I Have Left my Classroom. Why? Systemic denial of teachers’ knowledge

Abstract

This paper concerns recognition of the authority of teachers’ personal practical knowledge. An Australian teacher reports on her three‐and‐a‐half‐year collaborative study with a Canadian junior high school teacher. The research follows a line of research on teacher knowledge (Elbaz, 1983; Clandinin, 1986; Connelly & Clandinin, 1988; Clandinin & Connelly, 1995) informed by Dewey's (1938) philosophy of education based on experience. Narrative inquiry (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) is the methodology guiding the study. A summary of five papers on teacher knowledge emerging from the study is presented. These papers show how the research knowledge is constructed as the researcher and collaborating teacher examine their narratives of experience as a means to articulating their understandings of curriculum and teacher knowledge. This dissertation research argues for recognition of teachers’ personal practical knowledge as knowledge and for recognition of collaborative research as educative for teachers. The implications of this research concern teachers authoring their development and the ways in which teachers’ knowledge is systemically denied.