Among the Chosen: A Collaborative Educational (Auto)biography

Abstract

A central educational issue is the nature of the long-range influences of a teacher on a student. This article experiments with a narrative approach to exploring that issue. In collaboration with a young woman who is a former student of a high school teacher in North Carolina, the author shaped an (auto)biographical account of the subtle traces of this teacher's impact on her life story. As a literary document, the storied text is designed less to provide conclusions than to elicit important methodological and substantive educational questions.