CHAPTER 2: Teacher Identity and Curriculum: Space for Dissent

Confronted with a depersonalized and technocratic schooling system, governed by a totalizing system of standards, testing, and accountability, teachers face an oppressive system that does not permit authentic identity formation. Authentic teacher identity depends upon intentional and empowered participation in the dialogic processes of curriculum development and instructional decision making. The relational nature of learning and the classroom requires a teacher who is engaged, has made meaning of, and has ownership of the content, processes, and products of the curriculum. The dialogic relationship between teacher and student is one founded upon an intersection of authentic identities or relational horizons—not roles put on by actors within an institution. By controlling the “horizon” within which classroom relationships develop, the depersonalized and technocratic schooling system has effectively denied authentic identity a place within the schooling system.