Examining Teacher Narrative Vignettes of Experience to Foster Educational Equity

Abstract

Current scholarship has engaged teacher/educator narratives and revealed how they might encourage critical reflection, curate innovation with respect to teaching and learning, and also push forward social justice efforts in the field of education. To date, however, the narratives of student-teachers have not been appropriately tended to. Student teachers are uniquely positioned to contribute to educational innovations, and their voices offer meaningful insights into the ways in which such innovations might emerge, so that students can reach their ultimate potential. Given the aforementioned understandings, this chapter seeks to accomplish two things: (1) position teacher narratives, particularly those of student-teachers, as a tool of inquiry for substantive change in elementary learning contexts and (2) highlight equity-based instructional approaches that stand to increase student academic success.