Transitioning to teacher: uncertainty as a game of dramatic hats

Abstract

Nathalie’s experience of becoming a teacher demonstrates how a counter-narrative contributes to negotiating dominant discourses that propagate stories of uniformity and reinforce the status quo within the teaching profession. By offering an alternate perspective of teacher culture as a liminal space, uncertainty symbolizes Nathalie’s transition to teacher, moving between inquiry notions of teacher education and apprenticeship traditions that continue to define field experiences, in this case, as the antithesis of a progressive practicum experience, highlighting interruptions and instances of regress. Based on Nathalie’s story, existing practices in teacher education may be reconceptualized in terms of identity formation, emotions and surveillance in teacher education to raise awareness about the stresses of the teaching occupation and to establish within teacher culture alternate perspectives about the profession.

Keywords:

• teacher culture
• arts research
• counter-narrative

Acknowledgement

I wish to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding this study.