Narrative Teacher Education Pedagogies From Across the Pacific

• In Event: 70.042 - International Teacher Education: Promising Pedagogies

Abstract

Interest in narrative pedagogies is growing. However, few studies have been conducted outside Western contexts. There remains a paucity of narrative research published by Japanese scholars, despite a pervasive culture of “teacher to teacher conversations”, storytelling, reflection and action research by teachers in Japan. Thus, this research fills an important gap in the literature. It provides exemplars from preservice teacher education, higher education and high school, as these educational milieus reflect the notion of “traveling stories” (Olson & Craig, 2009). We describe how this narrative pedagogy is interpreted from an insider point-of-view, through the voices of teacher education students, teachers and teacher educators. In this process, students and teachers become curriculum makers (Clandinin & Connelly, 1992; Craig & Ross, 2008), co-constructing knowledge, reshaping teacher knowledge and identity. Narrative teacher education pedagogies resonate with Japanese teachers and play an important role in curriculum, teaching and learning in Japan within our increasingly interconnected world. Furthermore, narrative relates favorably to many Japanese cultural practices including kankei (inter-relationships), kizuna (bonds), and kizuki (with-it-ness). These are important, integral and tacit elements of Japanese teachers’ practices because they embody the ‘mind and heart’ of their personal practical sense of knowing. Furthermore, these practices involve placing other people’s needs ahead of our own—an essential skill for global citizens of the 21st Century.

Authors

• Edward R. Howe, Thompson Rivers University

• Mashahiro Arimoto, Tohoku U