Narrative Conferences:As an atelier with “perezhivanie” for

childhood educators

Oral Session 352/10/20144th International Congress of ISCAR

Gold MembersRoom in ANZ Stadium11.00-12.00

Yoshinobu SHOYProfessor, Ph.D.

Hokkaido University of EducationE-mail: shoi.yoshinobu@s.hokkyodai.ac.jp

1. PROBLEM AND BACKGROUND

All that has been discarded is by no means false.All that appears is by no means true.(Paul Valery, The Art of Poetry)

Professional development?The fox knows many things, but the

hedgehog knows one big thing.　　　　　　　　　　　　 by Archilochus

…the more difficult situations I faced the more I realized how very short-sighted my idea was that things would somehow work out by means of technique.... (Teacher: A)

1-1:The narrative conference is one of the most powerful and

meaningful settingsfor teacher’s mutual care and

professional development based on the concept of narrative learning

1-2:Previous research by JA-CROHD*

has focused on the narrative conference sessions

as a way of understanding children’s cultural-historical lives,

including their stories they live by.

* JA-CROHD is the Japanese Association for Clinical Research on Human Development and

Education established in 2011.

A provisional concept map of clinical research on education is laid out in Figure 1 below.

1-3:In the tradition of cultural-

historical theory, the joint-play world is considered

to be a source of prototype environments for human care and development.

1-4:According to Vygotsky’s theory of

emotions, narrative or symbolic competencies are developed

in the imaginative joint-play world with subjective emotional experiencing (perezhivanie)

in which creative imagination is used to overcome the “crisis” (critical situation).

1-5:Vygotsky continued his inquiries

into narrative poetics, which would reconstruct learning along the two axes of moments

of aesthetic experience, one on the theatrical stage and one in the literary world.

1-6:

Fig1. Schema of the Vygotsky’s Theory of Emotions; Shoy, 2008

1-7:The hidden agenda of Vygotsky’s

theory of emotions was to elucidate the constitutive

principle of fantasy (creative imagination)

created through accommodating and concentrating on realities with critical situation (in crisis).

2. PURPOSE AND METHOD

2-1. purpose The aim of our research project

is to elucidate the psychological

and educational meaning of narrative conferences for childhood educators

who have experienced difficult/critical situations.

2-2. FieldSuch conferences have been

studied for the purposes of in-service teacher education

at the Graduate School of Hokkaido University of Education for the past ten years.

2004-2014

3. EPISODE DESCRIPTIONS

3-1:Elementary school teachers and early childhood educators engage in these narrative

conference sessions as research partners with

voluntary participation once a month.

3-2:It involves a polyphonic, joint

interpretation of once-in-a-lifetime events

by focusing on those persons’ understandings of the children who appear in those episodes,

and then linking that interpretation to practice frames and social policies.

3-3:They are facilitated toward playful narrative learning in the imaginative play-world at

these gatherings, and co-reflect their own

educational/caring practices as well as their unique life stories.

3-4:I’ll illustrate some examples of

voices who has experienced these boundary-crossing and playful narrative conference sessions

3-5:Thank you for today’s session.

There was quite a lot to learn in the time we had.

I was particularly taken with our professor’s comments about the “careful case conference,” and I’m very excited about the idea that this might be a useful method at school.

3-6:You encountered many kinds of

awareness despite just going to ask questions. All you had were non-judgmental, careful questions. I thought that this method might be useful for our review sessions of difficult cases at the school where I currently work…

Teacher: B

3-7:… What really stuck with me

from among the things you said is how we educators should use our imaginations more about situation of such children. That may have been lacking among the teachers in our school.

3-8:… Creating a relaxed

environment in which we can hear those words is necessary for the person providing support. I really feel that I can discover new things by reviewing the examples that have stuck with me from today from a variety of angles.

Teacher: C

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4-1:The professional development of

childhood educators should be discussed on the level of mastering the improvisation of educational arts in playful and dramatic situations

rather than being talked about in the context of improving teaching skills or techniques.

4-2:It is also important to focus on the subjective and

emotional experiencing, or perezhivanie, in multi-voiced narrative conferences with other professionals

In an “atelier-mode” of learning

4-3:After our session, we found it

significant:To support a “realism of imaginative

play-world” To support a “symbolization from the

real-situations” .From a viewpoint of dramaturgy, we

should elaborate our sense of “making a new narrative plot”, in our narrative learning sessions

4-4:After our session, we also could find it a

crucial moment Joint-creation of a “narrative plot” which

was emerged in all narrative learning sessions, in three dimensions: To catch up an

1) Emergent narrative plot of children2) Emergent narrative plot of teachers3) Emergent narrative plot of

researchers

4-5:Polyphonic and narrative intervention in the joint-play (playful) environmentElucidating their new narrative plotrecreate a “new narrative plot” of

one’s story they live by…elaborating “narrative poetics”

Thank you for your attention

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