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Journey toward knowing : a narrative inquiry into one teacher's experience with at-risk students

The purpose of this inquiry was to retell and represent the life that I have lived as I explore how I adapted my professional practice for students in an alternative program. This naturalistic inquiry is positioned as a self narrative. Retrospection and reflection enabled me to bring together my construction of self and my journey of teaching as I attempted to explain how I know what I know about working with at risk students and alternative programming. <p>The collection of data comes from my personal experience; thus I am observer, participant, and narrator. Threaded throughout this thesis are interwoven stories which create the fabric of my teaching experience. Each narrative represents justification of teacher knowledge and a refocusing of the lens through which I viewed at risk students and their marginalized position in our education system. As teachers we must first establish a relationship with our students and develop an empathetic understanding of the circumstances of the life experiences each one brings to the classroom. By understanding their past, we can make the school experience a positive influence in their lives and hopefully smooth out their way to a successful future.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:SSU.etd-04282008-220006
Date29 April 2008
CreatorsMcKay, Patricia A.
ContributorsWason-Ellam, Linda
PublisherUniversity of Saskatchewan
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-04282008-220006/
Rightsunrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

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