Development of Teacher-Community in an Elementary School Reform:

Focusing on Teachers’ Narratives Sharing Their “Inabilities”

Abstract

  This study introduces a case of school reform in a public elementary school, hereon named “A-school”, in the city of O, Japan, in which all teachers engaged in the challenge to share their responsibility for all students in the school. The study analyzes how the teacher-community at A-school developed through the school reform. It is noteworthy that the teacher-community at A-school was uniquely developed by teachers’ sharing about their “inabilities” rather than “abilities”. The study, then, focuses on this unique sharing culture to analyze how individual teachers in A-school had experienced their school reform by using a narrative inquiry approach. Considering A-school as a narrative community, we interviewed several teachers and school staff, and analyzed their narratives from three viewpoints; “personal story”, “community narrative”, and “dominant cultural narrative”. As a result, we found out the following: (1) The narrative based on the dominant culture in ordinary elementary schools tends to emphasize individual classroom teacher’s responsibility for students in his/her own class. Such narrative makes it difficult for ordinary elementary schools to achieve the goal “All teachers should be responsible for all students in a school.” (2) Counter to the dominant narrative emphasizing individual responsibility, teachers in A-school positively disclosed their “inability” to share their responsibility for their students. The principal took the initiative to disclose her own “inabilities”, which then provided veteran teachers in A-school a safety to share their own “inabilities”. Those principal’s and veterans’ narratives then encouraged young teachers in A-school to also disclose their “inabilities”. (3) The teachers in A-school realized that being aware of one’s own “inability” and asking for others’ help do not mean giving up one’s own responsibility. Instead, the teachers found that they pursued their own responsibility through continuous questioning of their “abilities” needed for their students’ education.