Autobiographical reflections for teacher professional learning

Abstract

This article is based on the principle that teacher development is a life-long process when seeking to develop professional competencies. With the changing views of teacher education as background, the benefits to teachers associated with practice-oriented knowledge are predicated on a measure of empowerment through narration, self-expression and reflection. A life-story may represent the outward articulation of a teacher’s inner scrutiny, and demonstrate the ‘we-experience’ of a professional learning community arising out of its social structures and processes. Using autobiography as pedagogy, the article focuses on what a particular teacher’s narrative is expressing, how it is demonstrating that belief or life value, and why this process is worthwhile for professional learning. Such an autobiographical approach to ‘learning to teach’ is itself one response challenging the traditional theories of teacher knowledge within the theory–practice dichotomy.