The Positive Power of Long-Term Teacher Researchers' Negative Capability

• In Event: Should I Stay or Should I Go? Perspectives on Staying and Leaving the Teaching Profession

Abstract

This paper stems from an oral history of long-term teacher researchers, who enact an inquiry stance to study and improve their own teaching. In the Age of Accountability, long-term teachers—let alone, teacher researchers—are increasingly rare, as attrition keeps pace with neoliberal reform. Beyond their longevity, long-term teacher researchers are significant for their potential to change this status quo. This study thus asks: What dispositions enable educators to maintain an inquiry stance? Long-term teacher researchers are critical in the burnout-burdened Age of Accountability, and teacher educators must find and foster more of their kind. Borrowing a literary concept called negative capability, I identify key components of teacher researchers’ endurance, ultimately positioning their stories as powerful parables for teacher education.

Author

• Elizabeth Currin, University of South Carolina