The Dreamwork of Childhood Memory: The Futures Teachers Make From the Schooling Past

• In Event: Future Teachers Reimagining the Possibilities of Curriculum and Pedagogy

Abstract

This paper utilizes dreamwork as a metaphor and method to examine the creative ways that prospective teachers use childhood memory to affect the schooling past as they imagine the pedagogical present and future. Our data is comprised of 40 memory narratives written by teacher candidates enrolled in teacher education programs in Canada and the United States. Drawing from critical theory and psychoanalysis, our discussion links teacher memories with dreamwork to consider how they make pedagogical significance from what has already occurred. By underscoring the transformative qualities of memory in relation to processes of empathy, repetition, and refusal, we theorize dreamwork as essential to orienting teachers toward different and possible pedagogical futures.

Authors

• Lisa Farley, York University

• Debbie Sonu, City University of New York (CUNY)

• Julie C. Garlen, Carleton University

• Sandra Chang-Kredl, Concordia University