Teachers as Lead Professionals: A Montage of Critical Storytelling

• In Event: Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Research: A Social Justice Approach to Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Teacher research has long made important contributions to educational inquiries in the United States and continues to unearth promising new possibilities (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993; Zeichner & Noffke, 2001). This paper presentation will reflect upon a recent example of teacher-research that was carried out as a dissertation study. The research narrated six public school early childhood educators’ stories of working with and against the grains of their “cultures of curriculum” (Joseph, 2011). The teachers’ narratives provide numerous implications for classroom teachers striving to manifest democratic values in the daily practices, teacher educators seeking to develop teacher competency and educational leaders interested in building capacity for professional learning communities and for future endeavors of advancing teacher research in the academy.

Author

• Daniel J Castner, Bellarmine University