Autobiography as resistance to learnification in early childhood teacher education

Abstract

This article works with autobiographical methodologies such as those proposed and propagated by Madeleine Grumet and William Pinar (1975, 2004) to examine and critique the role that an emphasis on learning plays in early childhood teacher education. The authors are an instructor and a student in a course called Foundations in Early Childhood Education. They draw on their life experiences prior to, during, and after the course as data that help them understand how moving away from what Biesta (2017) has problematized as the “learnification” of education might be aided by a return to and ongoing work on autobiography. The authors describe how themes specifically related to loss can be highlighted in a way that enriches personal educational experience and also enhances the psychodynamic and moral capacity of the teacher education trajectory.

Keywords:

• Early childhood
• curriculum studies
• teacher knowledge
• student and teacher experiences
• psychoanalysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Clio Stearns

Clio Stearns is an Assistant Professor of Education at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. She writes extensively on psychoanalysis in education and the importance of students' and teachers' affective experience and knowledge in the classroom.

Aisha Guadalupe

Aisha Guadalupe is an undergraduate student at Smith College, where she is majoring in Latin American Studies. She believes in the politically transformative potential of education.