From stories of staying to stories of leaving: a US beginning teacher’s experience

Abstract

This narrative inquiry traces a beginning teacher’s unfolding career over a six-year period in a diverse middle school in the fourth largest city in the USA. The work revolves around two conceptualizations: ‘stories to live by’ and ‘stories to leave by.’ How these identity-related phenomena surface and play out in an entry-level teacher’s experiences become revealed. The stories of experience lived and told, and relived and retold, illuminate the influence of context on beginning teachers’ knowing. The interwoven nature of educators’ lives also forms a major theme. In the final analysis, the beginning teacher’s ‘stories to live by’ are no longer able to sustain her in her urban teaching milieu. Shifting occurs and ‘stories to leave by’ prevail.

Keywords:

• beginning teachers
• teacher identity
• teacher attrition
• narrative inquiry

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the educators who willingly participated in this study and the centrality of their ongoing experiences. A special thank you is extended to ‘Anna Dean’ whose early career years are spotlighted. Similar appreciation is directed to the reform movement that provided funding for this research through a grant made to T. P. Yaeger Middle School. The help of numerous research assistants over time is likewise acknowledged. Lastly, this work is dedicated to the recently deceased ‘Mrs Chapman’ who helped initiate this research project and repeatedly underscored its importance.

Notes

This article was written for the purpose of examining teachers’ knowledge community within the context of school reform and was not intended to be disrespectful of others’ research and educational practices.

1. Critical Friends are groups of teachers who use established protocols and specific time frames to address dilemmas of practice.

2. Looping in the U.S. context is when a teacher accompanies his/her student to the next grade level. The particular Yaeger teacher wanted to follow her students from 7th grade to the 8th grade level.

3. “Dropped in the grease’ is a Southern expression meaning ‘deep trouble.’

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cheryl J. Craig

Cheryl J. Craig in the University of Houston, CUIN, 304E Farish Hall, University of Houston, 4800 Calhoun, Houston, 77204-5027, USA. e-mail:[email protected]. Her research programme has to do with how teachers’ knowledge and identities are shaped by the milieus in which their work is embedded.