Drawing ourselves into teaching: Studying the images that shape and distort teacher education

Abstract How do childhood memories and social stereotypes colour emerging teacher identities? What images of “teacher” silently direct the ways in which we teach and think? Is our teaching practice consistent with our personal teaching philosophy? Are we sufficiently aware of influences past and present? By analyzing student teachers' and experienced teachers' drawings, this paper explores many stereotypes and contradictions in teacher identity and teaching practice that are often ignored or left unexamined. We suggest that drawings provide an excellent forum for necessary (self-) reflection by bringing to light nuances and ambivalences in teaching identities that might otherwise remain hidden.

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