Engaging the Self in Teacher Education: Critical Self-Narratives and the Creation of Educational Communities

Abstract

Within communities, groups that control the creation and use of language hold the power to dominate those marginalized by powerless speech and an inability to coconstruct the language of evaluation. In this article, I explore taken-for-granted teacher education practices, and I challenge the deficit model of instruction, which views future teachers as nonparticipants in the creation of the language of their own education. In the exploration of these ideas, I suggest that critical self-narratives are an essential part of professional growth and humanistic pedagogy. Finally, I describe six personal pedagogical practices that function as the fertile ground in which coconstructed education can flourish.