Becoming a Teacher : Using Narrative as Reflective Practice. A Cross-Disciplinary Approach

Becoming a Teacher revisits the concept of Teacher Lore (Schubert and Ayers, 1992), by providing a cross-disciplinary approach linking elements of narrative theory to all aspects of pre- and in-service teaching. In essence, it embraces the notion that what teachers say matters. The rationale behind this text is the idea that narrative can not only be a conceptual lens through which a particular discipline can be re-examined, but also an aid to help preservice teachers understand the potential importance of personal experience and reflective ways of knowing as they learn to become teachers. In addition, this book serves as a reminder to those of us in teacher education that the very mandates that control so much of our curricula, funding, and publishing decisions can be reconstructed to reflect what we know is good teaching – and what we know works, in spite of standardized testing and accountability measures that declare the opposite.

Robert W. Blake Jr. is Associate Professor of Elementary Education at Towson University. By training and passion he is a science educator and focuses much of his work on helping pre-service elementary interns teach meaningful science to elementary students.
Brett Elizabeth Blake is Professor in the School of Education at St. John’s University, where she is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Vincentian Center for Social Justice and Poverty.