| As a teacher puzzled by questions of spirit, a term commonly used by teachers, I began to wonder what did I mean when I spoke of my spirit? What did other teachers mean by spirit? I began to wonder if spirit was connected to what I know (my personal practical knowledge), to who I am (my story to live by), or to the context in which I live as a teacher (my professional knowledge landscape). If we understand teacher knowledge, contexts, and identity narratively, can we understand spirit as somehow interconnected with these concepts?;In order to explore our teaching lives and our teacher spirit, I have explored the interconnections between our knowledge, contexts and identity, (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) and how spirit might be an aspect of these concepts. When linked, as they are in Connelly and Clandinin's (1999) term "stories to live by," these concepts create a narrative way to think through and to talk about teacher spirit. Stories to live by are given meaning by the narrative understandings of knowledge and context. Stories to live by are shaped by such matters as "secret teacher stories, sacred stories of schooling, and teachers' cover stories" (p. 4). It is these types of stories that I have included in order to explore the notion of teacher spirit.;Narrative inquiry, as the research methodology, allows me to create an opportunity to explore teacher spirit by attending to the stories that teacher's tell, the events that take place on their school landscapes, and how these events shape their stories to live by. With a small group of teachers, a conversation space was created in order to explore the meaning of teacher spirit by talking about our experiences in and surrounding our teaching lives. The co-researchers and I attempted to deepen our current understandings of teacher identity in relation with teacher spirit. Through this exploration of teacher's stories to live by, in relation with teacher spirit, new understandings of professional growth and teacher education were also sought out.;The co-researchers and I came together to participate in a conversation group where we attempted to make sense of teacher spirit in relationship to our stories to live by. We explored wonders through monthly conversation group meetings, by reflecting on previous conversations, revisiting our shared understandings and ideas and by looking forward to what teacher spirit might be conceptualized as. Through our collaborative analyses, as well as my own analysis of the transcripts of our conversations, we came to recognize rhythms or progressions that repeated themselves throughout our conversations. It is these rhythms that became the research story for this narrative inquiry.;I present this inquiry alongside my belief that we need to remove the boundaries that place teacher spirit outside our conversations, outside educational research, and outside understandings of life in schools. It is my hope that this inquiry will begin to remove these boundaries and allow us to talk about teacher spirit in a meaningful and informative way. |
