Becoming a Teacher: Using Narratives to Develop a Professional Stance of Teaching Science

Abstract

Both Trumbull (1999) and Clandinin et al. (1993) provide statements that act to rationalize and clarify the use of narratives as a means of understanding the teaching process. From practicing teachers and preservice interns narratives can be used as a way to “interrogate” practice to “get at” an understanding of what one knows and does not know (Lyons and Labosky 2002). In this sense narrative is a way of “constructing the knowledge of teaching” (Lyons and Labosky 2002, pp. 21–22), or even reconstructing a belief system of what it means to be successful as a teacher. Over the years we have seen a variety of writings that focus on narratives within the profession of teaching (Blake 2004; Jalongo and Eisenberg 1995; Kooy 2006; Mack-Kirschner 2003; Schubert and Ayers 1992; Trimmer 1997; and Trumbull 1999). These texts have helped to lay the foundation for the use of narratives as a means of understanding practice. For researchers, narratives can be used as a method of inquiry that allows us to better understand the processes of becoming a teacher, and to articulate these stories and lessons learned in our own teaching practices with preservice and in-service teachers.

Once they [preservice teachers] complete teacher education programs, new teachers enter schools where practices engender particular conceptualizations of … teaching. The conceptualizations of … teaching that are promulgated in these different settings are not all consistent. A lack of consistency across contexts can impose stresses on new teachers and render their professional development complex How do they manage the contradictions across different conceptualizations? How do they succeed in their contexts of practice as new teachers?

—Trumbull 1999, p. xv

… teacher education is an ongoing process of inquiry in which there is a continuous dialogue between theory and practice.

—Clandinin, Davies, Hogan, and Kennard 1993, p. 211