(Re)Narrating Teacher Identity: Telling Truths and Becoming Teachers(6 Social Justice Across Contexts in Education)

With surprising candor, the authors of (Re)narrating Teacher Identity: Telling Truths and Becoming Teachers crack open what it means to become and be a teacher in the twenty-first century United States. In an effort to dig deeper into the challenge of teaching, four new teachers engaged in a summer writers workshop. Drawing from the work of Barbara Kamler (2001), the teachers used artifacts such as school graffiti and text messages to "reposition" and (re)narrate their identities as teachers. In braving truth-telling, the authors built a collective well-being. These stories are an important resource for novice teachers, experienced teachers, and teacher educators alike for disrupting dominant teacher narratives and moving towards alternatives.

About the Author :
Audrey Lensmire, author of White Urban Teachers: Stories of Fear, Violence, and Desire, is Associate Professor of Education at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. Anna Schick, an English teacher with a M.Ed. in youth development leadership, is an academic advisor for pre-service teachers at the University of Minnesota.

Review :
"This courageous exploration of what it means to be Teacher invites us to take our deepest selves to school. The brave and poetic educator authors empower by showing (not just telling about) ways to live beyond the limits of the ubiquitous traditional narratives of Teacher, inviting us to claim the power of self-definition as we choose which stories we believe about ourselves and about our students. Refreshingly honest and exquisitely crafted, (Re)narrating Teacher Identity can change the way you live in and out of school." Jan Burkins, co-author of Who's Doing the Work? "The icon of the controlled and controlling teacher, calm, sure and poised is repudiated in the accounts of these novice teachers, who reveal their anxieties and their anguish even as they extend themselves to the very edges of their effort and humor and compassion. Lensmire and Schick's work with these students reveals the sustained sisterhood that supports this honesty about the challenge of learning to be a good teacher." Madeleine R. Grumet, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "In the cold squeeze of market-based reforms in and out of public schools, six women find each other's warm embrace as they re-search their becoming teachers. Lensmire and Schick permit us to see the power of writing (and talk) about our lives to disrupt the tidy production of Stepford teachers and to enable us to imagine ourselves as flesh and blood humans who teach." Patrick Shannon, Distinguished Professor of Education, Penn State University