Abstract
Current teacher preparation programmes in the USA are required to report to state agencies on how their students are attaining professional preparation standards in order to fully become named as a ‘teacher’. As teacher educators immersed in these neo-liberal policies and expectations, the authors sought a way for their students to work through these expectations by having them write personal narratives of their experiences in university courses and early childhood practicums. The authors found the results from their initial analysis troubling and sought further meaning from the students’ and other texts. Only when the authors returned to literature that was closer to their own feminist, post-structural core did they find some (un)comfort. They had become distracted by institutionalized, modernist and neo-liberal notions of linear teacher development. They had nearly overlooked the majority of their data illustrating student teachers’ often clandestine classroom experiences, leading to a non-linear ‘messiness’ of constantly shifting, vacillating, variable and ever-flowing multiple identity enactments in the narratives. Drawing on student teachers’ narratives in order to challenge and rupture the neo-liberal truth(s) of linear teacher development, the authors argue that teachers’ identities are not built on the dissemination of discrete knowledges and specified skills and dispositions articulated in standards, but rather are under ever-evolving, messy, multifaceted, multilayered construction through their experiences with children, families and fellow teachers. Finally, the authors explore possible implications for teacher educators and teacher education.
Currently, teacher preparation programmes in the USA are required to report to state agencies on how their students are attaining professional preparation standards in order to receive their teaching credentials, thus formally naming them ‘teacher’. In this study’s early childhood context, these standards included the Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) standards and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) professional preparation standards. Darling-Hammond (2017) describes how similar uses of teaching standards in Australia, Canada, Finland and Singapore play a central role in guiding teaching preparation and validation of professional teaching capabilities. As teacher educators immersed in these neo-liberal policies and expectations, we found students in our courses struggling with the linearity that is expected in the process of becoming a teacher as they experience being a university student and, while in their practicums, being a teacher.
In response, we sought a way for the students to work through these struggles by having them write personal narratives of their experiences in both university courses and in their experiences as teachers in early childhood practicums (Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009; Bruner, 2002; Carter, 1995; Connelly and Clandinin, 1999; Doyle and Carter, 2003; Gaches and Walli, 2015). As part of their ongoing studies and assignments, students in our early childhood development course wrote biweekly reflections describing a particular experience, what that experience meant to them as a teacher/student, and then what might be next for their own learning (Carr, 2001). Seventeen students agreed to have their eight narratives analysed as part of this initial research. 1
Our original analysis of data from these teacher preparation students’ narratives documented that some narratives did indicate a clear shift from portraying themselves as ‘students’ to portraying themselves as ‘teachers’ (Gaches and Walli, 2015). Other students were in constant flux between these and other identities, and one participant appeared to move from narratives with a strong teacher voice to strong student voicing. We found these results troubling and sought further meaning from these students’ and other texts.
It was only when we returned to literature that was closer to our own feminist, post-structural core that we found some (un)comfort (Cannella, 2002; Gore, 1993; Mac Naughton, 2005; St Pierre, 1997; St Pierre and Pillow, 2000). We realized that we had become distracted by institutionalized, modernist and neo-liberal notions of linear teacher development (Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 2006), perhaps partly as a survival mechanism in our own current job contexts. We had nearly overlooked the majority of our data illustrating student teachers’ often clandestine, non-standards-based classroom experiences, leading to their own non-linear messiness of constantly shifting, vacillating, variable and ever-flowing multiple identity enactments in the narratives.
While this article will initially describe how we confronted the (un)comfort of our initial analysis (St Pierre, 1997), the majority of it will explore how the student teachers’ narratives connect and disconnect with notions of what teachers and teaching should (not) be and are (not). The article will conclude with some possibilities for thinking differently and otherwise (Alvermann, 2000; Mac Naughton, 2005; Masny, 2013; Sellers, 2015) about teacher education and the role of teacher educators.
Facing our (un)comfort
Neo-liberal teacher education programmes are premised on the belief that science has determined what makes a good teacher and that this knowledge can be delineated into specific expectations or standards (Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 2006). These standards are to be met as students become teacher candidates and then teachers in a linear progression. It is only when the teacher candidates can demonstrate mastery of the teacher education standards that governmental bodies will determine the candidates to be teachers. Our initial analysis (Gaches and Walli, 2015) fitted well into this paradigm, sorting student teachers’ narratives into discrete categories (Davies, 2017) seemingly unproblematically. We had analysed student teachers’ narratives, coding passages based on the identities they were enacting: student, teacher, teacher-as-researcher, and so on. We looked at the narratives over time to see how these identity enactments had shifted and changed, resorting and regrouping. As teacher educators who are held accountable ourselves for our students reaching student teaching standards, we were expecting to see narratives that progressed from student to teacher.
Cannella (2002) discusses this linearity of developmentalism in reference to curriculum and points to the normative nature of curriculum and standards. Those who create the standards exercise power over those who must meet them, forcing all of teaching and learning into one mould of experience and knowledge. In the context of teacher education, all student teachers are to process their experiences to fit these standards and prove themselves as teachers who think and act in these predetermined ways. For Deleuze and Guattari (1987), this linear development is like a tree that can be traced as it grows from its taproot through the trunk, branches, then leaves. It is a predictable and stable reproduction of what is known. Our original analysis attempted to trace the student teachers’ narratives, expecting them to grow in this linear fashion. While we did find some of this linear progression from student to teacher, the majority of our data indicated many other paths and trajectories.
At times, the student teachers’ narratives appeared to be working towards meeting particular standards, only to veer in another direction unpredictably. In this sense, they were more like a rhizome (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) – a structure such as an orchid or a tuber that grows laterally, with many connections and lines of flight branching off in multiple directions. These rhizomes imply a world that is dynamic, ever-changing and always ‘becoming’ in a never-ending process. A rhizome is never finished, it is always ‘becoming’ through crossovers between offshoots, through expansions of one form of growth into another and through the death and decomposition of outdated elements. (Mac Naughton, 2005: 121)
With no beginning or end, a rhizome cannot be traced, but rather is mapped (Alvermann, 2000; Deleuze and Guattari, 1987; Mac Naughton, 2005). Without a beginning or end, analysis starts in the middle, making it possible to ‘decenter key linkages and find new ones, not by combining old ones in new ways, but by remaining open to the proliferation of ruptures and discontinuities that in turn create other linkages’ (Alvermann, 2000: 118). Furthermore, Deleuze and Guattari (1987) are adamant that researchers must also return to the tracings and overlay them onto the map in order to make visible and inspect the ruptures and breaks that occur. By doing so, new knowledge and possibilities are constructed rather than returning to the older ways of thinking, being and doing (Alvermann, 2000).
We returned to our analysis of the student teachers’ narratives with more vigour and a stronger sense of purpose. Delving further into possibilities for this rhizoanalysis, we knew that we needed to ask more than what do these student teachers’ narratives mean. We needed to explore how these narrative texts connect to ‘other things (e.g., readers, other texts, contexts)’ (Alvermann, 2000: 117). Then, how do the original tracings of linear development overlay these connections and lines of flight so that discontinuities and ruptures are found and noticed?
First we asked: How do these narratives connect to us and the (un)comfort we felt in our original analysis? We had strong emotional responses (St Pierre, 1997) to one particular narrative from Joyce,
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which kept haunting us. In this narrative, she wants desperately to be named a ‘teacher’. She feels like a teacher and like she is doing a teacher’s job, but to others she is not: In the weeks since our last journal, many situations have happened to challenge me further in my transitional stage of being and becoming a teacher. The most memorable yet was one of my students telling me ‘My mom says you’re not really a teacher…’. This was a hard pill to swallow as I attempted to try and have a conversation with her. As much as I wanted to correct her and tell her I am in fact her teacher, and it almost boiled my blood, I realized that it made me so frustrated because she was technically right. I’m actually not a ‘teacher’ yet by the criteria of the state and nationally; however, I wanted to defend my honor and tell her that I am working so hard to teach her everything I can and make learning meaningful for her, and isn’t really what teaching is all about anyways? However, no matter how hard I worked to define myself in my head, on the surface, this little girl was right. I’m technically not a ‘teacher’ yet in the most formal sense of the word.
We were haunted by Joyce’s need for particular neo-liberal criteria to legitimize her identity as a teacher. Also alarming was Joyce’s reticence to claim teacherhood when denied this identity by a mother and her child. We questioned this modernist discourse of student teachers as ‘not real teachers’, which reinforces their incompleteness as human capital in the face of their daily preschool classroom lives. So, with Joyce’s narrative, we began our analysis again. This time we started in the middle – in the middle of Joyce’s being and becoming a teacher, and in the middle of our data as this narrative occurred mid-semester for Joyce.
Moving forward from the middle: ‘doing’ a rhizoanalysis
There is no one particular way of ‘doing’ a rhizoanalysis (Masny, 2013; Sellers, 2015). In what follows, we attempt to recreate for the reader how we began at a key moment of emotional response to Joyce’s narrative and then intertwined our inquiry, reading and writing (Masny, 2013). We first refocused on those texts from the original cohort of teacher candidates that we had determined did not demonstrate a linear student-to-teacher identity. From 4 of these 17 original student teachers there were sequences of narratives that constantly vacillated, moving amongst and between narratives identifying as student, teacher, playmate, expert, apprentice and others. We also then included in our new analysis all of the narratives from a newer cohort of early childhood student teachers. In total, 171 narratives from 24 students were reviewed. As we read and reread these narratives, we were asking ourselves:
What is happening in these narratives that is surprising us?
How are the narratives potentially breaking from linear connections to being and becoming a teacher?
What themes are resonating from these narratives that connect with each other and/or with other ideas and texts? (Mac Naughton, 2005)
Specifically, we were thinking about two other texts based on some key themes in Joyce’s haunting narrative, and their connections with tracings of linear teacher development. Thinking of Joyce’s emphasis on state and national requirements, we first turned to the professional preparation standards used in our teacher preparation programme – the NAEYC and the InTASC professional preparation standards – as they are one of the key ingredients in the neo-liberal perspectives of linear development in teacher education within this particular state of the USA. Additionally, we were intrigued with why the girl in Joyce’s narrative reports that her mother says that Joyce is not a ‘real’ teacher. Why would this mother think this and why would the girl not believe Joyce was a teacher? This brought to mind how becoming and being a teacher is portrayed in popular culture and the media (Alvermann, 2000). While these popular culture notions of ‘teacher’ are diverse, with many varying perspectives, we had found a entitled ‘A day in the life of a preschool teacher’ (McCollom, n.d.), which described many common notions we had seen in the media, popular press, cartoons, television programmes and so on about what the life of an early childhood teacher can be. The text of this website became another data source with which to map the student teachers’ narratives and on which to overlay the tracings of linear teacher development.
First, we discussed and identified themes that were present throughout the student teachers’ narratives. The fact that ‘relationships’ was a strong common theme in many of the teacher candidates’ narratives should not have surprised us. This university’s teacher preparation programme has four principles at its core, one of which centres on relationships with children and families and the valuing of families’ funds of knowledge (González et al., 2005). Nonetheless, the student teachers had carried this principle into their reflections of becoming and being a teacher.
Then we each identified three narratives that we felt were particularly illustrative (Masny, 2013) and that deviated from, ruptured or broke with these other texts. Interestingly, we each chose two of the same narratives. Thus, we mapped a total of four narratives plus a continuation of Joyce’s haunting narrative. Our initial mapping was quite messy with lines of flight traversing connection to connection, narrative to text, text to narrative and narrative to narrative. Due to the limitations of presenting non-linear mapping in the rather linear format of this article, and the inability of word counts to capture much of the overlapping complexities, we can only represent and present here excerpts from these rhizomatic wanderings.
Mapping our rhizomatic wanderings
In the four narratives we ultimately chose for mapping, relationships with the children and their families and relationships with other adults played a central role. Directly after describing her encounter with the child for whom Joyce is not a teacher, Joyce shifts the narrative to her forming of relationships with children and how those are affecting her work with them: I see myself shifting daily into understanding my students on a deeper level, forming relationships with students … I have challenged myself as she challenges me that instead of letting her get to me or feel overpowered by her, I can learn so much from her and the ways in which she thinks and views the world around her.
After a longer passage where Joyce describes how her increasing understanding of Vygotsky is helping her hone in on the aforementioned child’s sociocultural developmental influences, Joyce builds on her developing relationship with the child, emphasizing how she ‘can learn so much from her’.
This is where we make our first connection to and rupture with our other texts. In this passage, Joyce is viewing the child as a collaborator in their work together – Joyce’s in becoming a teacher and the child’s in her own becomings. InTASC’s (2011: 19; our emphasis) Standard 10 – Leadership and Collaboration – specifically mentions ‘collaboration with learners, families, colleagues, and other school professionals and community members to ensure learner growth’. However, the NAEYC’s (2009: 18) Standard 6 (also related to professionalism) only refers to collaboration with ‘other candidates, higher education faculty, and experienced early childhood practitioners’ – no child collaborators.
This rupture led us to another text – that of Mercy. Her narrative begins with the type of collaboration that would seem to positively connect with InTASC’s and the NAEYC’s view of collaboration, with Mercy’s co-planning with her mentor teacher – one of those ‘experienced early childhood practitioners’: I had the opportunity to brainstorm ideas and create this week’s lesson plan with my mentor teacher … Since there were a few instances last week where children had interest in looking at the moon outside, we thought the ‘Wolf Moon’ would be a perfect topic for this week’s lesson plan!
Mercy heads off to the library in search of a picture book that could be read at circle time and be a ‘good fit’ for the new theme. This emphasis on circle time maps well onto statements from the piece ‘A day in the life of a preschool teacher’, where ‘circle time’ is referred to as ‘the real meat and potatoes of the day’, helping children ‘learn to be part of the world beyond their families’ (McCollom, n.d.). Mercy ultimately decides on the Little Red Riding Hood story. She has selected Jerry Pinkney’s (2008) version, with an African American Red Riding Hood and where the woodcutter kills the wolf: I made a trip to the library to check out the book and found a version that contained diversity! … On one of the last few pages in the story, it contains text about the woodcutter killing the wolf … Some of my students’ facial expressions looked shocked and confused after they heard the phrase being read to them. My mentor teacher says to me, ‘Did you read the book before?’ I responded by saying ‘Yes’ and then continued reading the last few pages of the story to the kids.
While we can challenge her thoughts on this text’s diversity themes, for the moment it is Mercy’s relationship with her mentor teacher that we found significant. Mercy’s mentor stops her in the middle of the reading of the book to question her preparedness and the appropriateness of the book for the children. The NAEYC’s and InTASC’s views of collaboration have stopped; confrontation has occurred, putting in jeopardy Mercy’s relationship with her mentor and the children.
Mercy’s pride in finding a ‘version that contained diversity’ and to which she thinks the children could connect maps well onto the NAEYC’s (2009) Standard 1 – ‘each child understands and makes meaning from her or his experiences through play, spontaneous activity, and guided investigations’ (11) – and Standard 5’s call for ‘culturally familiar ways’ of learning and a curriculum that is ‘free of biases’ (16) – assuming a curriculum is ever ‘free’ of biases. While Mercy is attempting to make these connections, we question how much she is basing these connections on her relationships with the children. She provides no insights into what it was about this picture book that made it particularly relevant for her children, nor does she have a ‘deeper level’ relationship, to which Joyce referred, to inform her book selection.
And yet her mentor teacher shuts down her efforts to find a relevant text for the children and shuts down any further conversation within the ‘meat and potatoes’ time of the preschool day that ‘help[s] children make sense of the world outside their families’ (McCollom, n.d.), in a world where animals are killed in the forest and where household violence exists and is often observed and experienced by young children.
This is such a missed opportunity for Mercy, for the children and for the mentor teacher. It is also another rupture with the professional preparation standards. While both InTASC’s and the NAEYC’s standards make multiple statements regarding building on children’s prior knowledge, inclusion of multiple perspectives, and ‘the multiple influences on development and learning’, the realization that violence in multiple forms is often present in children’s lives goes unrecognized and unaddressed. It is also concerning that Mercy did not reflect more critically on this aspect. However, given her mentor teacher’s strong, non-collaborative response, it is somewhat understandable that, instead, her narrative continued to describe how in the future she will mediate her own selection of books, censoring for what she thinks will be found offensive.
Where Mercy was searching for ways to connect to children’s lives and Joyce was finding deeper relationships helpful, Stephanie’s narratives bring us further into these relationships. For Stephanie, through the examples set by her co-teachers, it became about love. It began with learning to balance in her own mind a ‘teacher–friend’ relationship: When I thought about building relationships with my students, I had this idea that I needed to find ways to make sure that I was the teacher and the students were the students … I saw my co-teachers and how much they showed that they cared for the children and how much the children responded to that. One of my strengths ended up being balancing the teacher–friend relationship that allowed my student and me to build a strong relationship rooted in love, trust and respect.
However, once Stephanie saw how her mentor co-teachers showed that they cared for the children and then the children’s response, she began to open up. She provides for us some insight into how those relationships are built and the affection they can entail. Receiving 22 hugs a day melted away Stephanie’s resolve for authoritarian distance: It took me a while to open up, but once I did, I saw how much it meant to my students. They, in turn, began to trust me and confide in me … I learned about the importance of being an authority figure, but not forgetting that these children needed love. After opening up, I got twenty-two hugs when I got to class every day, which was probably the best way to start my day.
For us, this mapped onto the supporting explanation of the NAEYC’s (2009: 14) Standard 4, relating to ‘using developmentally effective approaches to connect with children and families’. In that supporting explanation, it mentions the importance of the ‘close attachments children develop with their teachers/caregivers’ and of the ‘warmth and responsiveness of adult–child interactions’ to children’s development and learning. With this mention of attachment in a very developmental psychology – attachment theory (Salter Ainsworth and Bowlby, 1991) – framing, the teacher relationship discussion in the NAEYC standards stops. There is no sense of Joyce’s deeper relationship. The topic then turns away from the teacher–child relationship to the teacher candidates’ responsibility for creating ‘a caring community of learners’ (NAEYC, 2009: 14). Interestingly, this is the only reference (appearing twice) in the entire NAEYC professional preparation standards where the words ‘care’ or ‘caring’ appear, other than in reference to childcare or childcare workers.
However, this is more than in the InTASC standards, were neither ‘care’ nor ‘caring’ appears even once. The words ‘warmth’, ‘attachment’, ‘affection’ and ‘love’ never appear in the InTASC standards, and ‘responsiveness’ occurs once in Standard 3 – Learner Environments – which states: ‘The teacher communicates verbally and nonverbally in ways that demonstrate respect for and responsiveness to the cultural backgrounds and differing perspectives learners bring to the learning environment’ (InTASC, 2011: 12) – not exactly a sentiment of warmth and affection. From an InTASC perspective, this type of emotional attachment and love between child and teacher is not discussed. It is hidden and maybe even taboo, giving a sense of clandestine relationships.
For Layla, these relationships meant that she had to give up on some of her own plans and ideas. Like Stephanie, Layla had authoritarian ideas of what being a teacher looked and sounded like, but then came to the conclusion that the students’ learning was their own: You can plan things and have hopes that things will go this way or that way but you can’t determine that … I learned that embracing where the children want to go as more important is key. I came in and was trying so hard to stick to MY lesson but the lessons really are the students’ and not my own. (original emphasis)
Like Mercy, Layla’s narrative of child-centred learning maps onto the NAEYC’s (2009) Standard 1 – ‘each child understands and makes meaning from her or his experiences through play, spontaneous activity, and guided investigations’ (11) – and Standard 5’s call for ‘culturally familiar ways’ of learning and a curriculum that is ‘free of biases’ (16). Additionally, the supporting explanation for the NAEYC’s Standard 5 begins with the statement that ‘Strong, effective early childhood curricula do not come out of a box or a teacher-proof manual’ (16). There is also a sense of romanticism that maps onto a portion of ‘A day in the life of a preschool teacher’, which states: ‘Years from now when I think back on teaching, these sun-drenched afternoons spent in conversation with the kids and watching them play are the ones that will come to mind’ (McCollom, n.d.). Visions of rosy-cheeked children cavorting in the sunshine, spontaneously making discovery after discovery with no adult in sight, are evoked.
There is a tension here between teacher and child, where someone must give up something in this relationship. Layla must give up her plans to follow the lead of the children. This creates a rupture with both the NAEYC’s and InTASC’s standards. While the NAEYC (2009: 16) dissuades teachers from a boxed or teacher-proof curriculum, it does state that teachers are to use ‘their own knowledge, appropriate early learning standards, and other resources to design, implement and evaluate meaningful, challenging curricula for each child’. InTASC’s (2011) Standard 2 similarly states that it is the teacher who ‘designs, adapts, and delivers instruction’ (11), and Standard 5 stipulates that the teacher ‘develops and implements projects that guide learners’ (14) and ‘engages learners in applying content knowledge to real world problems’ (14). This leaves Layla in a questionable state. She can hope to fulfil these NAEYC and InTASC standards, but she recognizes that the children’s learning is actually out of her control, as it belongs to the children.
Mary’s story brings out a different relationship. This story is about the care Mary feels from her mentor teacher and the teaching assistants at her school: My week started off really well until Wednesday night when I went to go get my car from where it was parked and my window had been smashed. The following day when I went to my school, I had told my mentor and the other teaching assistants what had happened. They were all so supportive seeing that I was a little shaken up still … Some may not understand why I chose to do this story, but for me this was the time that the idea of community really stood out to me. The community of teachers helped me by talking with me about what had happened and just always supporting me through everything, whether it personal or in the classroom.
There are no children in this story, and Mary even feels that others would question why she is writing this story. It is as though she feels that this story is not really part of her journey to become a teacher; it is not relevant or necessary. Yet, for Mary, it is an important aspect of community. The university’s teacher preparation programme focuses on teacher–family notions of community and how the family interacts with the larger community. For Mary, community means the care and support she receives from her fellow teachers.
As discussed earlier, both the NAEYC’s and InTASC’s standards specifically mention collaboration in a sense of nose to the grindstone, working and toiling. The NAEYC’s (2009: 18) Standard 6c focuses on ‘collaborative learning to inform practice’ and ‘working together on common challenges’, and InTASC’s (2011: 19) Standard 10 also connects collaboration with building a shared vision and common goals, supporting learning and professional practice. However, Mary’s narratives have a stronger sense of working with colleagues in close-knit, emotionally supportive, more convivial ways. In fact, for Mary, it is these relationships that are ‘the foundation of a successful school community’: ‘By keeping it an easy to work in environment where everyone is truly valued is important … building a community of teachers which should always be the foundation of a successful school community’.
This sense of community amongst the school staff does not appear in professional preparation standards. Relationships with fellow teachers are not mentioned in ‘A day in the life of a preschool teacher’ (McCollom, n.d.). While McGinty et al. (2008) note a positive correlation between preschool teachers’ self-reported sense of community and increased job satisfaction and higher ‘classroom quality’, further investigation is needed to determine where neo-liberal notions of ‘classroom quality’ may come into play.
Where have our wanderings led?
By returning to our data and approaching these student teachers’ narratives from the middle, we were able to make some connections and disconnections that otherwise had gone unnoticed and unrecognized (Alvermann, 2000). In our original tracings of expected linear teacher development, many of the narratives shared here were not deemed important and did not count towards being a teacher or a student. The student teachers’ experiences of relationships, love and community were pushed to the margins in our search for linear teacher development. As mentioned previously, it is critical to put the tracing back on the map to locate potential ruptures and discontinuities, and to find ways of thinking differently about data (Alvermann, 2000; Deleuze and Guattari, 1987). Throughout our new analysis, several discontinuities and ruptures were found and have been discussed. How, then, can these discontinuities and ruptures help us to think differently about student teachers’ experiences as students and as teachers?
First, as students on their university courses, the student teachers were learning about the importance of relationships as one of the core principles of the teacher education programme. These students brought that emphasis to their perspectives in working with children and colleagues. However, two of the student teachers found that, while teaching standards expect collaborative relationships with learners, families and colleagues (InTASC Standard 10), these collaborative relationships can be thwarted or damaged. While Joyce valued everything a child was teaching her, the child (and her mother) rejected her as a ‘teacher.’ Mercy thought she had a collaborative relationship with her mentor teacher, only to be questioned and reprimanded in front of the children.
Stephanie’s narrative drew our attention to the emotional side of these relationships as they move beyond collaboration. Stephanie’s learning to love from the teachers and children at her centre was discontinuous with the standards’ notions of attachment and caring communities of learners. For Stephanie, these emotions were not about depersonalized, scientific definitions of attachment or catchphrase communities, but rather love, trust, respect and a willingness to open her arms and her heart.
For Mary, the community of teachers who helped her feel safe, cared for, protected and supported was what really mattered. The description of her relationships with these teachers ruptures from the professional teaching standards’ notions of collaborative relationships or a caring community of learners, or the isolation of teachers in ‘A day in the life of a preschool teacher’. Instead, Mary states that an ‘environment where everyone is truly valued’ is the foundation of a successful school community.
Layla’s narrative pointed to discontinuities between how information from these relationships is utilized. Her willingness to give up her own predetermined lesson plans for the children in order to follow their lead in their learning has her fulfilling both romantic and professional teaching standards’ notions of children at meaningful play, and puts her at odds with professional teaching standards where it is the teacher who ‘designs, adapts and delivers instruction’ (InTASC Standard 2).
Finally, it is clear to us that being and becoming a teacher reaches far beyond neo-liberal notions of what teaching entails, with the emphasis on teacher candidates’ linear progression from students to teachers through the attainment of specified standards. In these teachers’ narratives, their identities were ever-evolving, messy, multilayered, multifaceted, and never fixed or finished. They were teachers, learners, the selector of a scary, apparently inappropriate book, caregivers, huggers, comforters, curriculum (non-)developers, a shaken-yet-supported crime victim, and valued community members.
How, then, does this rhizomatic exploration have us thinking differently about these student teachers’ journeys in becoming and being teachers? How do we, as teacher educators, support our students in these endeavours? Perhaps it is time to step back some from imparting to teacher preparation students the ‘appropriate’ knowledge, skills and dispositions towards the attainment of specified professional teaching standards. Perhaps it is time to focus more attention on being present and supporting these students as they experience and travel amongst and between their ever-evolving and shifting identities. Perhaps we can take some lessons from their narratives and prioritize reciprocal relationships that are loving, caring, supportive, trusting and collaborative in our learnings together.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
