Personal Knowledge Landscapes

In Chapter 2 we outlined the concepts of teacher knowledge that Connelly and Clandinin developed in their work with teachers over many years. We realize that our understandings of knowledge and of knowledge generation differ from much of the literature on teacher knowledge. As Rosiek (2013) describes, through narrative understandings of teacher knowledge, “our work does not describe teachers’ knowledge, but transforms it – restories it. This is a radically different conception of the purpose, place, and function of knowledge in our activities.”

We also shared our autobiographical narrative accounts in Chapter 2, making ourselves visible in who we were/are, and were/are becoming, in the narrative inquiry alongside the participants. In this chapter we revisit the narrative accounts of the six early career teacher leavers’ experiences of coming to teaching, teaching, and leaving teaching. From a temporal vantage point outside of teaching, the participants and we told of our experiences. The weaving of these experiences together allowed them, and us, to look backward and forward.