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Transformative Teaching: the Stories Aspiring Teachers Tell of the Teachers Who Made a Difference © 2106 Cynthia J

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Transformative Teaching: the Stories Aspiring Teachers Tell of the Teachers Who Made a Difference © 2106 Cynthia J i Transformative Teaching: The Stories Aspiring Teachers Tell of the Teachers Who Made a Difference © 2106 Cynthia J. Shigo Submitted to the graduate degree program in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching The School of Education And the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ Chairperson: Dr. Heidi Hallman ________________________________ Dr. Marc Mahlios ________________________________ Dr. Phil McKnight ________________________________ Dr. Mary Jo Reiff ________________________________ Dr. Suzanne Rice Date Defended: May 3, 2016 ii The Dissertation Committee for Cynthia J. Shigo certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: TRANSFORMATIVE TEACHING: THE STORIES ASPIRING TEACHERS TELL OF THE TEACHERS WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE ________________________________ Chairperson Dr. Heidi Hallman Date approved: May 3, 2016 iii Abstract Transformative teaching (teaching to make a difference) is education for growth in students, through intentional, creative action and purposeful engagement in identity formation. The desire to make a difference in students’ lives is at the heart of all curriculum theory and practice and is especially relevant as a purpose for teaching in teacher education programs with students who are working to create personal teacher identities. It is the primary reason teacher education students give, every year, for choosing to become a teacher. A commitment to the pursuit of excellence, expressed in a language of hope, with the purpose of creating a good life, within a relationship of care between teacher and students, is necessary to teaching to make a difference in students’ lives. Transformative teaching is a significant alternative to the test-driven status quo of American educational theory because, although it is a practical and theoretic struggle, it allows for a renewed emphasis on personal excellence for students through the guiding relationship of care with a teacher committed to making a difference in students’ lives. This narrative research project investigated the impact of transformative teaching on the teacher identity formation of undergraduates pursuing certification in the School of Education. The foundational question that drove this research was: How do School of Education undergraduates and the teachers they identify as transformative narrate the relationship of transformative teaching and how that relationship has informed the undergraduates’ identity formation as aspiring teachers and their decision to pursue a teaching career? This question was explored by collecting the stories students told of teachers who made a difference in their lives and comparing their stories to the stories told by those teachers identified as transformative, to learn what it is about teaching to transform that influenced aspiring teachers to choose education as a profession, as well as how teaching to make a difference might help transformative teachers have a rewarding career in which they may endure. Narrative research is an appropriate methodology for an investigation of identity formation through transformative teaching because it “assumes that storytelling is integral to understanding lives and that all people construct narratives as a process in constructing and reconstructing identity” (Marshall & Rossman, 2011, p. 23). iv Acknowledgements There are many people I must acknowledge for their assistance as I completed this dissertation. First and foremost, to the students of the Fall 2015 Introduction to Education classes, who completed surveys, wrote essays, and participated in focus group interviews, it could not have been done without your thoughtful and honest answers to my questions; for this I thank you. Next, to the teachers identified as transformative who completed surveys and participated in interviews, you have made this study rich with possibilities, and I thank you. Dr. Reva Friedman, the instructor this year of the class for which I have served as graduate teaching assistant, I thank you, both for allowing me to invite the class to participate in this research and for giving me time to complete it when deadlines loomed. Frank Hua, I thank you for letting me practice my interviews on you, and for your kind attention to my perpetual discussion of the themes that have constantly been on my mind. The entire committee, to whom I submit this work for approval, Dr. Marc Mahlios, Dr. Phil McKnight, Dr. Mary Jo Reiff, and Dr. Suzanne Rice, your suggestions for revision have been thoughtful and helpful. I thank you all. Dr. Heidi Hallman, my advisor, and the chair of the committee, your constant support and counsel these past four years have gotten me through, and your direction and advice on this work and in every aspect of completing this program have been truly transformative. You have become both counselor and friend, and I thank you. I am also grateful to Dr. Steve Woolf, the Superintendent of Schools who came to teach my classes about teaching from the teacher’s heart to the heart of a child, and whose participation in this study added the voice and perspective of a public school administrator who supports and empowers transformative teaching. You exemplify a teacher who uses the power of story in identity transformation with such grace and compassion that my own life has been changed, as much as the lives of every student in my classes. I thank you. Dr. Marc Mahlios is the professor who introduced me to the topic of transformative teaching, who guided my reading of the literature on the topic, and who demonstrated teaching that made a difference in all of his classes, with such care and excellence that it was truly beautiful to behold and had great influence on my decision to continue in the teaching profession as a transformative teacher. Your participation in the research, both to tell your story and to negotiate meaning of other stories told, was an exercise in transformative teaching at its very best. It may not be a book that will change the world, but through your guidance I believe it has become a work worthy of a year’s dedication. You have become my most transformative teacher, my mentor, and my friend. I am ever in your debt, and I thank you. To my daughters, Elisabeth Shigo Hass and Catherine Shigo Menefee, for listening and reading, for giving me leave to tell the stories of your remarkable childhood, and for being my best students and becoming my dearest friends, I thank you. To my mother, Juanita Cunningham Blackburn, for inspiring me to continue my studies, for lifelong encouragement to become the best teacher and writer I can be, I thank you. Finally, Joel Shigo, my husband and the love of my life, for listening to me hour after hour as I read passages to hear how they sound, for reading long sections from sources to me so I could type them in these pages, for your intelligent conversation, diligent editing, and constant care, and for your splendid example of a teacher who makes a difference, I thank you. This one is for you. v Table of Contents Chapter 1 - Telling My Story: A Problem Statement for Research 1 Looking for Answers to My Questions: A Purpose Statement for Research 12 Looking to Moral Purposes: A Statement of Significance 16 Making Meaning of Experience: Not the End of the Story 18 Chapter 2 - Transformative Teaching: A Literature Review 20 First Theory in the Triangulation: Transformative Teaching 26 Second Theory in the Triangulation: Identity Formation 41 Third Theory of the Triangulation: The Power of Story 51 Looking to Moral Purposes 57 The Virtue of Excellence in Education 60 The Aesthetic of Transformative Teaching 67 A Language of Hope 71 A Relational Ethic of Care 74 A Personal Story of Transformative Teaching 77 Chapter 3 - Methodology: A Narrative Research Study 82 I Choose Narrative Research 83 The Methodology of Narrative 94 The Collection of Data 100 The Analysis and Writing of Research Findings 102 The Ethical Considerations for Narrative Research 110 Chapter 4 - Data Analysis: Making Meaning of the Stories Teachers Tell 117 Students Narrate Teaching that Transforms 118 Using the Gilligan Guide to Listen to Compelling and Conflicting Voices 123 First Listening: Hearing the Stories Told 124 Second Listening: Hearing the Identity Statements of “I” Poems 127 Third Listening: Attending to Conflicting Voices 130 Fourth Listening: Harkening to Inductive and Deductive Themes 134 Telling Transformative Tales 156 Chapter 5 - Significance of the Study: Revisiting Questions, Purposes, and Goals 182 Fifth Listening: Attending to My Own Response 182 Revisiting the Research Question as Thematic Statements 192 Revisiting the Stated Purposes of the Study 193 Revisiting a Statement of Significance 196 Enduring Questions for Further Research 198 Looking Beyond to a Generational Story of Transformation 202 1 CHAPTER ONE Telling My Story: A Problem Statement for Research Transformative teaching (teaching to make a difference) is education for growth in students, through intentional, creative action and purposeful engagement in identity formation. The desire to make a difference in students’ lives is at the heart of all curriculum theory and practice (Marshall, Sears, Louise, Roberts, & Schubert, 2007) and is especially relevant as a purpose for teaching in teacher education programs with students who are working to create teacher identities. It is the primary reason my students give for choosing to become a teacher. This
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