content meant I didn’t feel well-enough equipped on the science or the history to answer Cooper. I provided vague answers to my young questioner, but more often, I encouraged him to look things up, to find out more and share his answers with us. It is good, I think, not to claim to be the knower of things, but to inspire students to find answers and explore questions. In this case, I knew what I hoped Cooper didn’t
that I was encouraging him to seek his own

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answers in part because I wasn’t sufficiently prepared to provide them. Cooper’s questions, and my realization about them, helped me get serious about fortifying my lessons and my personal knowledge.

STANDING ON THE FULCRUM OF TEACHER KNOWLEDGE AND SUBJECT MATTER KNOWLEDGE: USING SCHWAB’S WRITING ON THE CURRICULUM AS A GUIDING FRAMEWORK FOR INQUIRY Joseph Schwab’s writing provides three foundational concepts that shape this exploration of the intersection between teacher knowledge and subject matter. First, we call upon Schwab’s understandings related to deliberation. In speaking about this process, Schwab (1978) notes: Deliberation is complex and arduous. It treats both ends and means and must treat them as mutually determining one another. It must try to identify, with respect to both, what facts may be relevant …. It must make every effort to trace the branching pathways of consequences which may flow from each alternative and effect desiderata. It must then weigh alternatives and their costs and consequences against one another, and choose, not the right alternative, for there is no such thing, but the best one. (p. 318)

In concrete cases like those experienced in our classrooms daily, there are neither ideals nor abstractions; we must consider deeply. We must deliberate on the decisions that branch forward, where they go, what they imply, and the tensions they pull with them. Pushing forward from Schwab’s conceptualization of deliberation, we next expose the points of tensions that develop in translating topics into curriculum (Schwab, 1978). We focus on material related to religious content within a social studies class, and we use these curricular tensions to investigate the intersection of subject matter and teacher knowledge. As we develop the two stories at the heart of this chapter, the ends and means of curricular deliberation are brought forward and their relationship plumbed. We find that Schwab’s commonplaces, the consideration of the teacher in light of the learners and the subject matter entrenched within the milieu, help expand, clarify, and make meaning of these complex and nuanced classroom experiences. As we inquire within these two accounts, the teacher explores “complex, fluid, transactional” (Schwab, 1978, p. 291) methods to arrive at a practical resolution that “intrinsically involve states of character and the possibility of character change” (Schwab, 1978, p. 289). We explore

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this complex relationship with character and change along with deeper understandings of the interplay among the teacher, the learner, the milieu, and the subject matter and how these dimensions serve to make teacher knowledge, typically tacit and difficult to access, visible.

HOLDING TENSIONS IN BALANCE: SOCIAL STUDIES IN THE CLASSROOM Schwab (1978) notes that practical problems “arise from states of affairs in relation to ourselves” (p. 289). My worries about Cooper’s questions and about his conservative family background came from within me. I want my classrooms to “shimmer with intensity” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988, p. 7), to delve into students’ questions and inspire an engaged drive to learn. But, just as Cooper brought with him his religious background which gave him cause to wonder, I brought my history of angry parent phone calls, administrative interventions, and the inescapable tensions those events can leave lingering. Every teacher I know has had these experiences, but they hit hard with me. I had left the classroom on the run from this part of the teaching milieu, but the lure of the learners had brought me back. Now, I wanted and needed to perfectly balance the constituent pieces of the curriculum into a meaningful whole. My concerns about Cooper’s parents and his religious background influenced what I began to cover, and to what depth. I had never met his parents nor had they contacted me, but the lurking possibility felt like a filter over what I might otherwise explore. I dreaded the potential phone call to the principal, the meeting, the justification of the textbook and the standards (both out of my control) and the questioning of my teaching style, choices, and focus. I knew my teaching was defensible, but did I want to be on the defensive? Did I want to be embroiled in attack and defend after 3 weeks back in the classroom? I did not. Another student in this class added a second layer of concern. Emily is a girl with a petite frame, long blond hair, a high-pitched voice, and a learning disability. She is also a devout and vocal Christian. When I introduced the gods of ancient Sumer, Emily raised her hand. “Did they not know about the real God?” she asked. I made a broad statement about people having different religious beliefs over time, having many different gods. She said after class that day, “I just feel bad for them because they don’t know Jesus died for their sins.”

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SIXTH-GRADE SOCIAL STUDIES CURRICULUM: LEARNERS AND TEACHER EXPLORE WORLD HISTORY AND RELIGION We moved from the Paleolithic to Neolithic people, explored ancient Sumer, and arrived with great student anticipation at ancient Egypt. In the world history standards related to ancient Egypt, students were to come away with the ability to describe the religious traditions and to explain how religion helped shape culture in Egypt as well as in Sumer, China, and the Middle East. As part of this learning, I needed to convey the importance of the Egyptian gods to the daily life of ancient Egyptians.

Learning about Ancient Egypt: Branching Pathways The students were fascinated by the physical embodiment of the Egyptian gods with their human bodies and animal heads. Students were entranced by the gods’ stories, their relationships, marriages, and lineage. Initially, the students showed an interest in learning about all of the gods and goddesses and creating their family trees, but soon learned that there were over 2,000 deities. This discovery led to a conversation about how the Egyptians came to have so many gods. We linked the animism of early cultures with the unknowability of daily life in ancient places. I wanted to support their understanding of how and why gods and goddesses proliferated. We discussed the idea that ancient Egyptians needed support to understand the unexplained events in their lives and to help them comprehend certain experiences. We examined some of the gods and their meanings to the Egyptian people. There was Heket, goddess of childbirth; Anubis, the god who protected the dead; Satet, goddess of the flooding of the Nile and Tefnut, the goddess of rain. I asked the students to consider how the Egyptians might have interpreted an earthquake, the fear you feel when you are lost, or the pain of a broken arm. We explored how magical thinking might have led these early people to wonder how a kind god or wicked goddess might help or hurt in those situations. The students considered that perhaps ancient Egyptians told stories of angry gods or helping goddesses to their children or their friends as a way to help them in difficult times. In my earlier class, I was constantly aware of my varied learners and the need to provide multiple opportunities for success. I encouraged students

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to consider what it might be like to co-create and believe in a deity that supported them in their lives. To bring real connection to the engagements, I asked students to think about some of their own needs or challenges, problems they would like solved or the kind of god or goddess who might benefit them in their lives. The students each made a creation in the style of the Egyptian gods with animal heads, human bodies, specific skills, personalities, proclivities, and family relations.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF CHOICE-MAKING: DEVELOPING DIFFERENTIATED UNDERSTANDINGS OF STUDENTS’ LIVES The students designed physical and hieroglyphic representations, as well as written descriptions of their deities. Some students worked independently to create myths joining their deities with already-existing Egyptian gods. Two boys wanted their gods (Nomey who “steals money when you think you lost it”) and Kibe (a god with the head of a lion who “damages your bike if you are bad”) to have an offspring but could not decide about the child’s gender. Their compromise, Nobe, was a bi-gendered deity with the head of a tiger who “rewards needy kids with good bikes.” A boy whose sister had committed suicide weeks before this assignment, created Sappineh, the god of happiness, who looked like a clown and was always surrounded by balloons. Sappineh’s power was to bring joy to the world; she was never sad. In revisiting these creations in the writing of this reflection, one student’s work began to make more sense to me. At a recent special-education services meeting for him, his mother shared that she and her children had fled the domestic violence which had long been part of their lives. Our conversation helped me better understand why the quiet, solitary boy I knew might have created Nager, the god of anger. Nager had a cat head and “might make you really mad when you don’t want to get mad.” Other creations were less emotionally wrought but no less revelatory about the students. One girl, who at the time of the assignment was struggling to make the basketball team, created Zuzu, a goddess who helped people become better in basketball. Another girl with a specific learning disability whose accommodations call for limiting the length of reading assignments as well as chunking information into smaller parts, created Fairly, a trickster goddess who had “the power to make you forget.”

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This engagement was a great experience for the students and for me as their teacher. I learned much about them that hadn’t come out in other ways. They reflected on and expressed needs and desires that I likely couldn’t have accessed without this engagement. Despite this success, I have regrets about the experience; when planning for this lesson, I made the decision not to do the lesson in my later class. During one of our initial discussions of Egyptian deities, much as she had with the Sumerians, Emily shared her grief that the ancient Egyptians didn’t know the real God or how Jesus died for them. Instead of digging deeper into the topic, based primarily on my concerns about Cooper’s and Emily’s reactions, a cursory introduction represented the entirety of our discussion about the Egyptian gods. We moved quickly to a focus on the daily life of the peasants and farmers. In that moment, I considered my own fears and needs. Upon reflection, I wonder again and again what would have been best for my students. Specifically, what would have best served Cooper? Would it have been best practice to encourage him to question, to spur him to uncover the beliefs with which he was being raised? Was it kinder, in his budding adolescence, to stave off his questions and their potentially uncomfortable answers? Or, was that consideration a fac¸ade meant to veil my evasions from myself? Could the deeper engagement have expanded the understanding of ancient Egyptian civilization for these students and enriched our class culture as it had for the class that experienced it? When I consider the decision to not teach the later class the same lesson I taught the other, I have come to see it, in part, as the kind of deliberation Schwab talks of when he discusses “the branching pathways of consequences,” (1978, p. 318). In avoiding the consequence of potentially outraged parents, I diminished a richness of experience for one group of students over another. None of the students will ever know they were served different versions of the same curriculum, but I know and that has a consequence of its own.

BRIMMING TENSIONS SURFACE: JOEY AND KELSEY’S STORY We tell this story of a teacher’s knowledge intersecting with subject matter knowledge to explore the tensions that, at times, emerge in the classroom. Before stepping into making meaning of this classroom experience, we share a second story of social studies content intersecting with teacher

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knowledge in the classroom. At the conclusion of this story, we will explore these tensions further. In February, my student teacher Kelsey, a bright and competent preservice teacher intent on broadening students’ perspectives, took over fulltime instruction in my class. As part of her planning, she tackled the social studies standards around the Middle Ages, not skirting the Muslim Golden Age. These learning standards include describing aspects (including founders, traditions, and beliefs) of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Students were also to describe the culture and way of life of the Arab Empire. Kelsey devised an introductory lesson exploring students’ preconceptions about Muslims and introducing the five pillars of Islam. Students discussed that prophets like Jesus, Mohammed, and Isaiah were an ongoing component of establishing religion. Kelsey taught these lessons to both classes, fielded questions well, and the lessons ran smoothly. Before she taught the lesson, we discussed her plans. “We want to make sure every part of your lesson is defensible in the standards,” I said. “Make sure we’re ready in case it becomes an issue.” The “it” of course, was the topic of Islam. There isn’t any way to discuss Muslim people, Arab people, or the institution of Islam without being aware of a certain standard of care, mindful of the milieu. The history is challenging to separate from current events and perceptions. I was, however, less cautious about Cooper and Emily specifically. After months in the classroom, Cooper had relaxed about things outside his comfort zone. Our (admittedly cursory) discussions of Greek and Roman deities hadn’t seemed to provoke concerns. My concerns about Cooper and Emily had diminished somewhat, but hadn’t disappeared. It was them I had in mind when encouraging Kelsey to make certain her preparation was thorough. In our conversation, Kelsey was bold about defending the necessity of eradicating racism through teaching and learning. We also discussed how the issue of bringing up Islam likely wasn’t going to be a problem because of our audience. In the cohort we were teaching
the parents of the labeled “leftover” kids seemed to lack access to the daily business of school. I knew from collegial conversations that the parents of my students were less prone to call, schedule meetings, or pop by to see how things were going. If there were “helicopter parents” in our cohort, I hadn’t met them. “If we were in (another academy) I’d be nervous about you teaching this,” I remember saying. But there was fallout from this lesson. Soren, a student with behavioral impairments requiring a full-time aide, was in the class period with Emily

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and Cooper. Soren stopped coming after the first lesson on preconceptions about Muslim people. His mother removed him until we stopped “teaching about Muslims.” She sent an email to my administration stating that she was raising Soren as a Christian and was offended that we exposed him to beliefs she didn’t hold. What I feared months before had occurred. A student was pulled from my class, my administration was involved, and I was having conversations defending instructional decisions. In reflecting on this situation, I first felt frustrated with myself for not interceding when Kelsey approached the content. Her lesson was academic and aligned to the standards, but the milieu is always part of the curriculum, particularly in a case like this one. Talking about Muslim people, even in an ancient context, had the potential to ignite concern from parents. When teaching about the ancient development of Islam, one must take greater care than when teaching about the theocracy of ancient Egypt. I had been more cautious about something that provoked less tension within the milieu of family and community. Additionally, I was less able to defend Kelsey’s work on this topic because in that class I had skated over the religious cultures of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. I hadn’t developed students’ flexibility by considering other cultures in a safe context. My limited caution regarding this instance of the milieu interacting with the curriculum was evident before the uproar, before the lesson took place even, in the conversation Kelsey and I had about the defensibility of her lesson. The questions in our conversation stemmed from my experiences working with families and communities. Schwab discusses practical curriculum as a decision about action in a concrete situation. When I reflected on my choice for the students in this way, it helped clarify why I made the change in the instructional strategy regarding a less risky group. I had taken care of the students and of myself. When faced with a similar situation, my student teacher didn’t consider the situation as much as her goals and those dictated by the text and the learning objectives. Reflecting on my reading of the milieu, additionally, from the distance afforded by time, I wonder, now, about what I perceived as lack of access for this group of parents. What about our school context might contribute to this lack of parental involvement? While, I recognized the positioning of my students’ parents may have led to an absence of communication, why had I not reached out to parents in preparing for a curriculum issue that I felt could be sensitive? By shifting the commonplace lens to the parents within my classroom milieu, what might my student teacher have seen? On both sides of this issue: teacher and parent, a silence was imposed. I wonder, now, what was the silence saying?

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Schwab entreats teachers to treat both ends and means neutrally, to seek not “the right alternative, for there is no such thing, but the best one,” (1978, p. 319). The ends in mind for the Egyptian assignment were different in the earlier class with its many high-needs students. I wanted to increase engagement, for students to feel successful and committed, for them to walk away with improved understandings of ancient Egypt culture, and to grow in their ideas of different views of possibilities in other cultures. For the later class, the end was to make sure everyone in class, including me, felt safe while providing, at minimum, an understanding of the difference in the culture and religion of ancient Egypt as a way to build background for upcoming cultural explorations. The standards as written were vague enough to support both of these end pursuits. I found solace in thinking of Schwab’s assertion that there is no right alternative. In my situation, at the time of the events, I could only consider and make the best choice. “Ramifying consequences must be traced to all parts of the curriculum” (1978, p. 319). Schwab says the consequences of a chosen action must be considered by all those who must live with those consequences. We have written about the tensions between the external expectations, as expressed in state standards regarding the content and the parental desires for their children. We add here the tensions found between the learner’s needs as well as the needs of the teacher. All of these tensions come into the classroom, which is situated within a school and community milieu with other tugs on the curriculum deliberation happening within that space. Teachers in deliberating curriculum hold in balance these, at times, contradictory agendas. We use the metaphor of a fulcrum as a way of capturing the act of balancing on these points of tension. The consequences of a chosen action in Joey’s story
a teacher’s decision point in the deliberating of these many and diverse needs
resulted in a differentiated curriculum being presented to two classes of children. In Kelsey and Joey’s story, the consequence was a student being removed from class along with justifications of judgment being requested by administration and parents. The balance of tensions always comes with consequences. The tensions inherent in teaching are made more cogent when a student teacher is present. In that situation, the lurking tensions about the role of teacher crystallize. I was a teacher for both sixth graders and for Kelsey. As Kelsey’s mentor teacher, I had an obligation to support and encourage her, but also to give her the taste of what her real role would be as a teacher in the field. Kelsey exhibited passion about the value of teaching this objective and deserved to tackle it in the ways she deemed appropriate. In her development as a teacher, she will experience many varying degrees

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of success and failure, and that process must begin with a supportive teacher to guide her reflections and reactions. In our discussion about her lesson, she was clear about her goals and their justification. We were also, it must be clear, fairly sure we would not have challenges from outside the classroom. Because the lessons at this time were fully in Kelsey’s hands, I hadn’t considered what I would have done in approaching this content. Would I have prioritized, as Kelsey had, the broadening of minds by embracing the standards or would I have shied away, again fearing the consequences? The question is moot. As her teacher in this context, it was incumbent on me to permit her to try it, regardless of what my internal predictions might have been. For both sets of my learners, I must encourage an expansion of critical thinking, applicable skills, and specific knowledge. The strategies in supporting these goals for these learners are not radically different and sometimes they require providing opportunities for failure, reflection, and renewed effort.

MAKING MEANING OF NARRATIVES OF EXPERIENCE: TEACHER KNOWLEDGE AND SUBJECT MATTER BALANCING ON THE FULCRUM Teachers balance the demands of the subject matter with the exigencies of their students and their students’ families. Cooper, Emily, and Soren have parents with varying ends in view for their children’s education. These ends may well be in opposition with those of the subject matter knowledge. Joey was new to this school, new to the subject knowledge, but not new to the world and work of a teacher who balances the nexus of the commonplaces where the concerns of parents, the demands of the subject matter, the needs of children, and a host of other pulls and tugs must be brought into balance. Bringing teacher knowledge constructed from years of experience to the act of classroom curriculum enactment, within the two sections of one subject was quite different. Students are a central component in the curriculum mixture. Students and their quite different needs, knowing, and interactions contribute to shaping a curriculum. Highlighted in the second story, teachers, likewise, shape a curriculum. Joey’s experienced reading of a curricular situation helped her negotiate the complexities of her classroom. Whereas, the less nuanced consideration, a less experienced understanding of the complex interplay between the

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curricular commonplaces, brought forward
all the way to the principal’s office
a tension between the subject matter commonplace and the social milieu. Parents are the most immediate and close-at-hand representative of that very messy commonplace, social context. They are, needless to say, also the most invested member of that group of stakeholders. Deliberation is a construct that figures prominently in these narratives, the balanced negotiation between the commonplaces of curriculum. In the first story we see a teacher’s negotiation between the learner
Cooper’s needs, Emily’s needs
and the subject matter
the standards. The teacher stretches to meet the requirements of the standards in different ways, in ways that “take care” of herself and her students; yet what of the needs of the parents and others in the milieu? In the second story, the commonplaces are more straightforward. There are the standards that are to be taught. The interplay between the commonplaces is less nuanced, less deeply understood. Were the subject matter demands better served in the second social studies unit? What is gained and lost at the behest of the subject matter demands? In this moment of tension between the commonplaces, what can we learn about the complex interplay between teacher knowledge and social studies subject matter knowledge? Deliberation, as Schwab argues, is the act of balancing the diverse and disparate needs of the curricular commonplaces: the learner, the teacher, the subject matter, and the milieu. Such an act requires the teacher, in the act of bringing a curriculum to life within her classroom with her students, to be a curriculum choice maker. The complicated, nuanced ways that this work is done, and the tacit knowledge that must be uncovered to understand these acts, is understood through teachers’ stories of experience. Narrative inquiry is a cogent, yet empathetic, method of deepening understandings and adding to the literature regarding the intersection of teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge.

REFERENCES Allen, R. (2006, February). Intelligent design versus evolution sparks debate. Association of supervision and curriculum development. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education-update/feb06/vol48/num02/Intelligent-Design-Versus-Evolu tion-Sparks-Debate.aspx Clandinin, D. J. (2013). Engaging in narrative inquiry. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1988). Teachers as curriculum planners: Narratives of experience. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Cromwell, S. (2005). Banning books from classrooms: How to handle calls for censorship. Education World. Retrieved from http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/baing-booksfrom-the-classroom.shtml Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York, NY: Collier Books. Schwab, J. J. (1978). Science, curriculum and liberal education: Selected essays. I. Westbury & N. Wilkof. (Eds.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

SECTION II: ENTERING THE CROSSROADS THROUGH STORIES FROM THE SECONDARY LEVEL Vicki Ross, Elaine Chan, Dixie K. Keyes and Trudy Cardinal

The image of crossroads came to be important to us as we brought together the chapters for this book. Crossroads, as a metaphor, opens for pondering the idea of a space where different ways of knowing interact. Crossroads are also a decision points. At crossroads changes in direction can occur. Trudy brought forward a sense of urgency she feels regarding the metaphor of crossroads. Trudy shared with us that, The more I think about crossroads the more uneasy I become. I get a sense of urgency; of the crossroads as not a place to stay a while, not a liminal space to remain playfully as Lugones (1987) speaks of. It feels like a place where a decision must be made quickly because others are going to come and if I linger I will be in the way. The image of rushing cars,

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impatient to be on their way, honking in frustration as I desire to linger; as I yearn to think a bit
to pause, to look around and get the lay of the land
is frightening, worrisome maybe, at the very least unpleasant. This very much is the feel I get when I consider crossroads as curriculum making as it is often taken up by schools, by education departments, and other institutions. And so I have trouble seeing this metaphor and these spaces as decision points (for there is no time for deep thinking), or meeting points (it seems the goal is to keep moving lest you cause disruption to the system, to the flow); nor can I truly call them intersections where we find common ground (for there is not time to linger together in the midst of the crossroad … someone will be pushing to get across). And yet … I am invited, as we do in our work, in our chapter to sit with this discomfort. To unpack how it is that I come to view crossroads in this way. To understand what stories to live by that I carry that invites me to leave the road, the crossroad, altogether and to observe from the side where it is safe to stay awhile, to build relationships
if even just for a moment with those rushing to their next destination. I am a small town girl. I avoided the crossroads that were busy. They didn’t and don’t call to me in any way still. And yet … the lingering anxiety, the fear of that space … calls to me too. Just as curriculum making and schooling and the never ending quest for efficiency and accountability calls to me in education
to view from the side, to take the time to think, to unpack, to wonder how it is that we all got here
at this crossroad
in the hopes that together … we might imagine another way! Vicki Ross, Section II Editor: As I enter the crossroads I carry with me Trudy’s thoughts and feelings about the dangerous nature of crossroads, but ending on the note of hope that she feels at the crossroads. Engaging with the authors and the stories they share in this section, I am mindful of the embodied knowing the teachers shared. We hear of the tensions that shape these teachers’ knowing. Subject matter knowledge seems to be less the root of the tensions experienced by these teachers. Rather, the tensions seem to emerge from the interaction between these teachers within their contexts. And, the tugs and pulls seem to be more rooted in the construction and reconstruction of teacher identity in classroom and school contexts and in relation and positioning on a professional knowledge landscape. In Auzenne-Curl’s chapter “How I Got Over: Meditations on “BestLoved Self”: Sustaining in Secondary English Language Arts,” we hear the

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story of a beginning English Language Arts teacher’s journey of sustaining in the profession. Auzenne-Curl explores the tension found in school landscapes when a teacher is storied as the outsider. We read how the internal tensions build with the receipt of below expected test scores during her first year. Tensions ebb and flow through the continuing story as this young teacher becomes a respected member of her school and district communities. Then, in “Teaching That “Promotes Diversity”: The Potential of Disruptive Narratives,” Bossman explores tensions inherent in the notion of diversity. She shares her internal tensions borne of experience. Then, she uses the learning from this experience to reconstruct her past teaching in the area of diversity. She uses the tensions within the process of reconstruction to create a new story of teaching that promotes diversity. Through her chapter, then, she provides a window into the classroom teacher and students with whom she worked to implement this curriculum. Li and Logan in their chapter “Stories of an English Language Arts Teacher in a High-Needs Secondary School: A Narrative Inquiry into Her Best-Loved Self” study the experience of a veteran teacher. The experiences shared from across the years of experience beginning with student teaching to becoming a teacher leader within her district. Her stories expose tensions in her classroom space, with her school and district administrators regarding her students’ performance on state-mandated tests. These tensions power her professional development. Fadale and Powell, in their chapter, “Health, Physical Education Content, and Teacher Knowledge/Identity,” describe the world of teaching in a marginalized subject matter area. They share the tensions that emerge on the landscape of schools for teachers who work in the subject area of health physical education. The most important thing I take away from these stories is the power of growing through difficult times. Each of these teachers explores the tensions that exist in their classroom, school, and district context, and move from there to grow both professionally and personally. This theme of hope that is inherently narrative is how I want to invite you, the reader, to engage with these authors.

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SING IT OVER: MEDITATIONS ON “BEST-LOVED SELF” AND SUSTAINING IN SECONDARY ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS Chestin Auzenne-Curl ABSTRACT This chapter is a collection of reflections on the broader concept of my “story to live by” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Craig, 2008, 2014) as a beginning English Language Arts teacher. Burrowing deeply into the impact of a single phrase from a conversation with a found mentor at the close of my first year, the chapter explores the journey of sustaining in the profession by examining what is here within discussed as a narrative undercurrent that carries each educator toward his or her “best-loved Self” (Craig, 2013; Schwab, 1954/1978). This concept is introduced, and then reflected upon in correlation with the development of knowledge communities (Olson & Craig, 2001; Craig & Huber, 2007), narrative authority (Olson, 1995), and narrative identity (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999; McAdams, Josselson & Lieblich, 2006). In meditating on the broader narrative, I arrived at the conclusion that the conversation referenced initiated my discovering essential elements of

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my best-loved Self, and my seeking to actualize them within a forged knowledge community. I moved forward and expanded my knowledge “for,” “in,” and “of” practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1998). Through this process, I authored and re-authored myself through conflicts noted across the literature as factors contributing to beginning teacher attrition rates (Craig, 2014; Schaefer, 2013) and preserved my story to live by. Keywords: Beginning teachers; retention; educator’s life cycles; knowledge communities

INTRODUCTION Beginning teacher attrition has become the subject of many phenomenological studies, and in comparison to Portugal’s surplus, and Singapore’s 97% retention rate (Lavigne, 2014), the United States, like Australia and the United Kingdom, continue to lose beginning teachers at high rates. In the United States, on average, 50% of teachers new to public schools (with zero years of experience) will remain in the profession past year three (Darling-Hammond, 2003; Ingersoll, 2004, 2012; Ingersoll & Perda, 2012). In fact, Ingersoll, Merrill and Consortium for Policy Research in Education (2012) report that retention rates for first year teachers decreased 34% between 1998 and 2008. While an increasing amount of literature regarding attrition stories surfaces (e.g., Clandinin, Schaefer & Downey, 2014; Lavigne, 2014), there remain many untold stories of retention
“stories to live by” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999; Craig, 2014). In preparing to become a teacher educator, I ran across countless publications. Each pulled me into my own meditations. Each produced a new wondering. This chapter presents a collection of autobiographical reflections on the formation of trust, autonomy, and a growth mindset in the early period of my career. Burrowing into these reflections helped me to gain actualize a core narrative that helped me sustain as a beginning teacher. I now recognize elements of my Best-Loved Self in it, and I believe them to be a key portion of a narrative undercurrent directing the flow of my career.

TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL LIFE CYCLES Sometime long ago, those roots sprouted. It seems to have been much longer ago. I entered the classroom and readied myself for what I believed

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would be “fun” and “easy.” It was fun, it became easier, but these things came with experience and through developing professional knowledge. As a teacher educator, I think about the path toward knowledge often, and when working with pre-service and in-service teachers I remind myself that this “knowledge” is fluid. In the classroom, I try to be explicit in discussions about how what I know and how I came to know are not necessarily what I knew and valued during other segments of my journey. In a Deweyan (1938) consideration of teachers’ knowledge as a social and personal construction, contextual exploration of the lived experiences of teachers has emerged into many branches of inquiry. The work of scholars like Huberman and Floden (1989) shed light on the intricacy of the professional life cycle that invites us to the stage upon which knowledge is constructed, and we are called to view acts of that cycle as phases wherein the dimensions of Self (e.g., Bruner, 1990; Cooper & Olson, 1996) are explored. In the 1980s and 1990s, studies defining those phases “with a broad temporal sweep [and] the idea that the lives studied belong to the teachers” (Floden & Huberman, 1989, p. 455) rose with the emergence of inquiry as methodology (Clandinin, 2013a; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). From this stem, the current body of literature concerning beginning teachers and “induction” was born. In the subsequent sections presented, the language of Huberman’s model is an influence where induction is concerned. It is just one phase of his conception of the professional life of a teacher. For this study, it is part of the landscape on which the “Educator’s Professional Evolution” occurs as a cycle within the continuum.

BEGINNING TEACHER ATTRITION AND IDENTITY To speak of beginning teacher attrition narratively, the concept of identity becomes a fluid and malleable entity. Identity exists in story. Beijaard, Meijer, and Verloop describe the roots of its continuous flux: “identity is formed and reformed by the stories we tell” (2004, p. 123). The importance of considering the identity of beginning teachers is one emergent thread in the literature. Qualitative studies have elicited narratives that provide an invitation into the experience of becoming a beginning teacher and moving through Huberman’s induction period. They are easily linked to and provide insight to statistical data regarding rising attrition rates. Holding these considerations alongside findings from two separate inquiries (Craig, 2014;

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Schaefer, 2013) into beginning teacher attrition, some resonant factors surface. Craig’s (2014) six-year inquiry into the beginning experiences of a teacher who exits the profession provides three reasons for the participants’ flight. Each is projected outward to the larger body of beginning teachers by comparative reports from UNESCO, IAS, and other recent studies that support: • limitations placed on creativity; • the impact of state and federal accountability systems and legislation; and • pressures related to standardized testing in conflict with preparing students for life as areas of distinct stressors for beginning teachers. The first is primarily a factor to be classified as an issue situated within the individual, while the last two not only contribute to factors situated within the individual, such as burnout and emotional and physical exhaustion (Schaefer, 2013), but also bleed into factors situated in context (lack of collegiality, issues with policy, etc.). All of these issues can disrupt the establishment of a knowledge community (Craig, 1995; Craig & Huber, 2007; Craig & Olson, 2001), which can be a natural space for professional growth, belonging, and expansion of lived curriculum.

Guiding Framework for Conceptualizing the Chapter Fig. 1 looks at a less temporally centered cycle that is asserted to be an episodic experience occurring throughout the career span. In this it denotes an evolution. This figure represents my conceptualization of the narrative undercurrent that influences the course of our professional trajectory (Auzenne-Curl, 2016). It presumes that we are ever in search of a professional “best-loved Self” (BLS). Building from Schwab’s body of work which recognizes the educator’s “Self” as more than professional, and more complex than the professional image (Craig, 2008, 2013; Schwab, 1954/ 1978), I view the undercurrent a key influence in authoring identity across the professional life cycle. My own undercurrent is presented in Fig. 1. It is depicted here as a twodimensional construction circling around an image of BLS, but in reality is more like a cyclone once set into motion. That core image of BLS has been key in the shaping and reshaping of my identity. It is shaped by personal experiences and forged by a personal desire to be autonomous and of

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Fig. 1.

My Narrative Undercurrent.

integrity. For me, it consists of a need to know, to grow, and to contribute to positive change. The undercurrent illustrated in Fig. 1 is energized by an echoing of this image. For many, it could be a reverberation of a time, event, or conversation that has us reflect on where we are in relationship to that Self. For me, and in my induction story and beyond, it was a conversation with a mentor. We will journey there soon. I see the undercurrent corresponding to Huberman’s stocktaking and interrogations at mid-career, but I think it is consistently happening. Not just at temporal stop at mid-career (Huberman, 1989). Once an echoing reverberates, we either diversify, and change as a strategy to sustain (drafting new plotlines for our professional story in the same context) or we begin to story ourselves and our essence out of the current position. The journey of evolution has consistently carried me through five phases: • Endeavor: A phase of uncertainty and beginnings. Endeavor is characterized by wonderings and any particular emotion. But the affective experience is not ignored in it. There are often doubts, and confidence. Entering a new endeavor marks an entrance into a new professional role. • Energy: Quickly upon entering in the endeavor, the energy of context presents itself in a dominant emotion and it influences our work in the newly authored role. This energy shapes attitude; attitude affects the

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relationships established and the perception of the organization wherein the work will occur. Therefore, the type of energy that we bring into any new endeavors frames the pursuit of BLS and affects the pathways of the undercurrent. The energy drives the echoing through wonderings. Am I living as the Self I wish to be? Am I on the road to becoming? • Epiphany: In this phase, the individual learns or recognizes something about Self. In reflecting on the results of his or her labors, the questions driven by energy yield a tentative answer. It is a checkpoint. The epiphany can result from Self-initiated stocktaking, but may also be initiated by another person. Echoings are formed here; reverberations resound. • Exhaustion: This marks exhaustion of the endeavor in its primary conceptualized form. Exhaustion of Self can accompany a physical, mental, or spiritual exhaustion. This is not necessarily a negative phase. Sometimes individuals exhaust to chrysalis and emerge with a new perception, or into a different role: teacher leader, peer coach, etc. They may move to a new campus or work with a different demographically representative student group while in the same position. Exhaustion is characterized by a resolution
a recognition of how close or far the cycle has taken us from the BLS we hope to be. It is again taking stock of personal and professional goals, and is strongly correlated to echoings. It paves the road to the next endeavor. We begin authoring our next exposition. • Echoing: The undercurrent itself brings forth an echoing that propels the undercurrent, an incantation of the educator’s best-loved Self. It invokes, at any time during or across the life cycle of an educator, a memory or reflection of the journey toward best-loved Self (Craig, 2013; Schwab, 1954/1978). It may be any recurrent story or image from within or out of the profession. It is not a phase, but a tide across all phases. Wherever the echoing occurs, we take stock. We evaluate how fully we are living as our best-loved selves. Fig. 2 illustrates a reflection in which the educator remembers how close he or she was to actualizing BLS during the energy phase of the endeavor. In this example, echoing occurs within the state of exhaustion and will ultimately lead to a decision that moves the educator into an endeavor to drive inward and more closely to the image of BLS (a story to live by), or in another direction in search of a new contextual path toward BLS (a story to leave by). Evolving in leaving moves us in spatiality and sociality. Evolution through staying leads us to face internal complexity within the same context, however varied temporally and by milieu. The close of my first year as an educator highlighted the pathway for me.

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ENDEAVOR

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BLS

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Fig. 2.

A Narrative Undercurrent Forming Story to Leave By.

KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITIES Craig’s (1995) observations concerning beginning teachers’ communal learning through storytelling and living within interpretive communities offered a grounding for the cultivation of individual personal practical knowledge. The inquiry and collaboration of knowledge communities are not restricted to benefitting beginning teachers only, but I assert that the exclusion from a knowledge community can be most damaging to those who are still negotiating a professional identity. Craig & Huber’s (2007) discussion of a forged knowledge community that evolved during their graduate years was a point of reflection in my inspiration to view the narrative undercurrent alongside the knowledge community as it exists in the induction period. For me, the knowledge community in which I felt a sense of belonging and freedom to grow in the projection of my BLS increased in number significantly and in the degree to which I felt compelled to share beyond the surface level, elevator stories, or my experiences (Clandinin et al., 2014). In the first year, I was in the center of a triangle of experienced teachers
mentors
who saw potential in me. Displayed below in the delta, a symbol for change and summation, this community brought me much knowledge and confidence (Fig. 3). Many of the teachers with whom I would have been working closely excluded me from conversations and

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First Year Knowledge Community.

planning in the first year. They would tell me to “just survive” and often commented negatively about Alternative Certification Programs (ACP). So I withdrew to my classroom. I understood the perceived and implied gaps in my ability. This created a space of sociality from which I was barred. I was also separated from the group in physical space. Most of the rooms were on the first floor in a horseshoe-shaped hallway, but my room was near the history hall on the second floor of the building.

Wondering and Wandering into an Intersection The complexity of the literature and of lived experience turned my attention from the trunk of teacher life cycles to the soil of retention. How were these “Stayers” nurtured? Why did they stay? How did they endure? I wandered inward. After all, I was a stayer. What encouraged me to be? My late grandmother listened to southern gospel music, often. To me, in the weighted voices of these artists, there was a cool breeze of spirituality escaping, a transcendence that offered and invited deep reflection. Many of these songs called me into wonderings. The words escaped me. The melodies did not. As I grew older and encountered them again, I listened more carefully to the songs of my grandmother. One in particular called to me in preparing this chapter. It is a song about overcoming metaphoric mountains in our lives. For me, one such mountain was my beginning teacher experience. I did not recognize it to be such at the time, but having moved beyond it and looking back; projecting forward on my professional path, I, too, like the women of those songs, wonder how I made it over the hurdles. This chapter is bound in a melody that I have hummed many times over the years when asked how I decided to remain in the profession, but much like the words of the old gospel songs, the details have found new meaning

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since the induction phase of my career. As a beginning teacher, I did meet with contrasting perceived and lived stories (Schaefer, 2013) in the development of personal practical knowledge (Clandinin, 1986, 2013b) and content area competency. How, indeed, did I make it over? In re-storying my induction years, I am listening beyond the melody this time to discover lyrics indicating a shared truth. A resonance of the struggles and resolutions, or dissolutions, that surfaces may speak to other beginning teachers, or to other teacher educators. Perhaps it can also contribute to identifying strategies for sustaining the beginning period.

Instructional Context At the end of the first year, before I could decide on how to assess my successes and failures, the scores from the state examination came out. I was devastated to learn that only 76% of my students passed the exam. Though I was reassured by the campus English Language Arts specialist that this was nothing of which I should be ashamed, and that many teachers who were more established had reported lower passing percentages, I felt awful. I responded to her that it was not okay because if I had been teaching only 100 students, that would still mean that an entire classroom full of students would have failed. I could see their faces in place of names and numbers. I had let them down. Next, I did something that surprised my peers. I called central office and asked the district’s language arts coordinator, Loretta, to come and talk with me about the test. She did so that day. We talked about a lot of things: places that I could go during the summer for professional development regarding the test, remaining patient while waiting on the actual test records to come back from the state so that we could look at areas that were discrepant. None of that calmed me. I was disappointed in my perceived failure. I remember her telling me that she had watched me closely through the year and she admitted that she first visited because my peers had little faith in me and thought that my methods were renegade. She said that she kept coming back because they were wrong. Then she began to recount various lessons that she had witnessed and strategies that she had observed. They were always engaged, she said. None of this was satisfactory because to me, it did not make me the teacher I hoped to be and who I felt so close to being prior to receiving the scores. But the thing that did stick with me, and that would become the core echoing in my story to live by through this

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beginning period was, “You won’t be a master teacher until year five, nobody is. It will take you a while to know yourself.” While I stand in semantic discord with the use of Master Teacher, what I heard was, “You won’t fully know yourself as a teacher until you’ve been at it for five years. Nobody does.” In this, I saw her faith in me. She trusted me professionally and she protected my autonomy. She gave me the respect and time to grow. She celebrated the things that were going well in the classroom. So, I thought that I should give myself the same consideration. I did not have to be perfect. I began to conceptualize professional identity as a story of growth and a work in progress. This abolished the thought of a static image of Self and a fixed characterization of Self that would have contributed to a guiding echo out of the profession. I decided to give myself a chance. Five years to work; five verses to sing. Having majored in literature with emphasis in writing, I remained confident about the content portion of Knowledge for Practice. I sought mentors. The District Language Arts Coordinator, Loretta, was one, of course. Her encouragement at the end of the year was not a random act. She had been visiting my classroom all year. Sometimes she would speak only with students, sometimes only with me. Sometimes she would take pictures of the classroom and her presence became normative. Since Loretta, along with my field supervisor, and the instructor from my alternative certification program were all in agreement that my management and classroom culture were to be celebrated, I counted management out of the year two equation. I would not focus on fixing the unbroken. My test scores were the obvious choice for year two. Choice. Year Two. The bureaucracy, the testing pressures, and the learning curve went silent for a while that day. As I burrow into this core narrative, I see the end-of-the-year conversation that I held with Loretta, as a primary echoing of the narrative undercurrent which sustained me in a time of perceived personal and professional failure. The heart of the conversation moved me inward and more deeply into pursuit of my best-loved Self in context. Perhaps it brought the message that I needed to forgive myself for not having Knowledge for Practice and to establish a view of Knowledge in Practice and to begin a professional pursuit of BLS through Knowledge of Practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999). Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s “Relationships of Knowledge and Practice: Teacher Learning in Communities” presents Knowledge of Practice as a concept of teacher learning, which is broader and more complex than Knowledge for Practice (formal, pedagogical, theoretical, content area
based knowledge), or Knowledge in Practice (reflective, embedded,

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interactive, experience-based knowledge). Knowledge of Practice focuses not on a dichotomy of formal theoretical and practical experiences. It instead highlights the teacher’s individual generation of knowledge under both species as they work “within the contexts of inquiry communities to theorize and construct their work … to connect it to larger social cultural and political issues” (p. 250). This was certainly my success in sustaining. As previously referenced, the literature indicates factors leading to beginning teacher attrition which are situated within the individual and factors situated in context. Often related to testing pressures, accountability and a perceived inability to be creative make classroom learning relevant to life beyond testing metrics (Craig, 2013; Schaefer, Downey, & Clandinin, 2014).

IMPACT ON THE INDIVIDUAL The conversation with Loretta influenced me to not succumb to the negative emotions and guilt that I felt for not having assisted more students on the pathway to passing the test. I had not stressed the test, but the test had certainly stressed me. As a first year teacher who had been isolated from the learning community at large, I did feel that my peers were waiting to judge me by the results of my students’ performance on the test. I was concerned that my principal might also feel that a mistake had been made in my hire. Having the person with the highest-ranking title in the district, where English Language Arts Curriculum Supervision was concerned, express the potential she saw in me and exhibit trust in me, did move me away from the fears that the perceived failure was a permanent situation. I had time and permission to grow from her. I should give it to myself as well. I have since reflected on my interactions with her. She always spoke with me instead of at me and probed me with reflective questions. In this manner, she coached me. I trusted her. That year she was the strongest influence in my forged knowledge community. I allowed her in. I allowed my ACP instructor in. I allowed my field supervisor in, but Loretta was the only one of the three that I saw in regular intervals (once or more per grading period) that year.

IMPACT IN CONTEXT Our conversations in future years would lead to her disclosure of the “why” she initially visited my classroom. The doubt. Other members of my department considered me to be a renegade and ill-equipped to teach

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because I had been alternatively certified. She came for a visit after a meeting with leaders in the department. They told her that I was not using the curriculum (a binder of purple-inked worksheets that had been used for years with no revision). I was not using it. Even with the small amount of pedagogical instinct that I had as I entered the profession, I knew that using outdated materials geared toward passive learning was not going to help my establishment of trust and respect with high school students. She and I agreed. So instead of following the department leader’s presumption that I would need to “get into some experienced teacher’s class” to watch and learn, Loretta came to visit with me. She observed me. She probed me. She discovered elements of my BLS and watched me emerge into a curriculum maker (Craig & Ross, 2008). She came to know me. This is how she learned to guide me. After that first visit, she returned fairly often. Sometimes talking with students, sometimes with me, and often with all of us. She had become part of our class, but she also remained part of the department by keeping a watchful eye on me, the renegade, the one the others were judging and excluding. When she would meet with other members of the department that year, she would share what she saw going on in my classroom. She would share photos of hands-on products and differentiated assessment processes. She asked me questions in meeting when I attempted silence. She also shared the students’ scores at the end of the year and highlighted that the performance on writing was well above the campus average. I never knew how much of this she did for me and how much of it she did for the department as a whole, or if she ever really understood how she put an end to the ostracism I faced. I like to think that it was calculated. I like to think that she saw that I needed time to understand who I was and to learn to articulate what I was doing to be included in that particular campus space. Because after that year, I was. I carried the lessons from year one into the second, as I opened up more during the department meetings and discussions. Two things inspired that. First, there was my personal belief that even if other members of the team had not respected me or believed in me, I could still learn more about teaching from their examples and perhaps non-examples. Second, Loretta accepted a position on my campus. She was sharing this space, too (Fig. 4). The results of collaboration were positive. I was not alone, and because the other members began to see me as creative rather than as a renegade, I was willing to share with them that I knew the content language, but not the “school talk” to express what I was doing. Learning became fluid and mutual. I consistently had new epiphanies and increased energy.

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Knowledge Community, Year 2.

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Fig. 5. Knowledge Community, Year 3. Notes: Each face of the cube represents a campus and each edge, a grade-level representative. The work here involved aligning local curriculum with advanced placement and state standards, developing uniform definitions for literary elements and drafting a scope and sequence document.

By the end of year three, I knew two things: I was learning and I was making a difference. I wanted to continue to grow. Loretta, again, had a hand in pushing me forward by naming me the campus representative on the vertical alignment team. My learning community expanded and my pedagogical knowledge for practice began to reach my content area knowledge for practice here (Fig. 5). In year four, the team had completed initial curriculum development for grades 6
12 and I had come to project both knowledge “in” and “of” practice; I shared it during development (Fig. 6).

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Fig. 6.

Knowledge Community, Year 4.

In the early years, my strength was my content area knowledge for practice, not pedagogical. While many other members of my team had attended traditional university-level programs and pursued degrees in education, I had earned my first degree in literature with an emphasis on writing and a minor in history. To me, sociological implications were inseparable from the study of literature. Literature, to me, was a product of the context under which it was constructed. Thus, the curriculum documents on our grade-level team included sociological objectives, multiple modes of literacy, and integrated reading and writing strategies across genres. Since the current state exam was much more focused on writing and assessed more genres than the previous two tests, I became a resource in year four as the team began to talk more about strategies aligned to the new curriculum documents. For the first time, I was sought for some level of perceived expertise. I found myself in the center of inquiry regarding writing strategies and worked with teachers of K-12 students, on Saturdays. This place in the knowledge community solidified for me that pursuing a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction was necessary and I began with a focus in teacher education. Still attending content-specific professional development session and bringing session information back to the district, I was offered a new position on campus. With the new endeavor came new energy, but my community became complex. I was a teacher leader for my grade level, a district trainer for writing strategies, a curriculum writer, and still a beginning teacher. I reached a positive phase of exhaustion at this point, and as it happened, I was entering year five. I knew myself more deeply. More precisely, I knew who I loved to be. There

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was solace and cadence in this best-loved Self. I came to understand that I functioned best when I perceived myself as a knower, a grower, and a difference maker. As long as I was functioning as such, or at least two of the three, I embraced and expanded my knowledge community.

Narrative Applications Related to Subject Matter Analysis As an alternatively certified teacher, many of my peers discredited my contributions to conversations in planning and in water cooler conversations. I was excluded largely due to perceptions of pedagogical deficiency in both theory and practice. Connolly (2008) takes the latter back to its root and through the abstract and formal connotation of theoria, the same species of knowledge is discussed by Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999) to be a Knowledge for Practice. Under this term they operationalize the past work of scholars such as Gardiner, Huberman, and Murray to be distinctive, explicit, and not reliant upon “the conventional wisdom of common practice” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999, p. 255). I was not intimidated by my colleagues’ lack of faith in my work, but lacking the language of the field, I could not properly articulate what was happening in my classroom. This led many peers to believe that nothing was going on in my classroom. In addition, the pressures of the culture of standardized testing had invaded my image of measures of good teaching. Residual reflections on these two issues lead to me pursue a master’s degree in secondary teacher education. However, because of Loretta’s involvement (and that of others), my beginning teacher experience did not allow me dwell in the space of discord. I did not see the pre-constructed images and stories of my success as in conflict with lived, but in motion toward lived experiences. I gave myself permission to go to the university and seek to fill that perceived void. My found mentor’s message to give myself time and to celebrate what went well took root. In a return to those reflections, Clandinin’s (2013; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Connelly & Clandinin, 2000) conceptualization of personal practical knowledge and Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s Knowledge in Practice surface. I could re-story and value each year’s progress outside of the university experience. Craig’s (2013) alignment of the teacher-as-curriculum maker (Clandinin & Connelly 1992; Craig & Ross, 2008) with the image of best-loved Self is also at the crux of the conflict and resolution here. I was not formally inducted

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into the department. I was greeted and issued a binder. In my discussion of this binder earlier in the chapter I wrote of it: They told her that I was not using the curriculum (a binder of purple inked worksheets that had been used for years with no revision). I was not using it. Even with the small amount of pedagogical instinct that I had as I entered the profession, I knew that using outdated materials geared toward passive learning was not going to help my establishment of trust and respect with high school students.

When I reread the above excerpt, I made a deeper connection with the literature. I did not previously understand, even in engaging in this piece, that the elements of my best-loved Self were affected here. As I see it now, and better know myself, this handing over of the curriculum binder spoke to me of place in the community. I was not a contributor to, but a receiver of, informed curriculum. I decided not to use it because it was a challenge to my knowledge and capacity to create and add to the departmental community. Perhaps I was a renegade. Had I not been, I would surely have left the profession. Some of my early strengths came from rising and falling of trial and error, and through keeping my students active in contributing to the ways in which we would approach and asses the curriculum presented. So Craig (2013) noted, “rebellion and efforts to Self-educate…may be and important sign of growth in the development of strong independent teachers and productive stories-to-live-by” (Craig, 2013, p. 266). Renegade or rebel, I guess I did not want them to feel excluded from the classroom in the ways that I felt isolated within the department. I wanted them to be active contributors to the community of learners, and to value the knowledge that they brought to with them. Viewing my experiences narratively supported my authority to take control of the stories. I was then able to work through the year one conflict of my failure to deeply investigate the state assessment. I was able to navigate the conflict to come by seizing the authority to pen the professional songs that I would sing. The following years brought a series of melodies and chords. Some were dissonant and some harmonic. The echoing conversation, my motivation, became the evolutionary chorus. Each year became a verse, and the muse was the community growing within and around me.

NARRATIVE IDENTITY The previous sections presented two lenses under which I have re-storied my beginning experiences as a teacher. First, I see myself seeded in the

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context of a growing knowledge community, and as I retold the story I became more aware of the undercurrent echoings of my pursuit of my image of BLS. In a broader sense, they are lenses under which I construct and reconstruct my narrative identity. This ability to carry, to author, and to order stories of experience is at the core of my ability to remain in the profession. As a bridge to collective experience, my stories to live by (Adams, Lieblich & Josselson, et al., 2006; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) developed from wonderings of who was I and where I fit into the world of education. Most specifically, which role would I play in the lives of the students I taught? As many recent studies on the multiplicity and ever-shifting nature of teacher identities would attest, I was learning much about my selves through, and “in collaborative exchanges, concluding that colleagues constitute key actors in teachers’ formation of [my] professional identity” (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011, p. 311). The gift of narrative authority allowed me to play many roles and to be at peace with each. I could contextualize my existence through assessing the needs of classroom and performing the best that I could in the role required. The establishment of the knowledge community was strength. As I re-sing the songs of my beginning teacher experience in my current position as teacher educator, I reflect differently upon them. I think largely about how they may be externalized and become communal.

CONCLUSIONS At this point, I believe that the first five years pulled me inward incessantly toward my actualization of a professional BLS that was not in conflict or competition with my personal BLS. That balance enabled me to pursue the particulars of the job while navigating the contextual and internal factors which might otherwise have moved me out of the classroom. The complexity and members of my perceived knowledge community increased as I projected that balance and focused on the pursuit three elements that I know as essential aspects of my BLS, regardless of the context: 1. I must be able to know. 2. I must be able to grow. 3. I must make a difference. When I had reached 5 years in the profession, I knew that all of the above were at work in my professional life and that I had to make a decision. It seemed that the closer I was to my image of BLS, the more people I

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was willing to allow into my story to live by. My knowledge community grew. As it expanded, I became more deeply rooted in the district and campus community. By the end of my induction period, I had gained a more expansive view of the content area in which I taught, but I had exhausted the energy I brought into attempting to know, grow and make a difference in the role of classroom teacher on that campus. I had to decide if I would remain in that area and live in it, or I could leave that area seeking a new endeavor. If I could find a good reason to pursue the same Self, elsewhere, I would. I did. As it so happened, the second element of my BLS, “ability to grow,” spoke to me at the end of year five. It lulled me away from the context of comfort. I realized that, for several reasons, I reached a positive point of exhaustion in that knowledge community. My echoings became a strong chorus, encouraging me to accept a move into a new set of milieu. I would still be a teacher, but my service would be with peers, colleagues, and future teachers. I spiraled quickly into that new endeavor as a teacher educator, dually conscious of the essential elements of BLS that I would need in order to sustain this new beginning teacher educator evolution, and that I would be in many ways a novice again. I would not have to find myself this time. I would have to find a way to make sure that I recognized myself in new surroundings.

WONDERINGS As a teacher educator, I often tell students enrolled in the courses that I facilitate to enter the classroom with a plan, and a backup plan, and an empty journal. Then I re-story the conversation and context highlighted here in hopes that the pressure to be perfect is minimized. This is what the conversation did for me. I wonder how many of the beginning teachers who face the stress that is brought on when encountering conflicting images of Self would be helped by having a mentor or colleague who seeks first to understand the pre-constructed images they carry and why they exist. Would the dissonances among imagined and lived experiences in the classroom be reconciled through more discussion on Self and motivation in preservice programs? Can a discussion of tracing my narrative undercurrent assist in preparing future educators? Can seasoned educators trace and recount the journey on their own undercurrent to reveal elements of BLS and stories of sustaining?

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I am not sure how widely relatable my revelations will be; however, it is held in truth that as my knowledge community expanded, my undercurrent spiraled inward and reduced the distance that I felt between my professional identity and my image of BLS. Discovering this through mapping undercurrent and defining essential elements of BLS has helped me to better understand the falling and rising of the beginning years and to more clearly articulate the lyrics of my song of sustaining.

REFERENCES Adams, D., Josselson, R., & Lieblich, A. (Ed.). (2006). Identity and story: Creating self in narrative. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Akkerman, S. F., & Meijer, P. C. (2011). A dialogical approach to conceptualizing teacher identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 308
319. Auzenne-Curl, C. T. (2016). Their exits and their entrances: Stories of coming and going from former teacher educators in the field. Unpublished doctor of philosophy dissertation, University of Houston, December 2016. Beijaard, D., Meijer, P., & Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teacher identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20 (2), 107
128. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Clandinin, D. J. (1986). Classroom practice: Teacher images in action. Philadelphia, PA: The Falmer Press. Clandinin, D. J. (2013a). Engaging in narrative inquiry. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press. Clandinin, D. J. (2013b). Personal practical knowledge: A study of teachers classroom images. In C. J. Craig, P. C. Meijer, & J. Broeckmans (Eds.), From Teacher thinking to teachers and teaching: The evolution of a research community (Vol. 19, pp. 67
96). Advances in Research on Teaching. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (1992). Teacher as curriculum maker. In P. Jackson (Ed.), Handbook of curriculum (pp. 363
461). New York, NY: Macmillan. Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Clandinin, D. J., Schaefer, L., & Downey, C. (2014). Narrative conceptions of knowledge: Towards understanding teacher attrition. In D. J. Clandinin, L. Schaefer, & C. Aiden Downey (Eds.), Narrative conceptions of knowledge: Towards understanding teacher attrition (Vol. 23, p. iii). Advances in Research on Teaching. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (1999). Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teacher learning in communities. Review of Research in Education, 24, 249
305. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/stable/1167272 Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2
14. Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (Eds.). (1999). Shaping a professional identity: Stories of educational practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

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Connolly, A. (2008). Some brief considerations on the relationship between theory and practice. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 53(4), 481
499. Cooper, K., & Olson, M. (1996). The multiple ‘I’s’ of teacher identity. In M. Kompf, W. R. Bond, D. Dworet, & T. Boak (Eds.), Changing research and practice: Teachers’ professionalism, identities, and knowledge (pp. 78
89). London: Falmer Press. Craig, C. (1995). Knowledge communities: A way of making sense of how beginning teachers come to know. Curriculum Inquiry, 25(2), 151
172. Craig, C. (2008). Joseph Schwab, self-study of teaching and teacher education practices proponent? A personal perspective. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(8), 1993
2001. Craig, C. (2013). Teacher education and the best-loved self. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 33(3), 261
272. doi:10.1080/02188791.2013.788476 Craig, C. (2014). From stories of staying to stories of leaving: A U.S. beginning teacher’s experience. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 46(1), 81
115. Craig, C., & Huber, J. (2007). Relational reverberations. Handbook of Narrative Inquiry: Mapping a Methodology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. doi:10.4135/ 9781452226552 Craig, C., & Ross, V. (2008). Cultivating teachers as curriculum makers. In F. M. Connelly (Ed.), Sage handbook of curriculum and instruction (pp. 282
305). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Darling-Hammond, L. (2003). Keeping good teachers: Why it matters, what leaders can do. Educational Leadership, 60(8), 6
13. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York, NY: Basic Books. Floden, R., & Huberman, M. (1989). Teacher’s professional lives: The state of the art. International Journal of Educational Research, 13(4), 455
466 Huberman, M. (1989). The professional life cycle of teachers. Teachers College Record, 91(1), 31
56. Ingersoll, R. (2004). Four myths about America’s teacher quality problem. In M. Smylie & D. Miretzky (Eds.), Developing the teacher workforce: The 103rd yearbook of the national society for the study of education (pp. 1
33). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Ingersoll, R. (2012). Beginning teacher induction: What the data tell us. The Phi Delta Kappan, 93(8), 47
51. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/stable/23210373 Ingersoll, R., & Perda, D. (2012). How high is teacher turnover and is it a problem? Consortium for Policy Research in Education. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania. Lavigne, A. L. (2014). Beginning teachers who stay: Beliefs about students. Teaching and Teacher Education, 39, 31
43. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2013.12.002 McAdams, D. P., Josselson, R., & Lieblich, A. (2006). Identity and story: Creating self in narrative. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Olson, M., & Craig, C. (2001). Opportunities and challenges in the development of teachers’ knowledge: The development of narrative authority through knowledge communities. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(6), 667
684. Schaefer, L. (2013). Beginning teacher attrition: A question of identity making and identity shifting. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 19(3), 260
274, doi:10.1080/ 13540602.2012.754159 Schaefer, L., Downey, C. A., & Clandinin, D. J. (2014). Shifting from stories to live by to stories to leave by: Early career teacher attrition. Teacher Education Quarterly, 41(1), 9–27. Schwab, J. J. (1954/1978). Eros and education: A discussion of one aspect of discussion. In I. Westbury & N. Wilkof (Eds.), Science, curriculum, and liberal education. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

TEACHING THAT “PROMOTES DIVERSITY”: THE POTENTIAL OF DISRUPTIVE NARRATIVES Dottie Bossman ABSTRACT Many literature teachers, operating with good intentions, include in their presentations of multicultural literature moral lessons on the importance of tolerating difference. Unfortunately, as long as teachers continue to label someone or some point of view as “diversity,” they reify the ideal of normal versus abnormal and keep the definition of the latter in the hands of the former. How can a teacher who is dedicated to teaching diversity respond to this problem? I propose that school leaders and teachers can address this dilemma through the medium of literature if reading instruction is utilized to shape students into novice narrative researchers. Working with a current teacher, I applied this approach to the graphic novel, American Born Chinese (Yang, 2006) constructing a unit for ninth grade students in a suburban, Midwestern high school. The curriculum
which infuses principles of narrative research into extant district and state guidelines for teaching literature
frames the text not as a lesson in tolerance, but as a disruptive and potentially transformative experience. I include a description of this process, a selection of lessons, and

Crossroads of the Classroom: Narrative Intersections of Teacher Knowledge and Subject Matter Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 28, 119
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reflections from the teacher. Considering these elements, I end with a reflection on the potential for narrative and disruptive methodology to (truly) promote diversity. All of us
even teachers
find it hard to confront, accept, and appreciate differences in others, but these activities also have the potential to enrich our communities and lives. Thus, we, with eyes on the future, need to foster these capacities in young people. Keywords: Diversity; multicultural literature; narrative inquiry; curriculum; language arts; teacher research

THE PROBLEM OF TEACHING FOR DIVERSITY During my tenure as a teacher in a secondary public school, each spring I was required to complete a pledge that I had “promoted diversity” through my teaching. This small sheet, included among the barrage of paperwork typical for the end of a spring semester, was easy to sign. I always worked to know my students and to adjust my practice to engage them; appreciating diversity seemed like a natural part of this mission. In addition, the school district regularly instructed students that they must accept diversity in others, including skin color, gender, disability, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, body type, or any quality individuals generally do not elect to have. School leaders relayed myriad messages of tolerance by crafting mission statements, punishing students who mistreated peers, and training teachers to address common categories of exclusion. When it was relevant to our curriculum, my students and I also discussed prejudice and considered how they might mitigate its influence. Like the pledge I had signed thoughtlessly, the right conclusions emerged easily: No race is superior to any other, girls and boys need equitable opportunities, all religions deserve respect, and worth is not measured by physical beauty. On many occasions, I reminded my students to be nice to individuals who are different, and I insisted that they should accept diversity without judgment. Unfortunately, as I realized later, the ways the district and I routinely responded to the problem of intolerance for certain kinds of difference were empty (albeit well-meaning) gestures. When a school adopts a change to its rules or adds a text to the curriculum in response to such a grave dilemma, this simple act of formalism serves as “a way to express serious

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concern about social problems without actually doing anything effective to solve these problems” (Labaree, 2010, p. 242). Even when lawmakers mandate changes schools would like to implement, principals and district leaders find it difficult to alter the methods employed by their teachers, particularly if they “see themselves as targets rather than agents of change” (Noble & Smith, 2000, p. 184). Teacher resistance is only one of a plethora of reasons for the static nature of educational systems, which are consistently caught in the crosshairs of political agendas, community member concerns, and fiscal and corporal hurdles. Within the milieu of educational policy studies, it is common to find skepticism about the potential for real change stemming from imposed educational reforms (Au, 2010; Biesta, 2010; Ravitch, 2010; Stein, 2004; Varenne & McDermott, 1998). During my time working in schools, my colleagues and I often espoused cynicism about the value of outside recommendations for changing our practice, but promoting diversity was generally conceived to be a wholesome activity. Most educators will agree to do it, or sign a sheet that they have attempted to do it, without complaint or even a second look. As a faculty member
particularly one who is white from a middleclass background
it would have been out of place for me to question the validity of my district’s approach to embracing diversity, even if there had been time set aside for that discussion. Many scholars of multicultural curriculum have touted “the importance of including, whenever possible, alternative versions on what is offered as historical truth or literary renderings” (Greene, 1993, p. 218). In response, many schools, teachers, and textbook companies have sought to add minority accounts and perspectives to extant teaching materials. In our language arts curriculum, this change was actualized by the inclusion of texts by “diverse” (non-white or non-male) authors like Sandra Cisneros, Ralph Ellison, Amy Tan, and Sherman Alexie. While teaching their texts, I believed that fostering an appreciation for diverse authors could break down divisions between groups of people and lead to genuine understanding. Based on the positive experiences I had utilizing multicultural literature, I agreed with Phillion and He (2004) that reading texts can provide viable avenues for culturally homogenous groups to discuss prejudice and to consider nuanced perspectives. It was only after I developed multiple sclerosis and became physically disabled that I began to question the assumptions I had made about teaching and the “problem” of diversity. I had been living reasonably well with the disease for a decade when a sudden relapse sent me to the hospital and rendered me unable to move. After a long medical leave, including months of extensive physical therapy,

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I was anxious to get back to my classroom, although I would have to learn to teach in a wheelchair. Upon my return, students were nice, colleagues were solicitous, and administrators indicated that I was still welcome regardless of my physical trials. I was initially touched by their kindness, but gradually I began to realize that I had become an outsider
someone whose diversity had to be tolerated
in my academic community. Students, parents, and fellow teachers welcomed me back in my disabled state because any other kind of treatment would have been morally unacceptable. Many individuals had begun to treat me with pity (reminding me that this too would pass), but I longed to assure them that multiple sclerosis was no longer a setback, but an integral element of my identity. During this hiatus from work, I had become versed in disability studies, and I had grown proud to identify as an intellectual who is also disabled. My philosophical outlook had been fundamentally changed, and I did not want to return to my former self. What I desired in that moment was appreciation for my transformation, an interest in what I had learned, and a welcome for my whole person, rather than tolerance for my deficits. I did not need my associates to be kind to me: I wanted them to listen. It was during these revelations that I found myself looking back with dismay at years of believing that my teaching had “promoted diversity.” I was not celebrating the wide range of human experience when I used literature to illustrate how dreadful it is to face prejudice and adversity. These situations are terrible and too common for marginalized populations, but condemning poor treatment is not an endorsement of diversity. Rather, these lessons promote benevolence on the part of the lucky majority whose mission is to accept others who are not fortunate enough to be, for example, able-bodied, native English speakers, and members of white, middleclass families. The manner of kindness and the approach to diversity I had promoted were, in practice, displays of arrogance. Teaching my students that tolerance was their highest moral goal granted them the privilege to decide who is in, to dictate what differences are acceptable, and to feel good about patronizing outsiders. As for those who might have benefited from this benevolence, they were not given the opportunity to speak nor did they have permission to be anything but thankful for the tolerance we offered. As someone who found herself relegated to the receiving side of this equation, I began to feel the emptiness of this gesture. Looking again at my teaching, I can now consider how I would have attempted to “promote diversity,” if I had acquired this perspective earlier. When students read a text presenting an experience or person on the outside of mainstream (white/middle class) culture, I could have facilitated

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conversations and activities that fostered an openness to learn and a willingness to change. A story that illustrates an unfamiliar but very human struggle, like growing up or moving to a new place, could be a starting point for students to accept their own vulnerabilities and strengths, rather than an object lesson on how “the rest of us” should treat “them.” If I had wanted to promote learning from diversity, I should have also shown interest in narratives that reside outside of literature; then my teaching might have inspired students to pursue their own routes to uncover hidden, silenced, or lost perspectives. Reflecting back, I regret that most of our discussions of diversity became lessons in tolerance. It is not enough to be nice to those whom mainstream culture has abused, unless this mindset leads to changed behavior. Those with power will continue to marginalize and silence many voices, at tremendous cost both to those who are excluded from their conversations and to those who never know alternative perspectives. For the (privileged) students whose homes align with school culture, Cris Mayo (2004) observes that education does not easily free them from their “socially acceptable ignorance” of inequities, conflicts, and vast differences across the human experience. In response, Mayo calls on diversity education to “cultivate alienation and an alienated subjectivity” wherein students “embrace the discomforts of obstacles and understand [their] engagements with the world and others as fraught with difficulty” (pp. 122
123). Based on a commitment to this mission, how could a teacher incorporate this uncomfortable practice into a language arts classroom? What can an instructor do to prepare students to confront and embrace the most difficult aspects of understanding diversity? This chapter suggests that when young people (and their teachers) acquire the skills of narrative inquiry (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990), they can gain the perspective and the mettle to begin this process.

GUIDING FRAMEWORK FOR CONCEPTUALIZING THIS CHAPTER In most educational contexts, promoting diversity is attempted through the inclusion of certain stories, but thinking narratively is more than a search for instructive anecdotes about “other” cultures. It is the recognition that all of our lives are narratives, and “teachers and learners are storytellers and characters in their own and other’s stories” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, p. 2).

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For example, when a class of adolescents without any Native American children reads Bearstone (Hobbs, 2004), a coming of age novel about a Ute Indian named Cloyd, the description of his journey will not by itself invite readers to think of themselves as characters in personal narratives. Nor will it prepare students for real interactions with Native Americans, particularly those who will not be like the characters in the story. Instead, this text is easily understood as a declaration of how this particular brand of diversity looks (this is how Native American adolescents/communities/families are) and the teacher serves as a model for how one should react to it. As my classes read this text, we highlighted what was familiar in Cloyd’s life: getting in trouble at school, growing up, moving, the value of a mentor, comforting food, family traditions, and the urge to explore. “See how we are all similar?” such lessons purport. How can a teacher avoid this quest for sameness while still enabling students to relate to a figure from another culture? A warning that Maxine Greene offered to those who want to use texts to promote inclusion is that they should not add to “the silencing that takes place” and “the blurring over of differences” (Greene, 1993, p. 219). Her solution
not an easy one to implement
is that “there must be a confronting of the contradictions” (p. 219). Greene offered an important warning that she answered with suggestions for curriculum creation. It seems that many educational thinkers echo her sentiments when they conclude that students should listen to other voices, find common ground, walk a mile in someone else’s shoes and so on. A problem with these lessons, as pointed out by Cris Mayo (2004), is this is a “comforting form of multiculturalism,” which “paints the world as diverse, knowable, and potentially pacific in its unproblematic leveling of different subjectivities”. In reality, it is not easy to accept others or to understand the aspects of their lives that really are different from ours. As Mayo witnessed as a college professor, some stories do not “sit comfortably side by side.” For example, in a series of class discussions her students compared their experiences and opinions of romantic relationships among straight and gay people. Many of the heterosexual students had prided themselves in not seeing the differences between their relationships and those between homosexuals. Because these students believed that this was the right and progressive way to treat others, many had a hard time accepting that there could be differences at all. More so, the heterosexuals struggled to accept that their relationships involved certain privileges like visibility, recognition, and celebration in most social contexts. Teachers cannot fight prejudice or promote diversity by pretending divisions do not exist or by denying that there are benefits available to some that are not

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available to others. Mayo suggests that hearing alternate perspectives should “encourage the uncomfortable process of her audience’s tracing their own positioning in vectors of race, class, sexuality, and power” (p. 133). She argues that an approach to diversity that is therapeutic, comforting, or ignorant of power relations “misses the point of education: the formation of difficult relations” (p. 134). If the goal of teaching about different perspectives is to facilitate a disruption of the status quo
as the formation of difficult relations will do
how would this change a unit designed to promote diversity? If I were to teach Bearstone again, with the goal of inspiring the kind of interactions Mayo suggests, the curriculum design would change considerably. New questions would inform my revision: What problems does Cloyd encounter that are unique to Native Americans? To Utes? What problems does he face that are rarely found in our circles? What aspects of Ute culture conflict with Midwestern, white, middle-class approaches to school, family, nature, success, and social connections? What qualities of this character make him difficult for us to understand his perspective? How can this story invite curiosity and further inquiry into Ute and Native American experiences? How could reading literature about traditionally marginalized people encourage those with privilege to think in a new way? Spurred on by new questions, I began to imagine how a narrative lens could improve the way districts and schools across the country talk about diversity. How could the insights of narrative inquiry improve curricular design? What narrative strategies could be shared with teachers who are committed (genuinely) to promoting diversity? In what ways could this approach improve the standard, formalistic responses schools have to the problems of prejudice and cruelty directed at minority students? As someone without a current affiliation with a school district, I wondered where I could find a context to investigate the possibilities for this way of teaching about diversity. I was lucky to find exactly what I needed in a former colleague and English teacher
whom I call “Rachel Sturm” for the purposes of this study
who agreed to serve as my partner for a short experiment in narrative curriculum design. Rachel grew up in the metropolitan area where she works and she also graduated from a local university in 2006. After we had set up a schedule to work on this project during her winter break, Rachel remarked that it was funny how much she enjoyed thinking about teaching, even while on vacation. She remembered that as a child, every spring she had been “bummed that the school year was over,” so she asked her teachers for extra work so she “could play school” until fall. Her favorite aspects of

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school now involve working with particular students, specifically those who have “trusted [her] enough to share their writing,” a situation she promotes by sharing her own work, including multiple drafts, with her classes. This year Rachel has begun working in a high school in a new district, a move she made in hopes of finding a better environment for teaching English. Although Rachel still loved her students and subject area, she had become increasingly disenchanted with her school’s leadership and the district administration. She lamented that during “the nine years teaching there, it got worse every year,” a trend that eventually led her to leave the district and commute to a school in the suburbs. At her new site (a large high school in a wealthy region of the same metro area), Rachel teaches several levels of English, including one section of first year students. It is for this class, made up almost entirely of white students who in the district, that she was preparing to teach American Born Chinese (2006), a graphic novel with a Chinese-American protagonist by Gene Luen Yang. Just like many settings where school leaders intend to promote diversity by adding to the curriculum, there are no ChineseAmerican students in her class and only a few Asian students in their school. American Born Chinese is a popular choice to add diversity to a curriculum, because neither its format (a graphic novel) nor its protagonist (a Chinese-American male teen) is common in the standard cannon. Rachel said that she believes that her department chose the text for exactly these reasons. She likes the book, but admits that she has “always felt a little ill-equipped when responding to students who get upset about diversity.” My response to her concern was to propose that we collaborate to create plans and materials for American Born Chinese, using a narrative framework I had been developing for curriculum design. Then, Rachel would use the unit in her classroom (with actual students) and evaluate the results.

NARRATIVE APPLICATIONS RELATED TO SUBJECT MATTER At first blush, the “narrative” approach to gaining knowledge sounds like the comforting kind of multiculturalism Mayo (2004) critiques. If we listen to each other, we will see the values we share, the pacifying form of narrative exchanging multiculturalism promises. However, what happens when the speaker reveals something that highlights a deep division or repels the

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listener in some way? During interactions outside the contexts of academic discussions or field research, when an individual says something confusing, alarming, baffling, or troubling, most interlocutors do not take these statement as invitations for a more intimate conversation. Sometimes talking and listening actually foreclose the possibility for understanding. Alternatively, to a narrative researcher, speech is not a way to build interpersonal relationships, but “as a question of meaning to be inquired into” (van Manen, 1990, p. 25). When teachers guide students to interact with different ideas and perspectives
even those of fictional characters
with the openness of a narrative researcher, it is crucial that they remember how counter-intuitive this behavior will seem to many students, parents, and even their colleagues. Because the collected data from this situation (human readers and their reactions) would affect the direction of the research, our research design had to remain flexible. I planned to gather information from the reactions of the teacher and students to the novel and the unit, rather than analyzing stories one might collect during field work. Using literature to teach diversity removes some of the barriers
and some of the possibilities
of participants experiencing “real” intercultural interactions, but I do not believe it removes its value. Max van Manen (1990) suggests that by reading narratives from a different culture “we are given the chance of living through an experience that provides us with the opportunity of gaining insight into certain aspects of the human condition” (p. 70). How might teaching the principles of narrative research enhance reading about diverse and unfamiliar situations? What could researchers and teachers gain from witnessing young people engaged in this kind of critical thinking? What follows is the story of one group of students reading American Born Chinese (Yang, 2006) with a teacher who intended to use the text as a platform for promoting deep, nuanced understandings of diversity. Within this unit Rachel and I sought to construct a narrative approach to reading, writing, and thinking that would have the power to disrupt and transform her students’ perceptions of diversity. This section begins with a summary of the novel, included to provide readers with a basic understanding of book and its unique challenges. Next, I describe our research framework and then highlight certain compelling, problematic, or effective aspects of the creation and execution of this project. I follow this narrative with a discussion of this experiment in “forming difficult relations” (Mayo, 2004) and its implications for the possibilities and the drawbacks of teaching diversity through the language arts.

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SUMMARY OF AMERICAN BORN CHINESE (YANG, 2006) This graphic novel is composed of colorful cartoons, speech bubbles, and dramatic depictions of fight scenes
complete with onomatopoeic words like “Boom!” surrounding kicks and punches
separated into recurrent sections based on the central character of each. There is the Monkey King, a young Chinese-American boy, Jin Wang, and “Chin-Kee,” an obnoxious, stereotypical cousin who visits a white boy named Danny. The Monkey King sections present a mythological Chinese deity who struggled for acceptance because of his animal form, but who ultimately finds a purpose and place among the deities. The Chinese-American boy, who is the central protagonist of the novel, narrates his story of moving from Chinatown in San Francisco to a community where he is a minority. Jin’s narrative highlights the difficulties and prejudice he faced as he tried to find a social place in school, which is made easier when he befriends another Chinese boy, Wei Chein. Although the sections with the visiting cousin also take place in an American, mostly white school, they are markedly different from Jin’s because of the inclusion of this larger-than-life character into an otherwise normal context. Danny, a high school student who does not seem to have an Asian heritage, is unhappy when his cousin “Chin-Kee” visits him from China. This character is drawn as much too large with a giant overbite, he wears oldfashioned, pseudo Imperial Chinese era clothes, and he talks with an exaggerated accent, like “Harro Amellica!” (Yang, 2006, p. 48) and says things that make him sound like a stereotype, such as “Chin-Kee happy as a ginger root pranted in nutritious manure of a well-bred ox” (p. 49), or describing a friend of Danny’s as “Dis pletty Amellican girl wiff bountiful Amellican Bosom” (p. 51). Everything he does embarrasses Danny, who is forced to bring his cousin to his school during his visit. Each of the storylines first develops independently. Jin struggles to find peace with his Chinese identity and to belong with his peers in a white school. The monkey fights for respect among the gods and spiritual leaders as he masters the tenets of Buddhism. And Chin-Kee sabotages his cousin’s social life, something he has apparently been doing regularly for years. Toward the end of the book, Jin’s troubles deepen with his peers, he rejects his only Chinese friend, and he resents his differences. In the midst of this crisis of identity, Jin wishes to be transformed into something/someone else and wakes up as a different, non-Chinese boy he calls “Danny,” a supernatural twist that connects the Jin story to that of Chin-Kee.

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After this revelation, the panels depict Danny returning to school, where he gets in a physical fight with his cousin, who beats him soundly and then reveals himself as the Monkey King from the legends. Then, Danny transforms back into Jin, and the storylines have merged. The monkey explains that Jin’s friend, Wei Chin, is actually his son in disguise, whom he sent to earth to watch over Jin. The Monkey King explains that he came in the Chin-Kee disguise not to punish him for becoming Danny, which Jin suggests, but “as your conscience
as a signpost to your soul” (Yang, 2006, p. 221). The resolution of the novel comes when Jin makes amends with his friend, whom he sees briefly in his monkey form. Eventually, the friends begin to meet regularly at a Chinese restaurant, where they are shown to be laughing together in the last image.

CONSTRUCTING THE UNIT PLAN Before I began my curriculum work with Rachel and her students, I asked her to reflect on these points, principles that would guide my approach to this curriculum design. Her words are italicized. 1. Interest is as important as tolerance when it comes to considering difference. Rachel: I imagine this as a question of wanting to learn/consider others’ differences versus having to learn because our teacher is making us. I am curious how this will play out in the lessons. I think it would be valuable to explore this idea of actively seeking out learning experiences rather than being forced to as a “diversity” unit in school. 2. Narratives are only starting points for understanding others and their lives. Rachel: I wholeheartedly agree with this. It is in this space where we grow, in all areas. I worry, however, that students may not be as open to identifying what parts of the narrative that upset or confuse them for fear of being judged by their peers. Overall, I think these students are relatively comfortable asking questions in front of the class when they don’t understand, but I wonder how they will react to this text and the activities. How can I draw those students who are uncomfortable discussing diversity and especially their own lived experiences, both positive and negative, especially when many of them would feel like they don’t have anything significant to bring to discussion? The whole “I’m white and don’t have culture” argument.

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3. There are benefits to knowing very different people and learning about diverse experiences. Rachel: I’m not sure students would disagree with this, but they don’t have many opportunities to explore other’s experiences whether that is due to geography or level of comfort. Rachel’s most pressing concerns were with students: their comfort, their understanding, and their ability to participate actively in the unit. Her knowledge of the class and the school were essential elements in designing a narrative approach to a novel, a way of teaching that necessarily involves adaptation to the needs and reactions of real students. I accepted that I could not create or predict THE knowledge about Chinese-American culture that these students would gain from this text. My part of the project was to suggest and construct class activities that had the potential to evoke narrative thinking. In true narrative inquiry, the researcher resists absolute objectives because authentic work is tailored to particular contexts and interactions. In this case, we considered that most of Rachel’s students would be unfamiliar with multiple aspects of this text. Therefore, our lesson plans left ample space for questions as well as employing flexible scheduling, in case additional periods or different assessments were needed. We also accepted that we, as white, middle-class adults from the same Midwestern area as most of the students, would also be unfamiliar with Chinese-American culture. However, we took for granted that our older age, education, and life experiences would enable us to serve as guides for this unit.

Beginning the Unit Prior to writing anything or working on educational materials, I spent time reading American Born Chinese and imagining what aspects of it might cause confusion, irritation, or interest for ninth graders. I also kept our curricular mission in mind, to construct a pathway to teach narrative thinking during this unit, allowing that plan to guide my experience with the book. At the outset, I wrote down cultural elements and concepts in the novel that I thought might be unfamiliar, like the herbalist the protagonist vests, as well as the references to gods and goddesses, the inclusion of Chinese mythology, and the character called “the Monkey King.” As I examined the scene that depicts the Monkey King murdering a room full of gods
through exaggerated kung-fu moves, decorated with sound effect

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bubbles
because he is not invited to a party, I thought back to Mayo (2004) and her warning that some stories do not sit well together. I wondered if students would think that the monkey’s story was weird for a school text. I imagined they would be able to relate to the boy who is teased for being Chinese, but then this connection might sadden them as well. I also considered that students might read it too quickly because of the graphic novel format. Could Rachel help them get drawn deeply into the story? After allowing my questions to simmer, I returned to the narrative approach I had imagined: disruptive stories. The lesson plans, as well as the manner in which Rachel would teach the book, should encourage and prepare for disruptions. If students had emotional reactions, these should be noted as part of the process of learning to relate to the text narratively. Based on this objective, I created “Lesson One: Emotional Reactions,” an introduction to the novel that explored their potential reactions to experiences. Before they get their copies, students work in groups to reflect on what it is like to feel certain emotions. When they begin reading, the teacher instructs them to mark strong reactions with a sticky note, thus creating a non-stigmatized focus on emotions
good or bad
that might accompany an unfamiliar culture. In this way of thinking about discomfort with a book, it is not something to avoid; it is actually homework. After this introduction, Rachel provided a lesson on graphic novels, a genre she already knows well, so students would be able to read and talk about the book as an example of a particular way of telling a narrative. My next step was to prepare for questions the students might have as they begin reading. Just as I have felt when encountering a new cultural experience, it can be hard to know where to find the answers to my questions and also whether they were appropriate to ask. As the students began moving further into the text (see lessons 3 and 4), my plans anticipate questions and make space for students to ask “huh?” frequently. To facilitate this possibility for all students, the plans include ways for students to ask for clarification anonymously. My intention was to keep students asking and wondering, accepting that confusion is not a bad thing, but an essential stage in narrative inquiry. Once students have become more comfortable with the text, according to the unit design, the teacher begins asking each student to begin fostering a relationship (including what is troubling, confusing, and shared) with the story that need not be exactly like that of anyone else. To facilitate this individual reflection, the students create a “familiarity continuum” on which they can record how much they know or relate to something in the

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text. The teacher explicitly notes that this process is not a judgment of bad or good, just what they know. Students create a continuum privately and reflect on the areas where they particularly differ or connect with the characters in the story. See lessons 4 and 5. Rachel and I spent more time discussing the next part of the novel, the section that includes the exaggerated, stereotypical, unrealistic Chinese character named “Chin-Kee,” who is said to be the cousin of a “normal” white teenage boy at a different school. This part of the text is shocking and difficult to read, particularly for a group of people that does not include anyone who is Chinese. When Chin-Kee talks, it is often ridiculous sounding, and in line with the preconceived notions many people have of this ethnic group: He is smart, he cannot pronounce “r” and “l,” he talks loudly, he is awkward around girls, and he embarrasses his cousin by praising him and American culture constantly. To prepare students for this part of the novel, lesson 5 asks the students to think about the stereotypes they have encountered about the Midwest, teenagers, or the groups they are in at the school. The students draw stereotypical selves that include wrong assumptions others have made about them, which they later edit and discuss. This work enables them to come to this section without thinking that Chin-Kee is meant to be realistic. When they analyze his depiction, detailed in lesson 6, the students focus on his stereotypical traits. The students were also engaged in research while they read this novel, so lessons 8, 9, and 10 include starting points for inquiry that could come, like the Chinese myth “Journey to the West” and the trickster character type. Although the students did not create a product from this learning, the information helped them keep a curious mindset appropriate for narrative research. At this point in the unit, Rachel wanted to make sure the students comprehended the novel, which is why I included questions to accompany and assess student reading. One aspect of narrative research that surfaces fully in lesson 8 until the end of the unit is the interview. During class activities and in homework, students not only reveal personal connections to the story, they share them with someone else. During lesson 10, students create cartoon versions of someone else’s hero, based on information they access through interviews. As the class nears the end of the book, lessons 11 and 12 explicitly ask students to reflect on the ways their experiences differ and relate to those of the protagonist. This work prepares them to begin their personal essay, but also reminds them that American Born Chinese depicts a story that is unique (and perhaps exotic to most readers) and a protagonist who lives in a very different social/ cultural milieu. To prepare for their personal

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reflections that will spring from the text, the lessons ask them to think critically about labels and identity. The lessons nudge students toward their topic for the culminating essay, entitled “How Good it is to be a Monkey” and assist in checking for understanding. After the unit was complete, I sent Rachel a series of questions about her experience with the novel and with the narrative approach. First, I wondered what was difficult, and she indicated “one of the most difficult parts of teaching ABC was actually getting students to slow down when they read and also rereading. They read through it rather quickly and they had to go back and reread quite a bit. The pace of the unit was a little slower than they expected. I didn’t mind it so much because they were really digging deep in the novel.” As for the students, she noted, “They did seem bothered by the Chin-Kee section, especially when I read it aloud. The room was very quiet and students were very reluctant to talk about the stereotypes being portrayed. They also laughed, and then when we talked a couple students felt awkward and uncomfortable that they laughed.” Although Rachel worried about the right response to this event, she indicated that students were able to connect it to the depictions of humor and laughter during awkward situations at a concentration camp, as depicted in Night (Wiesel, 2006), which they just read. I was particularly interested in what students had researched and sought to learn after reading the text. Rachel indicated that students were interested in the mythology, although they were overly concerned with the plausibility of the legends. In terms of personal discovery, she claimed that in the final essay, “students were able to really reflect on a part of themselves that they found frustrating to them, or that they didn’t want to be. But it was framed in a more positive way that really forced themselves to see the positive in their identity, but also see it from the other side, if they weren’t that ‘thing.’” Although she appreciated their candor and connection to Jin, Rachel admitted that it was hard “Reading about their struggles being the thing they wrote about.” She recalled, “one male student wrote about being short and how he was rejected by a girl because he was too short. I think that really hurt him, and I felt terrible because he is such an upbeat, sweet kid.” She described her dilemma as a “weird place to be” because she “felt bad for feeling sympathy for him when [she] wanted him to see what was good about it.” Returning to difference and diversity, I asked Rachel how she believes her students thought about these aspects of the text. She highlighted certain class discussions and activities: The conversation about the author having the “authority” to portray Chin-Kee as he did was pretty interesting. Students were able to negotiate

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their feelings on this idea in other instances, like how they are allowed to make fun of their siblings, but outsiders aren’t. This really brought up thoughts about insecurity and how it affects our lives. Students were able to identify what makes them different from everyone else, but at the same time, understand others’ experiences as well. They shared their stories with each other (when they did the cartooning activity and the interviewing for the essay) more comfortably than I thought they would. It was a great space for them to open up a bit. Last, I asked Rachel about her lingering thoughts and questions about teaching multicultural literature after completing this unit. I asked what issues she felt need to be further explored or discussed in the larger milieu of education policy and research with response to the drive to “promote diversity.” In response, she returned to her concerns about wanting to console students for their differences. Like the student who wrote about being short, Rachel noted that the class “had quite a few other students say it was difficult being shy or not social, or not as smart as their siblings, and I immediately wanted to tell them they had great personalities and they were smart. I know that wouldn’t be unacceptable for me to do that, but the initial reaction to feel pity and console left me feeling like that isn’t an appropriate response.” In response to the diversity focus of the unit, Rachel concluded that “while these students are not that ethnically or racially diverse, they still had issues with their own identity, which I don’t think I would have been able to see and experience had it not been for this unit.”

CONCLUSIONS Turning back to my rationale for this approach to teaching diversity through literature, I feel it is important that I evaluate this experiment using the goals for this narrative approach. First, I designed this unit to be different from the way I had taught such texts; I suggested that training students to think like narrative researchers would remove some of the comforting, arrogant, and over-simplifying aspects of multicultural education. To this end, my lessons encouraged students to understand that while they and the main character share certain concerns (such as dating, social status, self-esteem), his experiences as a minority were also unique (facing specific prejudice against Chinese culture and people). I attempted to do this by balancing the lessons between finding personal connections with Jin and learning about his experience as a Chinese adolescent, which are quite

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different from theirs. The sample paper included here presents this well when the author discusses both his understanding of Jin’s problems with dating as well as his understanding that the prejudice against Chinese people is something different and terrible. As a second goal, I wanted this unit to build interest in another culture, rather than presenting this text as an authority on this particular kind of diversity. Within the framework of this experiment, I cannot measure whether students themselves became curious, but I do think the unit offered them many areas for future research
like the myths of the Monkey King
and left them with more questions than absolutes about Chinese or Chinese-American culture. Rachel noted that the students had a hard time slowing down, which indicates to me that the unit and book piqued their interest. Also, students worked diligently on their own creations, which suggests an investment into this novel and the class. Third, I wanted students to understand this fictional journey of Jin’s self-discovery, and to be open to new understandings of themselves. I believe this aspect was the most successful component of this experiment. According to Rachel, students tried hard to relate to Jin, and were willing to reflect on their own insecurities in response to the reading. The final essay allowed them to think critically about their own identities in relation to this lesson in diversity, which is an important aspect in any narrative research. This kind of inquiry can never separate the humanness of the researcher from the humanness of the researched. In his primer on researching lived experience, van Manen (1990) claims that narrative researcher must “recognize that one’s own experiences are the possible experiences of others and also that the experiences of others are the possible experiences of oneself” (pp. 58
59). Although this book offered them a window into a fictional person and experience, the students were still given the chance to feel a genuine connection to someone with a very different life from their own. The last and most significant goal for this pedagogical, curricular experiment was to use literature to disrupt the status quo and to teach against the hatred and ignorance of differences. My intention, as I constructed this unit and worked with this classroom teacher, was to create spaces where the students would confront what is hard about interactions with diverse people and lives. In relation to this quest, I intentionally focused certain lessons on what was uncomfortable, like the way the character of Chin-Kee talks and the prejudice Jin faced from his teachers and peers. By design, the unit asked students to forge connections to this story without ignoring what was different, awkward, or hard to comprehend about this narrative. As expected, when students were asked to think critically about prejudice

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and stereotypical portrayals that did not relate easily to their experiences, it made them uncomfortable. Although these moments
which may involve silence, confusion, anger, or laughter
are not simple to handle in the context of a classroom, they are strong evidence that this manner of teaching diversity is, at least, uncomfortable. There is more inquiry to be done, but this experiment has illustrated that a narrative orientation to diversity in literature instruction has the potential to limit the “blurring over of differences” (Greene, 1993, p. 219), and to foster “the creation of difficult relations” (Mayo, 2004. p. 134). Neither of these objectives will be simple for teachers or students to pursue, but their inclusion offers an important lesson about teaching to promote diversity. All of us (including teachers) find it hard to confront, accept, and appreciate differences in others, but these activities also have the potential to enrich our communities and lives. This truth is the reason we
as educators, parents, and citizens, with our eyes on the future
need to foster these capacities in young people.

REFERENCES Au, W. (2010). The idiocy of policy: The anti-democratic curriculum of high-stakes testing. Critical Education, 1, 1
15. Biesta, G. (2010). Why ‘what works’ still won’t work: From evidence-based education to value-based education. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 29, 491
503. Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2
14. Greene, M. (1993). Diversity and inclusion: Toward a curriculum for human beings. Teachers College Record, 95, 211
221. Hobbs, W. (2004). Bearstone. New York, NY: Atheneum Books for Young Readers. Labaree, D. F. (2010). Someone has to fail: The zero-sum game of public schooling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mayo, C. (2004). Relations are difficult. In C. Bingham & A. M. Sidorkin (Eds.), No education without relation (pp. 121
135). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Noble, A. J., & Smith, M. L. (2000). Time(s) for educational reform: The experience of two states. In P. Gandara, The dimensions of time and the challenge of school reform (pp. 180
201). New York, NY: State University of New York. Phillion, J., & He, M. F. (2004). Using life-based literary narratives. Multicultural Perspectives, 6, 3
9. Ravitch, D. (2010). The death and life of the great American school system. New York, NY: Basic Books. Stein, S. (2004). The culture of policy. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience. Albany, NY: SUNY. Varenne, H., & McDermott, R. (1998). Successful failure. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Wiesel, E. (2006). Night (M. Wiesel, Trans.). New York, NY: Hill and Wang. Yang, G. L. (2006). American born Chinese. New York, NY: First Second.

STORIES OF AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS TEACHER IN A HIGH NEED SECONDARY SCHOOL: A NARRATIVE INQUIRY INTO HER BEST-LOVED SELF Jing Li and Kayla Davenport Logan ABSTRACT This is a narrative inquiry into the phenomenon of teacher retention. Specifically, we study an 18-year teaching veteran’s stories that span her career. We address the question of what sustains her in her profession. We chose to “see big” (Greene, 1995) our teacher participant, Anne, exploring, with her, the particulars of her teaching world, the contextual factors, emotional processes, and her relationship with her administration, subject matter, students. The research opens a view into Anne’s decisions along the way that contributed to her constructing a “story to stay by” (Craig, 2014; Ross & Prior, 2014). Narrative inquiry helped us see big through Anne’s stories. Anne’s best-loved self was closely connected with her professional knowledge landscape. In Anne’s case, her interactions with students, her collaboration with other teachers, and her

Crossroads of the Classroom: Narrative Intersections of Teacher Knowledge and Subject Matter Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 28, 137
156 Copyright r 2017 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1108/S1479-368720160000028013

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reactions to the evaluation system stimulated the evolution of her perceptions of herself as a teacher. Therefore, the best-loved self is featured as a dynamic image resulting from continuous interactions between the teacher and other components of the professional knowledge landscape. The teacher’s meaning-making of those interactions, likewise, plays a significant role in shaping his or her image of the best-loved self. Our inquiry into the best-loved reminds teachers that they can cultivate their best-loved selves through personal storytelling that begins with reflection. Anne’s stories of fear, doubt, hope, inferiority, and joy may be important for other teachers. Such reflection may yield further insight into the behaviors and beliefs that encourage and sustain teachers. Keywords: Teacher retention; narrative inquiry; English Language Arts; curriculum; best-loved self; secondary education

ANNE AND JACKSON HIGH SCHOOL Anne grew up in a working-class, white family in a suburban area. Upon graduation from a university teacher education program, and certification in English Language Arts (ELA) and history, Anne began her teaching career at Jackson High School, which was a high-need school located in the same suburban area where she was born and lived throughout her youth. Over the years, Anne became a teacher-leader both on her campus and within the district; she participated in multiple committees, served as lead teacher for her instructional grade level, sponsored a student service organization, and coached competitive academic events. Anne was recently selected as Teacher of the Year. Jackson High School has a long history. For many years, this school served a small community, but, over the course of several years, segments of the original community moved eastward, leaving the school behind. Later, a suburban area eventually grew up around the school. This population mobility changed the demographics of the school. Jackson High School was not large enough to support the expanding community, and as time passed, two other high schools were built in the school district. As housing developments were built, and district lines in the area were drawn increasingly so that more affluent students attended the newer, and newest high schools, while the student demographics of Jackson High School became predominantly Hispanic (72%), “At-Risk” (62%), and economically disadvantaged (70%). In the meantime, an early college high school

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opened, which offered students an opportunity to simultaneously earn a high school diploma and two years of college credits. Many college-bound Jackson High School students selected this option and left the school. Test scores at Jackson High School plummeted, and the school was labeled academically unacceptable based on No Child Left Behind Act (2002). With time, Jackson High School regained academically acceptable status; however, state and district assessments results continued to be lower than the district’s two other schools.

“SEEING BIG”: EXPLORING TEACHER RETENTION A powerful story is told about and on the American public education landscape: This is a narrative of teacher shortage. Two converging plotlines contribute to the telling. One thread is the low retention rates of teachers new to the profession, while a second is the high rates of attrition of teachers who have taught for many years and have decided to leave for other professions or to retire. The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) conducted a longitudinal investigation of teacher attrition. Beginning with a 2007
2008 group of beginning teachers: • • • •

10 percent did not teach in 2008-09, 12 percent did not teach in 2009-10, 15 percent did not teach in 2010-11, and 17 percent did not teach in 2011-12. (2010, p. 3)

In Texas, where the study at the center of this chapter was located, “19 percent of entering teachers le[ft] the profession after their first year of teaching, and a further 2 percent depart[ed] after their second year” (Craig, 2014, p. 82). While widespread, the problem of teacher shortage is exacerbated in communities facing issues of poverty (Ingersoll, 2001), and in high minority population schools (Craig, 2014). Ingersoll (2001) found that 50% more teachers in high poverty schools quit their jobs than those in low poverty schools. Craig (2014) pointed out that beginning white teachers with minority students were among those who most often leave the profession. Much attention, at all levels of the education system nationwide, is afforded to this problem. Programmatic solutions are proposed, such as mentoring programs and induction programs developed and studied with an eye to retaining early career teachers. Solutions like grow-your-own within districts are proposed to diminish the difficulties of providing teachers to typically hard-to-staff schools. Federal grants are provided for research into

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solutions to the teacher shortage issue, particularly when tied to student academic success. More often than not, these ways of addressing the situation see teachers “small.” In other words, when researchers, or state department of education personnel, or school district bureaucrats and employees “choose to see” teachers “small” they adopt a “detached point of view,” and their focus becomes centered on the “trends and tendencies.” Conversely, when individuals choose to see teachers big, the focus is instead on “integrity and particularity” of human beings (Greene, 1995, p. 10). Seeing big “brings the person who teaches to the front and unveils how the “inner landscape” of each unique teacher “form[s]-or deform[s] the way” he or she relates to her “students,” her “subject matter,” and “her world” (Palmer, 1998, p. 4). This perspective may bring deeper understanding of teachers’ experiences that lead them to make decisions to stay or leave the profession. Within the extensive teacher retention research literature, several narrative inquiries have been conducted that attempted to see big. These studies examined teachers’ lives and brought a focus to the contextual factors and emotional processes that informed teachers’ instruction and decision-making. For instance, Craig (2014) explored beginning teacher attrition by examining the shift of teacher’s “stories to live by” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999, p. 4). From this work connected to teacher knowledge and identity, emerged other avenues of study; narrative inquirers documented the process of leaving the profession, sharing these teachers’ “stories to leave by” (Clandinin, Downey, & Huber, 2009, p. 144). This line of research challenged the taken-for-granted understanding that leaving the teaching profession is a single moment of decision, showing rather that teachers’ left amid a complex, nuanced process. In this narrative inquiry, we chose to see big our teacher participant, “Anne,” exploring, with her, the particulars of her teaching world, the contextual factors, emotional processes, and her relationship with her administration, subject matter, students. The research opens a view into Anne’s decisions along the way that contributed to her constructing a “story to stay by” (Craig, 2014; Ross & Prior, 2012). Narrative inquiry helped us see big through Anne’s stories.

THE BEGINNING OF OUR COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY WITH ANNE We began our inquiry with our friend and doctoral program colleague, Anne. We took one or two classes with Anne each semester for two years.

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Most of our classes started at around five o’clock, and on some afternoons, Anne could be found in a quiet place in the hallway to read. But, on other afternoons, Anne rushed into the classroom, exhausted. Oftentimes, Anne talked about her day, her classroom, and her students. We became acquainted with the Anne, who was our peer, but, also we came to know the Anne who was a teacher of high-need secondary students with a career stretching over 18 years. Through our interactions with her, we began to wonder how Anne sustained herself, or was sustained by others, in her teaching life and in her career over such an extended time. We especially wondered about her sustenance as a white, female teacher working with minority students. With these questions in mind, we invited Anne to join us on a collaborative journey of inquiry. We started by asking Anne to recollect stories representing phases of her career: her student teaching, her early years in the profession, and her experiences as an established teacher and leader in her school and district. We explored how Anne found her own space and made her choices to live out her best-loved self. We used the theoretical framework, as described and explained in the following section, to make meaning of Anne’s stories. We examined the data for specific ways that Anne taught toward her best-loved self and how that helped her to gain professional growth and sustenance as she moved through her 18-year tenure at the same school. We provided in the subsequent sections, descriptions of Anne’s practices over the past several years in her professional knowledge landscape. Finally, threads of Anne’s development of her best-loved self were extracted through a co-constructed restorying between Anne and us.

METHODOLOGY Connelly and Clandinin (1990) argued that “humans are storytelling organisms who, individually and socially, lead storied lives” (p. 2). Within this experiential paradigm, education is viewed as “the construction and reconstruction of personal and social stories”; “teachers and learners” as “storytellers and characters in their own and other’s stories” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, p. 2). In a similar vein, Palmer (1998) stated that “stories are the best way to portray realities of this sort (teacher’s inner landscape)” (p. 14). Our interest in understanding Anne’s cultivation of her “best-loved self” (Schwab, 1954/1978, p. 124) guided us into the narrative inquiry of her “personal practical knowledge” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988, p. 25).

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Dewey’s (1938) experiential philosophy provided the grounding for narrative inquiry, which is a methodology developed to explore the fluidity of lived and living stories in a “metaphorical three-dimensional narrative inquiry space” (Clandinin & Huber, 2002, p. 162): temporal, personal
social, and place (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). In this study, we moved backward and forward through the stages of Anne’s professional life, beginning with her experiences as a student teacher, moving through her development as an inexperienced teacher, and finally, examining her growth during her later career as a teacher and team leader. Traveling inward and outward, we inquired into how Anne felt about and made sense of her interactions with students, colleagues, administrators both inside and outside of the high school classroom. Therefore, we have constructed a comprehensive, big view of Anne as an individual with multiple, different identities that emerged and developed during different periods of her life as a teacher. The methods we used to gather the data included interviews, informal conversations, and classroom observations. The initial step of this investigation began with interviews to gather Anne’s stories. Anne was interviewed three times, and each interview lasted for about 2 hours. In research conversations, we chronologically went through how she became a teacher and her recollection of the critical events of her 18-year teaching career. The transcripts of Anne’s stories provided a basis for member-checking before we entered into the interpretation stage. In addition to interviews, we met each week and engaged in informal conversations before our doctoral class meetings or during our breaks. Anne shared with us her classroom experiences as well as her feelings about those experiences. These informal conversations laid a foundation for us to all know each other as individuals with a common interest in the well-being of teachers and sympathy for their day-to-day efforts to provide meaningful instruction for all students. In addition, classroom and campus observations gave us an opportunity to better understand Anne’s school landscape. We conducted two classroom observations which afforded us a first-hand look at Anne’s instructional practices and her interactions with both remedial and Pre-Advanced Placement students. Observations were an important element for forming the big view of Anne’s professional experiences; the data collected in these field notes helped us to envision the stories that Anne had shared and provided a basis for asking more questions and engaging Anne in the retelling of her stories. Anne reviewed with us the interview transcripts, and she responded to the extracted themes reflectively. She engaged in restorying these

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experiences by recounting, clarifying, and writing. We read, reread, and discussed the data on several occasions over the course of two years. These endeavors guided us into a deeper understanding of Anne’s life and career. Thus, we became partners in this research, relying on one another to make meaning of Anne’s stories. We used three tools to make meaning of the data that we collected from our interactions with Anne: “broadening,” “burrowing,” and “storying and restorying” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, p. 11). The analysis tool of broadening, in our developing sense of Anne’s experience, helped us to discover how the population mobility in the suburban area influenced Anne’s professional knowledge landscape and in turn, Anne’s personal practical knowledge. Burrowing, as a meaning-making tool in this study, enabled us to weave Anne’s feelings into her stories. Storying and restorying captured the development of Anne’s best-loved self-image. With the meaning-making tools of broadening, burrowing and storying and restorying, we were able to construct and reconstruct Anne’s stories based on field texts and interview transcriptions. The stories/restories constructed with our interpretations presented within the results are negotiations of meaning between Anne and us. The whole storytelling process guides us to understand Anne’s best-loved self in her professional knowledge landscape. Here is her story as it has been told, retold, and written from Anne’s point of view.

THEORETICAL STRUCTURE OF THIS NARRATIVE INQUIRY We structured the theoretical framework of this study on the work of Schwab (1954/1978, 1960), Connelly and Clandinin (1988, 1990, 1999), and Craig (2013, 2014). We began by inquiring into Anne’s “personal practical knowledge” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988, p. 25). Through the exploration of this experiential teacher knowledge, we encountered and integrated Schwab’s (1954/1978) conceptualization of the “best-loved self” (p. 124). Complementarily, our research foregrounded the emotional and contextual factors shaping and shaped by Anne’s “professional knowledge landscape[s]” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1995, p. 5); considerations which helped Anne to construct and reconstruct her images of self. The concept of teachers’ personal practical knowledge broke with the more traditional epistemological stance that knowledge develops

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separately from practice, and that the role of knowledge is to guide what people do. Scho¨n (1995) argued that human knowledge and knowing are embedded in the “spontaneous, intuitive performance of the actions of everyday life” (p. 29). Influenced by Scho¨n’s (1995) concept of “knowingin-action” (p. 29), Connelly and Clandinin (1988) turned their attention to how teachers’ experiences impacted their interactions with students, teachers’ emphases within their lessons, and even their attitudes toward the curriculum. In this sense, teachers become who they are because of the stories they live and tell. Based on this experiential perspective, Connelly and Clandinin (1988) developed the term “personal practical knowledge” to “capture the idea of experience in a way that allow[ed] us to talk about teachers as knowledgeable and knowing persons” (p. 25). As such, then, teacher knowledge was no longer an abstract ideology or set of technical skills, but rather a collection of practices interwoven with stories teachers lived as beings. Within this theoretical framework, we also have argued that such knowledge can be embedded in the notion of a teacher’s’ best-loved self as proposed by Schwab (1954/1978) and which was carried forward in the work of Craig (2013). We have leaned heavily on Schwab’s position that the human is a “self-moving, living” (1964, p. 8) entity and that teachers have spaces to make their own choices, even when they live at the intersections of policy, prescribed lessons, and high-stakes assessment. Likewise, Craig argued that the decisions made by teachers result not only from their awareness of the space, but also from their “efforts to self-educate” (2013, p. 267). Craig posited that such efforts shape teacher identity and, furthermore, when teachers are able to teach toward their best-loved selves, they live in harmony with themselves; schools become places in which teachers may find their work and lives more fulfilling and sustainable. Meanwhile, because of the interconnected, dialectical nature of the personal and social aspects of narrative constructions, Schwab’s notion of the best-loved self was not meant to be employed to explore teachers’ inner lives in an isolated way. Connelly and Clandinin (1995) metaphorically referred to the teacher’s working environment as a “professional knowledge landscape. … composed of relationships among people, places, and things” (p. 5). We focused on this interconnection in our study of Anne’s best-loved self. We explored both the classroom space and the out-of-classroom space in order to “capture the exceedingly complex intellectual, personal and physical environment” of a teacher in the field (Connelly, Clandinin, & He, 1997, p. 673).

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LEARNING FROM STORIES ANNE TELLS ABOUT HER EARLY YEARS AS A TEACHER Teacher Preparation When beginning my college career, I wanted to major in philosophy, a dream not supported by my father, who was paying for my education. Heeding his advice about employment and financial stability, I claimed English as my major, heading toward a teaching career. I completed the requirements for an English major with a history minor, and I was accepted into the teacher education program. I graduated and pursued certification in ELA and History for grades 6
12. Teaching, for me at that time, represented a fall back plan; it was a job I could do until I figured out what I really wanted to do.

Student Teaching I completed two semesters of student teaching, required for teacher certification: World History for high school sophomores and English for juniors. The World History teacher gave me time to teach and provided guidance and feedback on my lessons. I felt that this teacher struck a balance between supporting me, while allowing me to operate autonomously in the classroom. In my second placement, during which I was in an English class, the teacher did not want me to get too involved at first. My first weeks were spent relegated to the back of the classroom, observing the teacher as she went on with business as usual. I was asked to make copies or grade papers, but I did not feel like an integral part of the functioning of the English classroom. Instead of the typical gradual release into a shared responsibility between the teacher and student teacher, the teacher left the classroom. I would begin teaching and suddenly realize that the teacher had left. It was just the students and me in the room. At first, I was glad for the independence, and the feeling that I could try teaching without being judged. Having the teacher sit at the back of the classroom and scrutinize my lessons and delivery was stressful. However, despite this sense of relief, I was afraid that students, without the presence of their teacher, would not listen to me.

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First Teaching Position I returned to Jackson High School, the school from which I had graduated a few years earlier, as a first year teacher. Having my own classroom was overwhelming. That first year, I taught Senior English, World History, Sociology, and Introduction to Fiction and Creative Writing. At the beginning of my teacher career, I prayed every night to wake up sick so that I would not have to go to school. I felt anxious about whether I had prepared enough to keep my students engaged, and if I would be able to maintain order in the classroom. This beginning teacher anxiety about classroom management was well founded. As I began my sophomore World History class one day, the class textbooks disappeared. As I searched for them, I asked the students if they knew where the books were. Grinning sophomores said nothing. Soon, I discovered, by looking through the window of my second-story classroom, that the students had thrown the books out of the window. I told the students to march downstairs and pick up those books, and all of the rest of the trash on the ground, while they were at it. I was surprised when the students followed my order. I had felt they had been disrespectful of me by throwing the books out the window, so I had no assurance that students would do as I said.

REFLECTING ON ANNE’S EARLY CAREER TO UNDERSTAND HER BEST-LOVED SELF: A RESEARCH CONVERSATION Jing: As I read your stories from your beginning career, and I hear the tension, and I wonder how did those early worries impact you at that time? Anne: With others’ support, my student teaching established that I could usually trust my instincts for planning instruction, leading a classroom, and enforcing disciplinary policies. At the same time, I was also overwhelmed with learning just how much I did not know. This period became a time marked by self-doubt and anxiety. Looking back, I did not rejoice in what was going right, for fretting so much about what could go wrong. My central concern as a teacher during this time was getting and keeping authority in the classroom. Being able to obtain and sustain students’ attention was a

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pivotal accomplishment for me. This issue of authority continued to challenge me during my first year of teaching. Kayla: This concern regarding authority comes through in the story of the students throwing their books out of the window. Why were you surprised when the students followed such a clear order? Anne: While I did feel that the students had been disrespectful of me by their behavior, more so, I felt powerless at that moment. Right then, the students held the power. They might have refused to pick up the books, and what would I have done then? Would I have written a discipline referral for each one of them? Would I have called the principal to the classroom and admitted defeat? If the students had not gone outside to pick up the books, as I told them, I would have lost authority in that classroom forever. I understood that the students had leverage
the ball was in their court, not mine. I assumed that they would attempt to keep that leverage. Someone might hear this story and counter that the students respected me enough to do what I told them to do. But, those students did not respect me, rather they feared the punishment that I could bring down on them. I began to see myself as a teacher who was feared. This image did not fit with my image of a good teacher, though. Upon reflection, my classroom management style during that first year was dictatorial and cold, which could explain why my sophomores rebelled by throwing their books out of the window. But, too, it, could also explain why they marched downstairs and picked the books up when I asked them to do so. Jing: You felt like you were developing your authority through fear, but that was not your idea of a good teacher. In your mind, what are the qualities of a good teacher? Anne: In my early years of teaching, I worried much more about my teaching performance than I worried about student learning. I see so clearly now that those years were dominated by teacher-centered instruction and micromanagement techniques which I try to avoid as a mature teacher. I did not want to become a teacher that was overly controlling and feared because I do not think that students learn well when they are afraid. Also, students do not like or trust a teacher who makes them feel fear. A good teacher should be concerned with the ways that students are learning. And, if students are not learning, then a good teacher needs to take steps to change that. Sometime after my first few years of teaching, I began these personal and professional shifts. I wonder if these changes in my practice were due to changing trends of thought, on a contextual level,

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about the nature of teaching that influenced my understandings of who I am as a teacher? Or, perhaps these changes emerged from my physical, cognitive, and emotional development and allowed me to relinquish control in a classroom and gain comfort with students taking a more active part in their learning? Or, perhaps, the growth and development was a bit of both.

LEARNING FROM STORIES ANNE TELLS ABOUT HER YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT AS A TEACHER Gaining Experience As I gained experience and became more tightly woven into the fabric of Jackson High School, my course load shifted to ELA courses, exclusively. I moved into the senior level courses, teaching Advanced Placement English, and I became the senior level leader. At times, my teaching assignment included classes of juniors and seniors who were in jeopardy of not graduating because they failed their exit level test. When these exams were moved to the sophomore level, I was given sophomore ELA courses; classes for English language learners (ELL) and struggling readers, but also, pre-advanced placements courses. Teaching sophomore ELA classes for struggling readers was the biggest challenge in my career. My classes were frequently filled with students who had been unsuccessful on state-mandated ELA exams for their entire school careers. Often these students disliked school, distrusted teachers, and were resistant to reading and writing. One story I’ll share about these challenges concerns Joaquin. During class one day, Joaquin became very angry. He cursed at me in front of the class. And, stomping out of the classroom, slammed the door. My initial inner words were, “You are not going to do that to me. You are not going to behave in this way.” In those first moments, my response was to be a strong disciplinarian: to write him up and make sure he served detention. Once my initial reaction passed, and I was able to consider more deeply the incident with Joaquin, I wondered about why he would react the way that he did. I wondered about how I was going to motivate him to learn. The following day, I talked with Joaquin. We discussed his behavior and tried to move forward more positively. At times, these kinds of situations with my sophomore class for struggling readers’ pushed me beyond my level of patience and self-respect.

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In addition to these classroom challenges, I struggled with my sense of agency in the face of a system obsessed with testing and accountability as the only measure of students’ learning. I remember district meetings in which the state assessment scores were listed from highest to lowest. My school was always on the bottom of the list, and my teacher colleagues and I dreaded this part of the district’s back-to-school meetings. School administrators, non-ELA teachers, parents, and community members would see the scores and assume that I was a bad teacher. I felt my value as a teacher was judged entirely on end-of-the-year test scores, rather than on the growth, both academic and nonacademic, that I facilitated each year for my students. I reached a point where I decided that the scores were not an accurate reflection of what I do. I felt that the failing scores were indicative of bigger, deeper problems that I could not control, such as the overwhelmingly high rate of poverty among my students, the increasing difficulty of the test, and ever-rising passing standards.

REFLECTING ON ANNE’S YEAR OF DEVELOPMENT AS A TEACHER TO UNDERSTAND HER BEST-LOVED SELF: A RESEARCH CONVERSATION Kayla: Anne, you said that you began to attribute some of your students’ discipline problems to their interactions with the system. What do you mean by the system? Anne: As I became more comfortable with the demands of teaching, I developed a deeper understanding of the problems inherent in the school, the district, and the educational system as a whole. In reflection, I characterize this period of my career as a sort of emotional floundering that deeply impacted my vision of myself. While becoming stronger and confident in the classroom, reservations about my role as a teacher manifested. I felt that my authority and instruction was contributing (both overtly and covertly) to elements of society that I had wanted to fight when I became a teacher. I brought into teaching a commitment to enable students to think for themselves, but I began to feel that all that I was really expected to teach my students was how to pass a state-mandated test. Jing: While you struggled with your agency as a teacher within this accountability system, how did you see the system impacted students?

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Anne: At the end of each school year, as the state test scores arrived, I frequently felt powerless. I was embarrassed, when sometimes, after a semester of instruction, a student’s performance may have been worse on a retest during their sophomore year than on the original ninth-grade test. A student may have made great strides in his or her academic growth, but that growth was either not enough to pass the test, or the test did not provide that student with a right opportunity to demonstrate that growth. For example, I realized, when I analyzed the test items on which my students had performed particularly poorly, one explanation for their lack of success was the reading selection, an excerpt from an Edith Wharton novel about the lonely life of a rich child whose parents were too busy traveling to have time for him. As my students read this passage, and attempted to infer the feelings of this young man, they had virtually no schema for comprehending the text. My students did not, could not, understand what was happening in the story when the servants set the buffet with silver and flowers, nor could my students visualize a library in the boy’s home and grasp that it was his place of escape. My students had not the experiences that would help them to understand the author’s implications about wealth and family relationships that were key themes necessary in order to have success on this test selection. I began to see how the state’s accountability system is skewed to account more for those with more. I felt frustrated and angry. These feelings were exacerbated by the district meetings in which teachers at a more affluent school were asked to tell the rest of the group what they were doing that caused them to be more successful than the teachers at my school. Only a few district administrators with whom I have worked have acknowledged the concerns related to the different demographics at each campus and how those demographics impact scores, but, by and large, over the course of my career, I have felt like a bad step child at such district meetings. As a result, I have rejected the idea that my students’ academic growth was accurately revealed through these tests. In my classes, I stopped talking about the test as the be-all and end-all. The school, the district, the community, the media
all of these entities
put such emphasis on the test scores. Since elementary school, the same students are told, essentially, that the test is the main purpose of their education. I cut back on the number of tests and assessed students in other ways, using project-based rather than more formal assessments. I made more efforts to recognize students for their nonacademic achievements. I have been forced to reckon with the fact that students fail, and also that sometimes they wrongfully are deemed failures in a culture of testing and accountability. I work even harder to keep students, fellow teachers,

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and myself from feeling demoralized when looking at and discussing scores. I have high expectations for myself and my students. I try to stay focused on the belief that most students go on to be happy, responsible citizens, and that they succeed in ways that far surpass their GPAs, test scores, or other high school accomplishments.

LEARNING FROM STORIES ANNE TELLS ABOUT HER YEARS AS A MASTER TEACHER Becoming a Master Teacher I remained at Jackson High School, in part, because of the teaching autonomy I was allowed
I was never told to teach from a mandated script. Together, with three other sophomore level teachers, we developed lessons addressed specific learning targets for students. I valued this collaboration, and I appreciated each teacher’s judgement in adapting materials we worked on together to his or her specific classroom situation. In our curriculum making and planning, I continually questioned my motives in the lesson design or teaching. Am I doing this because I have always done it this way, or because it is good for my kids? I encouraged my team members to do the same. As an experienced teacher, I had opportunity to lead a collaborative, cross-curricular writing initiative in the school. Also, at the request of the campus academic dean and district administrator, I addressed the Jackson High School faculty on methods for Writing Across the Curriculum. Later, I led a collaborative effort among 9th and 10th grade ELA and social studies teachers to improve student writing. I organized meetings of English and social studies teachers in which they wrote and edited writing prompts, discussed solutions to predominant deficiencies in student writing, and examined the progress of their mutual students. Even though there was more work and no additional pay, I liked being a teacher-leader on my campus. In my teaching, I have tried to make students aware of power issues in the world; an idea in much of our required reading. We discussed the setting of the books. I hoped that they would use race and social class concepts to explore for their major assignment over the books, and many of them did. I listened to the ways in which my students perceived those issues, and I did not hesitate to talk to them about the power of the words that we use to describe one another. My students usually knew that they could talk openly about issues such as class or race in our classroom, and

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I encouraged them to ask questions. These discussions sometimes felt stifled for me as a white teacher. I often felt disconnected from my students, most of whom were Hispanic. In the eyes of my students, I was white woman whose life was and always had been rich and easy. Class discussions could seem to be contrived, although, I tried to address the problems of racial and class discrimination in a serious and sincere manner. One connection my students and I shared was that I came from a workingclass family. Working as a lineman for the electric company, my father came home from work filthy and exhausted each day. I respected my students from working-class families and saw as common ground our “working-class mentality” and attitude that “we work for what we get.” As I have grown older, however, I have noticed these connections, which were always difficult to establish, even more so. My dress, my authority, and most importantly, my skin color caused students to perceive in me a person without liberal views about society. It seemed to me that sophomores
at fifteen or sixteen years old
are at a perfect point in their adolescence to question authority. Former students often seek me out to say hello, and I really enjoy the opportunity to talk with them about their lives and plans. One afternoon, as I was closing my door to begin class, I saw two former students in the hallway. I began to send them to get a tardy pass, but I realized that one of the young men was Joaquin and the other was his friend, Joseph. They each gave me a warm smile and hug. This fond greeting from two students who had been part of one of the toughest classes in my teaching life surprised me. They proudly shared with me where they worked and their plans for the future. They asked if my classes this year were as bad as they had been. I recalled the feeling that I had failed them when they were sophomores. They had hated me, hated school, and they had barely graduated. Now, several years later, they were giving me hugs in the hallway. So my expectation of being a teacher is that I might fail on an immediate level, but that doesn’t always mean failure all the way across the board.

REFLECTING ON ANNE’S MASTER TEACHER YEARS TO UNDERSTAND HER BEST-LOVED SELF: A RESEARCH CONVERSATION Kayla: With the frustrations and pressures being part of your daily life, I was wondering what helped you go beyond them and find the sustenance needed in the teaching profession?

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Anne: I would attribute my longevity in the teaching profession to feelings of responsibility and hope for the community in which I live and work. I feel responsible for the success and emotional well-being of all of the individuals on my campus and in the town, both students and teachers. Furthermore, I have hope that the school will continually improve academically if teachers and other decision makers work together for that purpose. I think that a sense of being needed by and important to the school community has encouraged me to stay. I think back to the times that I have tried to bolster the morale of the other teachers and the little things that keep me going, like at the end of the school year, my neighboring teacher gave me a thank you note for being a positive influence on her and our team. Also, the times when former students come back and smile and tell me about their successes and future plans. Even though I talked a lot about the failures that I experienced, I can see that those failures actually gave me the resolve to continue to teach and to take an active role in the leadership on my campus. Jing: It seems that you are a teacher that goes beyond others’ views of your professional success and professional status. Anne: Yes, I would agree with that statement. My experiences with teaching struggling readers did the most to open my eyes to the effects of a combination of socioeconomic inequity and high-stakes accountability on students’ motivations and attitudes for learning. I have seen the disappointment on students’ faces when I told them that they did not meet the standard on high-stakes tests. But, I have also seen the disappointment, turn to anger, turn to apathy, and turn once more to resolution and success. So I keep trying to reach each student each day because I feel that they can achieve academic success. I feel that I have a responsibility to the students and my community. I think that reason is to foster goodwill among all individuals regardless of race or socioeconomic status and to try to give students the tools to solve those problems in the future.

LEARNING FROM A NARRATIVE INQUIRY: A RESEARCH CONVERSATION ABOUT THE PROCESS OF STUDYING TEACHER KNOWLEDGE Kayla: We reflectively went back to your stories and could see a clear line of how you were awakened to your best-loved self, how this self-storying

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wavered and how over time this image of your teacher self was enriched. How do you make sense of the whole inquiry process? Anne: At the onset of this process, I was drawn into the research as an outsider looking in on my own experiences and emotions. I was both intrigued and anxious, wondering, what will I find, and what if I don’t like it? The process of telling and retelling my stories revived emotions of inferiority and fear, but it also allowed me to see how those emotions can give way to confidence and more complex conceptions of what it means to be a teacher. Reviewing the themes about authority from my narrative has revealed that I have become much better at honoring the unique perspectives and abilities of students, and I have more fully embraced my role as a teacherleader. I found I am motivated by both collaborative efforts with my colleagues and my hope that my teaching will empower students and change the hegemonic realities in our schools and our larger society. My goals, at times, put me in direct opposition to the educational system of which I am a part. Verbalizing my experiences, reading, and rereading them, highlighted for me my potential for change and growth. I became aware that some of these stories revealed traits that I have not completely mastered such as humility, patience, and flexibility. But the process helped me to accept missteps, mistakes, or failures that I may have had in the past, since a view of the larger narrative, formed by these separate and seemingly insignificant incidents, places me on a continuum leading to better teaching practice. On the whole, the process of examining my own inner landscape with an eye to discovering my best-loved self has been a validating experience. Jing: The narrative cycles of storying and restorying gave you multiple opportunities to recall critical instances of your career, to relive them, to make meaning of those instances in ways that served to clarify your current practice and philosophy of education. Palmer (1998) wrote: The inward quest for communion becomes a quest for outward relationship: at home in our own souls, we become more at home with each other. The more familiar we are with our inner terrain, the more surefooted our teaching
and living
becomes. (p. 6)

The process of narrative inquiry has the power to lead a teacher into a closer relationship with the professional self and the personal self through examination of the interaction with others and the impact of those interactions. Through this study, we revealed that paradoxes and vulnerability are likely to be integral parts of successful teachers’ lives. From our work together I understand more deeply that cultivation of a teacher’s vision of her best-loved self can shape her knowing and equip her with multiple

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mediums through which she can create her own stories
stories that she can live by and that can enable her to thrive.

CONSIDERATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS OF THIS CONVERSATION Our study revealed that Anne’s best-loved self was closely connected with her professional knowledge landscape. In Anne’s case, her interactions with students, her collaboration with other teachers, and her reactions to the evaluation system stimulated the evolution of her perceptions of herself as a teacher. Therefore, the best-loved self is featured as a dynamic image resulting from continuous interactions between the teacher and other components of the professional knowledge landscape. The teacher’s meaningmaking of those interactions, likewise, plays a significant role in shaping his or her image of the best-loved self. The development of such self-perceptions may occur naturally and passively; however, continuous reflective inquiry into a teacher’s teaching practices, professional interactions, personal values, and educational beliefs can propel teachers into a greater awareness of self by making overt a variety of latent emotions, assumptions, and motivations associated with being a classroom teacher. Such reflective inquiry cultivated one teacher’s bestloved self. Our inquiry into the best-loved self was intended to remind teachers that they could find a space to make their own choices about what type of teacher they want to become. Other teachers, as did Anne, can cultivate their best-loved selves through personal storytelling that begins with reflection and moves into what they want to become. Anne’s stories of fear, doubt, hope, inferiority, and joy may be important for other teachers. Such reflection may yield further insight into the behaviors and beliefs that encourage and sustain teachers.

REFERENCES Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Clandinin, D. J., Downey, C. A., & Huber, J. (2009). Attending to changing landscapes: Shaping the interwoven identities of teachers and teacher educators. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 37(2), 141
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Clandinin, D. J., & Huber, J. (2002). Narrative inquiry: Toward understanding life’s artistry. Curriculum Inquiry, 32(2), 161
169. Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1988). Teachers as curriculum planners: Narratives of Experience. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2
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HEALTH, PHYSICAL EDUCATION CONTENT, AND TEACHER KNOWLEDGE/ IDENTITY Colleen Fadale and Pamela Powell ABSTRACT An important process for teachers is shaping professional identity. Using narrative approaches to examine complexities of teaching and learning can be beneficial in both performing and understanding this shaping process. For teachers to develop a positive professional identity, they need to perceive that others view them as possessing those characteristics of a quality teacher and need to perceive that others view them as embodying the characteristics (Korthagen, 2004). Researching identity development of Health/Physical Education (HPE) preservice teachers as well as HPE teachers with various years of experience may provide insight regarding shaping teacher identity. One key aspect is to look at how history has influenced Physical Education status and what can be done to increase PE status as an academic core discipline. By looking at how and why PE has been marginalized, as well as what can be done to decrease marginalization, is key to

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avoiding further devaluation of PE and its potential removal from the curriculum. Keywords: Education; preservice teachers (PSTs); health and physical education (HPE); teacher education; teacher identity; teacher professional identity (PI)

INTRODUCTION We begin this chapter with a few examples of typical comments that the Health and Physical Education (HPE) teachers might hear on any given day at their schools. “Thank goodness they have your class today; I need my planning time. I need my break.” “Get their energy out…I can’t get them to do anything in the classroom!” “What are we going to play today?” “We are going to have an assembly in the gym. But, it doesn’t matter; it’s just P. E., and you can teach that somewhere else, right?” (Lux & McCullick, 2011, p. x)

I have taught in a public school for 18 years, and I have continued my professional development earning two Masters degrees in Education and Student Affairs/higher education/counseling, earned my NBPTS certification, passed my National Counseling exam, and currently, I am working toward a Doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction. Despite my accomplishments, experience, and expertise, I still receive marginalizing messages as a Health-Physical Education (HPE) teacher. Furthermore, another physical education teacher who was interviewed remembers her initial years of teaching HPE as being “not a real teacher” because all she did was “play” all day. Her clothing (“I wish I could wear sweats to work every day.”), the assumptions about her degree (“all play and no work” despite anatomy and physiology and multiple other lab sciences being required), and the lack of understanding about what PE teachers really did were all reasons this teacher chose to leave the HPE field after two years and taught in general education for twenty more years where she was accepted as being a legitimate teacher. Teacher identity is complex including factors such as how past, present, and future experiences are linked, how personal and professional views are

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intertwined, teacher entrance, retention and leaving, teacher education, and current teaching or past work (Olsen, 2008). The beginning years of teaching are stressful, demanding and a time for developing personal and professional identity. For teachers to develop a positive professional identity, they need to perceive that others view them as possessing those characteristics of a quality teacher and need to perceive that others view them as embodying the characteristics (Korthagen, 2004). However, teacher identity construction is ongoing, not something that only occurs in the initial years of teaching: (1) Professional identity is an ongoing process of interpretation and reinterpretation, (2) professional identity implies both person and context, (3) A teachers’ professional identity consists of sub-identities that more or less harmonize, and (4) agency is an important element of professional identity meaning that teachers have to be active in the process of professional identity. (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004, p. 122) Developing teacher identity is important for educators’ commitment to work, adhering to professional norms, how their dispositions are shaped, and if they continue with professional development and intrinsic obligations they feel are important as educators (Rodgers & Scott, 2008). Teacher preparation programs don’t always address the aspect of teacher identity development. This can be challenging since education majors are busy with discovering what teaching is, relating to others’ identities, developing their own identity and agency (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009). Furthermore, since identity is always being constructed, it may be difficult to pinpoint and articulate in words. The environment needs to be a learning one where the student feels comfortable questioning himself/herself and with the dissonance which may ensue. Teacher education programs are a good place to instill an awareness of developing identity and the ongoing construction of identity. Many first-year teachers struggle with fundamental identity conflicts of what they thought teaching was, why they entered teaching, and the reality of teaching (Olsen, 2008). In fact, Friesen and Besley (2013) suggest “teacher educators may need to sensitively challenge students pre-conceived notions of what it means to be a teacher, as many students at entry to a teacher education program may not have taken the time to adequately explore why they want to be a teacher” (p. 31). “Liking children” or having a mentor who was a teacher brush superficially such reasoning. Preservice teachers (PSTs) may not have drilled down to understand their motives. Thus, the exploration of teacher identity beginning in the preservice arena may be prudent. By having a better understanding of how teachers learn, teacher educators can provide meaningful teacher preparation which can benefit their careers and students they teach (Olsen, 2008). “Teachers teach

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who they are” therefore understanding teacher identity is pivotal for teaching and in teacher training (Tinning, 2004). Identity is an important aspect of teacher development and understanding the multitude of issues surrounding teacher identity can be a challenging undertaking (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009). Aspects include the definition of teacher identity, the place of the self, related issues with emotion, narrative and discourse, reflection, and contextual factors influence. PSTs may be able to demonstrate transformation of their identities throughout teacher education programs of study and field experience in order to take on teaching roles and these identity shifts may continue to occur throughout one’s career Olsen (2008) reminds us: Teacher identity is a useful research frame because it treats teachers as whole persons in and across social contexts who continually reconstruct their views of themselves in relation to others, workplace characteristics, professional purposes, and cultures of teaching. It is also a pedagogical tool that can be used by teacher educators and professional development specialists to make visible various holistic, situated framings of teacher development in practice. (p. 5)

Understanding a general concept of identity and, specifically, teacher identity could enhance teacher education programs assisting in program design to effectively address the component of identity and provide opportunities to understand developing teacher identities (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009).

GUIDING FRAMEWORK FOR CONCEPTUALIZING THIS CHAPTER Commonplaces for narrative inquiry include temporality, sociality, and place, which specify dimensions of inquiry space. Narrative inquiry is simultaneous exploring commonplaces, temporality, sociality, and place (Connelly & Clandinin, 2006). As Dewey (1938) explains every experience can be viewed along a temporal, personal, and existential continuum. Every experience merges into new experiences along the continuum or ever changing life space. Narrative inquiry involves being aware of everything happing in the life space (Connelly & Clandinin, 2006). As Kramp (2004) notes, “What distinguishes narrative as a mode of inquiry is that it is both a process, a narrating or participant telling or narrating, and a product, the story or narrative told. Thus, it is both the means by which you, as a researcher, gather data, and the discourse or form of the data gathered” (2004, pp. 104
105). Narrative inquiry focuses on the meaning of lived experience.

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INSTRUCTIONAL CONTEXT Teacher Identity The concept of identity is complex and understanding identity can be a daunting task due to the variation of how identity is defined (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009), along with the many contextual factors impacting one’s identity (Gee, 2001). In Stetsenko and Arievitch’s (2004) research of self-identity, viewing self involves observing how one is embedded and interwoven within sociocultural contexts. Human development is process that is an ongoing social transaction and not just in one’s mind. Connelly and Clandinin describe teacher identity as the unique embodiment of one’s story to live by, stories shaped by landscapes past and present in which one lives and works (Clandinin & Huber, 2005). Identity is a complex concept. Aspects of identity include the relationship with self, emotion influence on identity development, the impact of stories (narratives), discourse in identity understanding, how reflection influences identity, links between identity and agency as well as the overlap or connections between the above aspects (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009). Self-concept, or identity, is composed of three dimensions: the actual self or currently prevails, the ought self which is the one recognized by external sources (society), and ideal self which is set by the individual to work toward (Lauriala & Kukkonen, 2005). Self, then, might be thought of as the meaning maker and identity and identity as the meaning made, even as the self and identity evolve and transform over time. The self in its completeness, however, remains unknowable. Still, despite the inevitable discontinuities and change and the intangible nature of self, there is a belief that there exists over time a “Self that is recognizable and a coherence that allows one to move in the world with a certain confidence. For the purposes of this discussion, then, self will subsume identities and will be understood as an evolving yet coherent being, that consciously and unconsciously constructs and is constructed, reconstructs and is reconstructed, in interaction with the cultural contexts, institutions, and people with which the self lives, learns, and functions.” (Rodgers & Scott, 2008, p. 739)

In Macdonald and Kirk (1996), the socialization of teachers is described as a subjective process with the end goal of the teacher developing personal identity, self-worth, and professional competence within occupational standards, ethics, and regulations. Teacher professional identity (PI) is a lived experience in the context of educational change (Smit, Fritz, & Mabalane, 2010). Lopes (2001)

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describes PI as a social identity which stems from the position that profession has in society and an important aspect of PI is that it has a special place in one’s personal identity (Day, Flores, & Viana, 2007). Furthermore, PI is the product of the relation of a teacher’s personal experiences, the social and institutional contexts, as well as the cultural aspect where the teacher functions daily. During practicum, the preservice teacher begins to learn to be a teacher and how to be part of the profession which is a process that is continuous and dynamic throughout their professional life (Margarida, Ana, Amandio, & Paula, 2012). Identity is viewed as a process of becoming (Beijaard et al., 2004) which intertwines one’s individual embodied view of self (self-image) and their perception of how others see them (public image) (Jenkins, 2008). Jenkins continues with organizations’ influences one’s identity because membership is contingent on recognition by other members. Gee (2001) emphasizes that the group decides who is “worthy” of group identification which often results in labels being attached. When labels are internalized, one develops an identity of who or what they think they are and their perception of what others think (Alsup, 2005). Pillen, Den Brok, and Beijaard (2013) tell us when describing beginning teachers, “professional identity tensions are experienced if teachers have difficulties in reconciling the personal and professional sides of becoming or being a teacher. Next to other influences of the professional side on this process, the context in which teachers are working may have a strong impact” (p. 94). Teacher identity can be viewed from a sociocultural perspective where identity is a product from influences on the teacher, as well as a process from continuous teacher development (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009). Olsen (2008) describes teacher identity as a label representing the various influences from contexts, past views of self, social positioning, and meaning systems that are intertwined and constantly growing as one negotiates various contexts and human relationships. Stereotypes and self-perceptions provide key insight to how individuals develop their self-knowledge and identity (Spittle, Petering, Kremer, & Spittle, 2011). Stereotypes are described as a set of beliefs about personal attributes of a group of people (Stroebe & Insko, 1989). Furthermore, stereotypes allow for quick labeling of individuals to groups, identify group personal attributes, create or preserve valued differences with other groups, and maintain group ideologies. Individual who identify with a group, share some characteristics, values, and beliefs with people who identify with the group (McGarty, Yzerbyt, & Spears, 2002).

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HPE Marginalized A common quote in regards to physical education teaching is “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach and those who can’t teach, teach physical education” (James, 2011). Does such stereotyping prevent some capable, innovative, and exemplary prospective HPE teachers from entering the field? Many beginning PE teachers planned to leave teaching due to the low status, lack of autonomy, collegiality, boredom, and oppressive surveillance of PE (Macdonald & Kirk, 1996). Physical Education (PE) has been undervalued and been considered a low status subject in schools and this continues today (James, 2011) despite the typical undergraduate program of study which emphasizes the sciences, including anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology. In the past, PE hasn’t been granted the same status as other academic subjects, which are considered more intellectual than physical (Schempp, Sparkes, & Templin, 1999; Sparkes & Templin, 1992). Status is a multifaceted concept but there is a view across generations of interviewed physical educators that they are viewed as an anti-intellectual and their courses are nonacademic (Schempp & Templin, 1993). Furthermore, socialization of HPE teachers may not be the same as for other classroom teachers since the status and rewards of HPE teachers are not the same as other disciplines such as those more revered (English, History, etc.) (Stroot & Ko, 2006). HPE has been marginalized as a subject, as well as with gender. Males dominate over females in HPE. Females in HPE are often subject to patriarchal system and some deal with marginality with their sexual orientation. Other dimensions of marginality such as race/ethnicity, age, social class, and ability are also factors which affect one’s self-worth (Schempp & Templin, 1993). The media often portrays HPE teachers negatively, for example, as overweight and militaristic coaches who drill and command a mass of students (Sheehy, 2011). Media representation in movies depicts physical educators as nonacademic, teachers who cannot teach, have negative attitudes about students, and use humiliation, sarcasm, and aggressive teaching methods (Duncan, Nolan, & Wood, 2002; McCullick, Belcher, Hardin, & Hardin, 2003). Male physical educators are depicted as hormone-raging, femalechasing, bully-like, while females are portrayed as physically attractive sex objects for adolescent males or butch lesbians. Positive traits, though, include PE teachers as fit and wearing appropriate clothing. These stereotypes have an impact on how society views physical educators, yet there is little research of what impact it has on those studying HPE.

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NARRATIVE APPLICATIONS RELATED TO SUBJECT MATTER Teachers need tools to help them reflect on identity, an aspect of humans as profound as the ground we stand on (Hoffman-Kipp, 2008). Activities which focus on a teacher’s own story allow them to reflect and use theories and actions available to the teaching profession, to help them realize their identity development and how it impacts their teaching. In this way, “narrative privileges the storyteller. It is through the personal narrative, a life as told, rather than through our observations as researchers, that we come to know a life as experienced” (Kramp, 2004, p. 111). The benefits of narratives are derived from the idea that individuals lead storied lives in which they shape their daily lives by stories of who they and others are, then interpret their past through the stories (Connelly & Clandinin, 2006). Stories are how the person views and experiences the world and makes personal meaning out of the interpretation. Connelly and Clandinin (2006) explain that using narrative inquiry methodology involves adopting a particular view of experience as phenomena under study. Identity is developed through a construction of stories; first-person identities or stories one tells about self, second-person stories or stories told about self to another, then third-person stories or stories told about oneself by the second person to a third (Sfard & Prusak, 2005). The stories change over time, across contexts and depend on the relationship so identity is interpreted and constructed through one’s stories and that others tell. Storytelling is the main version of narrative inquiry. It is a process by which the narrator tells and also a product which is the story told (Kramp, 2004). Narrative inquiry involves being aware of everything happing in the life space (Connelly & Clandinin, 2006). Again, Kramp (2004) noted, “narrative inquiry serves the researcher who wishes to understand a phenomenon or an experience rather than to formulate a logical or scientific explanation. The object of narrative inquiry is understanding
the outcome of interpretation
rather than the explanation” (p.104). Individuals have the capacity to understand their life experiences and present dilemmas by placing themselves within the history (Mills, 1981). This insight allows the individual an understanding to the nature of their relationships, institutions, cultural values, and political events and how these relationships contribute to their identity, values, and ideological perspectives. Narrative inquiry’s use of story allows the storyteller to plot life events and connect meaning from them. It is in the story telling that the story may reveal itself to the

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storyteller. The storyteller may map certain events and weave them throughout the course of a lived life. It is the narrator that arranges the events and brings meaning to them. (Powell, 2005, p. 59)

Therefore, uncovering student teaching biographies empower the teacher by providing participation and ownership in their teacher identity development. By looking at one’s biography, one can critically look and understand one’s situation and begin to alter their circumstances, as well as theorize about how their experiences shape their pedagogical decision making (Britzman, 1986). Identity in postmodern perspective involves a reflective process so it is not innate, but rather a narrative that is altered, shaped and reflexively sustained due to changing life circumstances (Giddens, 1991). In this view, the individual is responsible and we are not what we “are,” but what we make ourselves to be.

ANALYSIS Research suggests that teacher’s beliefs are integral in their work (Biesta, Priestley, & Robinson, 2015). Understanding a teacher’s beliefs assist in understanding the individual and the collective discourses which guide their perceptions, decision making, judgments and motivate what a teacher plans for and practices in the classroom. Public and private lives of a new teacher can be under “surveillance” regarding how a normal HPE teacher should look and act like (Macdonald & Kirk, 1996), and HPE teachers reported they felt they had to represent the symbolic image of sport and a healthy body, feeling they were being watched if they ate healthy, bought healthy food, if they exercised, their weight and appearance, and their personal lives. Beginning teachers are subject to regulations by which school authorities monitored their progress. This can be draining for some new teachers due to not feeling they have a chance to relax and be themselves. Without a feeling of self-worth, it may be difficult for a teacher to feel like they a valued and productive member of the faculty (Schempp & Templin, 1993). They describe, “one must recognize that the conditions of the workplace can work in two directions
any condition or set of conditions has the potential to facilitate, or constrain the teacher’s ability to perform and be satisfied in the teaching role” (p. 387). HPE teachers often report feeling excluded. In Phillips et al. (2011) the feeling of HPE teachers feeling placelessness in schools may be a result of exclusion or may lead to

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exclusion and feeling unwelcome. One teacher continued with that the lack of contact with teacher and other PE specialist teachers on inservice days led to feelings of exclusion. Goodlad (1993) explains that educators benefit from a supportive and satisfying environment to work in where teachers feel welcome, secure, enriched, empowered, and valued in their contributions. PE’s low status as an academic subject historically has been a concern. In order for PE to be considered an academic discipline, PE needs to have content that is theoretical and scholarly, not just technical and professional (Henry, 1964). PE described by one late career PE teacher, has been “tolerated” and the class is often used to have students let off steam and controlling less able students who often get more PE than others so they get “worn out” and can be managed. People make generalizations such as PE teachers are all brawn with no brains, and one has to work hard to dispel those myths (Schempp & Templin, 1993). This low status of PE affects PE teacher’s ability to bargain for lower teacher/student ratio, teaching resources nor securing a place for PE in the school curriculum (Sparks, Templin, & Shempp, 1993). Physical educators also struggle with their work satisfaction and effectiveness due to PE’s low status (James, 2011). When a teacher’s subject is devalued, their sense of self-worth and personal identity also diminishes (Sparkes & Templin, 1990). Often PE is referred to as a “special subject” which leads to other teachers and students possibly not viewing the subject as a “real” or “real teachers” (James, 2011). Like education as a whole, HPE is not viewed as an academic discipline and may not be seen as a conglomeration of vital subject matter either. An academic discipline refers to an organized body of knowledge collectively contained in a formal course of learning. The development of this knowledge is thought of to be adequate and worthy without any demonstration of practical application and the content is scholarly and theoretical (Henry, 1964). The scholarly field of physical education includes anatomy, physics, physiology, cultural anthropology, sociology, history, and psychology. One could be well educated in these areas, yet be ignorant with respect to knowledge regarding motor behavior of humans and areas of physical education have received peripheral treatment (Henry, 1964). Courses in social and behavioral sciences plus kinesiology, physiology of exercise, neuromotor coordination, motor learning transfer, human development, motor activity, athletics, dance, and historic and contemporary views of physical activity in cultures, as well as emotional and physical health are all part of the HPE teacher education curriculum.

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CONCLUSION Agency (self-efficacy and concept) is an aspect of developing teacher identity. A teacher’s understanding of identity is part of agency in which they realize the ability to make a change. Teachers realize they play an important role for society and their sense of agency and identity can be a powerful force for making a positive impact on society (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009). The marginalization of HPE is a complex issue that is detrimental to the unique and positive contribution that HPE provides for students (Sheehy, 2011) There is a great deal of evidence showing parents’ perceptions of PE are positive, yet many parents still perceive PE as meaningless due to their past experience in PE being negative (Sheehy, 2011). Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) can work on the following steps to better prepare PE teachers who can teach important learning outcomes, which can reduce the marginalization of HPE (Richardson, 2011). Steps include expanding the nature of clinical practice by integrating more time in the field throughout PETE programs where PSTs can practice examining and applying teaching concepts. Also, student learning as a measure of success will benefit PETE programs by allowing faculty to help PSTs focus on their responsibility to influence student learning through reflection and learning to instruct based on students’ needs. This can assist in developing ownership and self-efficacy of the PST and in turn reducing marginalization. Addressing the marginalization of HPE will require a systematic approach which builds upon current discipline knowledge base and helping learners make meaningful connections between HPE and their lives (France, Moosbrugger, & Brockmeyer, 2011). Suggestions which could positively impact the marginalization of HPE include a clarity of program goals, accountability for teaching and learning as well as PETE programs properly preparing teachers with and supporting beginner teachers with induction programs throughout their first teaching placements (Rink, 1993). France et al. (2011) also suggest that innovations such as curriculum models, creation of standards, improvements in EFEs, university based induction programs and CBPE programs can enhance the value and decrease the marginalization of HPE. The traditional role of PE teachers was to teach physical activity and sport-related outcomes, yet changes in education have added health to the area (Tinning & Fitzclarence, 1992) HPE curriculum includes physical activity and movement as well as personal development and health

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education such as dealing with peer pressure, relationships, and sex (Tinning, 2004). In Glover and Macdonald (1997), studies show that most preservice HPE teachers are primarily interested in teaching physical activity/sports. Furthermore, HPETE programs need to plan for the increasing demands placed on HPE teachers with respect to health and social concerns such as drinking and drug use, child abuse, and suicide. Contemporary HPETE programs need to prepare PST to teach youth to acquire knowledge, skills, and attitudes to be healthy citizens in a globalized context such as a curriculum that is liberal and socially critical perspective (Tinning, 2004). Developing an HPE identity is broader than the past which focused mainly on sport and/or physical activity (Tinning, 2004). Giddens (1991) discusses how the social view of health, sexuality, and social justice broaden the HPE teacher identity and the PST may struggle with their ontological security. Narratives about teachers and their practice, as well as discourse they have, provide opportunities that can reveal aspects of the self by understanding the stories and how they express identity (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009). The power of teacher narrative to express identity within a “changing professional knowledge landscape” is articulated in important work on teachers’ stories, considered indicative of their growing understanding of their professional identities within changing contexts (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999, p. 120). Expressing multiple identities, such as teacher identity as caring or creative, is possible through a narrative position (Soreide, 2006). Such identities are collections of stories about persons or narratives about an individual that are reifying, endorsable, and significant (Sfard & Prusak, 2005). The Narrative aspect of identity involves telling stories hence doing identity work (Watson, 2006). Narratives can be expanded to include not only the storyteller but those told and then those who then also tell the story which shapes the teller’s identity, or collective storytelling produces identity (Sfard & Prusak, 2005). Narrative is connected with discourse and the study of teacher discourse can lead to understanding of teacher identity (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009). Teacher discourse can reveal identity as well uncover how one negotiates identity within external contexts. Research on narratives and discourse as a way to perceive identity draw on notions of self and can provide valuable insight. This is particularly true in HPE, as a traditionally marginalized field may be able to find and underscore both individual and collective identities to advance the field and those who work within it.

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SECTION III: ENTERING THE CROSSROADS THROUGH STORIES FROM TEACHER PREPARATION Elaine Chan, Dixie K. Keyes, Vicki Ross and Trudy Cardinal

In considering the chapters in this section, Trudy returned to the metaphor of the crossroads, writing the following about the potential of looking beneath the surface to learn about nuances of teacher knowledge. Trudy Cardinal: What I love about all of the chapters is how there is a sense of that which is usually hidden, being seen. Someone stayed still long enough, and listened carefully enough, for those details that usually remain hidden to begin to be noticed, to begin to move about, and to come out of those hidden spaces. I also like how the image created is one of hope, of possibility
if we take the time to attend deeply, we are bound to see something amazing on that country crossroad.

Trudy also recognized the power of relational knowing in developing subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge.

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Trudy Cardinal: The ways that I experience crossroads depends so much on context and this too is what I think about as we, in education, seem to desire to create a curriculum imagining that the content
the subject matter
will be experienced, or should be experienced, in the same ways. What we try to imagine in the work we do is: How is it that we can leave space for the co-composition of curriculum where we decide together
as students and educator attending to families and community? In this way, standing at that crossroad which still, even the lonely country cross road, might not feel so scary when we are standing together.

Elaine Chan, Section III Editor: In this consideration of the crossroads, these two strong ideas are hinted at throughout the chapters in this section. The first is the idea that much of the work of developing teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge is not visible or hidden, but beneath the surface. Through accounts shared in these chapters, we gain a glimpse of the details of experiences that may have contributed to shaping the teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge, and more specifically, the intersection of teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge for the teachers featured in the writing. The second is the idea that we know in relation to others. Each of the authors outlines ways in which the teachers featured in their chapters have understandings that have been developed and deepened through relationship. These relationships reveal vulnerability as collaborating teachers, teachers and students, beginning teachers and supervising teachers, and beginning teacher educators and faculty supervisors, consider and explore complexities of their experiences, and trust that we as teachers and researchers will treat this information with respect. Through this relationship, the critical importance of an ethics of caring and respect for that which is revealed by students and colleagues as we learn about their experiences and engage them in learning endeavors, is highlighted. Coming to the crossroads at the higher education level, the complexities at the intersection of teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge are further recognized as authors present and reflect upon tensions from a teacher preparation lens, as educators and teacher educators. Valuable perspectives are revealed as each of the (sets of) authors examines ways in which attention to the development of subject matter knowledge necessarily also touches upon issues of the development of teacher knowledge across time, place, and relationship. We refer to Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) metaphor of the threedimensional narrative inquiry space as a framework for considering complexities addressed across the chapters. Given the temporal, spatial, and social-personal influences contributing to shaping the development of

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teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge in their writing, this was an apt metaphor for describing intersections of these bodies of teacher knowledge. Attention to the nuances of spatial, temporal, and socialcultural (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) influences shaping the experiences featured in this section of this volume, in turn, highlight these dimensions as commonplaces of narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Rosiek, 2006) into the intersections of subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge. Franklin, in “A Narrative Inquiry of Other in Special Education: Tensions of Subject Matter Knowledge in Relation to Teacher Knowledge,” considers her early experiences as the sibling of a brother with special needs alongside her experiences with students with special needs, to explore the othering that she believes shapes the lives of Special Education teachers and the students with whom they work. Franklin’s writing reveals a little of the exhilaration and vulnerability that comes with leading without abandon on a journey not unknown, as she reflects upon the power of past interactions and experiences with her sibling with Down Syndrome to inform her work with a special education student. Using Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) three-dimensional narrative inquiry space as a framework, she offers a glimpse of ways in which not-often-spokenabout experiences with her brother offered her insight into the potential of relationship in supporting her student in subject matter learning. Abrol’s writing, in “Interweaving Narratives of Personal and Professional Selves of a Beginning Teacher in India,” highlights the potential for learning about the nuances and complexities of beginning teacher induction when new teachers feel the security of a trusting relationship with a mentor with whom they are able to share the seemingly minor successes that represented substantial growth and challenge encountered in their work with their students. Abrol’s account of the storied experiences of a preservice teacher in India, interwoven with her own experiences of supporting this teacher, reveal a complex interweaving of teachers’ personal and professional selves, further reinforcing the notion that teachers teach who they are. Researcher and researched traveled back and forth on the temporal dimension, across social spaces and interactions, to demonstrate an evolving understanding of self-as-a-thinking being with an agency and social justice perspective. The long term new teacher
mentor relationship offered a safe place where the new teachers were able to share, examine, and reflect upon experiences over a span of time. Zhu, in his chapter, “‘Traditional Teaching Method Still Holds Water’: Narrative Inquiry of Student Teachers’ Professional Identities at the Intersection of Teacher Knowledge and Subject Matter Knowledge”

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contextualizes two student teachers’ practicum experiences in China to consider the overarching question of how student teachers may (re)construct their professional identities in their student teaching practicums. The research highlights the collective influences of multiple instructional contexts
nation-wide Free Teacher Education (FTE) program policy, recent national curriculum reform in China, and the characteristics of the placement schools
to highlight the extent to which student teachers’ professional identities are dynamic and evolving on the professional knowledge landscape. Zhu’s work acknowledges the importance of context and the potential of relationships developed over the duration of the program as powerful factors in contributing to professional identity and the development of practical knowledge. Cardinal and Fenichel, in their examination of their experience of coteaching an undergraduate elementary teacher education class in their chapter, “Indigenous Education, Relational Pedagogy, and Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry: A Reflective Journey of Teaching Teachers,” highlight the potential for enlightened understanding of the many aspects of learning to teach while also recognizing the vulnerability of coming to rely on one another deeply through the many nuances encompassing a journey of teaching. Using Narrative Inquiry as pedagogy, Indigenous storybooks, novels, and scholarship to support their co-creation of curriculum alongside their students, they had in mind the goal of seeking out ways to honor the multiple roles and influences represented in their student population (e.g., preservice teachers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, etc.) while complicating and enriching their experiences as teacher educators and informing their understanding of what it means to engage in Language Arts curriculum alongside Indigenous children, youth, and families in Kindergarten to Grade 12 classrooms. They reflected upon the extent to which “the relational practices inherent to Narrative Inquiry and Indigenous approaches to education, such as the creation and sharing of personal annals/timelines and narratives, along with small and large group conversations and talking circles are pedagogies … would invite safe, reflective, and communal spaces for conversations.” Each of these chapters featured in this section highlight the critical importance of relationship in the journey of learning to teach, whether at the level of higher education, secondary education, elementary education, thus further reinforcing for us the importance of relational pedagogy and reflection upon the nuances of teaching and teacher agency for “gaining access to the vital role of otherness” as a means of engaging and supporting teachers in professional growth (Macintyre Latta & Kim, 2010).

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Parallel to this recognition of the critical importance of relationship in the journey of learning to teach, we also recognize the critical importance of researcher participant relationships at the heart of this work of conducting narrative inquiry research to examine the work of teachers and teacher educators featured in these chapters. More specifically, the experiences featured in this volume as authors described, reflected upon, and wrote about their experiences at the intersections of these two bodies of knowledge highlight the grounding role of relationship in identifying and describing nuances and complexities, and supporting the telling and retelling of the experiences shared by their participants, across all of this writing.

REFERENCES Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Clandinin, D. J., & Rosiek, J. (2006). Mapping a landscape of narrative inquiry: Borderland spaces and tensions. In D. J. Clandinin (Ed.). Handbook of narrative inquiry: Mapping a methodology (pp. 35
80). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Macintyre Latta, M., & Kim, J.-H. (2010). Narrative inquiry invites professional development: Educators claim the creative space of praxis. The Journal of Educational Research, 103(2), 137
148.

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A NARRATIVE INQUIRY OF OTHER IN SPECIAL EDUCATION: TENSIONS OF SUBJECT MATTER KNOWLEDGE IN RELATION TO TEACHER KNOWLEDGE Laura Franklin ABSTRACT Within this chapter, I use my early experiences as a special education teacher to story and restory how Othering shapes the lives of special education teachers and their students. The disability-as-deficit model labels those students who receive special education services as less than, as outside the norm, as Other. The stories of my early teaching career offer insight into this Othering and link special education subject matter knowledge with my identity as a sibling of an individual with Down syndrome that fuels my teacher knowledge. Clandinin and Connelly’s three-dimensional narrative inquiry space provides a framework to examine the back-and-forth intersections of sibling and special educator knowledge. An autoethnographic exploration results in a critically reflexive narrative that exposes overlapping pieces of Othered

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identities, and explains how my teacher knowledge situates me differently than my special educator colleagues. The three-dimensional narrative inquiry space also provides the necessary tension between subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge to create a dialogue of Othering between special education teacher and student. This dialogue pushes the idea of Least Restrictive Environments within social-personal space, and can lead to multiple Othered voices speaking as powerful bridges to span the divide between general and special education, the norm and the Other. Keywords: Special education; teacher knowledge; teacher identity; Othering; three-dimensional narrative inquiry space

INTRODUCTION: TENSIONS BETWEEN SUBJECT MATTER KNOWLEDGE AND TEACHER KNOWLEDGE Francisco comes to the study hall class to get some help on his writing class. This seems to make sense, as his special education qualification is in written expression. He sits down and responds, “All right,” when I ask him how his day is going. He bends over his paper, and I leave him to work sans interruption for five minutes. However, when I stroll by and see his paper still blank, I kneel beside his table and tell him, “Wow, your script is riveting.” “I know, Ms. But, this assignment is dumb. It’s a violence essay, Ms.” “Ok, so then what does that mean to you?” “Huh?” “What does it mean to you?” “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s stupid. Nobody cares about violence.” “Really? Well, there’s your difficulty. You have to believe what you write.” “Sure. But this is still dumb and I hate writing.” “Francisco, if you choose to make the assignment dumb, it will be. But if you choose to make it amazing, it will be. I know you.”

I was not lying or trying to manipulate Francisco with my statement. I knew him from the pieces of his story that he had allowed me to become part of, and knew that he would respond to my statement as an empowerment because our stories overlapped. My insight, I believe, is because of Thomas, my brother who has Down syndrome. I once journaled:

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Being an outsider is not an absurd concept. Being isolated from the norm is not foreign to me. I feel it, I have felt it in many different parts of my story for many years. I have slowly accepted, analyzed, digested, and owned each part. All the while, a creeping sense of the impending connection to the initial feeling of being an outsider, of when I first felt what being “Othered” can encompass. Individual experiences of “Othering” are entirely unique and encapsulated through the specific person’s perspective and context. For me, being the Other is about being Thomas’s sister. And I have been this my entire life. Not only have I been outside the norm, I have no idea who I would be without this initial identifying factor. (Author, personal journal entry, January 12, 2016)

Francisco’s and my outside-the-norm narratives walked side-by-side: his Othered identity as a student who was labeled as having a Specific Learning Disability (SLD) in order to receive special education services, and my Othered personal identity as Thomas’s sister. My identity as Thomas’s sister combined with my identity as a special educator gives me significant insight into the important role of focusing on the relationshipbuilding aspect of teaching students in special education. In essence, I have become Other twice and this new Other is housed within the borderlands (Anzaldu´a, 1987) of teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge. In this chapter, I investigate how my experiences as the sibling of Thomas, my brother who was born with Down syndrome, might have contributed to shaping my teacher knowledge. My teacher knowledge has also become a foundation for the personal practical knowledge (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) that shapes my life and work as a special education teacher. This foundation rests in the idea of thinking as narrative expressions located in the mind in storied reconstructions of experience, and in practice (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988; Dewey, 1938). It is my hope that ultimately this narrative will offer a bridge for not only special educators, but all educators who build relationships with students and allow pieces of their students’ stories to become embedded in their own. I also hope that the reader is able to feel how the relationship between temporal, spatial, and personal elements of these experiences become pulled together using Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) notion of the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space as a framework. Within this reflection of the development of my own teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge, I draw upon Connelly and Clandinin’s (1988) narrative inquiry framework as a foundation to construct this chapter: For each of us, the more we understand ourselves and can articulate reasons why we are what we are, do what we do, and are headed where we have chosen, the more meaningful our curriculum will be. The process of making sense and meaning of our curriculum, that is, of the narratives of our experience, is both difficult and rewarding. (p. 11)

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Throughout this narrative inquiry, I repeatedly vacillate between my lived experience as a K-12 special educator and my past reflections as a sibling of an individual with Down syndrome. I explore my identity as the sibling of an individual with Down syndrome and its impact on my work as a beginning special education teacher. I conclude with how the back-andforth of my special education subject matter and my teacher knowledge continues to drive my understandings as a current teacher educator. Through an autoethnographic exploration of my own experiences as a sibling and my practices as a special educator, I examine my “subject positions, social locations, interpretations, and personal experiences...through the refracted medium of [my] voices” (Chase, 2005, p. 666).

REVIEW OF LITERATURE Personal and Professional Experience: How We Become Special Educators I begin with an overview of some of the relevant legislation and literature to outline ways in which my experiences fit into a larger context of research addressing special education, teacher knowledge, and subject matter knowledge. All special education is grounded within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (2004) that dictates how federal funding is allocated, special educator responsibilities are carried out, and how students may or may not qualify for special education services. From its inception in 1975, IDEA (2004) mandated that schools provide services to students with disabilities in order to receive funding, and that students with disabilities be educated alongside students from the general education population in as many instances as possible (Skiba et al., 2008; Yell, 2012). Skiba et al. (2008) explains that Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) is one of six main components of IDEA. In this chapter, LRE will provide a contextual framework through which the collected narratives can be housed. “In special education, this means that a student with disabilities has the right to be educated with students in the general education environment and from this perspective, the less a placement resembles the general education environment, the more restrictive it is considered” (Yell, 2012, p. 270). Within this framework of Least Restrictive Environment, there are nuanced tensions between the assumed way a special educator should perform their responsibilities to provide LRE for all students, and how an individual who has experienced being Other would provide LRE for all

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students. It is assumed that a special educator will meet the requirement of attempting LRE under IDEA (2004). Therefore, in practice, there are special educators who make a single attempt at inclusion in a general education classroom placement, and when the student with disabilities struggles, the special educator pulls them out of the general education setting. However, within the lens of Other (Artiles, 1998; Ferri, 2009) there is a connected sense of community between student and teacher that is the focal point of continually improving as professional educators. I develop this idea in terms of Other in relation to teaching in special education.

“Other” in Special Education Society as a whole shapes and defines what normal can and cannot be, and one of the most lasting and intense ways it does this is through stigmas and Othering of specific populations (Foucault, 1973; Goffman, 1963). Goffman (1963) explains that when a stranger possesses an attribute that sets him or her apart from what society has embraced as what is expected or allowable, then that individual is reduced from a whole to tainted and discounted. Apple (2001) explains how labeling under IDEA (2004) is required for students to receive special education services, but it also “confers a lesser status on those labeled” (p. 261). The combination of a special education label with a segregated placement away from general education classrooms and students contributes to the disability-as-deficit model (Ferri, 2009, p. 420). Without LRE being provided, the label of special education deems students as less than, as Other. Gloria Anzaldu´a (1987) also speaks to this idea of being Othered as “less-than” in Borderlands/ La Frontera when she describes it as “being different, being Other, and therefore lesser, therefore subhuman, in-human, non-human” (p. 40). Reutlinger (2015) delves further into the process of being Other as separate from the process of being in the norm: The discourse of Othering becomes an exertion of heinous, subconscious, and invisible power over cultural groups considered different-from-the-norm. That is, the Othering of “abnormal” groups occurs without anyone of-the-norm mindfully recognizing that the process is occurring because it has become commonplace to view someone “different” in a negative way. (p. 25)

This invisible positive social stigma carries with it the sense of belonging that sets the boundaries for what is ordinary, what is the norm (Goffman, 1963). Therefore, with belonging, there is also exclusion and this includes a

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sense of Otherness, being outside than the norm. Foucault (1973) explains the term “Othering” as how social groups tend to define themselves through the cultural boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. As special education was created as an alternative to general education, this dual system privileges certain groups by separating and marginalizing students that general education casts as problematic or difficult (Artiles, 2005). When students are qualified for special education services, they become viewed as “fundamentally different” (Brantlinger, 2004, p. 20) from their nondisabled peers. Therefore, special education labels become part of a system of Othering that creates divisions between students who are considered normal and regular and those who are seen as deficient and disordered (Slee, 2004).

Theoretical Framework As Chase (2005) describes narrative, there is a constructing or arranging of past experience to retrospectively make meaning; therefore, it is a way of “understanding one’s own and others’ actions, of organizing events and objects into a meaningful whole, and of connecting and seeing the consequences of actions and events over time” (p. 656). This chapter is an interlocking focused on my own perspectives, actions and thoughts with both my brother, Thomas, and one of my 8th grade students who received special education services, Francisco. In their introduction, Clandinin and Connelly (2000) refer to Dewey’s (1938) philosophy of experience as both personal and social: “Both the personal and the social are always present. People are individuals and need to be understood as such, but they cannot be understood only as individuals. They are always in relation, always in social context” (p. 2). I describe my experiences with my student, Francisco, in this way, and refer to my experiences with my brother to inform my understanding of my special education teacher knowledge throughout this chapter.

Connecting Teacher Knowledge to Notion of Temporal Dimension of the Three-Dimensional Narrative Inquiry Space Clandinin and Connelly (2000) developed the notion of a three-dimensional narrative inquiry space as a framework for examining experience across dimensions of time, space, and social
personal interactions. I use this theoretical framework to examine in further depth the possible influence of my

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experiences with my brother in contributing to my experiences working with my student, Francisco, as a special education teacher. As the past, present, and future experiences of the temporal dimension (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) are woven together, they intersect with experiences in my personal identity as Thomas’s sister. Nordstrom (2013) talks about how participants in her studies use multiple verb tenses when describing their ancestors’ objects and actions and how this “gestured toward a coexistence of time
a nonlinear sense of time in which the past, present, and future coalesce together” (p. 250). Then this current thread of me is twisted around, folded into my narrations as a beginning teacher and spatial interactions with Francisco. My developing identity as an educator requires an embracing of and recognition that both my teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge define myself in the field of special education.

Examining the Connection between Previous and Current Experiences As I examine further the possible influence of three dimensions of the narrative inquiry space (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), I recognize the extent to which each of these narrative dimensions are brought into focus. The first temporal dimension, “why we are what we are,” addresses the past and looks at how our continuities (Dewey, 1938) shape what we are. The reflection of my past personal lived experiences contributes to my present and future meaning-making. It requires an understanding of how my lived experiences connect and intertwine in the construction of my own identity as a sibling of an individual with Down syndrome. The second spatial dimension, “why we do what we do,” mirrors the present and looks at how the interactions (Dewey, 1938) between our identities and the context influence what we do. Reflecting on lived experiences with my students has brought me through my decade of K-12 teaching experience to my current position in higher education. The third personal dimension looks to the future, “why we are headed where we have chosen,” and demands a restorying of what have we learned from our past that allows for the present interactions to shape intentions for the future (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988; Dewey, 1938).

An Autoethnographic Exploration Denzin (2003) describes the autoethnographic approach that this chapter utilizes as one type of narrative that shows rather than tells (p. 203). Therefore,

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this narrative inquiry uses an autoethnographic exploration to create a critically reflexive methodology resulting in a narrative of the researcher’s engagement with other individuals in particular social and cultural contexts (Reed-Danahay, 1997; Spry, 2011). This three-dimensional narrative inquiry analyzes the author’s lived experiences with the intention of connecting with the reader in a way that enlightens perceptions of the strength of being Other in special education. Adams, Holman-Jones, and Ellis (2015) explain “When we do autoethnography, we look inward
into our identities, thoughts, feelings, experiences
and outward
into our relationships, communities, and cultures. As researchers, we try to take readers/audiences through the same process, back and forth, inside and out” (p. 46). Autoethnographic explorations begin as journal entries, narrative writings, poetry, blogs, or Other forms of personal writing in which the author hopes to explore and ultimately understand their experiences (Adams et al., 2015, p. 68). The analysis, evaluation, and interpretation of these collected experiences are “neither terminal or mechanical. They are always emergent, unpredictable, and unfinished” (Chang, 2008, p. 125.) Chang (2008) continues explaining this interpretation and meaning-making process as a shifting back and forth between self and other individuals, as well as within the personal and social context. “Autoethnographic texts point out not only the necessity of narrative in our world, but also the power of narrative to reveal and revise that world, even when we struggle for words, when we fail to find them, or when the unspeakable is invoked but not silent” (Holman-Jones, 2005). The struggle for words that Holman-Jones (2005) and Ellis (2004) describes is housed within the initial telling of a narrative and then its retelling.

METHODOLOGY Connelly and Clandinin (1990) discuss rethinking teaching “in terms of a narrative inquiry which draws on classroom observations and participant observation of the practical, along with the bringing forward of personal experience in the form of stories, interviews, rules, principles, images and metaphors” (p. 10). Throughout the weaving of dialogue, as remembered between myself and Francisco, and pieces of my journals that describe my relationship with Thomas, insight into the complexities of being Other in special education emerged in the process of analysis. In this examination of my own stories of experience (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988), there are

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tensions in my role as special educator between my teacher knowledge as created through my relationship as sibling and my subject matter knowledge. The notions of storying/restorying and telling/retelling (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) these tensions are highlighted and used to make meaning of the position of Other in special education as one of empowerment, for both educators and students.

Storying/Restorying, Telling/Retelling My Experiences The process of storying and restorying, telling and retelling experiences across temporal and contextual spaces, informs the understanding of how lived experiences shape the understanding of professional teacher knowledge. “It is in storying ourselves that is possible to remake experience” (Clandinin & Connelly, 1990, p. 2) Within storying and restorying, the autoethnographic approach supports an “analysis of autobiographical data, critical reflection and interpretation and actual writing” (Chang, 2008, p. 140). Chang (2008) also explains how this process requires an immersion in the recorded lived experiences with periodic emergence to come out of the intimate so there is a balance between descriptive particularity and interpretive generality (p. 140). During the process of restorying the individual lived experience as documented in field note and journals, I was also required to make meaning and connections throughout the autoethnographic process.

Field Notes and Journals Field notes and journal entries as data were used to capture the possible impact of prior experiences in contributing to experiences of working with students who qualified for special education services. Connelly and Clandinin (1990) connect to the recorded lived experiences that are used within autoethnographic work and explain the strength of field notes in narrative inquiry in constructing a narrative study because they are active recordings that allow a researcher to express their personal practical knowledge and “highlight that the notes are an active reconstruction of events rather than a passive recording, which would suggest that the events could be recorded without the researcher’s interpretation” (p. 5). The use of journals as a way to try to understand the parallels between lived experiences

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of teachers and students within the spatial context they occur in also a strong component of narrative inquiry (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990).

Context: Temporal, Personal, and Social In my current context, I am part of a teacher preparation program that views special education teacher candidates as “real” teachers who bring their own background knowledge and their own stories with them to the classrooms. These lived experiences inform and shape each future educator; as Clandinin and Connelly (2000) explain, “we see teaching and teacher knowledge as expressions of embodied individual and social stories, and we think narratively as we enter into research relationships with teachers, create field texts, and write storied accounts of educational lives” (p. 4). As my current context allows for a restorying of past events, this autoethnographically driven narrative inquiry is a means for interpreting the past, translating and transforming contexts, and envisioning a future (Holman-Jones, 2005, pp. 767
768). Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) threedimensional space also speaks to and allows for the importance of autoethnography that Holman-Jones (2005) described as “the three-dimensional space in which her research is situated creates an ongoing sense of dislocation as she moves from remembered past in one place to a present moment in another, all the while imaginatively constructing an identity for the future” (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 55). During the writing of most of the reflections featured in this chapter, stories and memories in the following section, I was over a decade younger, a second-year teacher, and recently transplanted 900 miles from the West coast to a state in the Southwest. I had accepted a 7th- and 8th-grade Resource position (pull-out, separate classroom for students who qualified for and received special education services) at Reyes Junior High in a district that housed a very high population of at-risk learners. The label “at-risk” includes, but is not limited to: gang activity, poverty, concerns with drugs in the community, migrant populations, entitlement “attitude,” and violence
so much violence
verbal, physical, emotional. Due to a high number of students being identified for special education services, the administration at that time supported the segregation of students into Resource classrooms where special educators taught remedial content to students with a range of disabilities labels, the majority being SLD and Emotional Disturbance (ED).

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Stories of Interactions with Francisco The brief dialogue in the Introduction offers insight into the continuing strengthening of my relationship with Francisco that our shared sense of being Othered allowed to develop. As our relationship and narrative continued to evolve, Francisco’s openness with his need for specific accommodations in writing (such as needing to talk through his main ideas verbally before attempting to organize them on paper, as featured in the introductory story) was becoming stronger and stronger. I noticed that he seemed to be advocating for himself more and more. I tell Francisco I am proud of his efforts. He says, “Thanks Ms. It’s my birthday today.”

Within this exchange, Francisco feels comfortable enough to invite me further into his story and to continue to intertwine our outsider perspectives in a new dialogue, a new narrative. We spoke through a shared sense of humor and willingness to laugh at one another’s misunderstandings or uncertainties. “Wow, 14 huh? Very nice. What can I get you for your birthday?” His friend yells, “A stuffed animal.” I respond teasing him a bit, “How nice. A little stuffed animal for Francisco.” He is laughing as he says, “Yeah, a stuffed cat. A pink cat.” I look at him. And I am worried as to what he might be implying. He looks at me. I look at him some more. “What Ms.?” He asks and I am convinced that he did not intend the double meaning in his pink cat comment.

Francisco and I were able to sit in this awkward moment of confused intention. Both of us acknowledging that one of us might be misunderstanding a possible joke that his friend had attempted, one that would typically get a student in trouble with an authority figure like a teacher. However, the strength of acceptance, analysis, digestion, and ownership of being isolated, being outside the norm and separate, bridged the required authority and allowed a safe dialogue. I know how to act as a bridge between differences because of Thomas. My past encounters with children who would stare at Thomas gave me this ability to sit with awkward moments and allow them to happen before attempting to bring both sides together. I knew I needed to find words to advocate and to explain the obvious difference that the children saw between themselves and Thomas. So I did. My rehearsed narrative reply, instead of being a barrier, was an explanatory statement such as, “Thomas has Down

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syndrome. That means he can learn and do everything we can, just slower.” This script usually resulted in children smiling and their demeanors changing to accepting and moving forward in the play or action. I was able to become a bridge between Thomas and Other children, in a way similar to what I now often did as a special education when I acted as a bridge between the supposed or assumed responsibilities of a special educator to the necessary relationships and shared trust with special education students. The next day, I run into him in the band hallway. I toss him the very poorly wrapped Pink Panther stuffed animal that I found for him. He catches it, looks at the present, looks at me, and then looks at the present again. I tell him to open it. He unwraps it just enough to see the pink tail and legs of the panther and he keels over in laughter. He finds this as amusing as I do. It is a beautiful thing watching him laugh and smile at our wittiness.

At this juncture in our story, we have built a strong enough trust to allowed one another to see deeper versions of what we feel we are capable of. He has witnessed me as an advocate and advisor while I have seen him as a writer and an intelligent student (not only a student who qualifies for special education). It is even more beautiful, almost amazing really, when he, the I-hate-school-and-all-teachers-8th grader, walks over and hugs me. “Thank you, Ms.,” he smiled. “Do you want to meet my mom, Ms.?”

The invitation to meet Francisco’s rock, his support system at home
his mother
connected us even further as a teacher who sees a student, and as a student that also sees his teacher. This outside-the-norm identifying factor of being Thomas’s sister, my Othering, brought something more to my career and a unique perspective to my subject matter knowledge. As my personal teacher knowledge was fueled by my relationship with my brother, a tension existed within the understanding of my expected subject matter knowledge and my actual subject matter knowledge. I knew the relationship part of being a special education teacher was so essential to seeing a student and figuring out the Least Restrictive Environment, whether it be in a classroom space, or in the space of the teacher
student mutual respect. Responsibilities as a Special Educator and Case Manager and Personal Knowledge as a Sibling Continuing the vignette in the Introduction, my question about what violence meant to Francisco personally centered him in the writing. I reframed his position outside the assignment and instead brought him, his identity,

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his experience to the center of what could make this assignment important and meaningful to him. “Write what you know
what you think about violence.” After a five-minute conversation, he writes independently, silently and intensely for 20 minutes. Then he asks me to read his simple, but detailed three paragraph description of being shot in a drive-by when he was 10 years old. His narrative is horrifying and his expressions of pain are physical and emotional. “Francisco, you are an amazing author.” He smiles but keeps his head down. “Is it true?” And I hope he will respond no. “Yes, Ms.,” is his reply. No smile this time but he looks up and meets my gaze.

My teacher knowledge that was fueled by my sibling knowledge had recognized that Francisco had another piece of his narrative that could find a venue through this violence essay assignment. I saw the outside-thenorm
his Otherness
and recognized the need for him to put voice to it. As Trahar (2009) describes, “experiences that resonate with each Other lead us to connection, but these connections are not contrived versions of commonality” (p. 5). If those connections are explored for differences, they will also result in ways our narratives match and meet each Other. Francisco’s writing brought a violent act to life, an act I did not have a similar experience to match. However, his sharing continued to solidify our common view of ourselves as Other. This piece of his narrative was written in Francisco’s Least Restrictive Environment, in the space of shared trust that allowed for our differences to be seen and honored. When Francisco had free 7th period, he came to my room and typed his words. He changed some, developed some writing so that details became more vivid, and added a few more lines to describe his feelings toward violence on the streets. We worked sporadically for a month, and then Francisco entered his essay in the “Do the Write Thing Anti-Violence Essay Contest.” We didn’t hear back for two months. Then one day, during my 5th period, right before the bell rang, an announcement scrolled across the TV: “Winner
‘Do the Write Thing Essay Contest’
Francisco Sa´nchez.” I screamed. The bell rang and I ran down the 8th grade hallway, dodging students, and found Francisco. I told him he needed to see the TV. We went into his 6th period and waited for it to scroll across the screen again. “Francisco, you won!” “Wow,” and he bent his head and laughed.

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Francisco and 48 Other junior high students won for all of Herald County. There had been 5,000 entries. Francisco’s growth as a learner and mine as his educator become intertwined to the degree that he was teaching me and I was learning from him. Francisco brought me a small beautifully carved “Thank You” box the next day at school. But it was the letter he gave me that touched me deeply: You are the best teacher I had all year. You have not given up on me. I really do thank you for it. I will miss this year that we have gone through together. I will miss having you as a teacher and as a case manager.

Revisiting these lines he wrote, I am immediately taken back to that moment. And now, I have the words to explain what Francisco was doing. He was sharing his narrative as a learner with identified written expression needs, who had now been chosen as a top essay writer. His voice was representative of one that might be assumed to count less, or be viewed as less than, because of the disability label he held. But he pushed back on the norm. He wrote out this violent event in his life, and through sharing it, destroyed the narrative that a learner with a documented disability in written expression cannot succeed with the written word. He and his family also pushed back incredibly hard on the narrative that adolescent males of color were destined for more violent lives. His narrative, in this regard, also makes him Other. It is powerful.

CONCLUSION At the conclusion of the year at Reyes Jr. High, I reflected on my role in contributing to part of a student’s development of his own empowered narrative. The pieces of Francisco’s narrative that became part of my narrative have also risen back to the surface at this time in my lived experience. They are colliding with my narratives of what it means to be Other in special education. These teaching stories intersect my teacher knowledge, my knowledge of self as a teacher, and the subject matter. There are elements tightly linked with special education subject matter, and there are elements of this story that link to the subject matter of life and my identity as a sibling of a brother who has Down syndrome.

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Power of Autoethnographic Lenses as Special Educators Trahar’s (2009) work supports Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) explanation of how learning and teaching knowledge are “narratively composed, embodied in people and expressed in practice” (p. 124). In the process of working on this writing, I have discovered a stronger piece of my identity as Other that situated me differently than my special educator colleagues because my teacher knowledge in the world of special education is also different. “The knowledge produced and reproduced through reading a personal narrative and an autoethnography … is a significant form of knowledge because it provides an insider account and analysis of weaved power structures that an outsider cannot dismantle. This makes … a way of knowing for the unknown and the rarely spoken for” (Hamdan, 2012, p. 587). Through this autoethnographic exploration, my ability to create spaces of LRE between students and teachers is brought to light. This idea of LRE as a space within the personal and not only limited to the physical domain of a classroom is an important insight for all educators.

Vulnerability to Become Other Anzaldu´a (1987) explains so beautifully my emerging understanding of the power of narrative inquiry, storying and restorying, and autoethnographic approaches: There is a rebel in me
the Shadow Beast. It is a part of me that refuses to take orders from outside authorities … It is that part of me that hates constraints of any kind, even those self-imposed. At the least hint of limitations on my time or space by others, it kicks out with both feet. Bolts. (p. 38)

I have always sought to push borders and break silences that may be forced on a person or a learner. Thomas gave that to me. My stories with students such as Francisco drive me forward. My Shadow Beast has been constructing a narrative all along. It began writing internally when I was observing Thomas and his preschool class, his kindergarten class, and so on at his private separate school. It was acutely aware, even at that early age of five or six, that Thomas’s experience, his story, was intertwined with mine. His experience with Otherness, of separation, would also be mine. And these lived experiences, my personal teacher

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knowledge as being a sibling to Thomas would create the necessary tension between the expected subject matter knowledge as a special educator, and my awareness of Other in special education. Being Other provided my subject matter knowledge an inherent insight into empathizing and seeing the overlap of stories with my students.

EDUCATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE Complexities of Identity as a Special Educator Ferri (2009) begins to address the depth of these complexities of identity within the context of silencing and marginalization: Because students are positioned as objects of study
as problems to correct or remediate
their voices and perspectives remain silenced and devalued just as their bodies remained segregated and marginalized. Any cursory survey of special education journals yields a mountain of quantitative studies examining every possible nuance of the assessment profiles of students with disabilities. There remains a dearth of research that focuses on the voices or perspectives of disabled people themselves. (p. 421)

Artiles (1998) succinctly states the continued necessity: “Special educators must begin to hear the voices of the students we serve” (p. 33). He concludes, “We must begin to look at and listen to ourselves, those whom we deem different, and the societal context in which we live and work” (p. 35). By restorying and retelling my narrative and the overlap of Francisco’s, the complexity of Other in the identity of both students who are served under special education and special educators is captured.

Potential of Becoming Other as a Special Educator Pinkvoss (2007) explains this process and how Gloria Anzaldu´a’s work (1987) encapsulates it: Gloria was not saying: well here are these two opposites and out of this contradiction comes a new, a third way. No, no … she was saying that these opposites had to be kicked out from under
they were not a foundation, but only got in the way of creating what she was after. There was no linear combination of the two contradictions to create a third; rather Gloria saw that between the contradictions was a place of the untethered possibility. A place that she, in her very act of writing it, would learn how to occupy. (editor’s note)

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My narrative that is produced and brought to life, my experience as Thomas’s sister, is important. My position of Other in in special education gives me the awareness to empathetically build relationships to enrich the understanding of students who receive special education services. This Otherness in special education also requires me to give voice to the need for special educators to see the students they serve as individuals and not only students who must be given an attempt at a physical classroom setting as LRE. The three-dimensional narrative inquiry space allows the importance of situating teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge to also create a necessary tension, a dialogue of Othering that can give insight into creating spaces of LRE within the personal space, the student
teacher dialogue.

REFERENCES Adams, T., Holman-Jones, S., & Ellis, C. (2015). Autoethnography: Understanding qualitative Research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Anzaldu´a, G. (1987). Borderlands/La frontera: The new mestiza (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books. Apple, M. W. (2001). Afterword: The politics of labeling in a conservative age. In G. M. Hudak & P. Kihn (Eds.), Labeling: Pedagogy and politics (pp. 261
283). New York, NY: Routledge/Falmer. Artiles, A. J. (1998). The dilemma of difference enriching the disproportionality discourse with theory and context. The Journal of Special Education, 32(1), 32
36. Artiles, A. J. (2005). Special education’s changing identity: Paradoxes and dilemmas in views of culture and space. In L. Katzman, A. G. Gandhi, W. S. Harbour, & J. D. LaRock (Eds.), Special education for a new century. Harvard Educational Review (pp. 85
120) (Reprint Series, No. 41). Brantlinger, E. (2004). Ideologies discerned, values determined: Getting past the hierarchies of special education. In L. Ware (Ed.), Ideology and the politics of (in)exclusion (pp. 11
31). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Chang, H. (2008). Autoethnography as method. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, Inc. Chase, S. E. (2005). Narrative inquiry: Multiple lenses, approaches, voices. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 651
679). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (1990). Narrative, experience and the study of curriculum. Cambridge Journal of Education, 20(3), 241
253. Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Connelly, F., & Clandinin, D. (1988). Teachers as curriculum planners: Narratives of experience. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Connelly, F., & Clandinin, D. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2
14. Denzin, N. K. (2003). The call to performance. Symbolic Interaction, 26, 187
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Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education: The Kappa Delta Phi lecture series. Ellis, C. (2004). The ethnographic I: A methodological novel about autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamire Press. Ferri, B. A. (2009). Doing a (dis) service: Reimagining special education from a disability studies perspective. Handbook of social justice in education, 17, 417
430. Foucault, M. (1973). Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason R. Howard (Ed. & Trans.). New York, NY: Random House. Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Note on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Hamdan, A. (2012). Autoethnography as a genre of qualitative research: A journey inside out. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 11(5), 585
606. Holman-Jones, S. (2005). Autoethnography: Making the personal political. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed.) (pp. 651
679). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 (2004). Nordstrom, S. (2013). Object interviews: Folding, unfolding, and refolding mosaics of objects and subjects. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 12, 237
257. Pinkvossm J. (2007). Editor’s note. In Borderlands la frontera: The new mestiza (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books. Reed-Danahay, D. E. (1997). Auto/ethnography: Rewriting the self and social. Oxford: Berg. Reutlinger, C. J. (2015). The ableist othering of disability in the classroom: An experiential investigation of academic adjustments in higher education. Doctoral dissertation, Kansas State University. Skiba, R. J., Simmons, A. B., Ritter, S., Gibb, A. C., Rausch, M. K., Cuadrado, J., & Chung, C.-G. (2008). Achieving equity in special education: History, status, and current challenges Exceptional Children, 74(3), 264
288. Slee, R. (2004). Meaning in the service of power. In L. Ware (Ed.), Ideology and the politics of (in)exclusion (pp. 46
60). New York, NY: Peter Lang. Spry, T. (2011). Performative autoethnography: Critical embodiments and possibilities. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (4th ed., pp. 497
511). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Trahar, S. (2009). Beyond the story itself: Narrative inquiry and autoethnography in intercultural research in higher education. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 10(1), 1
15. Yell, M. L. (2012). The law and special education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

INTERWEAVING NARRATIVES OF PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL SELVES OF A BEGINNING TEACHER IN INDIA Bobby Abrol ABSTRACT The chapter examines the storied experiences of a preservice teacher in India who transitioned to become a beginning year teacher over the course of this study. Multiple threads unraveled the complex interweaving of her personal and professional selves in her scholarship of teaching, further suggesting that teachers teach who they are. Through the course of this research, I explored the following questions about my participant: What was the source of her energy and passion for working with her students? What did her story reveal about the development of her personal practical knowledge? What were those experiences in the teacher education program which enabled her to intervene and connect with her students at a deeper level? As the inquiry travels back and forth on the

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temporal dimension, including various social spaces and interactions, my participant demonstrated an evolving understanding of her self-as-athinking being with an agency and social justice perspective. Keywords: Teacher education; personal practical knowledge; narrative inquiry; three-dimensional narrative inquiry space; place; social justice

“MY WORLD” OF THE PARTICIPANTS One day, Shiva’s two sons decided to race one another and see who would first complete three rounds of the world. The elder son, Kartikeya, promptly soared on his peacock. Crossing rivers, mountains and oceans, he completed the three circuits. Meanwhile, his younger brother, Ganesha, simply walked around his parents, Shiva and Shakti. Kartikeya, who was confident of his triumph, landed to the sight of Ganesha gloating over his sweets and crowing “I’ve won.” At his brother’s puzzlement, Ganesha explained, “You went around ‘the world’ while I went around ‘my world’. Which is more important?”.

My father would stop at this point, teasing me; “You’ll find an answer when you’ll grow up!” This remained one of the lost and forgotten stories of my childhood till I heard it referred to again some twenty years later by the prominent mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik in a 2009 TED Lecture. His explanation behind the story instantly resonated with my research orientation. He argued that Kartikeya’s interpretation of “the world” was universal, objective and factual, while “my world” invoked by Ganesha was cultural and subjective. The latter was full of stories, thoughts, hopes, and myths. In “my world,” human beings actively engage in the subjective construction of truth, reality, and knowledge in a meaning-making manner. We decide which world we want to live in, and we decide which “story to live by” (Clandinin & Connelly, 1998). Similarly, in her acts for teaching, a teacher actively draws on stories from “her world.” As we immerse ourselves in their stories, I believe that we would gain a deeper insight into why teachers do what they do. Our lives are not captured by Wikipedia but through stories While Wikipedia answers what, stories answer why! (Self-musings)

In order to investigate what teachers consider as “their world,” what was required was a methodology, which gives space to alternative ways of knowing (Bruner, 1991) and acknowledges subjectivities (Peshkin, 1988) as well as the voice of both researcher and the participants in a collaborative

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meaning-making endeavor. The choice of narrative inquiry offered me this scope. Before going into the theory and methodology of this chapter, I would like to explain my role, relationships, and the background context of this research study.

The Researcher I have known my participant, Ekta, for six years now. I first met her in the year 2010, which was her first year in her teacher education class. An interesting aspect of our meeting together is that both Ekta and I started our distinctive journeys on the same day. It was our first day in the classroom. I started my first stint as faculty in the teacher education program and her as an aspiring teacher. Due to being positioned on similar grounds, we connected instantly. Another point of connection was my academic background. Ekta instantly felt connected with me when my alumni status from the same program became revealed. We shared a teacher
student relationship for a year, after which I moved to the United States to pursue doctoral studies. Often, Ekta has contacted me to share her personal stories and to ask for professional guidance. I continued my research relationship with Ekta when she graduated and started working as a beginning teacher. Through three 90-minute interviews, reflective journals, and various informal online chat sessions/informal chatting on an online messenger service, she shared her personal and teaching stories. I also interviewed the chairperson of the teacher education program in which Ekta was enrolled.

The Context of the Study The context of this study is a continuation of my research, which started in 2013 (Abrol, 2015) with a group of preservice teachers in India who came together on an online messenger group to form a knowledge community (Craig, 1995). Ekta was one of the participants who actively drew upon the image of teacher-as-curriculum-maker (Clandinin & Connelly, 1992). In these online conversations, the preservice teachers shared their teaching stories. They made explicit their in-progress stories of teaching, which were practical, authentic and which lay mid-way between theory and practice (Craig, 1995; Olson & Craig, 2001). In one of the conversation threads of our ongoing online conversations, Ekta suggested to her classmates, “If one solution does not work [in the classroom] then I think, ‘What other

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choices do I have?’” (Abrol, 2015). Through this comment, she seemed to demonstrate an understanding of her self as a thinking being who possessed the intention and agency to change her situation. Ekta encouraged her fellow classmates to be learners (intern) and to teach for students, not for grades. “Do not worry about supervisions…We are interns…Take risk[s], if [something is] not working. It’s ok! Try new things [strategies] for [the sake] of your students, not for [our supervisors].”

The Participant My participant teacher, Ekta, belonged to a middle-class family and coincidently, teaching was not her first choice of professions. Although Ekta’s mother had never been to school, she was a motivational force for Ekta to pursue education. She grew up seeing her mother suffer domestic violence at the hands of her father. Not until the second year in the teacher education program did she begin to understand her family story. She explained in an interview, “The Self-Development Workshop in the second year helped me develop a perspective about violence in my home. It was through a role-play act that I felt sensitive toward multiple views of reality and began to understand how it applied to my own life” (Interview excerpt, August 2014). Ekta developed a strong sense of protectiveness toward her mother against her father’s abuse. As a result, her curriculum story (Olson, 2000) (which I describe in a subsequent section) has a tone of social justice and agency in living her relationships. Ekta’s profile is incomplete without a mention of her lived experiences with the upbringing of males in her ethnic community. Based on her observations, Ekta noticed unequal power dynamics between husband and wife. These played out in daily life, as tensions and aggressive outbursts among the couples. Having experienced it in her own family, she realized that it was important to intervene in her students’ lives coming from families with domestic violence. The following section is devoted to characterizing the landscape of teacher education discourse in India using historical, sociological, political, and economic lenses.

Teacher Education in India In order to understand contemporary discourses on and for teachers in India, it is important to place the epistemology of teaching and learning on

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a temporal continuum and understand “cultural archetypes of knowledge, teaching and learning that have a bearing on teacher’s beliefs” (Ratnam, 2013, p. 538).

HISTORY OF TEACHER EDUCATION IN INDIA Historically, during the Vedic age (1750
500 BC) the teacher
learner relationship was characterized as a guru
shishya relationship. The guru/ acharya had spiritual and intellectual agency, and aimed to awaken the spirit of the shishya/disciple towards learning and growth. The shishya (according to Kakkar, as cited in Ratnam, 2013) was expected “to exercise his reason” and “discover self or the brahman” (p. 534). It was an “empathetic union” and a relationship of dialogic and collective apprenticeship that aimed to provoke the desire for moral, spiritual, and intellectual learning without monetary obligations (Ratnam, 2013). According to Ratnam, the relationship underwent changes under the influence of the Bhakti cult (up to 1800 CE), where guru was revered as God, knowledge replaced devotion and the shishya surrendered to the guru in a non-agentive manner. Three pedagogic elements: listening, reflecting, and thinking through the consequences (named as shravana, manana, and nidhidhyanasana cited in Ratnam, 2013, p. 540) used during the Vedic ages were replaced with surrendering, submitting, and passivity in the Bhakti cult. Much later, at the time of British colonization (late 18th century), the teacher image altered drastically with the establishment of bureaucratic institutions. These institutions played an important role in training teachers to maintain the status quo of the State. Teachers were expected to abide by the curriculum developed an external agency and were made accountable for their work through their students’ performance on examinations. Teachers, though subordinate to the State, exercised an authoritative position inside the class by drawing upon ancient images of teacher
student relationship (Batra, 2014). Students, in turn, were expected to submit unquestioningly to teacher’s control and authority (Sarangapani, 2003). This image introduced the concept of monetary exchange in education. The National Independence movement in early 20th century and postindependence transformations during 1960s introduced the image of teacher as a social reformer with a focus on critical thinking and citizenbased education (Batra, 2014).

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Teacher as a Social reformer (early 20th Century) Teacher as a customer serving agent (early 21st century)

Teacher as a State servant (late 18th century)

Teacher as a Guru/Acharya (Vedic times 1750500 BC)

Fig. 1.

Discourses on the Image of Teacher

Humane and professional teacher (Contemporary Times)

Historically Tracing Prominent Images of Teachers in India. Source: Abrol (2015).

The neo-liberal thrust of the late 1990s introduced universalization of elementary education. However, it also brought with it the “mechanical chasing of targets and reliance on economically viable but sub-optimal options, thus compromising on the quality” (Batra, 2014, p. 7). This was immediately followed by a bombardment of concepts of accountability, measurement and mass-testing led by the corporate and market-based reformer. The teacher’s image became reduced to a customer-serving agent with no agency. Pedagogy became an instrument to be manipulated to meet the testing needs. Fig. 1 presents a simplified visual of the complex narrative around teachers’ image in India.

STORY OF A BENCHMARK TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM: BACHELORS OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION In 1994, few academicians fought against traditional teacher education system to develop an integrated professional degree program, Bachelors of Elementary Education (B.El.Ed). The B.El.Ed. program aimed to develop

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the image of a professional teacher-as-a-curriculum-maker (Clandinin & Connelly, 1992) who possesses critical and reflective dispositions (Batra, 2006). The preservice teachers build an understanding of the learner in her context and develop an analytical outlook toward the socio-political context of contemporary India. Based on narrative as a form of pedagogy (ElbazLuwisch, 2001), the program recognized that personal life stories could be used as a vehicle for examining both the self as well as the socio-political and economic landscape of schooling and policy. This program found a special place in my chapter because both my participants and I are graduates of this program. So my explanation will be colored by my lived experiences as a preservice candidate and teacher educator in the B.El.Ed. program. Ekta summarized her experience of B.El.Ed. program as, “Personal stories served as textbooks. Both teachers and students shared their experiences, opening the space for discussion, critique and dialogue” (Interview excerpt, August, 2014). The program offered courses such as SelfDevelopment, Theater in Education, Gender, and Curriculum which provided opportunities to the preservice teachers to engage with their “self” as a learner, explore their culturally constructed identity and develop a social justice perspective. The program has become the yardstick for teacher education in the country of India.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK Three concepts contribute to form the conceptual framework for this chapter: teacher’s knowledge, teacher’s stories, and teacher-as-a-curriculummaker image. As the chapter proceeds, the inquiry proceeds to illuminate the role of narratives (as a phenomenon under study) in binding these discreet concepts into a composite whole.

Teacher’s Stories Like the story, “My world,” presented at the beginning of this chapter, the narrative is a subjective construction, which organizes experiences (Bruner, 1991, p. 70) and locates them in a meaningful, coherent whole (Polkinghorne, 1996) (Fig. 2). In an educational context, teacher’s narratives as told in the form of stories are “a microcosm of their consciousness” (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 236). According to Connelly and Clandinin (1990),

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Gives authority and voice

Explains culturally constituted dialogical self

Expresses teacher's knowledge (Clandinin, et al, 2006)

Reveals intentionality in teaching (Hoshmand, 2005)

Meaning making (Grumet, 1988)

Enables an access to social and educational issues

Primary structure for teacher's identity (McAdam, 1993 & McIntyre, 1981)

Organizes experiences (Angus & McLeod, 2004)

Fig. 2.

Narrative as a Phenomenon.

“people by nature lead storied lives and tell stories of those lives” and “a person is, at once, engaged in living, telling, retelling, and reliving stories” (p. 4). These stories reveal complicated personal, social, ethical, and educational issues because these issues are nothing but “abstractions” based on lived experiences of teachers (Seidman, 1991, p. 1). Teachers’ stories temporally unite the present self of teachers with their experiences of past and future, personal and professional, affective and institutional conditions (Clandinin & Connelly, 1994, 2000). In these stories, s/he is both the narrator and the main character of one’s story, and this revelation could make the narrator feel agency and continuity (Adler, 2015). Schwab (1969) suggested that teachers’ stories can illuminate “practical problems” at work in a living curriculum because the “practical problems of curriculum do not present themselves wearing a label around their necks” (p. 18).

Teacher’s Knowledge Proposed by Dewey (1938), this chapter is based on an experiential view of knowledge. It explains that teacher’s teaching experiences are the result of continuous interaction between her individual qualities and social elements (students, school administrators, colleagues, mandates, regulations, and guidelines) of her settings. Specifically, I am interested in exploring the dialectical relationship between “who I am in how I teach” (Alsup, 2006; Bullough, 2008; Clandinin & Huber, 2005; Kelchtermans, 2009; Trotman & Kerr, 2001). Teacher’s knowledge is conceptualized using various terms
relational (Elbaz-Luwisch, 2013), art-like (Eisner, 1985), embodied (Johnson, 1987), and based on personal practical knowledge (Clandinin & Connelly, 1986, 1988).

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For the purpose of this chapter, I will focus on personal practical knowledge which is expressed through teacher’s narratives or stories (Clandinin, & Connelly, 1998; Craig, 1997). Teacher’s Image According to Clandinin (2013), teachers embody images of teaching while enactment of the curriculum (p. 70). The image integrates the past, present and future into a “meaningful nexus of experiences” (Clandinin, 1985, p. 379) which are used to act upon an immediate situation. The image is a binding means that “melds together a person’s diverse experiences” (p. 379) and knowledge in diverse settings, and provides a guiding toolkit to operate from. Drawing upon Dewey (1908), who considered teachers to be mindedbeings, and Schwab (1983), who called them agents of change, Connelly and Clandinin (1992) conceptualized the image of the “teacher-as-a-curriculum-maker.” Through the construct of the image, Clandinin and Connelly (1992) suggested a viable alternative to the dominant metaphor of teacher-ascurriculum-implementer image. Within the current educational scenario, there is an urgent need to enable cultivation of teacher-as-a-curriculum image (Ben-Peretz, 2009; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009; Grimmett & Chimmery, 2009). Craig (2013) explored the concept of best-loved self and its relevance in cultivating the image of teacher-as-a-curriculum maker.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF NARRATIVE INQUIRY Life is ever changing. Experiences are flowing past my memories, to hold on to it, I tell you my story. For this moment, I storify it! (Self-musings).

Located within the interpretative approaches (Guba & Lincoln, 1994), the narrative inquiry is based on a narrative view of experience. I employ “inquiry into narratives” where narrative (called a story) is phenomenon and “narrative inquiry” is the method, under study (Carter, 1990; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Olson & Craig, 2001; Xu & Connelly, 2010). These narratives provide the possibility of an “enhanced awareness of

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the nuances of teacher knowledge and professional identity development” (Chan, Keyes, & Ross, 2012). Narrative inquiry is a fluid form of inquiry (Schwab, 1969) and tries to understand human experiences through stories. Hence it has a tolerance for ambiguity (Craig, 2007, p. 177). Eisner (1997) considered narrative inquiry as a sign of needed creativity and fluidity in educational research, which makes “visible the invisibility of everyday life” [of teachers and students] (Lauriala, 2013, p. 575). It enables the researcher to enter the “my world” of the participant in which subjectivities are considered virtuous. According to Peshkin (1988), the subjectivities make the research unique as a result of the distinctive configuration of a researcher’s personal qualities joined to the data collected.

Research Questions 1. How do personal and professional selves play out in enabling teacher’s knowledge? 2. How do narratives enable possibilities in developing teacher’s knowledge and identities? Three-Dimensional Inquiry Framework I based my data analysis on the three-dimensional framework of Clandinin and Connelly (2000). Within this framework, few narrative exemplars (Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002; Mishler, 1990) from the interview transcript were selected. Only those exemplars were selected which could be located on the three-dimensional framework of time, space, and people. In this kind of narrative, I can see my participant going backward and forward in the time dimension. The people dimension comprises of her interactions with other people determined by this experience. Lastly, these experiences are located in a context (space dimension) lived by her, which shapes and is being shaped by her. In this work, field texts are transformed into research text through using three interpretative devices: broadening, burrowing, and restorying (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). I made use of the broadening tool in the earlier section to elaborate on the context of the teacher education program in India. The other two tools are used in data findings and data analysis.

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DATA FINDINGS In the following section, I present data with preliminary analysis, by presenting selective narratives from the three interviews, informal conversations, and reflective journals which relate with each other in the threedimensional framework.

Ekta’s Narrative Thread I: Space for Self in the Teacher Education Program When I asked Ekta to share a significant experience from her teacher education program, she went back in time and place to a class on self-development in the third year of her teacher education program. It was a theater enactment about a famous Sanskrit woman scholar, Pandita Ramabai.1 Ekta had found a sudden resonance (Conle, 1996) between her personal story and the play. She was awakened to an understanding of her father’s subjective reality. She elaborated on that class as follows: Pandita Ramabai, the main character in the play, also had a father like me…I could relate to her so much. On that day, I understood a bit more about my father, I understood why he did what he did. The father in the play shared how he wished to [give] freedom to his daughter but was scared of the society (Interview excerpt, August 2014).

Ekta understood why it was difficult for her father to allow her freedom and let her be herself. She could explain the culturally constituted worldview inhabited by her father and empathize with him. The above re-telling also enabled Ekta to go back in time and space to a difficult childhood experience of domestic violence at home. She recalled: My mother has suffered domestic violence at home. Usually around 9:00 pm every night. I have seen it during my childhood, to an extent, that you may end up hating the person. When I was nine years old, I could hear it while sleeping in my room with the bed sheet on my face. I could hear my mother sobbing (Interview excerpt, August 2014).

It was an experience that she had lived with throughout her teens. According to Ekta, through the self-development class which followed the practice of narrative pedagogy (Elbaz-Luwisch, 2009), she developed a perspective to understand her situation and agency to deal with it.

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Unpacking Narrative Thread I: Space for Self in Teacher Education Within the safe space of teacher education class, Ekta experienced healing (Delgado, 1989) through sharing. Sharing a painful experience is healing because the story no longer controls you; rather, you control the story. Ekta developed an enhanced understanding of her self, parents and the socio-cultural nexus of her life. She found a space to think about her personal and cultural identity as constituted by her social setting. Also known as Theater for Dialogue, such pedagogical approaches in the teacher education programs involved a great deal of action, reflection, narrative sharing, subjective interpretation and belief deconstruction. It created “learning spaces” (Batra, 2015). In these spaces, “popular assumptions and belief systems are challenged while paving the way for the expression of multitude modes of awareness and varied ways of constructing meaning” (p. 54). Based on empirical evidence (Batra, 2014), these are important prerequisites toward the development of critical teacher practitioners. Sharing personal narratives created a safe space which “enables a teacher to know her own personhood as situated in the socio-cultural and political context of India” according to the chairperson of the B.El.Ed program (Interview excerpt, May 2016). Ekta was convinced that the narrative as a form of pedagogy has enabled her and her classmates to become familiar with each other’s personal and cultural stories. This created a scope for understanding diverse experiences and subjective interpretations, which grew critically and collectively. Fig. 3 presents Ekta’s narrative in the three-dimensional space of narrative inquiry. Her experiences sounded familiar to me as I have had similar experiences as a preservice teacher in the self-development workshops of B.El.Ed. program. In the Indian context, the father is considered the head of the family. Ekta’s father drew his authority and power through the patriarchal social formation. Ekta decided to intervene in her family’s power structure and to modify the cycle of hegemony. In her interview, she also mentioned that she had engaged in constant dialogues with her father regarding family dynamics. Through her actions, she re-defined the “cultural models” (Gee, 1999) by ascribing new rules and norms of the social formation using dialogue. She exercised her agency to modify the familial curriculum, to make it socially just and equitable. These stories are embedded widely within the socio-cultural and historical context of her life in India (Abrol, 2015, p. 104). Scholars like Zeichner (1992) and Ladson-Billings (2001) also asserted that personal life stories can be used as a vehicle for examining self and

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Childhood and second year of teacher education Time

Parents, faculty, and classmates People

Fig. 3.

Place

Home and teacher education classroom

Three-Dimensional Framework of Narrative Inquiry.

socio-political and economic landscape of schooling. It is suggested that an opportunity to examine one’s own identity and be aware of it could lead to the transformation of practice (Sleeter, 2001). Ekta could explore and look back at her life journey, position herself in her contextual reality and expand her understanding of her “self” in telling and re-telling her stories to me. It is suggested that dialogue (even if it is uncomfortable) should be encouraged as it can serve as a precursor “to deeper understanding and growth” (Darling-Hammond, French & Garcia-Lopez, 2002, pp. ix, 3).

Ekta’s Narrative Thread II: Reverberations of Self in Teaching In this section, narrative thread II is shared. Once again, Ekta’s stories are placed in a three-dimensional frame (Fig. 4). At another point during the interview, Ekta shared an experience from her time as an intern in an elementary classroom in a public school. At that time, she was working with a cooperating teacher. It was a narrative about a girl, Lakshmi, who returned to the school after a month-long absence and it sounded analogous to her own childhood experience. Ekta recounted: Due to domestic violence, the mother used to take the child to her maternal parents. On one day, when she came back to school after a month-long absence, the class teacher asked, “Lakshmi, why were you absent?” She said, “Mere papa ne daru pee ke meri mummy ko maara tha. Isliye meri mummy mujhe mama ke ghar le gayi.” (“My father abused my mother after getting drunk. So my mother took me to her maternal home) (Interview excerpt, August 2014).

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Fourth year of teacher education program, First year of job Time

Cooperating teacher, students and parents

Fig. 4.

People

Place

Public school (internship), Private school

Three-Dimensional Framework of Narrative Inquiry. Source: Clandinin and Connelly (2000).

Listening to this explanation from Lakshmi, the cooperating teacher scolded her for making excuses. Ekta was shocked by the teacher’s response. Being an intern, she felt restricted in raising her voice against the cooperating teacher. But she dared to tell her that she found her response to be inappropriate. In the interview, she expressed her anxiety about the long-term consequences of the cooperating teacher’s response in Lakshmi’s life: Lakshmi got a scolding from her teacher, after speaking [the] truth. So, [the] next time she will not share it with anyone. A child like Lakshmi, who is neither getting a soft corner at home nor school, where will she go? (Interview excerpt, August 2015).

Ekta was disturbed by Lakshmi’s story. In order to participate in Lakshmi’s story, and exercise her agency, she felt compelled to undertake a project on absenteeism in her final year and managed to give space to Lakshmi’s story in the project report. Six months later, she started working in a private elite school. In her position as a beginning teacher, she encountered another student, Ayaan: For example, I was taking a storytelling session; my emphasis was on not fighting with each other. In order to explain, I asked them, “Have you ever seen me hitting my coteacher? And my next question, which I realized later that maybe I shouldn’t have asked, “Have you ever seen [your] mom and dad fighting?” And Ayaan raised his hand and said, “Ma’am, my papa hits mummy!” (Interview excerpt, January 2015).

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Time and again, Ekta was able to pick up on stories that reverberate with her personal stories. With great excitement, she shared the following narrative: I have a very good bond with one of my [student’s] parents. She appreciated me for my efforts in leaving a positive influence on her child. She shared a very personal example, she said, “Ma’am, my husband is short-tempered and one day, after an argument with me, he threw away the dinner plate.” Instantly, my child [who is 4 years old] went to his father and asked, “Papa, Mummy is your friend, and we are not supposed to get angry with our friend … otherwise you will lose a friend in her!” She was almost in tears while sharing this. She was very thankful to me [in] [helping] her child develop emotional intelligence. (Interview excerpt, January 2015).

Unraveling Narrative Thread II: Reverberations of Self in Teaching Ekta used her narratives of experience as a frame of reference (Parker, 2010) to further understand the story of her students. Her personal experiences allowed her to explore and notice teaching situations, which reverberated with her own childhood experiences. Ekta related with these children and extended her imagination to understand their realities. As a narrative inquirer, I asked myself following questions: Why did Ekta intervene in her students’ life? What is the source of her energy and passion for working with her students? What did her story reveal about her personal practical knowledge? What are those experiences in the teacher education program which enabled her to connect with her students at a deeper level? Is it space and discourses devoted to looking within in the self-development workshop?

To probe deeper into the program philosophy and vision for the teacher education program, I interviewed the B.El.Ed. program chairperson. The chairperson shared the following from the National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education, India (National Council for Teacher Education [NCTE], 2009), in regards to its objective in the development of professional and humane teachers: The objective of the program is the development of a professional and humane teacher. Teachers are not only as professionals who would have a hold and grasp of their subject and its pedagogical processes but who would also have a fairly intense experience of going through their own life journey. We are not just developing professionals, we are also developing “people.” [These are] persons whose identity [becomes] intimately intertwined with their professional approaches. The teacher is as much a professional as she is a person in her own right. So her personal journey of life, her own identity and her own position in society vis a vis issues of gender, caste, and class, which are critical to the Indian society cannot be understood from a theoretical or empirical framework,

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unless the teacher looks at these issues in the context of her own life experiences. And because it is critical, we thought you cannot do it unless we enable the teacher to reflect on her personhood, her socialization, her own vision of education. So the professional and the humane go together because the professional and the self go together. (Interview excerpt, May 2016).

I could not agree more with the chairperson’s statement on teacher education. This reminded me of an assignment which I did in the second year of this teacher education program. As preservice teachers, we were told to visit a nearby slum (ghetto) area and understand its socio-political and cultural context. In another assignment, I interviewed my mother and aunt to develop a historical perspective on gender in India. These teacher education experiences permitted me to better appreciate my socio-cultural and gendered positioning in the Indian society. Ekta was able to make sense of her childhood struggles in the selfdevelopment workshops. She expressed her own struggle at expressing her childhood experiences and wished that Lakshmi should not go through the same struggle. She decided to challenge her cooperating teacher’s authority and stood firm for Lakshmi. She also decided to do her final research project on the issue of absenteeism. Through this work, she could give space to Lakshmi’s story. Her project report revealed domestic violence as one of the reasons for absenteeism. Through the project, Ekta intended to create systemic influence. She hoped to sensitize the education system, as she said, “even if it is only one teacher or one principal who reads my report, it is of value.” These actions demonstrate ways in which her experiences are contributing to shaping her decisions, practices, and her teacher’s knowledge. Sensitivity to children’s social and individual context was important for Ekta. Her curriculum enactments revealed her self-directed agency. According to the Indian philosopher, Krishnamurti (1982), agency emerged from fearlessness, a state of being, possible through knowing self and relationships. Ekta exercised her agency in her relationships with her students and family members. She formed her judgments about the situation based on who she is and who she wants to be. She tried to know more about them through her relationships; she re-lived her “stories to live by” (Clandinin & Connelly, 1999). When Ekta shared her stories with me, she was also engaging in the construction and re-construction of her teaching knowledge. While Ekta expressed an awakened sense of self, her narratives also reflected the union of the personal self and the professional self. Through these narratives, it is possible to see the temporal unity of her present self

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with her experiences of past and future, person, and profession, and affective and institutional conditions (Bruner, 1986; Clandinin & Connelly, 1994, 2000). Her narrative also helps us to understand “the types of worlds, identities, and actions [she] construct[s]” (p. 125).

Ekta’s Narrative Thread III: to Make and Enliven the Curriculum In an interview, few months later, Ekta shared a renewed understanding of her personal situation and the interventions. She shared how she would act as a mediator at home, “when they [her parents] engage in extensive fights, then I have to scold them and calm them down. I do take a strong stand for my mother” (Interview excerpt, January 2015). At the same time, she rooted her responses to them in empathy, understanding their differing perspectives. As she put it, “Sometimes there is no solution. So it’s ok to find a middle path. If things are not well at home, I try to, let’s say, cook something for my parents” (Interview excerpt, January 2015). Whether it is familial curriculum or school curriculum, Ekta opted not to be a bystander. She actively mediated in situations occurring in the personal and professional landscape. For example, in another teaching story, a student from her class was labeled as a special needs child (hyperactive) by Ekta’s co-teacher. Ekta was sensitive about the consequences of this label on her student. So, again, Ekta took a strong stance for the child at the stake of her relationship with her co-teacher. In my class, we have a violent student, he is extremely violent…. I also, explained [to] him using [a] moral thing…. For example, “Ayaan, your friend will have to go through pain and he may not talk to you, you’ll be alone.” He needs time in internalizing it. Now somewhat things are better. (Interview excerpt, January 2015).

She could empathize with Ayaan and his parents who were going through a divorce at that point in their life. Rather than putting a label on Ayaan, she decided to intervene, spent considerable time with Ayaan, had a dialogue with his parents and resisted attempts to label him. As a teacher, we are not supposed to be judgmental. When Ayaan’s mother called me she was in tears. I calmed her down … I worked with Ayaan on a personal level. Basically, every kid is different. I have 32 kids and 32 multiplied with 100, such is the number of strategies that I have to use in my class. (Interview excerpt, January 2015).

In her interviews, she also shared her engagement with Ayaan’s parents. Ekta wished to ensure that seeing his parents, Ayaan does not grow up into a violent male and participate in the social injustice.

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Unraveling Ekta’s Narrative III: To Make and Enliven the Curriculum Ekta’s actions were shaping and being shaped by the stories from “her world” at both individual and collective levels. She was engaged in the construction and re-construction of her personal practical knowledge (Clandinin & Connelly, 1999) and re-living the “stories to live by” (Clandinin & Connelly, 1999). Ekta used her personal practical knowledge to interpret, and negotiate her situations. The concept of “stories to live by” allows us to see how Ekta’s teaching knowledge was entwined with her identity. Her stories provided a glimpse of who she is and what she is becoming (Clandinin, Downey, & Huber, 2009) while living her teaching practices. In her story, she exhibited agency and a powerful relational stance. In her response to family situations, she mediated pro-actively, stood for her mother but at the same time empathized with her father. While in school, she extended herself to embrace Ayaan’s situation and intervened personally. Through her relational stances, she tried to realize her emerging sense of self, knowledge, and identity. As Krishnamurti has said, “after all, life is a relationship; to be is to be related” (Krishnamurti, 1949). At home, she played the role of a mediator and through compassion, gained position of authority in the family. She stepped down from her position to have a dialogue with the student, named Ayaan. Also in interacting with Ayaan’s parents, Ekta drew her agency from the teacheras-a-curriculum-maker image and relational stance. She realized the need to intervene after developing an understanding of the socio-cultural context of her own life, the realization of which was facilitated by her teacher education program. In both social institutions; family and school, Ekta was actively engaging with the normative gender formations and creating and re-creating newer formations through dialogue and care, and thereby, breaking the cycle (Kincheloe, 2008) of patriarchy (Fig. 5). The motivation to go against the tide was channeled by the fact that she was also living her best-loved self (Craig, 2013) and which was drawn from the stories in “her world.” She based her actions in the understanding of her “my world” and empathized with Ayaan and his parents. To what may we attribute Ekta’s conviction toward her profession? We can see the interweaving of her personal and professional self in her teaching practice. She seemed to draw upon her understanding of her “self,” her position in her family, and her position in the Indian society, as well as from her theoretical knowledge of children and pedagogy. The way these two aspects of her personal practical knowledge intertwined in her

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Breaking the cycle of Ayaan growing up as a patriarchal male

Breaking the cycle of her father's abuse of his power

Fig. 5.

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Ekta Tried to Break the Cycles of Patriarchy through Dialogue and Care.

practice was unique to her and possibly became the source of her conviction and commitment to her profession. With a deeper knowledge of herself, it was possible for Ekta to empathize with and be compassionate toward the lived stories of her students.

DISCUSSION This narrative inquiry revealed storied experiences of a beginning teacher, Ekta, as she transitioned from preservice teacher in her teacher education to beginning teaching in a school. Multiple threads unraveled the complex interweaving of her personal and professional selves in her practice. Her stories illuminated nuances and subtleties of the development of teacher’s personal practical knowledge. Ekta’s stories highlighted the enabling experiences of the teacher education program. Her stories demonstrated that, along with the professional development of preservice teachers, teacher education programs should create spaces to develop the “person” of the teacher. As evidenced, courses like the self-development workshops and theater in education appeared numerous times in her narratives. Experiences in these courses facilitated Ekta to connect with her inner self, awakened her to an extensive and expansive meaning of reflection and drew her actions from a dialectical interaction of self with the outside world. Ekta’s experiences suggested that it is very important for preservice teachers to experience at least one course of this nature, where student teachers get the opportunity to engage with themselves outside the boxed image of the preservice teacher. An interesting interplay of personal and professional self was evidenced in the narratives of Ekta. She reflected on her personal positioning in her sociocultural context. Through intellectual engagement with constructs such as domination, patriarchy, and control, she came to better understand her

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father’s behavior. She realized similar oppressive forces operating in her student’s life. This was an example of dialectical engagement with the knowledge of self and the classroom context. It was an act of inner reflection, examination of the self and subjectivities that facilitated construction of her teaching knowledge identity. This represented a movement from inside to outward and a derivation of action from ones best-loved self which lies deep within (Fig. 5). As a professional, she exhibited a critical disposition toward her situation. While intellectual tools helped her to be a critical educator, she made a choice and drew her actions from self-knowledge. Equipped with an expansive view of reality and knowledge, she opted for compassion rather than opposition. Therefore, it was possible for Ekta to go beyond the dictates of her job, extend herself to the stories of Lakshmi and Ayaan, and act out her best-loved self (Craig, 2013). If our aim in teacher education is for teachers to be authentic and share their personal fire, and ignite the spirit of learning in students, we have no alternative but to let teachers be at ease with their job. We need to let them be playful and experience the magic that happens during teaching. If we want our teachers to be inclusive and harmonious, we need to let them experience expansion. Through examining Ekta’s stories, I realized the extent to which teachers’ own knowledge about teaching, when given sufficient space to be recognized and explored in the context of a teacher education program, could connect their personal knowing with their practical knowing. This affirms that an important prerequisite for a teacher is to know oneself better (Bullough, 1997; Loughran, 2006; McLean, 1999).

NOTE 1. Pandita Ramabai was an Indian social reformer, a champion for the emancipation of women, and a pioneer in education. She acquired a reputation as a Sanskrit scholar (Wikipedia).

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“TRADITIONAL TEACHING METHOD STILL HOLDS WATER”: NARRATIVE INQUIRY OF STUDENT TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES AT THE INTERSECTION OF TEACHER KNOWLEDGE AND SUBJECT MATTER KNOWLEDGE Gang Zhu ABSTRACT To explore how student teachers (re)construct their professional identities, this chapter contextualizes two student teachers’ practicum experiences in China. The overarching question is how the student teachers (re)construct their professional identities in the practicums, especially where their teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge meet. By analyzing a flexible matrix of paired stories, the research highlights the

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collective influences of the multiple instructional contexts: nation-wide Free Teacher Education program policy, recent national curriculum reform in China, and the characteristics of the placement schools. The chapter finds that the student teachers’ professional identities are dynamic and evolving on the professional knowledge landscape. The (re)construction of professional identities involves developing practical knowledge and metaphors by negotiating the tensions the student teachers encountered in the practicums. Meanwhile, the student teachers experienced reflective turns (Scho¨n, 1991) in the practicums, which caused the tension between teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge and contributed to the formation of their professional identities. Keyword: Free Teacher Education; professional identity; teacher knowledge; narrative inquiry; metaphor

INTRODUCTION The main purpose of this chapter is to narrate two students’ professional identities during their practicums. Through a flexible matrix of paired narratives that are broadened, burrowed, and re-storied over time (Craig, 2006), this chapter finds that professional identities of the student teachers featured in this chapter are interwoven with their personal (the convergent influences of their family backgrounds, the critical events along their life journeys, and the sociocultural backgrounds where they grew up) and professional experiences (schooling experiences, teacher education programs, mentorships, and the placement schools). Simultaneously, the chapter shows that the student teachers developed their personal and practical understandings of their student teaching experiences, which were associated with the constructions of their professional identities. Specifically, the student teachers utilize metaphors to convey their senses of professional identities (“Teaching looks like walking on a tightrope.” “Teaching is finding the right sign at the crossroads.”). In this lens, the student teachers positioned their professional identities in the dilemmatic spaces (Fransson & Granna¨s, 2013), which were embodied in their reflective turns (Scho¨n, 1991) in this chapter. In terms of the narrative applications related to subject matter, the two participants in this chapter, one mathematics student teacher and one

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history student teacher, both emphasized the priorities of subject knowledge transfer in teaching. Furthermore, the two student teachers storied their “teaching reality shocks”: the transition from their FTE programs to the multiple realities of the classroom. Over the course of developing their practical knowledge, the student teachers have to dismantle the potential tensions associated with teaching such as the idealistic teacher image, the competing requirements expected by the faculty advisors and the cooperative teachers. These tensions contributed to the notion of professional identities as dynamic and shifting on the professional knowledge landscape (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995).

Guiding Framework for Conceptualizing This Chapter Preservice teachers’ professional identities influence how the teacher candidates see themselves and behave professionally (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004; Izadinia, 2013). The concept of identity, as proposed by Gee (2001) is an informed understanding of preservice teachers’ professional identity. According to Gee, identity is an ongoing, dynamic process situated in an unending continuum (2001, p. 101). Gee (2001) argued that all people have multiple identities connected not only to the kind of person they are, but also by how society perceives them. Building on this idea, others argue that identity is an ongoing and dynamic process which entails the making sense and (re)interpretation of one’s own values and experiences (Flores & Day, 2006). In essence, becoming a teacher involves the (trans)formation of a teacher identity, a process described by Sachs (2001) as being open, negotiated, and shifting. From the sociocultural perspective, teacher identity is both a product (a result of influences on the teacher) and a process (a form of ongoing interaction within teacher development) (Olsen, 2008; Sfard & Prusak, 2005). Professional identities also greatly contribute to teachers’ commitments in the future workplaces (Sachs, 2001). As a group of contract-restricted teacher education students, FTE students are different from other preservice teachers in entry and mission. For this reason, an exploration of the FTE students’ professional identities has the potential to offer insights into the intersections between context and development of professional knowledge of teachers. Moreover, the practicum experience is a transitional period when preservice teachers bridge the understandings they develop through the course work and the real classroom in which they develop their practice

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(Britzamn, 2003; Posner, 2005). Researchers noted that preservice teachers emphasized success or failure during their practicum experiences, rather than what they had or had not learned. This suggests a possible need for developing the social aspects of learning-to-teach by supporting teacher identity formation in initial teacher training (Timo ˇst ˇsuk & Ugaste, 2010). By broadening and burrowing (Connelly & Clandinin, 1995), the participants’ stories to live by, “a way to speak of stories that teachers live out in practice and tell of who they are, and are becoming, as teachers” (Clandinin & Connelly, 1998, pp. 141
142), are composed by in the midst of the shifting landscapes. By continually collaborating with the two participants, the student teachers’ evolving identities, shaped by their personal and professional experiences, are highlighted. Set against the backdrop, the overarching research question is: How do the FTE student teachers (re)construct their professional identities in the practicums? To address this research question, four sub-research questions shape this inquiry: a. What are the student teachers’ motivations for entering into the FTE program? b. How do the student teachers craft their professional identities within the milieu created by the national curriculum policy and their placement schools? c. What are the potential tensions that emerge when the student teachers (re)construct their professional identities? d. What reflective turns (Scho¨n, 1991) are specifically meaningful to the formation of the student teachers’ professional identities?

INSTRUCTIONAL CONTEXTS Teaching and Teacher Education in China Chinese education is greatly influenced by the traditional Chinese culture which highly values teachers’ authority and knowledge transfer (Gu, 2006). Grounded in Confucian norms of orthodoxy, now reinforced by a concern with making teaching “scientific” in accordance with “educational laws” (Paine, 1990), it is common that Chinese teachers are believed to endeavor to combine the “artistic” (personal teaching aesthetic) and “scientific” (content knowledge) aspects of teaching. Following this, Chinese student teachers often emphasize knowledge acquisition and pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1986, 1987).

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All in all, teacher education in China has typically been characterized by its subject-centered emphasis, theory-laden orientation, and centralized state management (Lo, 2008, p. 1). Such an approach has provided the Chinese preservice teachers a template to follow. However, these kinds of theory-oriented teacher education programs in China usually do not adequately prepare preservice teachers for the realities of the classroom. Consequently, the student teachers are prone to experience “reality shocks” (Dicke, Elling, Schmeck, & Leutner, 2015) in the practicums. This complicate and changing context of practicum in China for teaching and teacher education I have described conceptualizes the FTE student teachers’ learning and practicum experiences in different ways. The FTE student teachers are influenced by different aspects of the Chinse education milieu. The teaching and teacher education contexts serve as important factors for the FTE students’ professional identity formation. As for the Free Teacher Education (FTE) program in China, in 2007, the Chinese government initiated this monetary-incentive teacher policy to attract highly-qualified teachers to Chinese rural schools. The government offered entrants an appealing package of financial benefits (Ministry of Education, 2007). After graduation, FTE graduates are required to teach at least 10 years in high-need K-12 schools. These teaching positions are guaranteed by regional educational bureaus. However, excessive reliance on utilitarian incentives is likely to trigger a conflict between students’ educational aims and the goals of the FTE program (Wang & Gao, 2013). Consequently, the increasing teacher attrition went against the original purpose of the FTE program. Liao and Yuan (2016) found that this monetary-incentive teacher policy is “failing” and is contradictory to its original goal, for the FTE teachers end up teaching in high-performing urban schools.

Student Teaching Research has shown that student teaching is an important professional phase for preservice teachers, especially for their professional development (e.g., Posner, 2005; Zeichner, 2002). During the practicum period, the student can reexamine the connections between campus courses and field experiences (Zeichner, 2010). Additionally, student teachers are shaping their professional identities (Lamote & Engels, 2010; Schepens, Aelterman, & Vlerick, 2009; Timo ˇst ˇsuk & Ugaste, 2010) by confronting

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the dichotomies between theory and practice (Standal, Moen, & Moe, 2014). The quality of student teachers’ learning experiences in the field is of great concern to those involved in initial teacher preparation. Consequently, field experience has been regarded as favorable component of initial teacher education in contributing to student teachers’ professional learning (Ronfeldt & Reininger, 2012). Other components worthy of attention are the roles that cooperative teachers and university supervisors play in student teaching. Researchers find that “guided teaching” relationships between the student teachers and the cooperative teachers and the university supervisors are very limited (Borko & Mayfield, 1995). Only tiny portions of cooperative teachers and the university supervisors play an essential role in student teaching. More specifically, most cooperative teachers and university supervisors do not make a difference in students teaching. In her qualitative study on the dynamics of student teachers’ professional learning in the field, Tang (2003) discovered that student teachers construct their teaching selves in three facets of the student teaching context: action context, the socio-professional context, and the supervisory context. Also, her research points to four possibilities of professional learning: stasis (low challenge, low support), confirmation (equilibrium, and resonance), retreat (tension and dissonance) and growth (from tension to equilibrium, from dissonance to resonance) (Tang, 2003, p. 493). Similarly, Chinese student teachers have to negotiate the different expectations of their school advisors and university supervisors, especially the disjunction between school and university expectations for practicum students (Wang & Clarke, 2014). By reviewing the instructional contexts for this chapter, I find that in the last decades, teachers’ professional identities have emerged as a separate research area. However, there is no unified understanding of or consensus on the concept of teachers’ professional identities. From the literature, teachers’ professional identities are related to issues of self, self-concept, image, roles, agency, emotion, and reflection. Meanwhile, a critical gap emerges between the FTE program and the FTE student teachers’ professional identity. Specifically, as a group of “contract-restricted” preservice teachers, there is a paucity of research on the student teachers’ professional identities in the FTE program, especially how the student teachers (re)construct their professional identities in the practicums. Arising out of this consideration, I set out to bridge the gap between existing research on teachers’ professional identities and the FTE student teachers’ professional identities developed during practicum experiences.

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NARRATIVE APPLICATIONS RELATED TO SUBJECT MATTER In this chapter, I used narrative inquiry mainly developed by Connelly and Clandinin (1995, 1999, 2000) and Craig (2006). Narrative inquiry is a way of understanding and inquiring into experiences through “collaboration between researcher and participants, over time, in a place or series of places, and in social interactions with milieus” (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 20). Craig’s “telling stories” method (1997), “parallel stories” method (1999), and “story constellation” method (2007) provide powerful tools for my narrative analysis. “Telling stories” is a process where field texts become research texts through the creation of a series of stories that, in this case, my research participants and I constructed separately and then exchanged with each other (Craig, 1997, p. 62). These stories come from field texts written around shared conversations and email correspondences. “Parallel stories” is a research method “which captures shifts in a beginning teacher’s interpretive knowledge as he/she moved from context to context” (Craig, 1999, p. 397). “Story constellations” are composed of “a flexible matrix of paired narratives that are broadened, burrowed, and re-storied over time” (Craig, 2007, p. 173). Research Participants Jingwen (pseudonym), a current fourth-year history major in the FTE program, is one participant in the study. Influenced by her mother as a Chinse language education teacher, Jingwen is relatively familiar with the teaching profession. Thus, Jingwen’s desire to work as a teacher began a long time ago. Apart from this, Jingwen explained that her main motivation for going into the FTE program was that she was passionate about teaching kids. Also, she can enjoy the stable working environment, reasonable salary, and the summer/winter holiday if she chooses the FTE program. Thus, Jingwen can balance her future family and career. More realistically, after entering the FTE program, Jingwen could not only relieve her parents’ financial burdens, but also had a better chance of being accepted by prestigious normal universities (teacher education universities) in China. Accordingly, Jingwen prioritized the FTE program with a concentration in history education. In her recounting of a critical event that lead her to become a teacher, Jingwen told of her half-year volunteer teaching experience at an urban middle school in Beijing, which had a lasting influence on her:

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Before my formal practicum, I volunteered to teach the Chinse culture in one middle school in Beijing for a half year. This was my first time to have a teaching job for such a long time. More importantly, the teaching experience was unique. The middle school where I taught was under-resourced. Consequently, the students there did not have satisfying background knowledge, and it was challenging to teach them. However, this experience was inspiring, for it gave me a sense of what a real teacher looks like.

Jingwen further elaborated on the complex and changing Chinese educational context: Based on what I have learned from the teacher education program, I think that the major problem facing most preservice teachers is how to instruct their students authentically by managing the classroom effectively. The teaching process is a radical shift from “abstract theory world” to “complex real world.”

In her initial story fragments, Jingwen described the usual pathway to the teaching profession: one not unlike the path of most preservice teachers in China, who choose the teaching profession because of their parents’ influence as educators and realistic career considerations. However, from her paralleled stories (Craig, 1997), Jingwen can attune to her image of “best-loved self” (Craig, 2013), in which teachers can shift them from curriculum-implementers to curriculum-makers, in the shifting landscape. She explains her best-loved self: As a future middle school history teacher, it is important to have good background knowledge about history. Based on this, I should form a rigorous knowledge structure in my mind. Besides this, I should have a clear oral speaking ability and suitable body language movements so that I can accurately express what I want to say to the students in the classroom. If I have some teaching tact like a sense of humor, it will be better. In this case, I can better deal with some unexpected things in the classroom.

Through her paired narratives, the formation of Jingwen’s professional identities is constituted of four groups of factors: (1) family backgrounds; (2) realistic career consideration; (3) a critical event along the life journey; and (4) teacher education program. These interconnected factors are shown in Fig. 1. Wenting (pseudonym), currently a fourth-year mathematics major in the FTE program, is another participant in the study. Like Jingwen’s educational family background, Wenting’s parents were both middle school teachers. Wenting was born and grew up in a large metropolitan city in a northwestern province in China. During her elementary school period, Wenting’s academic achievement was low. But later in the middle school period, Wenting made great progress. This life-changing experience inspired her. When talking with the students in her placement school,

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Jingwen’s mother Family backgrounds

worked as a Chinse language education teacher for a couple of years.

Passion for teaching; Career considerations

Stable working environment; Reasonable salary; The summer/winter holiday

Professional Identity

Taught the Chinese culture in one Critical event middle school in Beijing for half of one year.

Background knowledge about history; Clear Teacher Education Program

oral speaking ability; Suitable body language movements; Teaching tact

Fig. 1.

The Construction of Jingwen’s Professional Identity.

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Wenting shared her story with the students in hopes that she might motivate her lower-achieving students. In moving from middle school, Wenting states that she did not have specific plans for her future and career during her high school period. During the time of indecision, Wenting was influenced by her parents. Following her parents’ advice, she chose the FTE program, with a concentration on mathematics education, in a prestigious normal university. Later, however, Wenting found that the university attached little importance to teachers’ pedagogical skills, such as: classroom management, student engagement, and teacher calligraphy. So, Wenting stated that: I have communicated with some preservice teachers in several teacher education institutions. Many provincial normal universities emphasize preservice teachers’ practical skills. One normal university even changes teacher calligraphy into a required course for preservice teachers. Although the pre-service teachers in my university [were] more selective, when it comes to the practical ability, [they] do not necessarily perform better than [their] counterparts. Thus, the graduates from the less prestigious normal universities are more welcomed by the local K-12 schools.

Wenting further explained the differences between the provincial normal universities and the university in which she was enrolled: Part of the reason is that [my] university is aiming to become a global leading researchintensive university in the world. So lots of funds and much energy has been invested in research. Preservice teachers’ practical abilities are not worth enough consideration.

Wenting found a tension in the construction of her professional identity (i.e., the “academic-orientation” and “pedagogy-orientation” divergence). Within this structural governance of teacher education, teacher educators in China often debate the “academic-orientation” and “pedagogyorientation” in Chinese teacher education programs. The former denotes that preservice teachers should build rigorous and research-intensive subject-matter knowledge; the latter emphasizes the practical skills that preservice students should master in real educational contexts. As might be expected, Wenting faced this dichotomy when she taught in the placement school. To conclude, Wenting’s initial formation of her professional identity can be categorized into three groups: (1) her family background; (2) her critical event; and (3) the teacher education program. These three groups of contextual factors contribute to Wenting’s professional identity as a FTE student teacher (Fig. 2).

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Wenting’s parents were Family Backgrounds

both middle school teachers. The change from lower-achieving student

Critical Event

Professional Identity

to higher-performing student Pedagogical skills;

Teacher Education Program

academic-orientation and pedagogy-orientation dichotomy

Fig. 2.

The Construction of Wenting’s Professional Identity.

Placement Schools As for the student teaching context, Chinese student teachers are usually assigned to one local middle or high school where they teach for half a year (one academic semester). Normally, these schools are low-performing with students who are children of migrant workers. In addition, the students in the schools have no registered permanent residence in the cities where they live, such as Beijing or Shanghai. According to the current Chinese educational policy, these groups of students cannot enjoy the same benefits of the local permanent residents. For instance, the migrant workers’ children have to take the competitive high school entrance exams and the national college entrance exams in their original home province. However, the children of the permanent residents in Beijing and Shanghai are easily accepted by the prestigious universities in China. Additionally, compared with the K-12 schools in affluent cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, the schools

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populated by the migrant workers’ children are traditionally marginalized with limited resources and low academic performances. In this research, both of my participants were assigned to this kind of school. Jingwen described her placement school: I began my student teaching in a local middle school affiliated with one teacher education institution. Most of the students there are migrant workers’ children, so they do not have a solid knowledge base. However, the school has a very strict management policy. The administrators impose high expectations on the students’ behaviors. If the students misbehave, they will be disciplined or punished. The teachers there have varying teaching abilities, and there are only a few excellent teachers there. From my perspective, the school overall is a very traditional school in terms of teaching and administration.

During the student teaching period, the other participant, Wenting, had been assigned to a similar middle school as Jingwen’s. Wenting depicted her placement school as follows: The placement school where I taught is also an ordinary school whose students have medium academic performance levels. Most of the students there do not have adequate academic readiness levels, but the students there have comparatively strong motivations for learning. Most of the experienced teachers still adopt the conventional teaching approach to teaching mathematics. However, some beginning teachers would like to try creative mathematics teaching strategies in the classroom.

Based on the descriptions above, I find that the two research participants have similar instructional contexts. The two schools where Jingwen and Wenting taught are under-resourced schools that are mainly populated by migrant workers’ children. As for the school culture, the placement schools are traditional in teaching and administration. To be compatible with the characteristics of the placement schools, both Jingwen and Wenting emphasized that they had to adjust their academic expectations for the students there so that the two student teachers would be accepted by the cooperative teachers and students (Journal entry, 2016). Specifically, both Jingwen and Wenting stated that they should be realistic in teaching. For instance, they should not ask students to learn some knowledge beyond their abilities. Moreover, Jingwen and Wenting admitted that they had to learn the teaching strategies and styles from the cooperative teachers by “apprenticeship of observation” (Lortie, 1975). From Jingwen and Wenting’s story fragments, it can be inferred that both of the participants started to form their professional identities in a realistic fashion. Instead of adhering to the theory that they learned from the teacher education program, both Jingwen and Wenting emphasized learning from the practice (Lampert, 2009), especially from the cooperative teachers.

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“TRADITIONAL TEACHING METHOD STILL HOLDS WATER”: JINGWEN AND WENTING’S REFLECTIVE TURNS IN STUDENT TEACHING Initially, when she taught history in the placement school, Jingwen described her teaching as boring. As a new teacher, Jingwen attributes this to a lack of preparation. Jingwen said: When I designed the lesson plan, I did not prepare many visual and auditory materials including the history texts, images, music and video clips. So the students were not actively engaged in the classroom. After realizing this problem, I included some Chinese history images and video clips. In this way, I can hook the students’ interests. As expected, the students became more engaged in the classroom activities. However, when I tested the students after learning one unit, I surprisingly found that many students did not do well on the quiz. There are three or four students who could not work on the basic history concepts. Later, I reflected that, instead of just “hooking” the students’ attention, I should prioritize knowledge teaching in classroom, for I find that the traditional teaching method still holds water, especially when you teach the history knowledge components.

Conceivably, Jingwen had a reflective turn (Scho¨n, 1991) during her student teaching. She learned that a teacher should not just catch the students’ attentions at the cost of knowledge learning. Jingwen further stated that the point is to find a balance. She argues that the most important task in the classroom as teachers is still to effectively teach the history knowledge and skills. Meanwhile, Wenting had a similar experience when she taught mathematics in her placement school. She shares her story: The national mathematics curriculum policy initiated in 2001 promotes inquiry-based learning and technology integration in classroom. Recently, the flipped classroom has become a buzzword in education. But as a mathematics teacher, I think accuracy is most important. Specifically, when you teach functions or formula to the students, it is vital for them to correctly understand what you say in the classroom. I should not please students or facilitate the enjoyment of the classroom. After I taught a key mathematics concept, I normally invited the students to review and practice what they have learned.

From the two FTE student teachers’ stories, both Jingwen and Wenting emphasized the centrality of subject matter, which confirms Lo’s research on teacher education in China that the priority for teachers in the classroom is subject matter knowledge (2008). Due to the different subject matter knowledge backgrounds, Jingwen focused on the knowledge structure of history, while Wenting centered on the importance of developing the accurate understandings of mathematic concepts.

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ANALYSIS The Metaphoric Understanding of the Student Teaching Experiences Metaphor is the analogic representation of thoughts or meanings constructed and shared socially (Moser, 2000) and expression of the participants’ professional identity accompanying psychological and emotional information (Alsup, 2006). Thus, the two student teachers’ understandings of their practicum experiences unfurl through the lens of metaphor. Another reason for highlighting Jingwen and Wenting’s embodied metaphors is they shaped the two participants’ reflective turns (Scho¨n, 1991) in student teaching. However, on one hand, the reflective turns (Scho¨n, 1991) caused the potential tensions between teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge. On the other hand, the reflective turns (Scho¨n, 1991) contributed to the formation of the two participants’ professional identities.

Jingwen: “I Feel Like Walking on a Tightrope When I Teach in the Classroom” After she taught history in the placement school for four months, Jingwen expressed that she felt like walking on a tightrope when she taught in the classroom (Fig. 3). We had the following conversation: Jingwen: “I feel like walking on a tightrope when I teach in the classroom.” Gang: Er … That is interesting! “Walking on a tightrope?” What do you exactly mean?

Fig. 3.

“I Feel Like Walking on a Tightrope When I Teach in the Classroom”.

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Jingwen: Personally, teaching is a demanding job for me. I have to balance many requirements during the process. For example, when I teach middle school history, I have to improve the students’ scores on the history tests, which is critical in the highstakes testing environment. Meanwhile, I have to make my teaching more creative by using the constructivism learning theory, which is required by my university supervisor. Overall, I have to balance these two competing expectations. As a result, I sometimes feel stressed in student teaching. Gang: It makes sense. From your conversation with your university supervisor, I find that your university supervisor emphasizes constructivism-oriented teaching and person-centered learning. However, when you interacted with your cooperative teacher in the placement school, I find that the cooperative teacher focuses on drill and practice and hands-on learning experiences, the practical teaching approaches.

Wenting: “Finding the Right Road Sign at the Crossroads” As a mathematics student teacher, Wenting was required to teach four class sessions each week (Fig. 4). Apart from this, Wenting had to write the required reflective journal entries. Sometimes, Wenting’s cooperative teacher observed her mathematics instructions in the classroom and filled out the teaching evaluation form. In the same vein, Wenting had her personal metaphoric understanding of her student teaching: When I taught mathematics in the classroom, it gave me a sense of finding the right road signs at the crossroads. There are so many signs, which direct to different destinations. I have to find the road signs that suit me. For instance, the teacher program is one road sign; the placement school is another one. Also, the national mathematics

Fig. 4.

“Teaching is Finding the Right Road Sign at the Crossroads”.

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curriculum guideline directs me to another road. I have so many options and sometimes these road signs confuse me. So, my concern is to find the right road signs suiting my professional goals.

It can be concluded that both Jingwen and Wenting have their respective perceptions of professional identities. Jingwen’s main concern is to balance different weights during her student teaching (i.e., improve the students’ scores vs. cultivate students’ creativity, the competing expectations of the supervisor and the cooperative teacher). However, due to the different pedagogical orientations proposed by her university supervisor and cooperative teachers, Jingwen felt that she had been in a dilemma (i.e., the traditional and creative dichotomy in student teaching). Furthermore, this divergence created a tension between teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge on Jingwen’s professional knowledge landscape (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995). So when she taught history in the middle school, Jingwen had to find the “right way” in teaching by confronting the differences. These experiences also constituted Jingwen’s “stories to live by” (Clandinin & Connelly, 1998). Meanwhile, Wenting associated “finding the right road sign” with her formation of professional identities. When standing at the crossroads, there are so many options for Wenting. But Wenting had to find the right direction which suits her professional goals. Embedded in the multiple landscapes which are shaping and reshaping her professional identity, Wenting had to take many factors including the national mathematics curriculum guideline and students in the placement school into consideration. Arising out of this complexity, Wenting sometimes felt at a loss in student teaching. She could not effectively cope with so many requirements at the same time. Thus, she felt that teaching is finding the right road sign at the crossroads. This metaphor reveals that teaching is intimately connected with teachers’ professional identities, especially when teachers think about who they are and how they act in the classrooms. Additionally, Wenting’s stories reveal that when student teachers develop their practical knowledge, they are trying to seek their “best-loved self” (Craig, 2013), the ideal situation that cultivates teachers as curriculum-makers (Craig & Ross, 2008).

CONCLUSION Over the course of living, storying, reliving, and re-storying with the researcher, I find Jingwen and Wenting’s professional identities are dynamic and evolving on the shifting professional knowledge landscapes

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(Clandinin & Connelly, 1995). First, the FTE program, especially the reasons for entry into the teaching profession, illuminated both Jingwen and Wenting’s professional identity development. This finding confirms Olsen’s research (2008) that gender played a prominent (if mostly indirect) role in reasons for entry. Both Jingwen and Wenting stated their similar family influences, career considerations, and critical events on their paths to the teaching profession, which contributed to the formation of their professional identities. In the learning-to-teach context, both Jingwen and Wenting (re)construct their professional identities by confronting the dichotomies they encountered in the practicums. For Jingwen, she had to balance the different, even competing, requirements when teaching middle school history. For Wenting, she had to prioritize students’ understandings of the mathematics concepts over the pure enjoyment of the classroom. In this vein, both Jingwen and Wenting’s teaching stories diluted the influence of the teacher education program. This also implies that the teacher education program has very limited influence on the two student teachers’ practicum experiences. Accompanying their construction of professional identities, Jingwen and Wenting had begun to develop their personal practical knowledge (Clandinin, 1985, 1986; Clandinin & Connelly, 1995). For example, when Jingwen taught history, a challenge she encountered in her classroom was students who regularly disrupted the class order. Later, Jingwen found success in dealing with these attention-seeking behaviors. To motivate their learning, Jingwen interacted more frequently with these students by asking them more history questions to redirect their attention to history learning. In this way, the classroom environment had become better. Consequently, Jingwen had developed her own personal practical knowledge of classroom management. Further, Jingwen and Wenting’s “stories to live by,” the formation of her professional identity, are continually composed by the landscape. Accordingly, there is a dynamic triangular relationship between instructional context, professional identity and personal practical knowledge (Fig. 5). Situated in this dynamic triangulation, both Jingwen and Wenting’s professional identities are continually shaped and reshaped by the professional knowledge landscape and personal practical knowledge (Fig. 5). In the lens of fluid narrative inquiry (Craig, 2007), the student teachers’ professional identities are interwoven with their personal and professional experiences (Fig. 6). Embedded in the shifting professional knowledge landscape (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995, 1998), the student teachers’ multiple

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Instructional Context

Professional Identity

Fig. 5.

Personal practical knowledge

The Formation of the Professional Identity.

Schooling Experience Teacher Education Program

The Influence of Family

Professional Identity Critical Events

National Curriculum Reform

Fig. 6.

Free Teacher Education Program

Placement School

The Construction of FTE Students’ Professional Identities.

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ways of knowing and narrative authorities (Olson, 1995; Olson & Craig, 2001) are verified. Additionally, the two student teachers’ professional identities are related to their practical knowledge constructed during their practicum experiences. Over the course of developing practical knowledge, the two student teachers had to dismantle the potential tensions within teaching, such as the idealistic teacher image, the multiple classroom realities, the varying requirements expected by the faculty advisors and the cooperative teachers. Because of the continuous tensions, the professional identities are dynamic and shifting along the landscape. To conclude, this chapter narratively explored the formation of two student teachers’ professional identity on the professional knowledge landscape. Simultaneously, this chapter also highlights the two student teachers’ practical knowledge and subject matter, which were shaped by their educational contexts. Special attention was paid to the tension of the teacher knowledge and the subject matter knowledge, which contributed to the student teachers’ sub-identities that more or less harmonize with each other.

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INDIGENOUS EDUCATION, RELATIONAL PEDAGOGY, AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVE INQUIRY: A REFLECTIVE JOURNEY OF TEACHING TEACHERS Trudy Cardinal and Sulya Fenichel ABSTRACT In this chapter, we explore our experiences of co-teaching an undergraduate elementary teacher education class titled, “Teaching Language Arts in FNMI (First Nations, Me´tis and Inuit) Contexts.” In our curriculummaking for the course, we drew on Narrative Inquiry as pedagogy, as well as on Indigenous storybooks, novels, and scholarship. We chose to work in these ways so that we might attempt to complicate and enrich both our experiences as teacher educators, and the possibilities of what it means to engage in Language Arts alongside Indigenous children, youth, and families in Kindergarten through Grade 12 classrooms. Thus, central to this chapter will be reflection on our efforts to co-create curriculum

Crossroads of the Classroom: Narrative Intersections of Teacher Knowledge and Subject Matter Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 28, 243
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alongside of students
considered in their multiplicity also as pre-service teachers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, etc.
in ways that honored all of our knowing and experience. The relational practices inherent to Narrative Inquiry and Indigenous approaches to education, such as the creation and sharing of personal annals/timelines and narratives, along with small and large group conversations and talking circles are pedagogies we hoped would invite safe, reflective, and communal spaces for conversation. While certainly not a tension-free process, all of the pedagogical choices we made as teacher educators provide us the opportunity to attend to the relational and ontological commitments of Narrative Inquiry, to the students in their processes of becoming, to Indigenous worldviews, and to the responsibilities of the Alberta Language Arts curriculum. Keywords: Narrative Inquiry; Indigenous education; Indigenous contexts; relational pedagogy; teacher identity; teacher education

INTRODUCTION We
Trudy and Sulya
came together to teach EDEL 412, “Teaching Language Arts in First Nations, Me´tis and Inuit (FNMI) Contexts” at the University of Alberta for the first time in the winter of 2015. We approached the opportunity from our shared, yet individual, perspectives as daughters, sisters, mothers, and teacher educators, and our distinct perspectives as a Kokom (grandmother), a Cree-Me´tis professor and scholar, and as a Canadian-born doctoral student of Jewish and American heritage. The desire we both had was to co-create, with each other and with students (whom we will also refer to as our “classmates”), a story of teacher education that allowed all of us to begin with our lived and familial curriculum experiences (Chung, 2009; Lessard, 2015; Swanson, 2014); with our defining stories, experiences, and relationships. We did not wish to position ourselves as experts who deliver a previously decided upon and finalized curriculum. As such, our ways of being in a classroom community push against some of the dominant institutional narratives of post-secondary education. Our classmates reflected to us that it was rare in their undergraduate university experience for a class to begin with all the lives and living of a classroom and then bridge this to subject matter in a co-creative process of curriculum-making. We found, though,

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that our relational, reflective, and storied starting point enabled us to truly attend to the more specific institutional, and broader social, responsibilities of the course. Our process helped us to honor EDEL 412’s intentions and objectives as regards literacy in Indigenous contexts. For Trudy, specifically, this way of living/being in a classroom allows her to begin from the Indigenous worldview with which she has been raised. She does not leave the complexities, tensions, humility, humor, and wonders of who she is at the door and come in to teach abstractly the concepts of a course. She begins with her stories. Among many other pieces of her identity, she begins with who she is as a Cree/Me´tis Kokom and scholar and as our classmates come to know these stories, they are compelled to consider not only the potential subject matter knowledge Trudy carries with her into a classroom, but also how she has come to know what she is sharing. This attention to processes of learning
and that each life offers so many different ways to learn in terms of languages, contexts, family stories, and traditions, etc.
becomes its own way to contextualize Indigenous approaches to education where the how of education is often positioned differently than it is in mainstream Kindergarten through Grade 12 (K-12) schooling. For her part, Sulya shares with classmates how she was educated at home by her parents and how this has shaped her relationship to curriculum and schooling. She also shares how most of her particular teaching experiences have allowed her to be in intergenerational spaces with as many parents/grandparents/caregivers in a room as there were children. The presentation of these aspects of Sulya’s journey and experience invite still more recognition that education happens in many different ways; that it can honor many different relationships and dynamics. It is through this personal sharing, this intentional nurturance of an environment where a multiplicity of stories and openness are the foundation of all subsequent course learning, that we begin the co-composition of the course curriculum. We carve out and nurture space for students to come into awareness of how their history, living, and relationships informs them as teachers, and we work to weave these ways-of-being with the subject matter of the course in as organic a way as we can. Willie Ermine (1995) helps us to see how these personal, reflective, and storied ways of living in classrooms are deeply woven throughout Indigenous epistemologies: Aboriginal epistemology is grounded in the self, the spirit, the unknown. Understanding of the universe must be grounded in the spirit. Knowledge must be sought through the stream of the inner space in unison with all instruments of knowing and conditions that make individuals receptive to knowing. Ultimately it was in the self

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that Aboriginal people discovered great resources for coming to grips with life’s mysteries. It was in the self that the richest source of information could be found by delving into the metaphysical and the nature and origin of knowledge. Aboriginal epistemology speaks of pondering great mysteries that lie not further than the self. (p. 108)

We also feel that the challenging, hard work of coming to know ourselves
and the great mysteries that reside within, and through, us
is part of how “young people prepare to participate fully in the spiritual, cultural, physical, and emotional life of […] society” (Schissel & Wotherspoon, 2003, p. 63) and that, despite the pressures to give marks, “In an educational context like this, the concepts of ‘failure’ and ‘pass’ are irrelevant” (p. 63). As an experience, EDEL 412 calls us to attend to just such, and many congruent perspectives on, Indigenous approaches to living, learning, and education (Goulet & Goulet, 2014; Hanohano, 1999; Lambe, 2003; McNally, 2004). Additionally, we
Trudy and Sulya
met through our mutual connection to the field and practice of Narrative Inquiry (Clandinin, 2013; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Thus, with both Narrative and Indigenous approaches to living and learning firmly in our minds and hearts, we endeavored to co-create curriculum in ways that would honor what we see as a pedagogy built upon deep relationality. Indigenous approaches to education invite relationality as a series of connections that transcend the human sphere to include animals, plants, the air, the mountains, the directions, etc. All of Creation is viewed as interwoven and interdependent (Ermine, 1995, 2007; Wilson, 2001). For its part, Narrative Inquiry invites relationality because it asks of us to begin with who we are and how we are situated. It calls us to attend to the threedimensional Narrative Inquiry space composed of an awareness of how experience is situated in “place,” in time (“temporality”), and in connection with others (“sociality”) (Connelly & Clandinin, 2006, p. 479). Narrative Inquiry situates all conversation, research, and teaching in the expression and sharing of experience (Dewey, 1938). With these Indigenous and Narrative foundations, relational pedagogy becomes, for us, a selfreflective, embodied form of pedagogy (Dixon & Senior, 2011). It privileges the co-construction of knowledge and meaning in collaborative environments of mutual respect, attentiveness, reciprocity, and humility. It is also awake to intergenerational connections as well as connections with
and responsibilities to
the broader living world. It was our hope, and responsibility, to nurture a relational pedagogical practice in EDEL 412 that would be a lived and shared expression of

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practices that we view as being valuable to the teaching of literacy in K-12 schooling, especially alongside Indigenous children, youth, and families. Put in a more colloquial way: we hoped that students would see, and feel, us walking our talk. We wished for classmates to first value the invitation to a course founded in relational pedagogy informed by narrative and Indigenous worldviews and, second, to carry the value of that relationality
along with practices that they might adopt and adapt
forward with them into their future classroom communities as teachers. We wished to enable them, in as many ways as we could, to see the rich, complex wholeness of lives that exists in all classrooms. This complexity, in part, is shaped by understanding that all of the stories are always in the midst (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Each story, whether personal, social, institutional, cultural, familial, or linguistic, is alive, unfinished, and always in the making; stories continue to be composed with and without our presence. Another complexity that emerges when thinking narratively about pedagogy is that doing so entails the asking of hard questions about what is educative (Dewey, 1938) in the composing of lives. (Huber, Caine, Huber, & Steeves, 2013, p. 227)

In the sections that follow, and our ongoing wonders and thinking about “what is educative in the composing of lives” (Huber et al., 2013, p. 227), we will first continue our conversation of relational pedagogy as it is expressed through Narrative Inquiry and Indigenous approaches to education (see section “Guiding Framework for Our Thinking, Living, Teaching, and this Chapter”). We will then share some information about EDEL 412, its sections, delivery methods, the broader political climate that touches our work, and given we orient ourselves relationally, we will also share some personal factors which further inform our conceptualization of the course (see section “Instructional Context: Multiple Considerations”). Following this, we will speak more specifically to the ways in which narrative pedagogies came to inform our work in EDEL 412 and how the narrative work in which we engage is relationally woven with subject matter and with its own application and methods (see section “Narrative Applications Related to Subject Matter: Complicating the Conversation”). Finally, we will offer a layered unpacking and juxtaposition of these pieces (see section “Analysis: More Threads to Weave”) and some concluding thoughts that point toward our current and future research directions at the intersection of relational pedagogies, Indigenous education, teacher education, and K-12 literacy instruction (see section “Looking Back and Looking Forward”).

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GUIDING FRAMEWORK FOR OUR THINKING, LIVING, TEACHING, AND THIS CHAPTER From the very beginning of our co-composing of curriculum for the EDEL 412 course, we
Trudy and Sulya
worked to imagine a more ethical way of engaging in pre-service teacher education, a way that honors who we are, who each classmate/student is, and the relational ways we try to live in the world. We felt that a pedagogy founded in relationality, as described in the introduction above, would allow us to meet our classmates/students with loving perception (Lugones, 1987). It was also our intent that together, as we engaged in literacy activities and inquired into texts chosen to help us deepen our understanding of Indigenous context that we, teacher educators and preservice teachers alike, might become part of the movement away from the trend in research on Aboriginal youth, families and communities that is as Tuck (2009) calls it “damage-centered” while still allowing for the recognition of the need to continue to “document the effects of oppression on … communities” and consider the “long-term repercussions of continuing to think of [Aboriginal youth and families] as broken” (p. 409). By focusing on the story of the statistics (Statistics Canada, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2011) and research that prioritizes the barriers and hardship experiences, we miss the potential to see the lives of Aboriginal youth and families as “not yet” (Greene, 1993, p. 26) and filled with possibility; we miss the opportunity to see lives, living, and learning as processes of becoming. We cease to see each human journey and person in his/her/its wholeness. With this in mind, we offer that the guiding framework for this chapter is
as the title of this section suggests
also that with which we attempt to frame our thinking, our living, and our teaching. In other words, it is shaped by our relational sense of epistemology, ontology, and pedagogy. This sense is itself nurtured, as described in the introduction, by our work with both Narrative Inquiry and Indigenous approaches to living, learning, and education. Particularly, through attention to our ongoing process of Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry (Saleh, Menon, & Clandinin, 2014) in our research, and our invitation of Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry practices as a form of pedagogy in EDEL 412 (Huber et al., 2013; Huber, Li, Murphy, Nelson, & Young, 2014), we follow the lead of Indigenous scholars such as Bruno (2010), Lessard (2010, 2014), Swanson (2013), and Young (2003) who “concluded [that] narrative inquiry is how Aboriginal people learn and gain knowledge” (p. 25) and drew on the work of Battiste and Henderson (2000) who stated that, “Stories are enfolding lessons. Not only do they transmit validated experiences; they also renew, awaken, and

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honor spiritual forces. Hence, almost every ancient story does not explain; instead it focuses on process of knowing” (p. 77). This emphasis on knowing as process (as something that becomes) rather than on knowing as a result of explanation honored our wish to work from relational places. We have often seen how “explanation” as a way of teaching can undermine our ability and motivation to generate meaning and understanding for ourselves and with each other (Rancie´re, 1991, p. 8). Knowing considered as a process, a becoming, inspired us to invite relationality as a pedagogical commitment to communal and collaborative meaning and sense making. It became a way to honor the Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies that live at the heart of EDEL 412. As a research methodology, and a relational pedagogy, Narrative Inquiry takes “the sphere of immediate human experiences as the first and foremost fundamental reality we have” (Clandinin & Rosiek, 2007, p. 44). With respect to this, we framed the course, and subsequently this chapter, with a “conception of knowledge … of human experience that remains within the stream of human lives” (p. 44). We nurtured, and seek here to articulate and share, an experience of a teacher education course which invited all of us involved
professor, teaching assistant, and classmates/students
to come to know ourselves and then each other more deeply; to locate and then unpack assumptions; and to live our subject matter together as an embodied experience and not just as an accumulation of subject matter knowledge. We
Trudy and Sulya
knew how important it was to attend to the lives of our classmates/students and, in particular, to how they imagined who they are, and are becoming, as teachers of literacy in Indigenous contexts. Clandinin (2006) states, that “people shape their daily lives by stories of who they and others are and as they interpret their past in terms of these stories” (p. 375). This view of experience also resonates with Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies as Indigenous scholar Shawn Wilson (2001) describes: “An Indigenous paradigm comes from the fundamental belief that knowledge is relational. Knowledge is shared with all of creation” (p. 176). Inquiring, teaching, and writing in attendance to these epistemological and ontological commitments “brings forth responsibilities where issues of attentiveness, presence and response matter” (Caine, 2007, p. 141). It calls us to be grounded in an ethic of care (Noddings, 1984), to honor reciprocity and respect (Bruno, 2010), and to be “wakeful” to the many “reverberations” that occur when our stories meet in classroom communities (Huber et al., 2013, p. 231). Novelist Diane Setterfield (2006), in her book The Thirteenth Tale, also invites us to consider experience as a sense of deep, interwoven

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relationality (p. 59), where “it is impossible to understand one part without having a sense of the whole” (p. 59). Wilson (2001), as mentioned above, and Ermine (2007) help us tie this interconnection to Creation, and the vast web of animals, plants, and beings of the earth. When considered alongside our work, these ideas help us to conceive of a weaving of us with each other as teacher educators; with classmates/students; through classmates/students as they engage with each other; with children and youth; with family and community members; and, with the readers of this chapter because we are all, unavoidably and exquisitely, part of this experience. As such, just as we do in our teaching practice, we will attempt not to position ourselves as experts in the writing of this chapter. We will try not to “explain” (Battiste & Henderson, 2000, p. 77) what we are coming-to-know but instead offer it to you for your consideration. We will attempt to leave enough room in our writing for you, our readers, to not be positioned passively. Even over distances of place and time, we wish to co-compose new understandings together with you and your experiences: “[We] use whatever tools [we] have to understand and communicate. [Our] hope is that the reader will think along with [us] and will take what is useful and leave the rest” (Hampton, 1995, p. 5).

INSTRUCTIONAL CONTEXT: MULTIPLE CONSIDERATIONS In order to attend to the cutbacks occurring in post-secondary funding during the 2014/2015 school year, the Department of Elementary Education at the University of Alberta had decided to offer the 400-level courses in larger sizes moving from a minimum of 12
15 with a maximum of 35 students to course sections that might one day be as large as 75 registered students in one section. Trudy had already taught a small section (11 students) of EDEL 412 in the Fall of 2013 and was excited, although also worried, about the opportunity she had volunteered for, to teach a larger section (up to 60) in the Winter of 2015. In the course planning, we
Trudy and Sulya
worked hard to imagine educative curricular possibilities that would reflect the knowing and experience we each brought to the course and that could be meaningfully offered to a class of up to 60 classmates/students. The goal was to continue to honor the relational pedagogy to which we are both drawn as educators, and which we have begun to share above in both the Introduction of this chapter and the Guiding Framework for Our Thinking, Living, Teaching,

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and this Chapter. Consideration was also given to the original format of the course, which had been created by Dr. Heather Blair and had been successfully implemented by a number of different instructors over the years and in multiple contexts. The course had been offered as part of the Aboriginal Teacher Education Program (ATEP), on main campus as a combined 400-level and 500-level course, and/or as part of the collaborative off-campus programs (sometimes taught online, sometimes face-to-face, and occasionally through a blended delivery of the two). Given that this was a course designed for students who had taken the Introduction to Language Arts in Elementary Classrooms course, the students came in with an understanding of Language Arts curriculum and instruction in a province of Alberta context. In our collaborative work to create the course plan, and our co-created living of that curriculum alongside classmates/students, we were always
collectively and individually
negotiating and unpacking our own stories of schooling, of curriculum, of literacy, and of assessment. In our efforts, as previously stated, to work from an epistemological, ontological, and pedagogical stance of relationality informed by Narrative Inquiry and by Indigenous approaches to living and learning, we understand that our personal stories and experiences as women, mothers, sisters, daughters, scholars, etc. all contributes to the course. Who we are and where we come from are also part of the instructional context of EDEL 412. Sulya, for example, had found the transition to formal schooling from home education very difficult when she’d started school at age nine. It seemed to her as though education went from being a creative, collaborative, reciprocal engagement with her parents and everything she did all day to being something narrowly defined from an above, squeezed between bells, and full of imposed silence; it went from being seamlessly bound to unconditional, familial love, to being standardized, timed, and summatively assessed. Given that Trudy’s relationship to her own early education and schooling had been one where she experienced the routines and rituals of schooling in ways that created, at times, a sense of safety and comfort, our very different stories allowed for a relational, and wide spectrum of views of what education, schooling, and teaching might mean/be to flourish in our EDEL 412 classroom community. The stories we
Trudy and Sulya
shared were sometimes chosen intentionally but also arose in-the-moment as part of the co-creative flow of conversation in class, and in our responses to classmates’ journals. The differences between our stories
Trudy’s and Sulya’s
the ways both intention and accident brought them together, and their subsequent

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juxtaposition offered classmates multiple ways to consider their own relationships to their early educational experiences both at home and in school. Classmates were able to discuss with each other, and with us, the ways in which these experiences have impacted their definitions of what being a “good teacher” or a “good student” might mean. They found other vantage points from which to consider the relationality of Indigenous approaches to education. Of utmost importance to both Trudy and Sulya, their awakening to their own stories also allowed them to imagine more widely all the stories of living and learning that students
Indigenous and nonIndigenous
carry with them into any K-12 “instructional context” whether the pressures of mandated curricula make room for them or not. Sulya had also managed to make it into her 30s in a state of fairly marked ignorance about the history and presence of Indigenous peoples in Canada. The close, open, and nonjudgmental nature of her connection to Trudy, however, allowed this truth of her initial ignorance (she is in her early 40s at the time of this writing) to a story Sulya could share safely within the classroom community. As a result of Sulya’s willingness to admit ignorance and Trudy’s visible compassion for that initial ignorance, other members of our classroom community, who might also have carried their own ignorance about Indigenous issues and contexts, were not positioned defensively or as being in deficit (Fenichel, 2014, pp. 50
55). Still other members of our community who might have judged others for their ignorance were able to watch admissions of ignorance be met with kindness. The sharing of our stories in respectful ways, with humility, made it safe to be ignorant
to not know (p. 50)
and therefore also more safe to wonder, share, and create new knowing together (p. 11). Shaped by personal experience, stories, and relational ways-of-being, these more complicated aspects of our instructional context allowed classmates to witness us
Trudy and Sulya
in conversation with each other, sharing very different perspectives respectfully and openly. It was, for Sulya, a set of educational experiences closer in kind to the collaborative and reciprocal experiences of being educated at home. For both Trudy and Sulya, these aspects of their EDEL 412 journey also emphasized how part of relational pedagogy
as we continue to live and negotiate it
is its presence, its improvisational nature, and its imperativeness not to plan every moment. For Trudy, a Cree/Me´tis scholar born and raised in and between the communities of Slave Lake, and Wabasca Alberta, Canada, with familial connections to a number of Indigenous communities across Northern Alberta, another important part of the storied nature of instructional context is defined by how EDEL 412’s content always carries a particularly

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heavy weight for her. Trudy’s research (Cardinal, 2010, 2014) is informed by Thomas King’s (2003) words: “the truth about stories is that that’s all we are” (p. 153). The stories told in each text offered in EDEL 412
be it an article, a video, a novel, a children’s book, or an excerpt from the media
are stories intended to be representative of Indigenous lives, and in each telling of the stories Trudy hears stories of herself and of her loved ones. Given her deeply embodied understanding of the ways the stories told to, by, and about Indigenous peoples have shaped her own identity
her stories to live by (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999, p. 4)
she is very aware of the ways these texts and narratives are presented and taken up in the course. In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also live in them. One way or another we are living the stories planted in us early or
knowingly or unknowingly
in ourselves. We live stories that either give our lives meaning or negate it with meaninglessness. If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives. (Okri, 1997, as cited in King, 2003, p. 153)

In her efforts not to abdicate her responsibilities as an Indigenous scholar, Trudy works diligently to leave room for new stories, becoming stories of Indigenous peoples. As she honors this responsibility, her granddaughter has invited her to “teach like a Kokom (Grandmother)” (as she has described it to Sulya), to always teach from a place of love. Mindful of the power of stories and teaching with love, as the authors co-compose the EDEL 412 curriculum, choosing particular texts and stories to share, they consider how they too are complicit in the “planting of stories” (Okri, 1997) and how in the planting of the stories they have chosen, they are shaping the stories students/classmates will then take out into the world. Woven deeply into the intent of EDEL 412 is the necessity to imagine how the experiences of the course will influence and shape future K-12 classrooms, especially classrooms Trudy’s granddaughter and other young loved ones might one day attend. In other words, the teaching of all sections and sizes of EDEL 412 is, for Trudy, in no way abstract. She feels a powerful, relational responsibility to honor the complexities and multiplicities of Indigenous lives. She feels a call to invite pre-service teachers into conversations that can deepen their understanding of Indigenous contexts and peoples, while simultaneously inviting each classmate/student to also come into awareness of their own complex living. For Trudy, these calls go much deeper than a more generalized sense of responsibility that a professor might have to undergraduate students. They are heavy, beautiful, and deeply personal responsibilities she carries and

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that contribute meaningfully to the instructional context of EDEL 412. She is informed by Lopez (1990) whose storybook character, Badger, believes that “The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them” (p. 60), that when stories come to us, we must “care for them” (p. 60), and that we must “learn to give them away where they are needed” because “sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive (p. 60).” Like Lopez, Trudy believes that this is “why we put stories into each other’s memory” and that this keeping and sharing of stories is “how people care for themselves” (p. 60). She hopes that classmates/students will “be good storytellers” and “never forget these obligations” (p. 60). She hopes that it is in the honoring of these obligations that we may possibly “change our lives” (Okri, 1997; as cited in King, 2003, p. 153). Finally, the instructional context for our
Trudy and Sulya’s
work is also shaped by the more recent, and urgent, calls of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC) final report. The report states that Canadian systems of teacher education have a responsibility to “provide the necessary funding to post-secondary institutions to educate teachers on how to integrate Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into classrooms.” (The Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015, p. 289). We seek to contribute all we can to the TRC recommendations through our work alongside our classmates/students in EDEL 412, and through our subsequent, and ongoing, research and writing. As we continue to explore relational pedagogies, such as Narrative Inquiry and Indigenous approaches to living and learning, we hope to deepen understanding of the broader context of Indigenous peoples in Canada in the field of teacher education. Holding close the TRC recommendation, we aim to work in ways which will encourage this understanding to make its way, meaningfully, from undergraduate teacher education classrooms into K-12 classrooms.

NARRATIVE APPLICATIONS RELATED TO SUBJECT MATTER: COMPLICATING THE CONVERSATION The longest journey anyone has to make is the one from their head to their heart.
Cree Elder Bob Cardinal

In relational work, the identification of “subject matter” becomes challenging, something to which we have already alluded in our conceptualization of the factors which define instructional context and to which we

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will refer again in the analysis section that follows. So intertwined is the living of EDEL 412 with the autobiographical, narrative thinking about EDEL 412 that many of the articles, books, and videos cited in this chapter are those that we share with classmates/students in the course. As such, to understand how narrative work impacts the various subject matters of our EDEL 412 experience (K-12 language and literacy instruction; Indigenous literatures, contexts, epistemologies, and ontologies; relational pedagogies, etc.) and subsequent autobiographical research, we must first share the ways in which Trudy brought narrative practices to her work as a teacher educator. For her master’s work, Trudy engaged in an Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry into her experiences as an Aboriginal graduate student negotiating the complexities of learning about, and engaging in, Indigenous research in the field of Education (Cardinal, 2010). Through this Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry, she identified tensions and bumping points in coming to understand who she was and was becoming as an Indigenous researcher. At the time, she felt disconnected from her Cree/Me´tis family, communities, and lands. Through her autobiographical narrative work, she came to a deeper understanding of the impact of these moments on her identity as researcher in the making, on her sense of belonging in the varied communities and worlds (Lugones, 1987) of her living, and on her role in the broader spiritual world. As she considered the ways Narrative Inquiry helped her to negotiate her own tensions, and the ways her “stories to live by” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999, p. 4) shifted in the process of the autobiographical inquiry, she understood that the same possibilities for learning and growth existed if she were to offer opportunities for the EDEL 412 students to engage in their own Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry as a form of pedagogy (Huber et al., 2013; Huber, Li, Murphy, Nelson, & Young, 2014). Just as she was shaped by the stories she heard about Indigenous youth and families throughout her life
grand narratives that often storied Indigenous Peoples as less-than
she also wondered about the stories the pre-service teachers, who would join both Sulya and herself in the larger class size section of EDEL 412, were carrying with them about Indigenous Peoples. As the pre-service teachers inquired into their own stories by engaging in the autobiographical Narrative Inquiry experiences offered in EDEL 412, Trudy was able to come alongside and be present to what surfaced as students/classmates explored who they were, and were becoming, in relation to Indigenous youth and families. Given the prevalence of “single stories” (Adichie, 2009) of Indigenous Peoples,

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particularly the stereotypical deficit stories, that often surfaced in class journals and in-class conversations, both Trudy and Sulya worked to be alongside classmates/students in relational ways in order to begin to unpack how it is that we come to know the stories we carry. Again, by focusing on how we come to know rather than just on what we know, there surfaced among classmates/students an increased ability to view lives more in their wholeness. Through the reflective processes encouraged in the course, they began to see the complexities and multiplicities of lives lived by Indigenous youth and families. Together, we encountered them in life and news media, in the stories of our Indigenous classmates, and as represented within the texts we would take up and share in class. This conversational, introspective work that combined the living, telling, re-telling, and re-living of personal stories (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988) with increasing awareness of Indigenous ways of living and learning, as well as the reading of articles, novels, storybooks, etc. all contributed to the complexity of EDEL 412’s “subject matter.” Officially, the course was: … designed to help prepare teachers to develop learners’ oral and written language skills in elementary classrooms, particularly for First Nations, Me´tis and Inuit (FNMI) students. It offers an overview, within the Canadian context, of the literacy and language backgrounds, strengths and needs of FNMI children in elementary classrooms. Topics include Indigenous language maintenance, loss, and revitalization; teaching Standard English as a second language or dialect; and materials evaluation and development. (Cardinal, 2015)

And, given Trudy’s 13 years of teaching in Elementary classrooms, where Language Arts and literacy skills are often viewed very narrowly as skills of reading and writing, she came to EDEL 412 with a desire not only to relationally, thoughtfully, shift our “single stories” (Adichie, 2009) of Indigenous peoples, but to also shift the “single stories” (Adichie, 2009) we carry of Language Arts. She wished to more deeply understand the possibilities of Language Arts as subject matter. In consideration of both her master’s and doctoral work, she saw the possibility of exploring Language Arts relative to an Aboriginal epistemology “grounded in the self, the spirit, the unknown” (Ermine, 1995, p. 108) and how this expansion of Language Arts as subject matter could be lived through Narrative Inquiry. Narrative Inquiry invites those engaged with it to use all the requirements for Language Arts framed in the Alberta curriculum as the six Language Arts: “listen and speak, read and write, view and represent” (Alberta Learning, 2000, p. 2). It nurtures noncompetitive environments of reflection and respect and encourages

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self-knowledge as a vehicle to achieving course goals rather than an accumulation of more abstractly defined subject matter knowledge. The essential narrative applications, and Narrative Inquiry methods, used in our co-teaching, co-research, and co-writing are specifically characterized by practices such as journaling, the creation of annals/timelines, the writing of autobiographical narratives and commitment to small works-inprogress groups as safe spaces for sharing and response. Grounded in these processes/practices, cartooning (Barry, 2014); old video game consoles as paper for original poetry; webs of words, names, string and push pins; song composition and performance; three-dimensional city, town, and country-scapes; and more, all became Language Arts in EDEL 412. The experience of using Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry (Saleh et al., 2014) to research our work alongside classmates/students who themselves engaged in Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry in EDEL 412, makes the discussion of applications, or methods, equally interwoven and complex. Throughout both the teaching of EDEL 412, the subsequent Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry into that teaching, during the course itself, and throughout the writing of this chapter, we (professor, teaching assistant, and classmates) met regularly (in various configurations) to debrief, discuss, plan, compare, consider, and re-consider our classroom intentions/experiences. We talked about our reflective practices, and regularly shared our wonders about how to honorably engage in the relational practices of education that are informed by Indigenous and Narrative epistemologies, ontologies and pedagogies. These ways of being and knowing underscore all that we
Trudy and Sulya
do and, as previously stated, we hoped they might also find roots and grow into the future classrooms of our classmates. Our epistemological and ontological commitments manifested in the varied, interwoven, and emergent narrative applications/methods, subject matters, and the many beautiful artefacts and projects created in the course. They also lived in our ongoing autobiographical research and in the writing of this chapter. Ultimately, they allowed us to come together with as many as 60 other humans (inclusive of guests and guest speakers) in relational ways that honored the inevitability of very diverse worldviews. And, in these ways, we were able to locate, express, and rethink many of our “single stories” (Adichie, 2009) of literacy as subject matter, of teaching, of Indigenous peoples, and of each other. We were able to bring our attention to lives and living, and to purposefully, passionately nurture a space where we could teach and learn from our own hearts.

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ANALYSIS: MORE THREADS TO WEAVE The various named threads (Downey & Clandinin, 2010, p. 392) that follow are all interwoven in/with our living, teaching, research, and writing. We offer them juxtaposed, and not numbered
without named prioritization
as a way to encourage the readers of this chapter to engage in the type of thinking and personal meaning-making that we encourage in our classroom communities. As was discussed in the Guiding Framework for Our Thinking, Living, Teaching and this Chapter, we hope to offer our ideas and experiences more than to “explain” (Battiste & Henderson, 2000, p. 77) them, so that you may feel our heartfelt invitation to connect with the work we try to do on your own terms.

Thread: Our Place in Creation What does it mean to be a human being? How does being a human being relate to education? I learned from my Oglala/Lakota friend and mentor that Mitakuye Oyasin is one expression of what it means to be a human being. Mitakuye is all of creation. Oyasin is a burning desire to know. My understanding of the phrase Mitakuye Oyasin is the burning desire of a person to come to know the creation or their place in creation. (Lambe, 2003, p. 309)

In March of 2016, both Trudy and Sulya were able to share in a University of Alberta Indigenous Education Council (IEC) Gathering Circle (Community gathering circle discussion, 2016) held as part of a series of experiences intended to help the University of Alberta attend to the TRC’s Calls to Action. We were able to sit together and listen to many Cree Elders, politicians, and speakers share their stories and visions for how Indigenous approaches to education might be honored in postsecondary educational contexts. Many of them, in their own ways, spoke to the ideas offered by Lambe (2003) in the citation above. They spoke of coming to know our place in Creation as an essential part of Indigenous education. More specifically, they spoke of how we need to live in balance within ourselves, come to know our place in Creation, and then give of ourselves to Creation by offering what we can into the next seven generations in “good ways.” As we
Trudy and Sulya
were still deep in the midst of our second experience of co-teaching more than 50 students in EDEL 412 at the time of this gathering circle, we found ourselves very encouraged by these words. We were, and had been in previous incarnations of the course, invested in

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the invitation of just this type of self-knowledge. Our efforts were always geared toward the encouragement of self-reflection, a sense of care and of compassion (for self and others), and of service to community. What we heard in circle that day felt tied
through the sharing of stories and relationship/community-building within our classroom community
to the Indigenous teachings and Narrative Inquiry we continue to come alongside on our own educational journeys.

Thread: The Indian You Have in Mind For Trudy, so much begins with a phrase borrowed from the work of Thomas King (Milliken & King, 2007) when he writes, and speaks, of “the Indian you had in mind.” Trudy encourages pre-service teachers to ask of themselves “who is the teacher I have in mind?” While students will often default to consideration of teachers they themselves have admired and hold as role-models, this proves fertile ground to invite them to consider the type of teacher they imagine they will be themselves. Eventually, through the work we do in class this question blooms outward into other questions about the student we have in mind; the assignment we have in mind; the literacy, or young reader, we have in mind. Perhaps most importantly, Trudy is never only asking these questions of others, she is also
always
asking them of herself. In her care and company, Sulya has come to ask herself her own versions of this question as well. She wonders who is the teaching assistant she has in mind? What is the type of schooling she has in mind? What is the meaningful graduate work she has in mind? Framing a question in this way, tied to Thomas King (Milliken & King, 2007), gently encourages self-questioning about frequently taken-forgranted notions of teaching and learning. Through the recognition that we even have a “teacher in mind” (Milliken & King, 2007) we can begin to unpack our assumptions about what it means to teach, what it means to learn, and what it means to consider literacy across cultural differences. We can begin to ask ourselves those “burning” (Lambe, 2003, p. 309) questions about our place in Creation. This reflective process is engaged in by methods
some of which were mentioned more briefly in the previous section of this chapter
inclusive of weekly journaling; the composition of personal, autobiographical narratives; reading storybooks, novels, and academic articles; through regular small, and large, group discussion filled with the sharing of personal stories; and, through both small and large talking circles. These ways of being, and

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becoming, encourage our journey to find our place in the vast, interdependent, community of Creation (Ermine, 2007) to be one nurtured relationally and narratively. As previously discussed, the process becomes woven with the subject matters of Language and Literacy, and with multiple, complex understandings of Indigenous contexts. Classmates regularly remark on how the curriculum, methods, content, and practice that are co-created for and within EDEL 412 offer experiences and strategies that are also applicable in K-12 classrooms. As they seek to discover and become
in their own ways and by their own means
the teacher they have in mind (Milliken & King, 2007), knowing that what we offer them has practical value is a vital part of our broader responsibilities to honor both Indigenous and Language Arts education communities.

Thread: We Find Footing in Uncertainty The type of work we do encourages safe spaces of liminality and uncertainty. In these spaces, the narratives we carry of ourselves, of others, and of traditional notions of subject matter can begin to breathe and meet each other. They become more complex and more open as we consider not just our knowing, but our ways of coming-to-know. Peter McNally (2004) writes of subject matter in his experience with Ojibwe pedagogy and how it defies “the differentiated fields of inquiry and practice in the Modern West” (p. 608). Learning herbal knowledge, for example, involves plant biology, ecology, physiology, psychology, and some familiarity with the historical economic, and social causes of illnesses, not to speak of appropriate ritual prayers and rehearsal of sacred narratives. Likewise, learning about more overtly “religious” or narrative knowledge takes the student into the terrain of history and politics. In Ojibwe terms, one does not get a lecture purely on Ojibwe cosmology in the abstract; one gets cosmology embedded in the dense realities of people’s lives and with practical concerns of people’s well-being in full view. (p. 608)

Hawaiian scholar, Manu Aluli Meyer (2010), helps us to bind this shift in thinking about subject matter boundaries
notions of what counts as knowledge
with autobiographical, reflective, practice: If knowledge is the noun and knowing is the verb and understanding is the liberating practice, what do you want to understand in your life? Isn’t that a great question? What brings you meaning? What gives you meaning? When you do that, in the practice of deep, self-inquiry, then you hit the bottom of your own regenerative spirit. We truly

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know that true wealth is about giving, [that] collaboration is more of an enduring practice, and truth telling is of a higher frequency than the accumulation of facts.

To think in these ways about subject matter, about self-reflection, once again blurs those familiar boundaries about what “literacy” is and can be in school; it broadens stories of teacher “reflection” on lesson plans and outcomes, toward a more comprehensive form of reflection which considers teachers, students, and families in their wholeness as human beings living in an intricately bound natural world. Taken together, Aluli Meyer and McNally enable us to feel grounded and confident in the practices we use, as well as in the epistemological and ontological reasons that underscore their use. All the uncertainty, unknowing, complexity, and vulnerability they can invite as we reflect differently and try to figure out “what gives [us] meaning” (Aluli Meyer, 2010) are
in and of themselves
purposeful and practical learning strategies which honor both course intentions and objectives.

Thread: Narrative Pedagogy as Curriculum-Making and Empathy-Building In addition to the assigned weekly journaling that classmates are encouraged to write in a format and reflective style of their choosing, both times we co-taught EDEL 412 we worked with classmates on the creation of an “annal” or “Timeline” (Clandinin, 2013, p. 113). It’s an activity drawn from the methods and practices of Narrative Inquiry which invites targeted, initially temporal, reflection on one’s life journey. Given the literacy learning focus of EDEL 412, we each
Trudy and Sulya
shared personal annals/Timelines built from memories of our living with an emphasis on our various literacy experiences. What we shared spanned from childhood through to various parts of our adulthood. It drew us through stories of living alongside of students, of being with our own children, and in Trudy’s case, with her granddaughter as well. Sulya’s annal invites consideration of TV shows, such as Sesame Street and Bewitched, and trips to grocery stores as forms of literacy embedded in her experiences of being educated at home. Trudy’s connects literacy to listening to the radio and to intergenerational communication with her Mosom (grandfather) as he, through sharing of day-to-day living and experience, sought to teach her Cree. After sharing our annals, which are also visually very different and so do not provide an obvious template to follow, we then encouraged

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classmates/students to take some time in-class to begin to come into relation with their own narratives/stories/memories of living and literacy so that they could create their own annals. We then invited them to sit in small groups and to take a few minutes each to share. We encouraged them to watch the time to be sure they each had an equal opportunity to speak. Finally, we invited them to consider both the experience of beginning to think about their personal stories of literacy
as opposed to the dominant narratives of literacy as “reading and writing skills”
as well as to the actual details and memories of those personal stories themselves. In these timed conversations, and the subsequent unpacking and sharing of “annal narratives” in follow-up classes, many things happen to classmates and their thinking about curriculum and Language Arts in particular. There is one story Trudy and Sulya both remember fondly from Winter 2015. Through the creation of her annal, the subsequent writing of an “annal narrative,” and in-class conversations, a classmate remembered a story about how when she and her sister were children, they had made videos based on their favorite book-based cartoon series. In the context of the course, the memory of this experience served to awaken her to the fact that when she and her sister made these videos, they had been creating
and living
their own literacy curriculum. Shot with the family video camera in the woods behind their home, it was a curriculum that incorporated visual, oral, and written literacies, sequencing, adaptation, and had also engaged in the community-building and relational activities of planning and collaboration. Once again, subject matter boundaries blur and complicate (McNally, 2004) and the ability of our classmates/students to begin to see their childhood selves as co-creators of curriculum became a gateway of understanding. It allowed them to begin to consider the possible “out-of-school” literacy experiences of the children, youth, and families they encounter in classrooms as both existing beyond, and being a crucial part of, more traditional classroom literacy. Other classmates/students remembered, or even discovered, that beyond their more cozy, playful, preschool memories of being read to by caregiving adults, they had come to dislike reading and writing in school. Assessments that often defined them as “behind” along with levelled reading programs made reading into something filled with tension and even shame. Many others held deep stories of loving to read
of books as places of refuge
so that to hear their classmates sense of loss and frustration in their early reading stories invited new awareness and empathy. They found themselves able to consider the many possible ways children and youth come to their stories of school-based forms of literacy. They

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began to see how feelings and definitions of literacy are constructed and coconstructed as curricular standards, assessment strategies, teachers, families, and students live together on
and off of
schooling landscapes. Each of our classmates/students came to unpack the literacy they had in mind and its impacts on both the teacher and the students they had in mind (Milliken & King, 2007). Creative space and possibility
more liminality and uncertainty
found its way into their thinking and living with their own stories, with each other’s stories, and as they imagined the future K-12 classroom communities in which they might find themselves.

Thread: True Diaries and True Names Through novel studies of both The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (2007), and My Name is Seepeetza by Shirley Sterling (1992), we continued to engage in reflective, responsive, and collaborative inquiry. Both books are written by Indigenous authors and help Trudy articulate the multiplicity of Indigenous contexts that are so important to her, and central to shifting those “single stories” (Adichie, 2009) of Indigenous Peoples. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian is semi-autobiographical and a medley of cartoons, life drawings, and writing. It employs raw, and ribald, humor and offers a variety of visceral emotional experiences. My Name is Seepeetza is a fictionalized autobiographical account of a young girl’s experience of Indian Residential Schooling. It defies some of the stereotypes of poverty-stricken Indigenous Peoples and some of the worst, most violent Residential School stories while it also simmers in its own forms of loss, fear, and deep, complicated familial love. In our study of these books, our EDEL 412 classmates/students began to come alongside each other not just in the complexity of their personal stories of literacy and living, but alongside authors Sherman Alexie and Shirley Sterling as well. The characters they created, and the experiences they share, also become members of our classroom community and our thinking about Indigenous contexts and Language Arts. So many assumptions about what it means to be Indigenous/American Indian, of Residential Schooling, and of literacy are unpacked through these novel studies and conversation is not always comfortable. In a classroom space built upon liminality, upon the value of humility and uncertainty, and in ways that privilege relationships, this discomfort can be navigated with compassion toward deeper, more collaborative ways of knowing/being.

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Thread: Not Easy Work and No Easy Grades This is not easy work. For our classmates/students, and for us as professor and teaching assistant, this rigorous, constant unpacking of assumptions about literacy, about Indigenous Peoples, about what constitutes curriculum, about the role of teachers, and about each other, can be truly exhausting. It is work that unearths many complicated and challenging stories. One such story is of the powerful institutional pressures to offer summative assessments that encourage competition and self-judgment. We
Trudy and Sulya
wrestle constantly with the necessity to assign grades, with what grades mean to schools and universities, to teachers, families, and students. In our 2016 EDEL 412 journey, we chose to have only two assignments: a journal and a final project. For the journal, we decided to provide regular, weekly, very thorough and invitational, formative assessment. We quite literally emptied pens giving feedback and spoke regularly about how we felt like the journals were always there waiting for us to join them in conversation, even when we were not at our desks. We then offered “tentative” midterm journal grades so they could know where their work was sitting relative to course intentions/expectations and work accordingly from that point until the official grade was assigned. They were invited to come talk to us at any point should they wish to understand our thinking as we told them we never wanted “their hearts to hurt” when a conversation might clear the air and help us all find a more loving way to share in the learning process together. We worked as conscientiously as we could not to compare classmates/ students with each other as we assigned both tentative and final summative grades. The goal we had was to meet each of them where they were in their unique thinking and journey. To respond to their wonders and tensions in situated, contextual ways that would hopefully be relevant to them and that would allow their experience of their peers to be less defined by comparison and competition. This was challenging for all of us as by the time we reach undergraduate education, we already have strong stories of what assessment is and should be. Assessment became one more thing we were unpacking along with subject matter, curriculum creation, Indigenous contexts, and the very nature of teaching itself. Thus, another key example of a complicated/complicating story is that no matter the importance of the work we do, the Program of Studies in the province of Alberta, in Canada, is a legally mandated curriculum that must be negotiated and taught. Thus, teaching, while often storied and felt as a

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calling, is also a job. Teachers are people who must support themselves and often families in sustainable ways. In other words, unpacking assumptions and inviting pre-service teachers to make space for new ways to consider education and literacy, especially alongside of Indigenous children, youth, and families, can become yet another burden/risk and responsibility placed on the already full backs and shoulders of the teachers they will become. This said, the idea that complexity, relationality, and a mutual responsibility to meet each other in humble self-awareness, with compassion and understanding, is a burden can itself become an excuse not to even try. As hard as it all can be for both of us
Trudy and Sulya
we share a strong sense of responsibility to find ways to not be subsumed by the difficulties. We know we are not alone in the struggle as classmates also try to meet us where we are, to honor course intentions and objectives as we have framed them. We try to live with the many productive tensions generated by this work as graciously and sustainably as we can so that we can, in fact, keep trying.

Thread: Fear, Care, and Convocation Parker J. Palmer (2007) writes of the educational system, in its heavier and more bureaucratic layers, and of all the tensions we
everyone in our EDEL 412 community
feel in terms of how they are rooted in “fear.” He writes: If we withdrew our assent from these structures, they would collapse, an academic version of the Velvet Revolution. But we collaborate with them, fretting from time to time about their “reform,” because they so successfully exploit our fear. Fear is what distances us from our colleagues, our students, our subjects, ourselves. Fear shuts down those “experiments with truth” that allow us to weave a wider web of connectedness
and thus shuts down our capacity to teach as well. (p. 36)

Palmer invites us, Trudy and Sulya, to see the work that we try to share with each other and with classmates/students as our own “experiments with truth” (p. 36) that aim to nurture safe spaces where, as mentioned earlier through some of Sulya’s stories, ignorance and fear can be voiced and met in nonjudgmental ways that help us teach with the love of a Kokom (grandmother) and to give to our communities in “good ways” (Community gathering circle discussion, 2016). This said, these fears and tensions find so many incarnations in our classrooms and systemic pressures inevitably catch up to us all. It is in how we make sense of these fears, tensions, and pressures that the hard work of relational pedagogies truly finds its purpose. Sometimes, it is in the harder, more stressful moments
the moments when things are not

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what we had in mind (Milliken & King, 2007)
when the value of relational ways of being and caring in classrooms becomes most visible. A Small Piece of Sulya’s Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry At midterm in the Winter semester of 2015, Trudy was away presenting so I engaged the class on my own. Each student was contending with the pressures of taking as many as five courses, jobs, children, friends, family… I believe that, at the time, three students were pregnant. And, in addition to all of these compounded life experiences and truths, they were all up against a veritable wall of either midterm assignments or exams. For some, their tension had made them bilious (in all senses of the word), others were verging on tears, still others were barely present behind their eyes
empty exhausted shells. Almost all, in one way or another, had stepped out of character (Ritt, 1958), becoming versions of themselves less familiar to me, but every bit as real and important. Though Trudy and I had not intended to be part of the midterm “pile on,” our best intentions had not quite found their mark and it was my job, in Trudy’s absence, to take in two assignments from each student that day. I left class later with four, huge, reusable shopping bags of journals and narrative assignments. Once I got them all up to my car on the roof of the education building parkade, I could see and feel that the weight of them in my arms and then my trunk was so much more than their physical mass. It was the weight of the students’ spirits and power, their fears of “bad grades”, it was the weight of trying to work from relational places in institutional spaces; it was the unwieldy, exquisite burden of feeling like 56 more times a human being from knowing, and caring, about each and every one of them. I missed Trudy terribly in that moment and was reminded of how much easier all weights are to carry when we do not have to carry them all alone. I had faith, and complete trust, that Trudy and I would debrief about this moment together and that none of our individual burdens would be solitary for long.

The burdens of the students’ stress at midterm, that some were not even being kind to each other, might
under other circumstances
have made me, Sulya, desperate; it might have encouraged feelings of failure. Up against classmates’/students’ fear and tension my “classroom management,” in Trudy’s absence, had not been as good as I might have liked. I was held together, though, by the narratives I carried of her work with, and connection to, Trudy. I was held together by reminding myself that the very fact that these 56 human beings had felt comfortable enough in the classroom community we had co-created to not be on their “best behavior” was itself proof of the value of living relationally. That they could be vulnerable, cry, and seek comfort/attention with me after class implied they trusted I would be there for them in what ways I could. They instinctively understood they were allowed to be tired, fragile, fractious
human. We would find our way in later weeks, as a classroom community, back to our kindness and mutual respect. Despite the intrusion of institutional

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pressures and strains caused by the multifaceted nature of our shared living in classrooms, our hard work would continue to reward us all in various ways. One of those rewards came for Trudy at spring convocation at the end of our first experience of co-teaching EDEL 412. A Small Piece of Trudy’s Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry The EDEL 412 course was the very first post-secondary course that I had ever taught and so in many ways I too was, just as my classmate/students were, deeply enmeshed in the negotiations of who I was and was becoming as an early career academic/professor. Two months after the second iteration of the course, taught with Sulya in the large class format, I found myself standing on the large convocation stage facing the audience of students in their graduation caps and gowns. This was the first time I would be on that stage as a professor and the experience was exciting as well as overwhelming as I negotiated how to “be” as professor on this particular academic landscape while reflecting back on the experience of walking across the stage as a student. I was excited to be there, to participate in the Elementary Education practice to greet the students who had been in our classes as they walked across the stage, but I was not prepared for the wave of emotion that would engulf me when I would the names of my former students called as part of the ceremony awarding them an Education degree. I knew that I had wanted to attend to the lives of my students as much as possible while they were in my course, but given the large class format
all 56 students
creating a space for them to be nourished as educators who are becoming had not been very easy. I was always wondering how it was they were experiencing the course and if what we had shared with them might make it off the university landscape and into their classrooms. I wanted to know that the work we did together would influence the lives of my Cree/Me´tis loved ones
their possible future students. What I had not realized, that day on the stage, was how much their time alongside me had nourished my own soul. I can remember feeling the absence of Sulya who had, up until this moment been beside me for the majority of my time alongside of these students
both in the planning and responding to assignments as well as the in-classroom time
but due to institutional policies she, as a graduate student, was not allowed to be on the stage in the role of instructor. So there I was essentially feeling oddly alone while I stood alongside other professors waiting for the names of the students who I had come to know. When the students names were announced, a close up image of them standing on stage would be broadcast on the large screen displaying both to the audience and those of us on stage. When I would recognize one that I knew, marveling at this shiny, beautiful version of them in their cap and gown, I would be flooded with memories of our times together. I would watch them walk across the stage and as I waited for them to see me, to notice me waiting for them, I felt so grateful for this opportunity to be alongside them for just a little longer. As they crossed the stage, shaking the hands of the dignitaries, I would recall memories of tears
sometimes theirs and sometimes mine
as we shared stories of when lives collided in some way
at home, at school, over an assignment, about an idea - in the midst of the living we all did on and off the school landscape. I would recall times of laughter, or conversations after class, stories
inspired in part by the work of Brene´

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Brown (2011)
of “banana-nut muffins” and being “enough.” I recalled how weary they were at the end of the term, handing in final projects, with sometimes joy at what they created to articulate their knowing at this time, or sometimes full of worry that they hadn’t done what it is was that they imagined I wanted. And I reflected back on what Sulya and I had hoped would happen, and the experiences we crafted hoping they would be lived in ways that did not harm, but would instead inspire deep thinking. I thought about the ways stories lived in classrooms and how safe spaces, co-composed with relational pedagogies, helped us all learn to nurture them, to become literate in ways that incorporated more than just the language arts
reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing and representing. Then the moment would come when I would step forward, making it easier for them to spot me waiting for them at the end of their walk across the stage. I would feel a twinge of apprehension that maybe this work that I felt had been so important and the relationship that I felt we had built might not have been experienced in the same ways. But then as our eyes would meet and smiles of recognition and joy would light up their faces I just knew we had done something amazing. I understood that while the curriculum we imagined had not always been lived in the ways we planned, or had fallen away from the story we had tried to weave, something had happened in the space in-between; something important had happened in the liminal, relational place where stories to live by are composed (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). The open arms that greeted me and the whispers of, “I hoped you would be here,” told me something so much more than the official student evaluations could; more than meeting course objectives and good grades. Somehow, in the in-between spaces, we
Sulya, the students, and I
had managed with loving perception, even if just for moments, to travel to teach others worlds lovingly and playfully (Lugones, 1987).

As I, Trudy, stood there that day, searching for a way to “be” professor, their whispered words of, “I hoped you would be here,” were a validation that in this course, alongside Sulya, I might have found both
a way to “be” as professor and an important part of my place and role in all of creation (Lambe, 2003, p. 309). At minimum, I realized that despite the challenges, the fears, the tensions, and the constant, often uneasy, negotiations of institutional processes and policies that bumped against the relational ethic by which we attempted to live, the rewards of the work we did are not easy to measure but are deeply felt.

LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING FORWARD When all of this experience, combined as it is now over more than 2 years of teaching various forms of EDEL 412, is considered together in its rich, woven and beautiful, wholeness, we
Trudy and Sulya
feel as though the bumps along the way are necessary to our (teacher educators’ and

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pre-service teachers’) ability to reflect and to grow. The moments of discomfort and dissonance between relational pedagogies such as Narrative Inquiry and Indigenous ways of being and knowing and the more traditional structures of university teacher education and assessment become part of the curriculum we co-create. Thoughts about provincially mandated K-12 curricula and the broadening of the boundaries of subject matter are important stories to unpack if we are going to honor the calls of the TRC, and shift dominant and “single” (Adichie, 2009) stories Indigenous Peoples. We have seen and experienced that it is possible to navigate all of this lovingly and in caring ways (Lugones, 1987; Noddings, 1984). There are ways that we can
if not mitigate or eliminate fear (Palmer, 2007)
allow fears to be voiced more openly and safely. We can meet our inevitable ignorance more lovingly and generously (Fenichel, 2014), and begin to move with/through it toward more sustainable and expansive approaches to teaching and learning. Narrative Inquiry practices, such as the creation of annals and of autobiographical narratives, especially in combination with the Indigenous understandings of education we have shared throughout this chapter, call us to be aware of who we are, where we come from, and how the stories we carry shape our practice as educators in classrooms. Through these narrative applications and methods, we come to see how who we are informs the ways in which we can contribute to broader communities and to the world itself. Novel studies, the reading of storybooks, and engagement with academic articles written by Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors, allow those voices to also become members of our classroom communities. They invite us to imagine ourselves into the worlds, stories, and thinking of others in ways that deepen our relationship to ourselves, to our practice as educators, and to the ways in which curriculum is always co-created by each member of a classroom community in his/her/their wholeness. Small and large group conversation and talking circles allow all of these pieces to come together in communal and collaborative ways. We
Trudy and Sulya
have both seen how the opportunities afforded by talking circles to take turns and listen attentively nurture rich and varied consideration of the Indian (teacher, student, classroom, literacy) we have in mind (Milliken & King, 2007). The moments of revelation and healthful change that arise where, and when, all of these practices come together are palpable. They reveal the real, and potential, benefits of tackling the challenges, exhaustion, and hard work of relational pedagogies such as Narrative Inquiry and Indigenous approaches to education, in undergraduate teacher education classrooms.

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We have recently secured funding and began a study to follow-up with our EDEL 412 classmates/students, through semi-structured interviews, about their experiences of the course. We want to know how/if they are continuing to make sense of the work we did together in their living and in their experiences as beginning teachers. Our hope is to lay the groundwork for a deeper, more longitudinal, Narrative Inquiry research project alongside a few of our classmates/students as they continue to negotiate their living and being alongside Language Arts in Indigenous contexts. We also hope this research will help to inform and enrich our practice of teaching undergraduate education courses in ways that might serve to help us do more to honor the TRC call to “provide the necessary funding to postsecondary institutions to educate teachers on how to integrate Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into classrooms” (The Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015, p. 289). With every challenge and reward offered by relational pedagogies, we will continue our ongoing reflective, storied journeys to live with, and in, the great mystery (Ermine, 1995, p. 108). We will make every effort to come to know our place in Creation (Lambe, 2003, p. 309) so that we can offer of ourselves to it in “good ways” (Community gathering circle discussion, 2016).

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011 - X2011001. Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-011x/99-011-x2011001-eng.pdf Sterling, S. (1992). My name is Seepeetza. Vancouver: Groundwood Books. Swanson, C. (2014). Unbundling stories: Encountering tensions between the familial and school curriculum-making worlds. Learning Landscapes, 7(2), 299
317. Swanson, C. P. E. (2013). An autobiographical narrative inquiry into the lived tensions between familial and school curriculum making worlds. Unpublished thesis, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Honouring the truth, reconciling for the future: Summary of the final report of the truth and reconciliation commission of Canada. Tuck, E. (2009). Suspending damage: A letter to communities. Harvard Educational Review, 79(3), 409
428. Wilson, S. (2001). Research is ceremony: Indigenous research methods. Halifax: Fernwood. Young, M. (2003). Pimatisiwin: Walking in a good way—A narrative inquiry into language as identity. Doctoral dissertation, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

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NARRATIVE RESONANCE AMONG STORIES: CROSSROADS OF THE CLASSROOM, CURRICULUM-MAKERS, AND COMPLEXITIES OF DELIBERATION Dixie K. Keyes, Elaine Chan and Vicki Ross We see our task as researchers … to create with teachers a story of teachers as curriculum makers. We see this task as a collaborative one in which we participate with teachers in their classrooms and together live out and construct a story of the teacher as curriculum maker. Connelly and Clandinin (1992, p. 386)

Because all the authors in this volume share this vision of the task of narrative inquiry research, we join them, in narrative resonance (Conle, 1996), in this book’s placeholder ending to find and deliberate upon the synergy of the stories. We cannot help but to relive and retell stories of our own, as teachers and researchers, that we bring to the crossroads … that we bring as curriculum-makers. This resonance among new scholars to the field and those of us with more than a decade living as narrative inquirers may hopefully compel other like volumes that sustain and move narrative inquiry

Crossroads of the Classroom: Narrative Intersections of Teacher Knowledge and Subject Matter Advances in Research on Teaching, Volume 28, 275
287 Copyright r 2017 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 1479-3687/doi:10.1108/S1479-368720160000028020

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forward in its important work of lifting up teacher voices
voices yearning to be heard in these politically situated days of accountability and shifts on the landscape of education. Elaine, Vicki, and I have lived among many stories
our own, those of teachers, learners, and preservice teachers in our places of higher education, and among special friends and colleagues across the United States and in different countries who have shared their journeys and narratives as educators. The stories brought together here in this volume are no less significant; in fact, they offer a complex collection of narratives that pull us all toward the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century. All educators continue to live on a landscape of controversy in education, of a corporate-based funneling onto education, of political influence upon education sometimes enacted without relevant teacher voices in the midst. Here, we coalesce the narratives at the crossroads of the classroom, further deepening collective meaning that may help us all hold high teachers as curriculummakers and thought leaders in education while recognizing how tensions and intersections in teacher knowledge and content knowledge can help us all reflect and grow. Dewey’s notions of experience and the centrality experience should have in the spaces and places of education are threaded through each section. In this ending we hope to capture the resonance of this volume’s narratives so the inquiries into teacher knowledge intersections with content knowledge are “carried” along. As readers think of these narratives, collectively, please consider narrative resonance with us. Dixie paraphrased Carola Conle’s (1996) thoughts on narrative resonance (Keyes, 2006): … when a story is encountered experientially, one reacts to it through “resonance” that is to say, with a narrative of one’s own … Resonance is the process that carries the inquiry along, producing more and more stories, through metaphorical connections rather than through strictly logical ones. (Conle, 1996, p. 53)

SECTION ONE: AT THE CROSSROADS, LOOKING THROUGH METAPHOR In Dixie’s dissertation, she brought teachers together in teacher knowledge communities and listened as they brought forth various metaphors during conversations. Following the tradition of Craig (2003), she “unpacked” these metaphors to describe the teachers’ metaphorical ways of knowing to better see how metaphors “rooted in body and deeply entangled in mind” helped “educators elucidate and elevate tacit, provisional knowledge …” (p. 15). This allowed Dixie to “pull that remembered story out of a previous context

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and place it a new one,” as various stories reverberated “in an echo-like fashion” (Conle, 1996). Conle’s conception of narrative resonance gives narrative researchers “structure” for “particular narrative movements” (pp. 300
301). Here, Dixie makes a narrative move to add a layer of interpretation in this realm of meaning, thinking of the Section One chapters. Polkinghorne (1988) discussed “the realm of meaning” as bringing together connections “among images and ideas that appear in various modes of presentations, such as perception, remembrance, and imagination” (p. 8). Novelli and Ross brought us to an intersection where they shared a teacher educator narrative of preservice teachers engaging in “practice teaching” for the first time. They use the metaphor of “plotlines” to help readers envision an intersection of content knowledge and teacher knowledge specific to emerging teachers they supervised during a practice teaching experience: Seemingly, a content/subject matter knowledge plotline may be perceived to run through the cognitive realm, and the intersecting teacher knowledge plotline runs through a more personal, emotional, and physical, encompassing realm. In the moment of intersecting, splices of content knowledge becomes enveloped and integrated into a plotline of teacher knowledge.

We learn from their metaphor that they observed an important shift in their students from a content knowledge plotline with a cerebral understanding of teaching to one that was more intimate and more meaningful as they interacted with students in an authentic learning environment
a plotline that “enveloped” or shadowed the previous one with which they entered the experience. Intersecting plotlines, in this narrative, merged in the threedimensional narrative inquiry space, offering a transformative experience on which Novelli’s student reflected on with emotion and intensity. Stoehr et al. write of “a mixed picture” of the math anxiety they described in their work. As they worked to help develop future math educators, they found their students on an intersection between stories of math anxiety and a future where they needed to view themselves as experts or being well-versed in math subject matter as teachers. The authors share data that suggests opportunities for and perspectives about women and math knowledge is more positive and balanced among the genders; however, they chose to further this information by gathering short narratives of experience from their preservice teachers
hence, the “mixed picture.” Stoehr et al., like the other chapter authors centralize their work in story, as they draw on the work of Carter: “Moreover, her [Carter’s] work illustrates that the use of story can offer teacher educators the opportunity to gather a better understanding

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from teachers in all stages of teaching of what it means to teach.” This idea pervades Section One, connecting each set of crossroads back to a Moebius strip of stories, intersections, tensions, and revised understandings. The authors discovered that their female students, overwhelmingly, still felt negative about their math content knowledge. They shared “well-remembered events” resonant with themes like: “losing my breath,” “a diminished return on investments,” “stalling from the start,” and “free-falling in math confidence,” and “failure forever.” Yet, they also found that through public recognition of math competence, a teacher’s positive influence, and engagement in relevant, fun math activities, math preservice teachers could develop a stronger, more positive connection to math, and that this responsibility may often come into the hands of teacher preparation program professors. We are reminded by (Witherell & Noddings, 1991): “… the progression of events in narrative captures the dimension of time in lived experience. By arranging the flux and welter of experience around a narrative line, we make sense of our pasts, plan for our futures, and comprehend the lives of others” (p. 114). In this chapter, the well-remembered event technique for drawing forward narrative opened this space of “capture” on the timeline of experience belonging to the preservice teachers. Persinger and Ross entertained the metaphor of a fulcrum, connoting an issue of balance through the experiences shared in their chapter. They use Schwab’s idea of deliberation and watch how it shapes critical curriculum decisions, each option swaying into view alternatively, both as options at the crossroads of the classroom. They write of “considering deeply:” “We must deliberate on the decisions that branch forward, where they go, what they imply, and the tensions they pull with them.” Continuing to imagine this fulcrum of deliberation in this tense school context of social studies curriculum and teaching, Persinger and Ross wrote of the “complex relationship with character and change along with deeper understandings of the interplay among the teacher, the learner, the milieu, and the subject matter and how these dimensions serve to make teacher knowledge, typically tacit and difficult to access, visible.” Persinger, as the protagonist at one point in the narrative, becomes the unintended antagonist when a parent chooses to remove their child from the social studies subject matter. She felt the tension from the concerns of a few parents yet also found herself guiding a student teacher in the midst of this tension, which added to the “pulls and tugs” … to “be brought into balance.” We bring Conle (2000) into this dialogue again as she shares, “What counts in narrative inquiry is the meaning that actions and intentions have

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for the protagonist. … The principle of cause and effect can easily mislead in narrative inquiry. There are no single causes, no predictable effects. Instead, open-endedness pervades all data” (p. 52). Persinger found herself recognizing there was no one right, singular answer to the dilemma that unfolded in her crossroads of the classroom. She and her student teacher chose to look at the experience in open-ended ways, contemplating what all the characters learned or walked away with, again bringing us to this conclusion: “The complicated, nuanced ways that this work is done, and the tacit knowledge that must be uncovered to understand these acts, is understood through teachers’ stories of experience.” Fenton, Guerrero and Ross conceived of “variegation” for their stories, pulling together three stories of experience, retelling narratives of professional development in ways resonant of the variegated leaves on a plant, not unlike the multiple paths leading to a crossroads. They note how decisionmaking about science content sometimes de-involves the teacher, especially in contemporary times in education when federal initiatives, like STEM, impose content area experts on teacher professional development with unintended consequences. The lines of variegation are longer and deeper for some than for other members of this educational community. As the authors noted “the dismissal” of teacher content knowledge and the “lack of recognition of teacher knowledge for the most part,” we see the importance of equaling out the participation of teachers in the realm of their professional development programming, grant initiatives, and choices. The authors draw upon Schwab once more, bringing this wisdom to the forefront: To manage the tension, Schwab would recognize that they “must learn something of the concerns, values, and operations which arise from each other’s experience. They must learn to honor these various groupings of concerns, values, and operations, and to adapt and diminish their own values enough to make room in their thinking for the others.” (Schwab, 1973/1978, p. 365)

Connelly and Clandinin (1992) developed the idea of teacher as curriculum-maker based on one part of the dual definition of curriculum. Besides meaning “a regular course of study or training” (the most regarded definition), curriculum also means “the course of one’s life; a brief account of one’s career” (p. 364). Their discussion focused on how curriculum (as a course of study) is often directed by the “conduit” of educational theory from educational researchers, legislation, accountability or administrative requirements rather than directed by what a teacher knows is best for her students. Craig (2003) described the conduit as “a funnel pouring theoretical ideas down on practice” (p. 14). By being attentive to teacher knowledge and by portraying

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their narrative authority, the actual courses of study thought significant by teachers may better serve our students.

Finding Meaning through Resonance: A Final Poem of Section One Returning to the collaboration that brings narrative resonance, Dixie is reminded of the research time with teachers during her dissertation study, a rich time where she learned that teachers make sense of their experiences through metaphor, where they yearn to share their stories and retell them time and time again to uncover new meanings when someone new enters the group, where their voices are strong in unison with other teachers. They seemed to revel in the knowledge community gatherings planned to collect their stories and hear their conversations, gatherings that did not often happen on the teaching landscapes at their schools. These special times, like the special space created in this volume, show potential for consistent reconstruction of experience that will lead educators to deliberation, to complex considerations of teachers and their work. Conle shares: 1) It takes time to both construct the narratives and to respond to them; it also takes time to develop the relationships that need to surround and support these efforts. 2) Narrative practices can be very inconsistent with the prevailing epistemology of our educational institutions, and practices of our work environments. 3) Practice and Support Mechanisms
The potential of these [narrative] approaches can only be realized if they are engaged with consistency and are not isolated instances of reflective practice. (2000, p. 195)

Dixie crafted the following poem from phrases of Section One chapters as a way to bring their themes and meanings together in this last space of the volume. Dixie’s Found Poem Tensions pull deliberations
Plotlines run through the cognitive dimensions into the emotional, the personal
to find meaning on the crossroads. Interplays of character and change lie in wait to become visible
make it so! Through narratives
of the learner, of the teacher, of the milieu, of the subject matter, Concerns, demands, needs, pulls and tugs
both nouns and verbs at the crossroads, all existing yet demanding action and balance. Bringing curriculum to life as curriculum choice-makers, All found in acts of understanding through teachers’ stories of experience.

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Olson (2000) perfectly described how meaning-making happened through all of the plotlines, intersections, variegated lines, and branching pathways and will continue to happen in the future stories of experience teachers and teacher educators will continue to retell and relive on the crossroads of the classroom. When it is understood that meaning is continually constructed and reconstructed by each individual within a social context as past memories and future intentions of different individuals come together in present actions, the complexity of curriculum interactions becomes apparent. (p. 170)

SECTION TWO: AT THE CROSSROADS
RELATIONAL KNOWING, LANDSCAPES, AND NARRATIVE INQUIRY When Vicki was working through understandings based on research with Janine, her teacher participant in her first narrative inquiry, two ideas emerged that continue to frame her thinking and writing about teachers and the landscapes on which they live and practice. So it was both surprising and reaffirming that these fundamentals deeply structured the writings in this section. The first concept that she pulls forward from each chapter is the relational knowing that shapes all of the teachers (and we imagine the researchers) authoring these chapters. The second construct is the professional knowledge landscapes that shape and are shaped by these teachers. This dialectic between the individual and the external conditions through which he or she moves and acts is forefronted in this inquiry into the narratives of experiences these chapters present. In reflecting on her dissertation work with her participant, Vicki uses an understanding that deeply rooted within her
that what we know, what we come to know from any experience
is constructed in relation. Vicki explains that all that she came to know about Janine and her classroom world, her work with her students, her school and community, about mathematics education reform was known from and in relation to Janine. She came to see knowledge as deeply and fundamentally subjective. What then do we make of these stories told in this section? As we read the story of Chestin’s early years and what Loretta had meant to her, we think again of relational knowing. What would Chestin have known of her best-loved self without the sustaining relationship she found in her mentor. For, we imagine what the early years would have meant for Chestin without a

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Loretta. How long would this new teacher, “the renegade, the one the others were judging and excluding,” have lasted in the profession? We also ponder relational knowing of oneself as a teacher when the bouncing signal of who we are and where we are in our development is emanating from our students, and that signal is muffled through the cotton wool of test scores and standards. For those outside the classroom walls, outside of the relationship that exists between teacher and student, numbers are numbers. For Chestin, this was a deeper, more profound, experience, “I could see their faces in place of names and numbers. I had let them down.” And, here we insert the echoing heard in Anne’s story, as shared by Jing and Kayla. “I have seen the disappointment on students’ faces when I told them that they did not meet the standard on high-stakes tests. But, I have also seen the disappointment, turn to anger, turn to apathy, and turn once more to resolution and success. So I keep trying to reach each student each day because I feel that they can achieve academic success.” These kinds of experiences affect teachers, at their core narrative, affecting the sense of becoming their best-loved self. It leads to a sense of shame: “I should be ashamed,” or “I felt like the bad step-child.” The relational knowing of one’s self is hard to hold in this experience: “I felt awful,” “I felt angry,” or “I felt frustrated.” A contradiction emerges: out of the knowing born in the messiness of relation emerge both the deeply troubling emotions recounted by the teachers in this section, but also the soil in which they become rooted in their contexts of practice. We hear of shame, anger, and heartache in these accounts of the student
teacher emotional bonds. Concomitantly, we see that the relational knowing is the stuff of which staying in and sustaining within the profession is made. The dedication born of caring for students, school, colleagues, and community is heard in these stories: “I would attribute my longevity in the teaching profession to feelings of responsibility and hope for the community in which I live and work. I feel responsible for the success and emotional well-being of all of the individuals on my campus and in the town, both students and teachers. Furthermore, I have hope that the school will continually improve academically if teachers and other decision makers work together for that purpose. I think that a sense of being needed by and important to the school community has encouraged me to stay.” We want to touch on the centrality of the landscape in these chapters. We see a landscape that ostracizes a new teacher: we hear of a landscape that values a teacher according to the test scores of her students and the conflating factors of socioeconomic status and shifting demographics. In terms of landscape, these are features that can wash over and permeate

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the lives of the individuals who are navigating identity formation within that context. We hold the idea of the personal and social dialectic in tension as we consider the stories of Chestin and Anne, teachers who have, in Mahalia’s words, “got over.” What do we make of a professional knowledge landscape for teachers who, because of their field, are on the landscape, but not completely of the landscape
teachers who work in the marginalized spaces of the landscape? Here is the understanding that we gather from Colleen and Pam’s study of the life and work of teachers in Health and Physical Education. If, indeed, we construct an identity in relation to others on the landscape, how do we do that in a field relegated to the edges? The echoing of the best-loved self from the walls created on this landscape is isolating and demeaning. As we consider these two fundamentals beside one another
the belief that we, as human beings, come to know in and through relation to the other, as well as the dialectic at play between the individual and society in creating knowledge and identity
we are reminded of the ways that narrative inquiry underscores and develops understanding of ourselves and our world. We see this evidenced in the aforementioned chapters, but, Dottie, through her curriculum work and research, provides a potent example. Through her story, Dottie brings into sharp relief the contrast between the promotion of diversity as tolerance as opposed to truly reckoning with the discomforts of difference. Dottie’s work restories teaching for diversity. In this work, narrative inquiry helped individuals come to a deeper appreciation that there are multiple truths and many ways to see the world. But Dottie’s use of narrative inquiry as a pedagogical tool also enables students to grapple with the tensions that some of those ways may very likely be at odds with the way that they see the world. Recognizing the discomfort of disequilibrium as an opportunity to expand our lived experience through an empathetic interaction with other human beings make for powerful teaching and learning about diversity. Dottie’s narrative “pedagogical experiment” reminds us that “All of us (including teachers) find it hard to confront, accept, and appreciate differences in others, but these activities also have the potential to enrich our communities and lives.” And, we wonder, as we conclude these thoughts on the chapters that make up Section Two, if there were a movement to confront, accept and appreciate differences in others, how would that impact our classrooms, our schools, and our communities? Would such a context help us all achieve our bestloved selves? If our relational knowing, if the pinging of our identity and knowing echoed off an accepting and appreciating other, what would that mean for the human condition?

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SECTION THREE: AT THE CROSSROADS
MAKING THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE; MOVING TOWARD CREATING A SPACE FOR DELIBERATION Drawing on the notion of making the invisible visible that was introduced at the beginning of Section Three, and building on the growing recognition of the power and the potential of relational knowing in teacher education, we discuss ways in which examination of the teacher experiences featured in the chapters in this section might be considered a way of creating space for deliberating nuances, complexities, and tensions in teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge. In each of these chapters, there is a moment of pause in the authors’ accounts of interactions among teachers with colleagues and supervisors when there is a possibility that things may not go as well as they ultimately do. Franklin, in her account of her experiences of drawing upon her prior interactions with her brother with Down Syndrome to inform her teacher knowledge in her interactions with her Special Education students, describes a moment of connection when Franklin’s urging of her student Francisco to engage in the assignment could go awry, and the moment she describes could be featured as an instance when the teacher struggled to engage the student in an academic task. Yet, it all works out well in the end, raising in the mind of the reader: What made the difference for the student, in this interaction? Abrol’s examination of the journey of transition from student teacher to beginning teacher experienced by her teacher participant highlights another example of the power and the potential of a relationship of trust in the learning process. The student teacher featured in her writing continues to seek her out as a person to share with her tensions in learning to teach as she develops her teacher knowledge at a naturally tension-fraught stage of career. Abrol’s writing captures some of the details of events not often seen
the nuances of negotiating tense teaching situations
and refers to other events not often seen
interactions from her own past experience with family members
to inform her understanding of her research participants. Zhu’s examination of a knowledge community within a teacher education program in shaping a student teacher’s knowledge also highlighted the power of relationships with students and teaching colleagues in contributing to the development of teacher knowledge. Zhu’s description of the Free-Teacher Teacher Education program is a model of teacher education that is successful despite its distinction from many others in society that are

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decidedly different. Programmatic features of the program likely contribute to its success but Zhu’s description suggests that it was the potential for relationship among members of the school community that contributed more significantly to its success. Similarly, issues of trust and support underlie Cardinal and Fenichel’s account of co-teaching an undergraduate teacher education course. Cardinal and Fenichel describe in their chapter their realization of the power of their collaboration in teaching when one of them is unavailable to teach a few of the sessions at one point in the term. A less cohesive teaching partnership might have viewed the absence as a nonissue, or an opportunity to shine alone, but Cardinal and Fenichel instead address and describe, somewhat surprised, the emptiness in teaching without the other. They acknowledge in the process the strength of their collaboration as foundational to their teaching partnership despite their differing teaching rank and experience. Common across each of these instances, when events or interactions had the potential to turn out badly but instead became stories of successful engagement with students and colleagues, is recognition of the underlying power of relational knowing. These interactions further reinforce existing research that acknowledges the power of relational pedagogy (Huber, Caine, Huber, & Steeves, 2013; Huber, Li, Murphy, Nelson, & Young, 2014; Macintyre Latta & Kim, 2010) and relationship in teaching (Greene, 1993; Noddings, 1984; Valenzuela, 2005). More importantly for us, however, they also confirm for us the need for reflection and the examination of teaching stories.

Potential of a Pragmatic Intellectual Space The willingness of the authors to reflect upon, and to examine these instances, in turn, brings to the forefront the potential of supporting examination of complexities and nuances of teaching, as teacher education and professional development. Elsewhere, we (Chan & Ross, 2009, 2014) have explored the notion of a “pragmatic intellectual space” (Schwab, 1959/ 1978) as a place where teachers might deliberate (Schwab, 1969) the complexities of teaching in their work of designing, implementing, and assessing curriculum, as part of a knowledge community where teachers feel supported, and indeed, encouraged, to share and to discuss instances in teaching, whether they are going smoothly or not. A pragmatic intellectual space where teachers could deliberate with colleagues about nuances and complexities of teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge would be a

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means of “keeping our research conversation as a space to wonder” (Whelan, Huber, Rose, Davies, & Clandinin, 2001, p. 153). This space would be a place where complexities could be examined and where possibilities could be explored, a space with the potential for supporting the creation of knowledge about the work of teachers. Does this not sound like a space of productive professional conversation that would feed the souls of teachers, where knowledge about the more hidden, less visible, aspects of teaching could be brought to the forefront and shared as a way of enriching knowledge about the work of teachers, and how this growth might be better supported? As we see exemplified in this volume, these spaces do exist, and the work of narrative inquirers helps to bring these spaces to life, “keeping our research conversation as a space to wonder” (Whelan et al., 2001, p. 153).

REFERENCES Chan, E., & Ross, V. (2009). Examining teachers’ knowledge on a landscape of theory, practice, and policy. Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue, 11(1
2), 159
171. Chan, E., & Ross, V. (2014). Narrative understandings of a school equity policy: Intersecting student, teacher, parent, and administrator perspectives. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 46(5), 656
675. Conle, C. (1996). Resonance in preservice teacher inquiry. American Educational Research Journal, 33(2), 297–325. Conle, C. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Research tool and medium for professional development. European Journal of Teacher Education, 23(1), 49
63. Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1992). Teacher as curriculum maker. In P. W. Jackson (Ed.), (363
401). Handbook of research on curriculum. New York, NY: Macmillan. Craig, C. (2003). Narrative inquiries of school reform: Storied lives, storied landscapes, storied metaphors. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Greene, M. (1993). Diversity and inclusion: Toward a curriculum of human beings. Teachers’ College Record, 95, 211
221. Huber, J., Caine, V., Huber, M., & Steeves, P. (2013). Narrative inquiry as pedagogy in education the extraordinary potential of living, telling, retelling, and reliving stories of experience. Review of Research in Education, 37(1), 212
242. Huber, J., Li, Y., Murphy, S., Nelson, C., & Young, M. (2014). Shifting stories to live by: Teacher education as a curriculum of narrative inquiry identity explorations. Reflective Practice, 15(2), 176
189. Keyes, D. (2006). Metaphorical voices: Secondary students’ exploration into multidimensional perspectives in literature and creative writing using the synectics model. Unpublished dissertation. University of Houston. Macintyre Latta, M., & Kim, J.-H. (2010). Narrative inquiry invites professional development: Educators claim the creative space of praxis. The Journal of Educational Research, 103(2), 137
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Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Olson, M. (2000). Curriculum as a multi-storied process. Canadian Journal of Education, 25(3), 169
187. Polkinghorne, D. E. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. New York, NY: State University of New York Press. Schwab, J. J. (1959/1978). Chapter 6: The ‘impossible’ role of the teacher in progressive education. In I. Westbury, & N. J. Wilkof (Eds.), Science, Curriculum, and Liberal Education: Selected Essays (pp. 167
183). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Schwab, J. J. (1973/1978). Translation into curriculum. In I. Westbury, & N. Wilkof (Eds.)., Science, curriculum, and liberal education: Selected essays (pp. 365–383). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Schwab, J. J. (1969). The practical: A language for curriculum. School Review, 78, 1
23. Valenzuela, A. (2005). Subtractive schooling, caring relations, and social capital in the schooling of U.S.-Mexican youth. In L. Weis, & M. Fine (Eds.), Beyond silenced voices: Class, race, and gender in United States schools. New York, NY: State University of New York. Whelan, K., Huber, J., Rose, C., Davies, A., & Clandinin, D. J. (2001). Telling and retelling our stories on the professional knowledge landscape. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 7(2), 143
156. Witherell, C., & Noddings, N. (1991). Stories lives tell: Narrative and dialogue in education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS Bobby Abrol is Doctoral Scholar at University of Houston. Her research interests include teacher knowledge, teacher-as-curriculum-maker, social justice in education, and the transition process from preservice to in-service teaching using the methodology of narrative inquiry. Her article, “Making Sense of Teaching: A Narrative Inquiry into Developing Knowledge Community among Preservice Teachers in India” is published in the Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue Journal. Chestin Auzenne-Curl is Research Assistant, Future Faculty Fellow (NSF/ CIRTL), and a December 2016 graduate of the University of Houston’s PhD program in Curriculum and Instruction. Her specialization is Teacher Education and her interests are in the intersections of identity and context. Chestin’s recent publications and presentations at national and international conferences include the topics of Contextualizing Teacher Education in the K-12 Sector, Deconstructing Urbanization and Equity in Suburban Contexts, and Integrated Approaches to Teaching Secondary English Language Arts. Dottie Bossman is an independent anthropologist of education, an expert in the language arts, a scholar of secondary teaching methods, and an advocate for educators and students who have disabilities. Bossman earned a PhD from the Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education program at the University of Nebraska. Bossman’s current projects include conference presentations for the upcoming AERA meeting in Washington, D.C. and the Second City International Conference on Disability Studies in Des Moines, Iowa, as well as a variety of research and writing endeavors related to diversity and teacher education. Trudy Cardinal is a Cree/Me´tis scholar from the University of Alberta whose research interests center on the experiences of Indigenous children and families on and off school landscapes as well as the experiences of teacher educators as they seek ways to honor Indigenous ways of being and knowing in Language Arts classrooms. Her passion for stories and storytelling includes a love of children’s literature especially literature written by 289

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and portraying the multiplicities in the lives of Indigenous youth and families and the ways literature informs identity negotiations. Kathy Carter, PhD, is Professor in the Department of Teaching, Language, and Sociocultural Studies at the University of Arizona. Her scholarly inquiry in the areas of teaching, teacher education, and narrative methods spans over a 25-year period, and she is widely published and cited in these areas. Kathy has served as Division K (Teaching and Teacher Education) Vice-President of the American Educational Research Association, a research-based organization with a membership of over 25,000 scholars in over 85 countries. Over her career, Kathy has served as Associate Editor of Teaching and Teacher Education and has served on the editorial boards of the Elementary School Journal and the Journal of Teacher Education. Kathy has won multiple awards at the University of Arizona for her excellence in teaching. Her present work, both in research and teaching, focuses on preparing teachers to teach toward goals of equity and social justice. Elaine Chan is Associate Professor of Diversity and Curriculum Studies in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education, College of Education and Human Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research and teaching interests are in the areas of culture and curriculum; international teacher education; multicultural education; intercultural teaching; narrative inquiry; ethnic identity of first-generation North Americans; student experiences of schooling; and educational equity policies. She has taught and conducted long-term classroom-based research in Canadian, Japanese, and American schools. She co-authored Teaching the Arts to Engage English Language Learners, with Margaret Macintyre Latta, and co-edited Narrative Inquirers in the Midst of Meaning-Making: Interpretive Acts of Teacher Educators, with Vicki Ross and Dixie Keyes. Her work has been recognized with an Early Career Award from the AERA Narrative Research Special Interest Group (SIG), and publication awards from AERA Division K (Teaching and Teacher Education) and the Narrative Research SIG. Colleen Fadale is Doctoral Student at Northern Arizona University. Her areas of focus include Health and Physical Education, Student Affairs and Higher Education Counseling. She earned her National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) HPE and passed the National Counseling Exam (NCE). She has taught K-12 HPE in Millcreek Township Public School District since 1997. Her current scholarship

About the Authors

291

focuses on qualitative research into teacher identity development within marginalized careers/fields. Sulya Fenichel, M.Ed., is Doctoral Student at the University of Alberta. Mindful of important, and increasing, mandates to include Indigenous approaches to living and learning into contemporary curricula, she is fascinated by the “how” of interconnection and communication between people(s) and disciplines. In her research, she hopes to explore the ways in which key, and sometimes ideologically entrenched, “stakeholder” groups might improve communication and collaboration in processes of education and sees storytelling, in all its forms, as central to this process. Elissa Fenton is a fifth grade teacher working within the Avondale Elementary School District. She has been teaching in the elementary setting for the past 12 years. While, working within the school setting, she has had the opportunity to mentor colleagues in classroom management, engage in curriculum mapping the CCRS in mathematics at a district level, and facilitate professional learning community dialogue. Laura Franklin, Ed.D, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership at Wayne State College. Her research focuses on construction of teacher identities when positioned within marginalized populations of students. She also studies insider/ outsider status in overlapping realms of identity and problematizing questions of who can (and should) speak for populations of individuals who may not, or cannot, speak for themselves. Her work with narrative inquiry and autoethnography adds a reflexive component to understand her own identity in relation to her special education subject matter knowledge and her individualized teacher knowledge. Shannon Guerrero is Associate Professor of Mathematics Education at Northern Arizona University. She teaches undergraduate and graduate mathematics content and pedagogy courses within the Department of Mathematics & Statistics. Her research interests include K-12 pre-service/ in-service professional development, the effective use of technology in support of standards-based mathematics teaching and learning, and the process of teacher change. Dixie K. Keyes is Professor of Education at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro where she has been on the faculty in the Department of Teacher Education for 11 years. Before that, she taught middle and high school literature and language arts in deep South Texas for 13 years. As a narrative

292

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

inquirer, her book chapters and peer-reviewed research center on teacher curriculum-making, teacher education, critical literacy, and the complexities of early-career teachers. She actively blogs, digging into metaphor to make meaning. She joins Vicki Ross and Elaine Chan as one group of editors of Emerald’s Advances in Research on Teaching series. Her professional service involves directing a National Writing Project site that serves the eastern side of Arkansas, being a board member of the Arkansas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts, and assisting the National Council of Teachers of English Language Arts as a regional representative. Jing Li is a current PhD student in the College of Education and Human Development, Texas A&M University. Her interest areas are teachers and teaching. She has been exploring teachers’ professional growth in rural areas of China via digital storytelling and teacher knowledge in American urban schools via narrative inquiry. Her goal is to serve teachers and children by conducting educational research that can help bridge theory and practice. Kayla Davenport Logan is a PhD candidate in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Houston. Her areas of expertise are reading, literacy, and literature. She has 18 years of experience in teaching secondary English language arts at a Title I high school. Her main research interests are urban education, social justice in education, and content area literacy. Michelle Novelli is Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning and a doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction at Northern Arizona University. Ms. Novelli taught inclusive kindergarten through third grade in Title I elementary schools in Arizona for 14 years, fully integrating students with special needs into general education classrooms. Ms. Novelli’s research interests include inclusive education and play interventions in mathematics instruction. Joey Persinger, a classroom teacher with over 20-years’ experience, is a National Board Certified Teacher in Literacy: Reading-Language Arts, currently working with middle school students in Flagstaff, Arizona. Joey is a doctoral candidate in Curriculum and Instruction at Northern Arizona University. Pamela Powell spent over two decades as an elementary teacher prior to coming to Northern Arizona University. Now, she is dedicated to helping preservice teachers learn to utilize current, inclusionary, and developmentally appropriate practices in their classrooms, which promote learning for all students. Interested in educational policies that affect students in public

About the Authors

293

school settings, she has studied the practice of grade retention and its effects on the later lives of those who were retained in elementary school. She is also interested in studying the high correlation of grade retention to subsequent high school dropout. Vicki Ross is Associate Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning in the College of Education at Northern Arizona University. Her research and teaching interests include teacher knowledge, development, and identity, teacher retention, school contexts, curriculum studies, mathematics education, and narrative inquiry. She teaches within the undergraduate teacher preparation program, master’s courses leading to initial certification, ongoing professional master’s level classes in curriculum and teacher education, and within the Curriculum and Instruction doctoral program, which she coordinates. She presents at regional, national, and international conferences and publishes research in her areas of interest. She has served as Chair of the Narrative and Research Special Interest Group of the American Education Research Association. She is a past recipient of the Emerald Publishing Literati Award. Kathleen Jablon Stoehr, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Education at Santa Clara University. She teaches elementary mathematics and science methods. Her research interests focus on issues that relate to preservice and early-career teachers’ processes and understandings of learning to teach. Through the use of narrative inquiry, she has explored equity and social justice issues of language, race, culture, and gender that occur in the classroom. Her primary research involves comprehensive and detailed studies of the experiences of mathematics anxiety that some women elementary preservice teachers encounter. Her work has been published in the Journal of Teacher Education, Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, and ZDM Mathematics Education. Kathleen has presented her research at national and international conferences, including the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Psychology of Mathematics Education-North America, and the American Educational Research Association. Amanda Sugimoto, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Education in the Curriculum and Instruction Department at the University of Portland. Her research focuses on preparing mainstream classroom teachers to work with English learners in an equitable manner. Recently, her scholarly agenda has focused on language use in elementary mathematics

294

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

classrooms and how preservice teachers are prepared to attend to English learners linguistic and mathematical development. Her scholarship includes multiple presentations at national and international conferences such as the American Educational Research Association’s Annual Meeting. Additionally, she also has forthcoming publications related to her work with preservice teachers’ narratives related to linguistically diverse students and her work on language use in mathematics classrooms. Gang Zhu is currently a PhD candidate and a research assistant at College of Education and Human Development, Texas A&M University. His research focuses on teacher identity, teacher agency, and narrative inquiry. His publications, in both Chinese and English, have appeared in Teachers’ Journal, Journal of Schooling Studies, and Leaders of Learners organized by Texas ASCD.

INDEX knowledge communities, 105
106 first year, 109 fourth year, 112 instructional context, 107
108 second year, 111 wonderings and wanderings, 106 narrative inquiry into, 137
139 collaborative inquiry, 140
141 early years as teacher, 145
146 experience as master teacher, 151
153 gaining experience, 148
149 learning from, 153
155 methodology, 141
143 research conversations, 146
151 teacher retention exploration, 139
140 theoretical structure of, 143
144

Aboriginal epistemology, 245
246 Aboriginal Teacher Education Program (ATEP), 251 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian (Sherman Alexie), 263 Academic discipline, meaning of, 166 Agency, 149, 159, 161, 167, 200
202, 204, 207, 208, 210, 212, 214 American Born Chinese (graphic novel), 126
130, 132 Autobiographical Narrative Inquiry, 255, 257, 267
268 Autoethnography exploration, 185
186 power, as special educators, 192
193 Bachelors of elementary education (B. El. Ed), 202
203 Best-loved self (BLS), 102, 104, 105, 108, 112, 114
117, 216, 228, 236 impact in context, 109
113 narrative applications related to subject matter analysis, 113
114 impact on individual, 109

Carter, K., 44
45 Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS-M), 61, 70 Commonplaces, 2, 6, 8, 9, 22, 24, 36, 84, 90, 92
93, 160, 183

295

296

Compromised female mathematical capital, 49
50 Content knowledge and teacher knowledge. See Professional development stories Craig, C. J., 144 Curriculum, definition of, 279 See also individual entries Deliberation, concept of, 25, 36, 37, 84, 93, 278, 280, 284
286 Department of Education (DOE), 21 Dewey’s philosophy of experience, 64 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 21 Elementary school context, 81 Empathy, 93, 193, 194, 201, 207, 213
215, 262, 283 English Language Arts (ELA), 138, 148 Exhaustion, of self, 104 First teaching position, 146 Free teacher education (FTE) programs, 223, 228, 233, 237 Gender equity in mathematics, 39
40 analysis, 47 findings, 47 compromised female mathematical capital, 49
50 failure forever, 51
52

INDEX

girl gravity, 51 losing breath in classroom, 48
49 mathematical difference making, 52
53 mathematical mirth, 54 stand up and stand out moments in mathematics, 53
54 struggle experiences, 50
51 instructional context, 46 narrative applications related to subject matter, 46
47 mathematics achievements among girls and, 42
43 mathematics anxiety meaning and significance of, 44 and women elementary preservice teachers and, 41
42 narrative research in teacher education and, 44
45 stereotyping about girls and, 42
43 Health, physical education content and teacher knowledge and identity, 157
160 Health and Physical Education (HPE), 158, 168 analysis, 165
166 marginalization of, 163, 167 teacher education (HPETE), 168 Identity, concept of, 223 See also Teacher identity Indigenous education and context, 245
249, 251
260, 263
265, 269
270

297

Index

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (2004), 182, 183 Knowing-in action, 144 Knowledge communities, 105
106 first year, 109 fourth year, 112 instructional context, 107
108 second year, 111 wonderings and wanderings, 106 Knowledge for practice, 108, 111, 113 Language arts curriculum, 121, 127 Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), 182
183, 190, 191, 193 Master teacher, experience as, 151
152 research conversation, 152
153 Mathematics anxiety meaning and significance of, 44 and women elementary preservice teachers and, 41
42 Mathematics professional development, 28
29 Mathematics Science Partnership (MSP), 20 experience, 22
24 program, 21
22, 24 storying of, 26
28 Metaphor, 4, 74, 91, 222, 234
236, 276
281 of crossroads, 8
10 Multicultural curriculum, 121, 124, 126, 134

My Name is Seepeetza (Shirley Sterling), 263 Narrative applications, related to subject matter, 46
47, 126
127 Narrative identity, 114
115 Narrative inquiry, 60, 74, 75, 80, 92
93, 123, 125, 130, 131, 160, 246, 248, 249, 256, 259, 269
270 approaches, 12 of other, in special education, 179
180 autoethnographic exploration, 185
186 becoming special educators, 182
183 identity complexities as special educator, 194 methodology, 186
192 Other in special education, 183
184 potential of becoming Other as special educator, 194
195 previous and current experience connection examination, 185 teacher knowledge connection to three-dimensional narrative inquiry space temporal dimension, 184
185 tension between subject matter knowledge and teacher knowledge, 180
182 theoretical framework, 184 storytelling and, 164
165

298

usage, to make meaning of experience, 63
64 See also Personal and professional selves narratives, of beginning teacher in India; Student teachers’ professional identities, narrative inquiry of See also under Best-loved self (BLS) Narrative pedagogy, as curriculum-making and empathy-building, 261
263 Narrative research, in teacher education, 44
45 Narrative resonance, 275
276 metaphor of crossroads and, 276
281 relational knowing, landscapes, and narrative inquiry and, 281
283 Narrative thinking, 64
65 Narrative undercurrent, 103 forming story to leave by, 105 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 43 National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), 139 National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education, India (National Council for Teacher Education [NCTE]), 211 National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), 23 No Child Left Behind Act (NLBA), 21, 81, 139

INDEX

Othering. See under Narrative inquiry Parallel stories method, 227 Personal and professional selves’ narratives, of beginning teacher in India, 197
199 benchmark teacher education program, 202
203 conceptual framework, 203 teacher’s image, 205 teacher’s knowledge, 204
205 teacher’s stories, 203
204 data findings, 207 curriculum making and enlivening, 213
215 self reverberations in teaching, 209
213 space for self in teacher education, 207
209 discussion, 215
216 narrative inquiry theoretical framework and, 205
206 three-dimensional inquiry framework, 206 researcher, 199 study context, 199
200 teacher education and, 200
201 history, 201
202 Personal practical knowledge, 8, 143
144, 181, 205, 214, 215, 237 Physical Education (PE) teachers, 163, 166 Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE), 167 Place as narrative commonplace, notion of, 9 Practice teaching, in fifth grade mathematics, 59
60

299

Index

becoming and being teachers and, 60
61 college students metamorphosing into teachers and, 65
69 first practice teaching day and, 61 dark and quiet beginning, 62
63 narrative inquiry, for experience, 63
64 narrative thinking and, 64
65 student reflective comments and, 73
74 students’ reflections and, 69
71 teacher candidate’s reflection on, 71
73 theoretical foundation, 64 Practicum, 60
61, 65, 71, 73, 162, 222
227, 234, 237, 239 Prejudice, 120
122, 124, 125, 128, 134
136 Preservice teachers (PSTs), 2, 7, 10, 40, 43
55, 89, 159, 162, 167, 168, 199, 203, 208, 212, 215, 223
226, 228, 230, 248, 276
278 women elementary, 41
42 Professional development stories, 19
20 assumptions, 31
34 knowledge, development, and identity complexities and, 24
26 mathematics professional development and, 28
29 MSP experience, 22
24 program, 21
22, 24 storying of, 26
28 point of view, 29
30 reflections, 32
33

restorying, 20
21, 34
35 theoretical framework, 22 workshop, 30
31 Professional identity (PI), 11, 105, 107, 115, 117, 159, 161
162, 168, 206, 211, 222
226, 228
232, 234, 236, 237, 239 construction of FTE students’, 237, 238 formation of, 237, 238 of Wenting, 231 See also Student teachers’ professional identities, narrative inquiry of Professional life cycles, of teachers, 100
101 Relational pedagogy, 246
257, 260, 262, 265
266, 268
270, 285 Retention, 100, 106 Schwab, J. J., 6, 8, 22, 36, 37, 84
85, 90
91, 93, 102, 144, 279 Science content knowledge, 20, 24, 25 Secondary education. See Best-loved self (BLS) Self identity, 161 Social justice, 168, 200, 203 Social studies curriculum choice making, 77
78 classroom context, 82
83 consequences of, 87
88 experience, 83
84 inherent tensions in, 78
80 narratives of experience and meaning and, 92
93

300

narrative understanding of experience in classroom and, 80 Schwab’s writing on curriculum, 84
85 in sixth-grade classroom, 81
82 world history and religion, 86
87 tensions in balance and, 85 brimming, 88
92 Special education. See under Narrative inquiry Specific Learning Disability (SLD), 181 Stereotypes, 162 Story constellations method, 227 Storytelling, 164
165 See also individual entries Student teachers’ professional identities, narrative inquiry of, 221
224 analysis student teaching experiences metaphoric understanding, 234
236 instructional context free teacher program (FTE), 229
230 student teaching, 226 teaching and teacher education in China, 224
225 Jingwen and Wenting’s reflective turns in student teaching and, 233 narrative applications related to subject matter, 227 placement schools, 230
232

INDEX

research participants, 227
230 Student teaching, during early years, 145 Teacher attrition and identity, 101
105 Teacher education. See individual entries Teacher identity, 11, 22, 24
26, 35, 36, 60, 61, 64, 65, 70, 101, 115, 140, 142, 144, 158
162, 164
165, 167, 168, 185, 194
195, 214, 216, 223, 224, 245, 253, 255 and complexities and as special educator, 194 narrative applications related to, 164
165 and potential of becoming Other as special educator, 194
195 Teacher knowledge, 6
8, 11
12, 22, 24
25, 35, 36, 55
56, 60, 63, 65, 71, 73
75, 80, 140, 143, 144, 206, 234, 236, 239, 276
279, 284, 285 connection to three-dimensional narrative inquiry space temporal dimension, 184
185 content knowledge and teacher knowledge. See Professional development stories crossroads as metaphor and, 8
10

Index

health, physical education content identity and, 157
160 helpfulness, for teaching, 2
3 as learning from tensions, 3
5 narrative inquiry approaches and, 12 research conversation about studying process of, 153
155 subject knowledge and, 20
21, 84
85, 92
93 tension between, 180
182 Teacher preparation, during early years, 145 Teacher retention exploration, 139
140 Teachers’ stories helpfulness of teacher knowledge for teaching, 2
3 teacher knowledge as learning from tensions and, 3
5 teaching as inquiry and, 1
2 See also individual entries Teachers as Curriculum Planners, 78 Teaching for diversity, 119
120 American Born Chinese (graphic novel) and, 128
129

301

narrative applications related to subject matter, 126
127 problem of, 120
123 unit plan construction and, 129
134 Teaching teachers reflective journey, 243
250 analysis, 258
268 instructional context, 250
254 narrative applications related to subject matter, 254
257 Telling stories method, 227 temporality as narrative commonplace, notion of, 9 Theater for Dialogue approach, 208 The Thirteenth Tale (Diane Setterfield), 249 Tolerance, 11, 120, 122, 123, 129, 206, 283 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), 254, 269, 270 University of Alberta Indigenous Education Council (IEC) Gathering Circle, 258 Well-remembered events (WREs), 45
48, 51, 54, 55