In a climate of increasing emphasis on testing, measurable outcomes, competition and efficiency, the real lives of children and their teachers are often neglected or are too messy and intricate to legislate and quantify. As such, curricula are designed without including the very people that compose the identities of schools. Here Clandinin takes issue with this tendency, bringing together a collection of narratives from seven writers who spent a year in an urban school, exploring the experiences and contributions of children, families, teachers and administrators. These stories show us an alternative way of attending to what counts in schools, shifting away from the school as a business model towards an idea of schools as places to engage citizenship and to attend to the wholeness of people’s lives. Articulating the complex ethical dilemmas and issues that face people and schools every day, this fascinating study puts school life under the microscope raises new questions about who and what education is for.
Author(s): D. Jean Clandinin, Janice Huber, Marilyn Huber, M. Shaun Murphy, Anne Murray Orr, Marni Pearce, Pam
Edition: 1
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 208
Book Cover......Page 1
Half-Title......Page 2
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
Acknowledgements......Page 8
Introduction......Page 10
1 A narrative understanding of lives in schools......Page 13
2 Working alongside children, teachers, parents, and administrators in relational narrative inquiry......Page 26
3 Children's stories to live by: Teachers' stories of children......Page 49
4 Children's fictionalized stories to live by......Page 70
5 Children's and teachers' stories to live by in a school story of character education......Page 88
6 Living alongside children shapes an administrator's stories to live by......Page 104
7 Shifting stories to live by: Interweaving the personal and professional in teachers' lives......Page 121
8 Living in tension: Negotiating a curriculum of lives......Page 144
9 Composing stories to live by: Interrupting the story of school......Page 158
10 Imagining a counterstory attentive to lives......Page 171
Afterword......Page 185
Notes......Page 191
References......Page 193
Index......Page 200
