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Abstract

This dissertation explores the relationship with self, and between self and Other, in the process of be(com)ing a teacher. It is informed by how, in teacher-inquiry, personal inquiry precedes, coincides with, and succeeds professional inquiry (Kelly, 2003; Loughran, & Russell, 2002; Orland-Barak, 2014). Alongside an examination of my own educational experience, I share of my engagement with 12-Step programs (Hopson, 1996) in more recent years, as a key part of this self-work. I write of these intertwined and iterative processes, introducing what I refer to as the curriculum of the self. After grounding the work within curriculum studies, through the work of Jurgen Habermas, the central sections of the dissertation explore the being and becoming of a teacher. I begin with a narrative inquiry, examining my earlier years as a teacher, a pilgrimage where I endured a sense of disconnection from myself and from my students, through to my time where I returned to graduate studies and began to make purposeful strides in be(com)ing the educator I am today. I then share an example of my use of currere (Pinar, 1975), and how this facilitated an agentic re-writing of the self. Here I offer a re-consideration of what education does for and to us, by sharing narratives of how my engagement with the curriculum of the self (Forde, 2023) afforded me a new perspective, a reorientation, on my own understanding of teaching and learning. In the final section of the dissertation, I share episodes from this self-work and how these have facilitated a long-sought reconciliation with self and between self and Other, This study underscores the transformative potential of curriculum and offers an examination of the complexity of the inner landscape of an educator (Palmer, 1997a). It aims to offer an example of a way to connect with self and Other in the iterative process of self-work. As such, the curriculum of self is shown to be both foundational and essential to being in the world as an educator.