“Professional Peeling”: Understanding the Process of Teachers Becoming Teacher Educators in Flanders (Belgium)

• In Event: Becoming a Teacher Educator: International Perspectives

Abstract

Purposes and Objectives: This paper analyzes the process of becoming a teacher educator. Drawing on narrative-biographical data, we focus on the early career stage as teacher educator. Specifically, our analysis unravels on the one hand the role of the former career (as experiences and professional expertise as a teacher) and the role of the organizational/institutional context of the teacher training institution in that development process on the other.

Framework: Becoming a teacher educator is understood as a lifelong learning process resulting from the socially meaningful interactions with the temporal (professional biography) and spatial (organizational/institutional) context (Author, 2009). Throughout this learning process teacher educators develop a repertoire of professional knowledge and skills, as well as a ‘self-understanding’ of themselves as teacher educators. Building on Author (2009) we distinguish five components in this self-understanding (self-image, self-esteem, job motivation, task perception and future perspective) all of which can be reconstructed through the narrative accounts teacher educators give of their professional experiences (a.o. Polkinghorne, 1988; Clandinin, 2006; Author, 2009). As discursive practices these narrations involve constructions of meaning about oneself as a teacher educator as well as about how one would like to be understood by others (Lieblich et al., 1998; Somers & Gibson, 1994). As such, teacher educators’ career stories incorporate aspects of negotiation with the organizational context and are used to justify, explain and make sense of themselves in relation to others and the institutions in which they perform their job (Coldron & Smith, 1999; Kraus, 2006; Soreide, 2006).

Methods and Analysis: We draw on two cycles of narrative-biographical interviews with twelve experienced Flemish teacher educators working in two teacher training institutions. Data is analyzed interpretatively at the level of each respondent (within-case-analysis) followed by a cross-case-analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994).

Findings: In the analysis, we focus on the early career stage because it constitutes a critical phase. A central theme running through the data is the negotiation process of ‘trying to fit in’. The ‘fitting in’ applies simultaneously to a double movement. First, it involves the individual trying to fit into the new organizational environment (with its particular staffing, curriculum policy, student population. compared to the school as an organization in which one worked as a teacher). Secondly, it concerns the personal fitting into a new role, which we metaphorically describe as ‘peeling’: shedding one’s skin in order to grow in a process of changing, while trying to maintain a sense of self. This process is not only technical (developing different expertise), nor political (the negotiation process to navigate the power structures), but also involves intense emotions and moral or ethical concerns. Using case vignettes, we illustrate how this ‘professional peeling’ not only represents rich opportunities for professional learning, but also constitutes a challenging, even threatening, experience that deeply impacts teacher educators’ self-esteem and job motivation.

Significance: The research furthers our understanding of teacher educators’ particular ‘self’ and professional expertise, but also offers practical advice for designing professional development opportunities for (beginning) teacher educators.

Authors

• Eline Vanassche, Catholic Universiteit Leuven

• Geert Kelchtermans, University of Leuven