Teacher Narrative Description

Abstract

Traditionally in Japan, teachers wrote many such narrative descriptions called jissen kiroku (narrative teaching records), from about the 1920s onward. Narrative records written by teachers have been one of the main discourses used to represent teaching practices. Narrative teaching records have three important features. First, teachers tell classroom stories in the first-person narrative. The style of teacher narrative records arose from private journals and “I” novels. Therefore, teachers continue to shape and reshape their identity through writing narrative records. Second, teachers address children using their own names in the narrative descriptions. The relationship between the teacher and the children is intimate, as expressed using “I” and “you,” as opposed to “teacher” and “student” as in the systematized school education. Third, the teachers illustrate the experiences of themselves and the children as stories. The teachers describe their day-to-day experiences as singular and at least partially accidental in a narrative style. Through reading them, we learn how the teachers pursue their identity, build relationships with the children in the classroom, and give meaning to the daily events and activities in their classrooms.