Producing Disequilibrium: Using Experimental Narrative Form in Teacher Education

• In Event: 31.091 - Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: 31.091-17 - Teacher Voice and the Role of Arts-Based Educational Research

Abstract

The stories we tell about teaching are dangerously simplistic—they flatten out the complexities of teaching into linear narratives that generally resolve neatly and end well—and yet telling a more complicated story is also dangerous—teacher education relies so heavily on representations of teaching that they need to be approachable and productive. This tension is the starting point for this paper, which uses arts based research methods to explore these central questions: In telling stories about teaching, how much complexity can readers sustain? How messy can the story be before it becomes unintelligible? Why does messiness matter and what does it produce for readers? What happens for pre-service teachers when they engage with fragmented and inconclusive stories about teaching?

Author

• Courtney L. Rath, Universty of Oregon