Student Narratives as a Tool for Professional Development in Teacher Education: A Project in Progress

Åse Haraldstad, Department of Education, University of Agder, Norway

E-mail: ase.haraldstad@uia.no

Aslaug Kristiansen, Department of Education, University of Agder, Norway

E-mail: aslaug.kristiansen@uia.no

When a Norwegian student enters a teacher education programme, he or she has had approximately 12,000 hours of instruction with up to 50 different teachers before even starting at university (Terum og Heggen, 2010).  Many teacher educators have a tendency to ignore this past experiences. They approach the task of teacher socialization, as though the beginners were a tabula rasa (Bollough, 1991).

In order to approach this “knowledge baggage” we have found metaphors and storytelling to be particularly suitable to articulate this often tacit knowledge (Blumenberg, 2002). The aim of the project is to improve teacher qualifications by challenging teacher students at the start of their teacher education to consciously process their own stories and experiences. We also wish to develop a research focus on the process, one which encourages developmental and innovative aspects of working with metaphors and stories.

Metaphors and stories are suitable for combining self-understanding, reflection and creativity. As a linguistic phenomenon, the metaphor allows ambiguity, contradictions and playfulness. This is interesting in light of a cultivation process. According to Kristensson Uggla, 1999), a poetic language does not do away with ambiguity, but rather utilizes it in an innovative manner. Any difficulties and multiple comprehensions arising from this can liberate an individual’s metaphorical imagination into producing more complex and thus richer meanings (Kristensson Uggla, 1999: 390 – 393).

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