In the third space: the storied self, uncertainty and transition

Abstract

In this chapter I use narrative inquiry to focus on my troubled relationship to pedagogy, and in particular my changing and unstable position and desires as a teacher. Through reflexive writing I articulate and (re)present my journey as a teacher educator in the increasingly challenging personal and political third space created by my participatory experience in and between two educational places. The places of the study are the university where I strive to prepare pre-service teachers for an increasingly regulated profession, and the non-traditional primary school where, as participant researcher, I engage in a Reggio-inspired and child-initiated curriculum facilitated by the community and the environment. Reflexive analysis of referential materials created and gathered during the three year study brings a focus upon my changing agency and allegiances across time, space and place. Troubling my personal and professional epistemologies and practices, I generate a neo-narrative of uncertainty and transition with the potential to transform my self-understandings as a teacher and to transform my practice of pedagogy in both places of the study.