Getting to the heart of teacher experience: The journeying of reflexivity, self-study and conscious attention

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the testimonies of teachers who participated in an innovative training program whose goal was to develop teachers' attention to their personal and professional experience. This approach to teacher training can be located within the discourses of reflexivity and self-study, and moves teachers toward an intra- and inter-subjective understanding of their role as teachers. Closer attention to experience generates both difficult and transformative knowledge that necessitates evolutions in teacher identity with both individualized and shared components. Teachers develop a greater tolerance of ambivalence and multiplicity, as well as increased autonomy, showing signs of moving toward a new professional ethos grounded in an enhanced attention to the here and now of teaching and its highly relational nature. This new ethos is perhaps better suited to contribute to the growing policy trends that emphasize the educational importance of school climate.