‘Models of possible selves: teachers’ reflections on childhood memories of parents’

ABSTRACT

This study draws from theories of attachment to examine prospective teachers’ reflections on the role of the parent in their childhood memories in shaping the imagination of their future selves. As part of a larger qualitative study, we collected and analyzed the memory narratives of teacher candidates and undergraduate students preparing to work with children, and selected 53 of the 116 narratives that featured parents. These memories demonstrate three ways in which parents figured into the participants’memories and reflections on their motivations to work with children: 1) as supportive role models, 2) as catalysts of sympathy for children whom teachers imagine as lacking the privileges their own parents provided, and 3) as spurs for empathy towards children whom they identify with as experiencing challenging situations. In each case, the participant created an internal working model of the child-adult relationship in their memory and imagined themselves taking up a parallel role as the adult in a future child-adult relationship. As teacher educators concerned with the identity work of preservice teachers, our findings highlight the importance of critically exploring childhood memories of parents as models for the teacher-child relationship.

KEYWORDS:

• Childhood memories
• parents
• prospective teachers
• teacher identity
• reflective practive

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by an Insight Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Grant/Award Number: [430- 2018-0689].

Notes on contributors

Sandra Chang-Kredl

Sandra Chang-Kredl is an Associate Professor in Early Childhood and Elementary Education in the Department of Education, at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec. Her research examines issues related to teacher identity, including cultural representations of childhood and teachers' uses of memory to construct beliefs about childhood.

Julie Garlen

Julie C. Garlen is an associate professor of childhood and youth studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario. Previously, she worked in the U.S. South as a primary teacher and early childhood teacher educator. Her research focuses on the ways that cultural practices and discourses shape childhood, early learning, and teacher education.

Debbie Sonu

Debbie Sonu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Hunter College and doctoral faculty in the PhD Urban Education Program at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Her scholarly interests include curriculum studies as it relates to urban education, politically-oriented teaching in public schools, and critical childhood studies.

Lisa Farley

Lisa Farley is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at York University. Her research considers how psychoanalytic theories of childhood can help us think about the conflicted qualities of growth, belonging, and education. She is the author of Childhood Beyond Pathology: A Psychoanalytic Study of Development and Diagnosis (SUNY Press, 2018).