Teaching and Teacher Education 15 (1999) 381—396

A marginal story as a place of possibility: negotiating selfon the professional knowledge landscape

Janice Huber, Karen Whelan*

The Centre for Research for Teacher Education and Development, Faculty of Education, University of Alberta, Edmonton,Alberta, Canada

Received 2 March 1998; received in revised form 22 October 1998; accepted 27 October 1998

Abstract

Drawing on a two-year study focusing on teacher identity and marginalization within diverse school landscapes, weexplore the educative and miseducative qualities of response as told through one teacher’s story. By reconstructing andmaking meaning of this story through the conceptual framework of the ‘‘professional knowledge landscape’’ [Clandinin,D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (1995). ¹eachers’ professional knowledge landscapes. New York: Teachers College Press], weconsider how this teacher’s identity—which we understand narratively as ‘‘story to live by’’—shapes, and is shaped,within the in- and out-of-classroom places on her school landscape. Through a final retelling of this narrative, we payclose attention to the response which emerged from each of these fundamentally different places and we examine thisteacher’s negotiation of her story to live by in relation to a school story of inclusion. This focus enables us to nameborders of power, judgment and silence, and ‘‘bordercrossings’’ [Anzaldua, G. (Ed.). (1990). Making face, making soul" Haciendo caras: Creative and critical perspectives by feminists of color. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books], which areshaped within ‘‘public homeplaces’’ [Belenky, M., Bond, L., & Weinstock, J. (1997). A tradition that has no name:Nurturing the development of people, families, and communities. New York: BasicBooks]. We believe that this story isa place of possibility—possibility for understanding the central role that presence to our narrative histories plays inenabling us to live and to sustain stories that run counter to those being scripted for us on school landscapes. ( 1999Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Storytellers are influenced by the telling oftheir own stories. Active construction andtelling of a story is educative: The storytellerlearns through the act of storytelling.2[and] in their telling in relationship2 It isan education that goes beyond writing for the

*Corresponding author. Tel.: #403-492-7770; fax: #403-492-0113.

self because it has a responsive audience,which makes possible both an imaginedresponse and an actual response. These possi-bilities, the imagining of response and theresponse, are important for the storyteller.The possibilities are important in aneducative way because the meaning of thestory is reshaped and so, too, is the meaningof the world to which the story refers. (Clan-dinin & Connelly, 1995, p. 155/56)

0742-051X/99/$ - see front matter ( 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.PII: S 0 7 4 2 - 0 5 1 X ( 9 8 ) 0 0 0 4 8 - 1

This paper is about the storytelling to whichClandinin and Connelly refer. It is about tellingstories to our selves and to others with whom weare in relationship. It is about how this telling,active construction, living out, and reconstructionof our stories, influences our selves and thosearound us. Response and the imagining of possibili-ties live at the centre of what this paper is about.The teacher’s story we make sense of within thispaper is a story of ‘‘miseducative’’ (Dewey, 1938)qualities, a story in which impossible contradic-tions, gaps, and silences are named. This story issituated within one school context in which thestoryteller/teacher who lived this experience un-covers her struggle to understand and to resist theresponse she received through negotiating her selfwithin her professional surroundings. Locatedwithin a western Canadian province, in a largejunior/senior high school, this story centres aroundissues of integrating students with special needsinto ‘‘regular’’ programs. A context is described inwhich students with special needs are identified forindividualized programming within a segregatedsetting in the school. Students who were labelled as‘‘special needs’’ were selectively integrated intowhat is traditionally defined as ‘‘non-academic’’courses, and were assigned classroom aides to assistwith individualized programming.

This story was shared within the context of a nar-rative inquiry (Carr, 1986; Clandinin & Connelly,1994; Connelly & Clandinin 1988, 1990) includingeighteen months of taped and transcribed researchconversations between a group of five teacher co-researchers who felt the need to construct a com-munity away from our school landscapes, whereour most vulnerable stories could be explored. Thetelling of this story was important for this particu-lar teacher and for all of us as co-researchers-storytellers, storylisteners, and storyresponders inrelationship with one another. The storytelling con-text, shaped by a responsive audience, was profound-ly educative in that through the sharing of thisstory, the meaning of it was reshaped from begin-ning images of hopelessness to those of possibility.

Our paper begins by situating this inquiry withina narrative conceptualization of teacher identityand the professional contexts in which teachers liveand work. Our reconstruction of the first meeting

with the teacher co-researchers with whom we arein conversation provides an introduction to themethodological grounding which shapes our study.The introduction also provides an overview of thestory we worked to understand in conversationwithin our teacher inquiry group and throughoutthis paper. Unpacking this story through theframework and narrative language developed byClandinin and Connelly (1995) in their conceptual-ization of a ‘‘professional knowledge landscape’’revealed the storied qualities of this school contextand the central role response played within thisstorying. We conclude this paper by focusing on theways in which response was continuously negoti-ated and lived out on this school landscape. Ourpurpose in this final exploration is to uncover theborders shaped out of response, as well as thepossibilities for ‘‘bordercrossings’’ (Anzaldua,1987)—those hopeful meeting places where the re-telling of our stories creates possibilities for imagin-ing our selves in relation with others in new ways.

1. Understanding identity as ‘‘story to live by’’

Our understanding of teacher identity isgrounded within Connelly and Clandinin’s (inpress) narrative conceptualization of identity as‘‘story to live by’’. In their research into teacherknowledge and school contexts, they reveal how wetell storied compositions of our lives to ‘‘define whowe are, what we do, and why...’’ (Connelly &Clandinin, 1999). A sense of fluidity shapes ourstory to live by as it is composed over time, recog-nizing the multiplicity of situations and experienceswe embody. These multiple storylines interweaveand interconnect, bearing upon one another and onhow we come to understand our selves (Clandinin,1997). We live, tell, retell, and relive our life stories(Clandinin & Connelly, 1998) as we negotiate ourselves within and across various contexts. Forexample, within the context of our own lives, wemay draw upon our understanding of our selves aswomen to make meaning of a particular experience.Although this knowing will also be present as wemake sense of our selves in other situations, it maydwell in the background while our self understand-ing of being elementary teachers may come more to

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the foreground as we make sense of another situ-ation. As teachers, our story to live by is ‘‘bothpersonal—reflecting a person’s life history—andsocial—reflecting the milieu, the contexts in whichteachers live’’ (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999).

Understanding teacher identity as story to liveby calls for a relational understanding betweenteachers and the contexts in which they work. Inthis way, teachers both shape and are shaped bytheir particular school landscapes. Consideringschools as professional knowledge landscapes cre-ates openings for exploring the storied nature ofteacher identity while also challenging us to thinkabout each school context from multiple vantagepoints. In the next section of this paper, we recon-struct a teacher’s story, following the shiftingnature of her story to live by as she composes herteaching life both inside and outside of her class-room context on the professional knowledge land-scape of her school.

2. Reconstructing Naomi’s1 experiences

It is our first time coming together with our groupof teacher co-researchers. We are nervous and some-what uncertain of how the evening will unfold, yet inthe same moment, our sense of excitement and an-ticipation draws us to this conversation. We area group of both strangers and acquaintances, gather-ing from various school landscapes. In the privacy ofJanice’s living room, we sit together, surrounded bycandlelight, food, and wine. A common storylinejoins us together— our lives as teachers.

This common experience enables us, with ease, topick up on the threads of our lives, connectingstories of where we last saw one another. After a fewmoments, the room becomes quiet, a sign that it istime to begin this new research conversation be-tween us. Feeling a need to tell of our selves, asresearchers positioned at the university, we (includ-ing our advisor, Jean Clandinin) each share storiesof what has brought us to this exploration of a nar-rative understanding of teacher knowledge and

1Because of the vulnerable nature of this story, pseudonymshave been assigned to the characters in order to protect theiridentities.

identity. Our stories, centering around researchthemes of margins (Anzaldua, 1987, 1990) and posi-tionings (Miller, 1994), create an opening for ourco-researchers who are positioned as teachers onthe landscape, to begin to share their stories. Thecircle of storytelling broadens as we go around theliving room, listening to each teacher-coresearchershare of her life. When our storytelling has passednearly full circle, there is one last pause, an invita-tion for Naomi, who has not yet spoken, to shareher story.

Naomi begins to tell the story of herself by situat-ing her narrative within a rural junior/senior highschool landscape. She describes her teaching as-signment as very specialized, being the only teacherhired in this position within her school and schooldistrict over an eight-year period. Naomi’s descrip-tion speaks, to a certain degree, of the lonelinessand isolation which surrounded her as she com-posed her teaching life, a context she describes inher own words when she states, ‘‘I really didn’t haveanyone that I could plan with.’’ Having noted howthis particular positioning shaped her life asa teacher on this school landscape, Naomi quicklyemphasizes that her sense of marginalization wasfar more profound than her visible positioning onthe landscape as the only teacher of a specializedprogram. She begins to describe this deeper sense ofmarginalization when she says, ‘‘Certainly whenI started teaching there, I don’t think I was on themargin at all. As time went on, though, I very muchbecame an outsider.’’ Naomi unpacks her know-ledge of becoming an outsider by recounting howshe came to recognize that she was not followingthe ‘‘status quo’’ story of her school. The magnitudeof choosing to position herself in this way wasexpressed when she reflected, ‘‘I guess personallyI made that choice but as a result of it, I quit my jobbecause I couldn’t be there anymore and agree.’’Naomi explained that in order for her to makesense of her experience and to continue to exist onthis school landscape, she consciously chose toposition herself outside the ‘‘school story’’—a storyshaped by a mandate of inclusion for studentswith special needs (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995,1996). She reflected her deepening awareness ofthis story by saying ‘‘I think I initially startedto go there [outside the school story], maybe not

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consciously, but I think soon it was a consciousdecision and I was not prepared to be there in anyother way2 , I think it was the only way thatI could make sense. It was the only way that I couldexist.’’

Naomi’s sharing in this first conversation speaksto us of her internal struggle, of her need to live ina space where she could ‘‘make sense’’ of her experi-ences in an ‘‘educative’’ (Dewey, 1938) way, con-structively shaping her ongoing practice. In oursecond conversation as a research community,Naomi moves deeper into this story. She does thisby unpacking experiences which led her to resignfrom her teaching position, leaving her school andher teaching community.

Naomi began to speak of these experiences byintroducing herself and ‘‘the special needs teacher’’(who we named Brian) as two central characters inthe story. In her first few words, Naomi positionedherself as living within her classroom on her schoollandscape. Through Naomi’s eyes, Brian was posi-tioned as someone who had influence in her pro-gram, yet lived distantly from the physical space ofher classroom. At the outset, we learned fromNaomi that Brian, alone, determined the placementof each special needs student. We also discoveredthat when a student with special needs (who wenamed Alicia) was placed in Naomi’s room, a pro-gram aide (who we named Laura) was assigned towork with Alicia. Outlining the constraints of hertimetable and teaching assignment, Naomi empha-sized her struggle to negotiate a meaningful pro-gram for Alicia so that she would experiencesuccess.

The tension in the relationship between Naomiand Brian became apparent at the first reportingperiod, and was heightened at each successive re-porting period. At the centre of this tension was theconfusion over who would be responsible fordetermining and assigning Alicia’s grade. In thefirst reporting period, Naomi both determinedand assigned Alicia’s grade. However, she wastroubled by being prevented, by a school directive,from indicating to Alicia’s parents that she wasworking on a program which had been modified tomeet her particular learning needs. ThroughNaomi’s telling, we learned that her desire for auth-entic dialogue with parents was in conflict with

Brian who lived a story of keeping parents happy atall costs.

In the second reporting period, another specialneeds aide, with whom Naomi had little interac-tion, informed her that Brian would ‘‘do the mark’’for Alicia. Naomi was not involved in determiningAlicia’s grade, yet she discovered that her name wasrecorded beside the assigned grade on the reportcard which was sent home. In this situation,and in those following, Naomi attempted to under-stand this practice through conversation withLaura, the special needs program aide who wasworking in her classroom; the special needs teacher,Brian; her principal; her vice principal; and hercolleagues on staff. As the plotline in this storydeveloped, Naomi continued to question Brian’spractice in ‘‘marking’’ the student’s work. InNaomi’s telling of the story, it appeared to her asthough Brian deflected his responsibility ontoothers and eventually storied her as a teacher whosimply did not understand how to mark studentswith special needs.

As the story continued, a border began to appearbetween Naomi and Brian. Her intolerance overthe absence of communication and understandingwhich was shaping their relationship led Naomi torequest a meeting between Brian, Laura, and her-self. Having Laura present at the meeting was re-sponded to with resistance from Brian. However,Naomi insisted that Laura’s voice be present be-cause of her intimate understanding of Alicia andthe classroom program. Following the meeting,Naomi learned that Brian storied the event as anupsetting exchange, as he felt Laura’s questions hadembarrassed him in front of Naomi. In response totheir meeting, he requested that the school adminis-trators ‘‘fire’’ Laura. Naomi countered his telling ofthis event to the administration with her own ver-sion of what happened, and Laura’s position wasmaintained.

Naomi described the aura of silence she experi-enced as the story continued to unfold into thesecond school year. At the edges of this silence,Naomi recalled witnessing ‘‘horrendous things’’continuing to take place. Conversation in relationto the growing dilemma surrounding this schoolstory began to occur only in secrecy, when‘‘nobody was in the vicinity.’’ For Naomi, her

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school landscape became a place where there wasan intolerance for tension. Because her story to liveby necessitated exploring tension in relationshipwith others, her understanding of the complexitiesof her school landscape was pushed further to themargins.

Naomi countered this push, continuing to resistthe school story by challenging Brian’s living out ofit. Her principal responded to Naomi by consis-tently dismissing her concerns, eventually tellingher that she must either support Brian or say noth-ing at all. Naomi’s story closed with a profoundsense of loss in the relationship she had lived withher principal. Her deeply felt sense of marginaliz-ation, shaped by the conflicting nature of the storiesbeing lived and told on her school landscape, ulti-mately led her to leave her school community andto resign her position with the district. Finding noplace for her story to ‘‘exist’’ on this school land-scape, Naomi felt she was left with no choice but toleave.

3. Retelling Naomi’s story in terms of theprofessional knowledge landscape

While Naomi’s recounting of her experience asa marginalized member of this school communitywas painful and troubling, her story holdseducative promise for understanding school con-texts and teachers’ stories to live by. This promiseled us to reconsider Naomi’s story by focusing onthe shaping nature of Naomi’s school context onher story to live by as a teacher.

We began this exploration by drawing on Clan-dinin and Connelly’s (1995) conceptual frameworkof the ‘‘professional knowledge landscape’’2. which

2An in-depth understanding of the term ‘‘professional know-ledge landscape’’ is developed by Clandinin and Connelly (1995)in ¹eachers’ professional knowledge landscapes. Our work in thispaper draws upon Clandinin and Connelly’s following descrip-tion:

A landscape metaphor2 allows us to talk about space,place, and time. Furthermore, it has a sense of expansive-ness and the possibility of being filled with diverse people,things, and events in different relationships. Understand-ing professional knowledge as comprising a landscape

enabled us to make meaning of Naomi’s storythrough a focus on her story to live by and on herexperience in ‘‘two fundamentally different places’’on her school landscape-‘‘the one behind the class-room door with students, and the other in profes-sional places with others’’ (p. 5). When we discussthe physical space inside Naomi’s classroom, wedraw upon Clandinin and Connelly’s (1995) meta-phor by referring to this place on her school land-scape as her ‘‘in-classroom’’ space. When we discussNaomi’s experience outside her classroom onthis school landscape, we refer to these spaces as‘‘out-of-classroom’’ places. Inquiring into Naomi’sexperience within each of these places, her in-class-room and her out-of-classroom places on thisschool landscape, allowed us to examine the uniquequalities of these places and the differing ways inwhich Naomi authored her life within each.

4. Naomi’s in-classroom place on the professionalknowledge landscape

The conceptual framework of the professionalknowledge landscape views teachers as actively

calls for a notion of professional knowledge as composedof a wide variety of components and influenced by a widevariety of people, places, and things. Because we see theprofessional knowledge landscape as composed of rela-tionships among people, places, and things, we see it asboth an intellectual and a moral landscape. (p. 4/5)

A central focus in this paper is toward understanding therelationship between one teacher’s story of marginalization onher school landscape and her identity. Clandinin and Connelly’smetaphor helped us uncover the multi-dimensional qualities ofthis teacher’s context. Viewing her professional landscape frommultiple vantage points provided insight into her knowledgecontext while also engaging us in questions of relationship—between this teacher and the shifting people, places, and thingson her school landscape. Understanding this teacher’s storyfrom a place perspective, we were able to explore her differingexperience in two very different places on her school landscape,her ‘‘in-classroom place’’ and the ‘‘out-of-classroom’’ places. Thetemporal qualities of this teacher’s narrative created openings forus to inquire deeply into the ways the story of inclusive educationwas shaping her school landscape. By focusing on the personalhistory the teacher embodied as she negotiated her professionallandscape, her knowing of her self in relation to a variety ofdiverse people, places, things, and events, became visible.

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engaged practitioners who are attempting toauthor meaningful lives, telling and retelling them-selves through their classroom practice (Clandinin& Connelly, 1995) as they respond to the shiftingpolicy expectations and social issues which sur-round their work, and to the specific needs of theirstudents. From this vantage point, teachers are notviewed as empty vessels waiting to be filled by theideas of others, but are understood as ‘‘holders andmakers of knowledge’’ (Clandinin, 1997, p. 1).

Within the in-classroom place on the profes-sional knowledge landscape of schools, the moralauthority for a teacher’s understanding of her storyto live by (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999) is self-authored, shaped by each teacher’s particularnarrative history and negotiated in relation withstudents. Because teachers position themselveswithin their classrooms around the story they em-body of themselves as teachers, the in-classroomplace on the professional knowledge landscape ofschools is often characterized by a sense of safetyand secrecy. While Clandinin and Connelly (1995)caution that this secrecy should not be glorified,they also note that it plays an important role inshaping the epistemological nature of the in-class-room place on the professional knowledge land-scape as a space in which teachers feel ‘‘free fromscrutiny2 [and are able] to live stories of prac-tice’’ (p. 13) which honour their embodied knowing.It is in this way that the in-classroom place on theprofessional knowledge landscape is epistemologi-cally and morally grounded in narrative know-ledge. This narrative grounding enables thein-classroom place to be educative for teachers, astheir stories to live by can be negotiated withoutjudgment framed by the ‘‘theoretical knowledgeand the abstract rhetoric of conclusions found inthe professional knowledge landscape outside theclassroom’’ (p. 12).

As we listened to Naomi tell stories of her in-classroom place on her school landscape, sheshared telling images of how she viewed this space.Early in her storytelling Naomi described her in-classroom place as ‘‘my space,’’—an important im-age which awakened us to her strong sense ofagency within this space. Beginning to describe herconcerns about Brian’s placement of Alicia into herclassroom, Naomi explained, ‘‘Because he was

special needs2he was involved in everybodyelse’s program. And so you couldn’t really just sortof say, ‘‘Well as long as you stay out of my space, I’lldeal with this ... because he was a part of yourspace.’’ Naomi’s description of her in-classroomplace helped us to see that this was a space ofbelonging for Naomi, a secure place for her ‘‘selfauthorship’’ of her story to live by as teacher—oneshe felt determined to protect and uphold (Carr,1986).

We were also drawn to Naomi’s images of herselfas a teacher within her classroom space throughher stories of experience with students. Naomi’sunderstanding of her in-classroom place, and herability to shape it, were evident when she discussedher struggle with the constraints of her teachingtime-table. Recognizing the limitations this time-table placed upon her students and, in this particu-lar story, upon Alicia, Naomi said,

After I got to know my grade seven classesthen [Alicia] was in one too where we met.Generally I had my students for a 40 minuteclass and an 80 minute class. Well, 40 minutesfor all of my students was too short, for[Alicia] it was really, I mean she would justbarely get her stuff out and get started andnow it’s time to finish2 that class just reallywasn’t the type of setting that she should havebeen in. But my other two grade seven classeswere a lot better, so finally after many dis-cussions I got her moved into a differentgrade seven class that only had 80 minuteblocks and so I’d see her twice one week andonly once the next week, so that wasn’t thebest, but it was better than that 40 minuteclass and it was a much better environment.Plus she was in the biggest grade seven classand then afterwards she was in the smallestone.

Naomi placed significance in this event and, as shetold this story, we began to see that one of thethreads woven into the story she was composingwas that of working in close relationship with stu-dents. Naomi’s focus on what was best for thisparticular student led her to the out-of-classroomplace on her school landscape and into ‘‘manydiscussions’’ with colleagues. Within her recounting

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of this experience, there was a sense that the negoti-ation of Alicia’s timetable on the out-of-classroomplace may have been difficult. However, Naomiappeared to view the negotiation as morally neces-sary because, as she described, Alicia’s first classplacement ‘‘just2wasn’t the type of setting thatshe should have been in.’’ We were also left with thesense that, regardless of the difficulties Naomi ex-perienced through this out-of-classroom negoti-ation, she eventually felt that she was able tosuccessfully negotiate a better situation for Alicia.In this way and in this particular instance, we felt asthough the story she was authoring as teacher washonored, both within her in-classroom place andon the out-of-classroom places on the professionalknowledge landscape of her school.

Other qualities of Naomi’s ability to negotiateher identity within her classroom were shared asshe storied her relationship with Laura. We learnedof the relationship which developed betweenNaomi and Laura when Naomi said, ‘‘I did have anaide and she was absolutely wonderful and shebasically taught me how to modify and that type ofthing, you know, meet that little girl’s needs.’’ Bystorying Laura as a co-teacher, Naomi made visiblethe deep sense of respect and validation she felttowards this woman. She described how their rela-tionship enabled them to modify a program whichmade sense for Alicia. Through Naomi’s telling oftheir relationship, we saw her recognition of Lauraas a person who mattered in her life. Her wordsspoke to us of a relationship in which mutualitycreated openings for educative conversation, risktaking, and the imagining of possibilities for a stu-dent who had been defined as ‘‘special needs.’’ Itwas being in relation which enabled them to worktogether in the best interests of Alicia.

Naomi’s story of Laura created an image of ne-gotiation which occurred with authenticity. Wewonder if the relationship they shared may have ledNaomi to become more trusting of the out-of-class-room place on her school landscape with the intentof also engaging there ‘‘in conversations where sto-ries can be told, reflected back, heard in differentways, retold, and relived in new ways’’ (Clandinin& Connelly, 1995, p. 13). Being in relationship wasan overlapping thread in Naomi’s story of both herstudents and Laura. This led us to believe that

relational understanding of experience was a cen-tral plotline in Naomi’s story to live by. These twostories of Naomi’s in-classroom place on her schoollandscape also revealed that, within this space,Naomi was deeply engaged in living and retellingthis story of herself in negotiation with those whoshared the in-classroom space—the students andLaura.

This was not the plotline which Naomi’s tellingtook on as she continued to unpack more of herexperience on this school landscape surroundingher work with Alicia and other students withspecial needs. Increasingly, Naomi’s crossing ofborders between the in- and out-of-classroom pla-ces on her school landscape created tensions forher. As Clandinin and Connelly’s (1995) work high-lights, ‘‘when teachers leave their classrooms andmove into another place on the professional know-ledge landscape, they leave the safe secrecy of theclassroom and enter a public place on the land-scape’’ (p. 14). These out-of-classroom places on theprofessional knowledge landscape are ‘‘dramati-cally different epistemological and moral place[s]’’(p. 14). In the next section of this paper we explorenumerous qualities of the out-of-classroom placeon Naomi’s school landscape and the ways theyshaped her story to live by.

5. Naomi’s out-of-classroom place on theprofessional knowledge landscape

In contrast to the safety and self-authorshipwhich shape the in-classroom place on the profes-sional knowledge landscape, the out-of-classroomplace is one largely defined by a sacred story oftheory over practice (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995).In this out-of-classroom place, policies and pre-scriptions, holding ‘‘theoretical knowledge claims’’,are delivered from above via the conduit—thedominant communication pipeline which linksteachers’ lives to their school boards, governingagencies, and associations. This theoretical know-ledge arrives into the lives of teachers in the form ofnew curriculum materials, textbooks, and policymandates. They are scripted into teachers’ lives,often with no substantive place for conversationabout what is being ‘‘funneled down.’’ Teachers are

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often left to make sense of these materials behindtheir classroom doors in secrecy and silence, negoti-ating these theories in relation to their story tolive by.

The sacred theory-practice story enters theschool landscape with a ‘‘moral push,’’ leavingteachers caught in what Clandinin and Connelly(1995) describe as a ‘‘split existence’’. Teachers be-gin to struggle with their own knowing—knowingthat is grounded in their narrative histories and isembedded within their in-classroom practice—andtheir negotiation of a sacred knowing, a prescrip-tive, ‘‘you should’’ kind of knowing which shapesthe out-of-classroom place on the professionalknowledge landscape. It is this tension whichcauses teachers to experience the out-of-classroomplace as abstract, a place that ‘‘floats untethered’’with ‘‘policy prescriptions [that]2 are torn out oftheir historical, narrative contexts’’ (Clandinin &Connelly, 1995, p. 11). On the out-of-classroomplace, the self-authorship, which can be felt withinthe in-classroom place, becomes defined by an ab-stract ‘‘other’’, and the moral quality of the land-scape becomes pre-scripted from outside. In thisway, the out-of-classroom place can become a ‘‘de-personalized’’ and disconnected place for teachersto live their storied lives.

In Naomi’s story we are presented with an ex-plicit example of the dilemmas and sense of splitexistence which become shaped by a teacher’smovement between these two profoundly differentplaces of knowing, defined by dramatically differentmoral qualities. The sacred story which arrivedonto Naomi’s landscape from some abstract placealong the conduit, appeared to be one of inclusion;a story loaded with moral implications for teachers.Naomi first faced this new school story when a stu-dent with special needs was placed in her classroomand, in her telling of the story, we sensed there waslittle discussion surrounding the placement—it wassimply an expectation. Describing her understand-ing of this situation, Naomi said, ‘‘[Brian] pickedwhich teacher they’d go in with.’’ As Naomi re-counted how the story of inclusion began to takehold on the professional knowledge landscape ofher school, we began to see her story coming intoconflict with the larger school story, and with thosepositioned distantly, outside of her classroom con-

text: office support staff, other program aides,Brian, and the school administrators.

Naomi faced her first moral dilemma on theout-of-classroom place when she was met witha prescriptive message from the office staff regard-ing the reporting process for students with specialneeds, such as Alicia. Naomi’s intention was tocommunicate openly and honestly with the parentsabout Alicia’s program. However, when she attem-pted to enter a conversation with the office staffabout this process, offering her knowing and under-standing of Alicia as she had lived it in her class-room, she came into direct conflict with the conduitand was told, ‘‘No, we want her [Alicia] to do thesame as everybody else .... We’re not going to doa different style of report card.’’ Feeling stronglyabout this issue, Naomi countered this responsewith, ‘‘That’s fine, I’ll just type up a letter and tellher mom, explain to her what we’ve been workingon.’’ She was met with, ‘‘No, you can’t do thateither.’’ On the out-of-classroom place, as Clan-dinin and Connelly (1995) point out, ‘‘teachers arenot, by and large, expected to personalize conduitmaterials by considering how materials fit theirpersonality and teaching styles, classrooms, stu-dents, and so forth’’ (p. 11). Naomi was disturbedby the depersonalized message she received in thissituation and the way in which she was forced tosend home a mark in the report card which she felt‘‘wasn’t the truth.’’ It was in this critical moment of‘‘self-sacrifice’’ that we saw Naomi’s determinationto live by what she knew. There was a sense offuture possibility as she discussed her intention notto be constrained by the story of inclusion shapingthe school landscape outside her classroom duringthe next reporting period.

The impact of the out-of-classroom place onNaomi’s story was felt once again when she told ofreceiving another prescriptive message regardingthe marking process, this time sent from Brian viahis program aide. Naomi recalled the aide saying,‘‘You’re not supposed to do a mark for [Alicia],[Brian] is going to do all the marks for all the kids.’’The distance with which this message was deliveredled us to wonder about the pervasive story whichwas shaping Naomi’s school landscape—one inwhich spaces for authentic conversation were di-minishing. By introducing a new character into the

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story, a ‘‘messenger’’ to deliver information, Brianre-shaped the relational space between himself andNaomi, creating distance and separation. Naomi’sresponse to this widening gap in their relationalspace was to seek out further conversation andconnection so that she might better understand themarking process being implemented by Brian. Asshe recounted her story of this incident, Naomirecalled thinking to herself, ‘‘I’m sure he’s going tocome and have a meeting with me because he’snever been in this classroom. He doesn’t have anyidea what [Alicia] is doing, so how could he pos-sibly make a mark for her?’’ However, as Naomiremembered the unfolding events within this story,she shared that Brian did not come to speak withher and in the growing absence of conversationbetween them, a mark was entered into Alicia’sreport card, with Naomi’s name placed beside it.The story, centering around inclusive practice, onceagain took on an abstract quality (Clandinin& Connelly, 1995) as the characters in this storylived out their practice in a distant, depersonalized,and disconnected manner.

The embeddedness of this story within her schoollandscape became apparent as Naomi struggled tocreate openings for conversation with Brian. How-ever, as she told the story, we came to see that theseattempts ended in disappointment, creating furtherdilemmas for her. Clandinin and Connelly (1995)describe that in the absence of places for conversa-tion on policies funneled down the conduit onto theschool landscape, ‘‘discussion2 is removed frommatters of substance to matters of personality andpower’’ (p. 11). Listening to Naomi’s story, weheard how she experienced this shift from conversa-tion to personality and power, as she describedBrian’s reaction to a meeting she had arrangedbetween him, Laura, and herself. ‘‘I requested that[Laura] be there because, you know, she too workswith [Alicia] so she should contribute to this.I mean she probably knows the most out of all of ushow [Alicia] feels during all of those activities.’’Naomi was troubled when Brian responded to herrequest with resistance. Naomi said, ‘‘He didn’twant [Laura] there and I just said, ‘Well she, in myclass, she works with [Alicia] in my classroom so,she’s coming’.’’ Brian’s apparent devaluing ofLaura’s position on the school landscape came into

direct conflict with the relational story Naomi livedby within her classroom, placing stress on the int-ended conversation which she had imagined wouldshape their meeting.

Following this meeting, Naomi recalled how shefelt Brian’s final response was played out throughpersonality, position, and power, ‘‘He wanted[Laura] fired because she asked him questions thatembarrassed him in front of me.’’ This dramatic andalarming response to what Naomi had imagined asa conversation to bridge their understanding be-tween the in- and out-of-classroom places on theschool landscape only served to create further dis-tance between Naomi and Brian and their stories ofone another.

Personality and power become even more em-bedded in discussions outside Naomi’s classroomcontext as the story Naomi was authoring event-ually came into direct conflict with Brian’s story.When Naomi questioned Brian about his position-ing within the school story, she described himdefining it as a ‘‘power-over’’ (Josselson, 1992)positioning in which he would ‘‘monitor’’ and‘‘supervise’’ her practice, and the practice of otherswithin the school. Naomi recalled,

One day I got really angry at [Brian] andI said, ‘Tell me what your job is here?’ I said,‘You know, you just live off the sweat andtears of the other teachers here.’ He told methat he had to be hired in our school tomonitor the teachers because we weren’t car-ing enough individuals and we were just cruelto the kids and he was there to save them.

Unpacking how troubled she was by Brian’s de-scription of himself as being hired to monitor herbecause she was cruel to Alicia within her class-room, Naomi said, ‘‘He told me that one day, thathe was hired to monitor me as well as the othersand I said to him, ‘So2do you view yourself asbeing my supervisor?’ He responded by saying,‘Yeah’ and I said, ‘Well, that would be the day, andif you’re ever in that position, it will certainly be theday that I cease to work here.’ In Naomi’s telling ofthis angry exchange between them, we sensed herstruggle with this story. Caught between the bor-ders of personalities and positions of power, shapedby the larger school story, we recognized her

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hopelessness in being able to enter into aneducative conversation surrounding students withspecial needs in places outside her classroom on thelandscape of her school.

This critical absence of a space for conversationfor Naomi reached its final, dramatic conclusionwhen she discovered that her principal, whom sherespected, cared for, and trusted, attempted to si-lence her knowing in the face of the dominantschool story. Describing two stories of the distanceshe began to experience between herself and herprincipal, Naomi recounted being ‘‘called down’’ toher principal’s office after school to address theincreasing tension between Brian and herself.As she told this story over the discussion oftheir confrontational exchange which had takenplace between herself and Brian regarding hisposition in the school story in relation to her own,she said:

As a result2my principal call[ed] me downand sa[id], ‘Did you have a talk with [Brian]today?’ ‘Yup.’ ‘Well what happened? Did itget, you know, a little out of hand?’ AndI said, ‘I don’t know, I don’t think it got out ofhand, it was just very truthful.’ ‘Well did youtell him that you didn’t think he did much atour school?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I told him exact-ly that. That’s exactly how I feel and I wouldtell him that again because I haven’t changedmy opinion at all since.’

The determination and conviction with whichNaomi spoke about this exchange gave us insightinto the strength of her story and her recurringneed for ‘‘truthful’’ conversation. Naomi’s sense ofconnection with Alicia and Laura created a moralspace in which their knowing of one anothershaped a relationship where care was central. In hertelling of the story, we saw that Naomi was unwill-ing to compromise her ‘‘self positioning’’ asa teacher who cared about her students and Laura.However, we learned that, in her first meeting withher principal regarding this tension, the messageNaomi received was, ‘‘You can’t tell people stufflike that2 ’’ In a second meeting with her princi-pal, behind the closed doors of his office, Naomi’sstory to live by bumped up against the school storyonce again, and in this meeting as well, Naomi

received a silencing response. ‘‘He said things likewell, ‘We do all kinds of things in our school,Naomi, graduation and volleyball teams and na,na, na and we have special needs here.’ And I’mkind of going, ‘Oh yeah. How does a [specialneeds] program fit into extra curricular, youknow?’. Her principal replied by saying, ‘‘We haveto support those things and if we can’t supportthem, then the least we can do is say nothing at all.’’It was at this moment in Naomi’s storytelling thatwe were most profoundly struck by the shapingnature of the out-of-classroom place on Naomi’sstory to live by. Temporally casting her relation-ship with her principal in a past sense, Naomishared, ‘‘I did really like my principal.’’ We imagineNaomi’s embodied knowing of this man may havebeen at least partially shaped by her recognition ofhis response, which seemed to honor her agencyduring the tension surrounding Laura’s dismissal,resulting in her position being maintained. Naomiexpressed her painful awakening to a different un-derstanding of her principal as she began to realizethat the person, with whom she had always founda space for authentic conversation outside herclassroom, was also no longer able to hear herwords. In one silencing instance Naomi was told to‘‘say nothing at all,’’ and, in another, she recalledher principal saying, ‘‘Look, I don’t want to getinvolved with special needs. I know nothing aboutit, as long as everybody’s quiet and happy2 ’’

Reinforcing this message, we discovered thatNaomi’s vice principal would only enter into con-versation with her in the hidden corridors of theschool when, ‘‘2 nobody was in the vicinity.’’ Inthe face of the powerful school structures and pre-scriptive conduit story which was shaping the pro-fessional knowledge landscape of her school,Naomi’s story was pushed aside, to a place ofsilence. As she continued to resist the ‘‘acceptedschool story,’’ her story to live by became mar-ginalized, moving further and further to the edgesof what was defined as acceptable on her schoollandscape. Naomi described her outside position-ing in our first conversation when she said, ‘‘I guessI went to the margins [of the ‘‘status quo’’ story ofthe school] because I wasn’t willing to participatein some of the things that I saw happening[t]here2 You do live in that isolation2 ’’

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Ultimately the dilemmas which arose out of theabrasion between these two dramatically differentmoral spaces on the landscape—Naomi’s in-class-room and out-of-classroom places—became toooverwhelming for Naomi. It was at this point thatshe decided that she must leave the school.

6. Response on the out-of-classroom placeon Naomi’s school landscape

By carefully following Naomi’s story as it woveits way through both the in- and out-of- classroomplaces on the professional knowledge landscape ofher school, we were struck by the essence of re-sponse as it developed in Naomi’s story, both howit was given and the ways in which it was received.In this particular story, our challenge to more fullyunderstand response was intensified as we learnedof a school community, at least through the eyes ofone teacher, where her story to live by came to liveat the margins of the school story, surrounded bya profound sense of silence and isolation. The ten-sions which emerged between Naomi’s story andthe school story brought forward the significantgap formed as imagined and actual response cameinto conflict on the school landscape. The presenceof this tension caused us to wonder about re-sponse—both how it is shaped by the school storyand, in turn, how it shaped Naomi’s story to live by.As we listened to, read, and re-read Naomi’s story,we began to look more closely at response. Livingwith this story over time enabled us to see some ofthe ways that response shaped, and was shaped by,Naomi’s story to live by, her relationships with hercolleagues, and the larger school story of inclusion.

Interweaving our previous unpacking ofNaomi’s story, through our focus on the in- andout-of-classroom places on her landscape, we con-tinue this inquiry by exploring how the story ofschool, shaped through response, impactedNaomi’s story to live by. Making meaning ofNaomi’s story, as lived out on a professional know-ledge landscape, enabled us to illustrate that theteacher story Naomi was authoring was deeplygrounded within her narrative knowing of herselfas living in relationship with others. Such a view ofNaomi’s story revealed that as she crossed the

border between her in- and out-of-classroom placeson her school landscape, she consistently attemptedto negotiate her relational story through conversa-tion with various other characters with whom sheinteracted. It was both the actual and imaginedresponse received by Naomi, as well as the responseshe gave in return, that uncovered the ways inwhich the borders on Naomi’s school landscapewere constructed and lived out.

The dilemmas Naomi faced as she crossed theseborders eventually drew forth her counterstory ofresistance and insubordination (Nelson, 1995)—herstory to live by which became a counterstory withinher particular school landscape. Naomi named her‘‘counterstory to live by’’ in our initial researchconversation when she said, ‘‘I went to the mar-gins2because I wasn’t willing to participate insome of the things I saw happening there and asa result of that, I wasn’t following the status quo ofmy school.’’ Naomi’s reconstruction of herself with-in her spoken text highlighted her determination tolive her story in a way which she felt was educative.Even though this determination to stay with herstory eventually led her to resign, there was a hope-ful edge to her telling in that she came to see herresignation as an educative alternative to negotiat-ing her story on a school landscape which sheincreasingly experienced as miseducative. In thefinal section of this paper, we return to Naomi’sstorytelling of her professional knowledge context,looking closely at the borders and bordercrossingsshaped out of the response on both the in- andout-of-classroom places on this school landscape.As we take a closer look at response by namingthese borders and bordercrossings, we hope to gainfurther insight into the story Naomi authored as itwas negotiated within and between borders shapedby the school story of inclusion.

7. Borders and bordercrossings on the professionalknowledge landscape

7.1. Borders of ownership

The first border made present to us through thetelling of this story, one of ownership, spoke to usof the significance of the in-classroom place in

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Naomi’s life as a teacher. It is not surprising to usthat this place, described with such passion byNaomi as ‘‘my space,’’ was one she held sacred andwas determined to protect. Looking carefully atthis protective stance provided us insight into thenature of Naomi’s response, where it came from,and the border that was shaped as a result. Naomi’sclassroom was a visible space on the landscape inwhich we were able to see her living her story ina meaningful and educative manner as highlightedthrough her telling of the relational story she com-posed alongside the students and Laura. We sawa shift in the safety of Naomi’s classroom place,however, when the story of inclusion began tobreak through the protective border she had con-structed around herself and her classroom. We be-lieve the construction of this border was groundedwithin Naomi’s narrative history with previousschool stories imposed upon her, and was shapedalong with her present response to a school story ofinclusion she had little understanding of, and evenless authority to negotiate as a member of thisschool landscape. Faced with the threat this schoolstory presented in relationship to her story, shestruggled to protect the one place on the landscapeshe intimately understood, a place which mademoral sense to her as she worked in relation withher students.

7.2. Negotiating bordercrossings

Naomi’s understanding of the restrictive struc-tures imposed from the out-of-classroom place onthe school landscape was evident through her dis-cussion of negotiating the school timetable to meetthe needs of her students. In this context, the schooltimetable became symbolic of a ‘‘sacred story’’(Crites, 1971) in the out-of-classroom place. Thesekinds of stories can confine students’ and teachers’lives within predetermined frameworks and canbecome ‘‘internalized’’ and ‘‘absorbed’’ intoa ‘‘taken-for-grantedness’’ (Greene, 1993, 1995) ofexperience. Naomi’s knowledge of this sacrednessmade the crossing of this border even more signifi-cant. Her response, reflected through her re-negoti-ation of the school timetable, indicated her courageand conviction to stand up to this story of schooleven when this task seemed a challenge. Her success

in addressing this challenge was a critical momentin Naomi’s story. The response she received wasa hopeful sign of possibility within the larger schoollandscape as it affirmed her knowing while alsohelping her to recognize that the story she wasauthoring could be honoured in places beyond theboundaries of her classroom. In this event, we sawa shift in Naomi’s internal border of ownership.This shift enabled her to recognize the importanceof her story to live by and the place it had inreshaping the borders constructed between herclassroom and those outside her classroom.

7.2.1. Bordercrossings, within public homeplacesThe response given and received in the relational

space between Naomi and Laura was not evidentwithin the telling of this story, yet this does notdiminish its importance in Naomi’s experience ofliving on this school landscape. Through Naomi’stelling of the value of Laura to this program,a much different story of ownership and bordersemerged, quite different from how Naomi storiedthe borders between herself and Brian. Naomi wasopen to the presence of Laura in her classroom andtogether they shaped a relational space, throughresponse, which we imagine enabled both of themto live a story that made sense. As we read andreread Naomi’s telling description of Laura, wewere left with the image of ‘‘seamless’’ (Clandinin& Connelly, 1997), although continuously negoti-ated, bordercrossings in which the ‘‘self’’ was neverplaced in jeopardy, but rather, was enriched byseeing and being present to the other. In Buber’s(1965) sense of ‘‘making present,’’ Naomi was ableto recognize herself through her relation to thisother self, her program aide, Laura. The fluidity ofdistance and relation negotiated between them wasever-present. As Friedman (1965), referring toBuber, highlights:

Making the other present means ‘to imaginethe real’ to imagine quite concretely whatanother2 is wishing, feeling, perceiving,and thinking2a bold swinging into theother which demands the intensest action ofone’s being2One can only do this as a part-ner, standing in a common situation with theother. (p. 29)

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Naomi’s deeply felt sense of Laura as a woman whoembodied knowing of Alicia, made visible Naomi’s‘‘bold swinging’’ into the story she perceived Laurawas living. The ‘‘public homeplace’’ shaped be-tween Naomi and Laura was the classroom, a safeplace in which they could authentically enterinto one another’s presence (Belenky, Bond &Weinstock, 1997).

7.3. Borders of positional power

The borders of positional power emerged forNaomi when she recognized that the larger schoolstory of inclusion being played out on her schoollandscape came to define Brian as someone whohad direct power and influence within her in-class-room place. Naomi’s tension with Brian centeredaround his positioning which allowed him to solelyselect the teachers with whom the students withspecial needs would be placed. Her understandingof the role Brian played within the school contextdrew forth an immediate border for Naomi, be-tween herself and Brian. Naomi saw herself posi-tioned on one side, with no voice in decisionmaking, while Brian was positioned on the otherside, with a powerful decision making voice. Thisborder of power manifested itself in multiple waysthrough the response exchanged on the schoollandscape.

7.3.1. SamenessIn the discussion surrounding the report card

which took place at the school office, the borderwas shaped by response which dictated a messageof unity in which, ‘‘We all must be the same’’—amessage common on school landscapes and oneshaped by forces of power and control in out-of-classroom places. Naomi’s challenging of this re-sponse was seen as a threat to the unified story ofschool. Unlike the response she received regardingthe school timetable, this response restricted herstory to live by and forced her into conflict with theschool story of inclusion. In this social context,power dictated ‘‘the suppression of the elements ofpersonal relation in favour of the elements of purecollectivity’’ (Friedman, 1965, p. 25) and Naomi’sstory to live by, with its central plotline of humanrelatedness, was placed at great risk.

7.3.2. DistanceA border of distance became present in the story

through the manner in which the second reportingperiod was addressed. The face-to-face conflictwhich emerged through the response of ‘‘sameness’’sent from the school office was reshaped to a moredistant and evasive form of response as messageswere delivered indirectly from those in positions ofpower on the school landscape. Naomi’s telling ofher expectation that Brian would come and meetwith her regarding the marks he placed on Alicia’sreport card, awakened us to a widening gap form-ing between the imagined and actual responsewhich took place in this story, and how profoundlythis response was being shaped by the larger schoolstory. When Brian’s actual response of not comingto engage in conversation with Naomi did not meetwith her expectation, her tension over this distancebetween her imagined and his actual response wasintensified and the space between solidified. AsFriedman (in Buber, 1965) writes, ‘‘when [we] failto enter into relation2 the distance thickens andsolidifies; instead of making room for relation itobstructs it’’ (p. 22). It became apparent to us thatas the school story of inclusion thickened and rei-fied itself on the school landscape, so too, did therelational story being lived out between Naomi andBrian. For Naomi, this distancing response came inconflict with her embodied knowing of living inrelationship with others, pushing the story she wasattempting to author into a vulnerable and isolat-ing place on this school landscape.

7.3.3. ConfrontationNaomi’s need to confront the multiple borders,

forming both within herself and between herselfand others on the exterior landscape of her school,caused her story to live by to enter an even morefragile state as her experience and understanding ofthe story of inclusion became even more mar-ginalized. Naomi’s recognition of her more vulner-able place on this school landscape did not preventher from attempting to create an opening throughconversation with Brian regarding the reportcards, however, in the process, she inadvertentlystrengthened the existing borders between them,shaping additional ones as well. The relationalstory Naomi was determined to negotiate was

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‘‘rapidly redefined on the landscape as [a] conflict-ing story’’ (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995).

7.3.4. ArroganceOne of these additional borders appeared to be

that of arrogance as Brian responded to Naomi’ssearch for understanding by consciously separatinghimself from both Naomi and Laura, redefining hispositioning to Naomi in terms of power over as her‘‘supervisor’’ and ‘‘monitor.’’ This new event in thespace between brought forth an emotional responsein Naomi which caused a shift in her image of Brianas well as her image of self (Josselson, 1992). Thisnew border of arrogance hastened the solidificationprocess of the school story and caused Naomi torage against it as her story to live by struggled tosurvive. It was becoming, ‘‘more and more difficultto penetrate the increasingly tough layer which[had] settled down on2 [her] being’’ (Buber,1965, p. 78).

7.4. Borders of judgment and silence

Naomi’s conscious decision to live her story—one which ran counter to the school story—posi-tioned her in a place of extreme vulnerability. Thiswas powerfully illuminated through the silencingresponse she received from her school adminis-trators regarding Brian and the school story ofinclusion. The message of support and acceptanceof the school story at any cost was uncovered for usin Buber’s (1965) description of social contexts inwhich, ‘‘the life between person and person seems toretreat more and more before the advance of thecollective’’ (p. 73). The response from both her prin-cipal and vice-principal created a border of secrecyand silence, pushing Naomi’s story to live by to thefar ‘‘ragged edges’’ (Greene, 1994) of the advancingschool story. Living on that edge equated to livingin isolation as the space for relatedness becamemore scarce on Naomi’s school landscape. ForNaomi, who understood her world through deepand connected relationship with others, this edgebecame too fragile a place on which to stand. With-out the embeddness of her relational story withinthis social context, Naomi had no ‘‘place’’ to‘‘exist’’. Hope came through an ultimate act ofresistance for Naomi—leaving her school. Like bell

hooks (1997), who so knowingly describes this criti-cal moment of self recovery, ‘‘standing on the edgeof the cliff about to fall into the abyss, I rememberwho I am’’ (p. 182), we imagine that Naomi mayhave experienced a similar awakening. We have noway of knowing what Naomi’s response of resist-ance may have done to reshape the school story ofinclusion. However, we do know that Naomi’s leav-ing moved her to an educative place in which shecould be true to herself—one best describedthrough her own words:

I think that’s very difficult to stand on theoutside of things and say, ‘Yes, I will fight forthis.’ I think that it’s only really when youcome into those places of ‘there is an end tothis’ that you can make that choice2I made the decision that if things weren’tgoing to change there, then I was going toleave2. I made that decision, now I’m freeto say what I want.

8. Imagining possibilities

Those who have been excluded by themainstream, or who have chosen to liveand/or learn apart from it, may be the verypeople to help us find particularly effectiveways to learn in community—ways lessskewed by conformity, less dominated by in-stitutional aspirations; ways perhaps truer tothe basic human needs we all2 share—tofirst and foremost feel that we matter to thosearound us. (Heller, 1997, p. 160)

There is no doubt that Naomi was profoundlyinfluenced by telling and living her story of herselfon this school landscape. Had she a choice in livingher story, she may not have eventually resignedfrom her position at this school. However, asClandinin and Connelly (1995) have highlighted,‘‘teachers must, of necessity, tell stories2be-cause2 [storytelling] is2 the most basic way,that humans make meaning of their experience’’ (p.154). Naomi’s need to mediate her story to live byas she negotiated the school landscape, shiftedher experience of this professional contextfrom educative to miseducative. This may not have

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occurred if she had continued to tell her story onlywithin the confines of her in-classroom place on theschool landscape. Unlike so many of the teacherswith whom Clandinin and Connelly worked, whotold ‘‘cover stories’’ of themselves as a way tomanage their tensions between the in- and out-of-classroom places on the professional knowledgelandscape, Naomi did not, even though doing sowas at her own peril, pushing her to a marginalizedand isolated place on her school landscape (p. 157).So what was it that drew Naomi to keep trying totell her story on the out-of-classroom place on herschool landscape even after she was told to besilent?

We believe that Naomi’s resistance to tellinga cover story was grounded within her story to liveby of ‘‘one-caring’’ for others (Noddings, 1984). Itwas this that enabled her to remain ever present toher embodied knowledge of herself. BecauseNaomi’s embodied knowing of herself as a teacherwas immersed in an ‘‘ethic of care,’’ she could nottake her gaze off her responsibility as she lived incaring relation with her students. It was this threadwithin Naomi’s story that made it necessary for herto cross over the border between her in- and out-of-classroom places. However, radically differentfrom the response she had experienced within herin-classroom place, the response on the out-of-classroom place was not grounded in relation but,instead, shifted to negotiating her story to live bythrough a conduit-delivered mandate on inclusiveeducation. In the beginning fragments of her story,we sensed her hopefulness about this negotiationbut as her story continued it seemed to becomeevident to Naomi that little, if anything, was negoti-ated on the out-of-classroom place. Although thismoral dilemma caused tension for Naomi, she re-fused to deny her knowing or to fall into the plot-line inscribed for her through the school story.

Early on in our work, as Naomi shared her storyof marginalization and again as we pulled it for-ward from the transcript, we felt a deep sense ofhopelessness about the way in which we read herstory as profoundly and miseducatively shaping herstory to live by. We kept focusing on the conclusionof this story and Naomi’s decision to leave herschool landscape. What we could not see at sucha distance from her telling were the possibilities

which her story offered. Only as we began to ex-plore the intricacies of Naomi’s story did we beginto awaken to the educative ways in which themeaning of this story was reshaped. It was Naomi’sresistance, lived out in this story, that becameeducative for each of the teacher co-researchersengaged in this inquiry.

Our first awakening occurred as we tried tomake sense of what drew Naomi to keep trying totell her story on the out-of-classroom place on herschool landscape even after she was told to besilent. We were drawn back to Naomi’s introduc-tion to her story where she described her sense ofliving outside the status quo story of her school.What could we learn from her story of choosing toposition herself in such a marginal place on herschool landscape? Returning to the literature whereother writers had shared their experiences of suchpositionings, we began to reread Naomi’s story innew ways.

Were these marginal positionings not morehopeful than those positionings which shaped theliving and telling of cover stories? Anzaldua (1990)helped us to think harder about what can happento our sense of self as these masking roles exacta toll— ‘‘After years of wearing masks we maybecome just a series of roles, the constellated selflimping along with its broken limbs’’ (p. xv).Naomi’s story certainly did not present such anempty and debilitating image of herself. On thecontrary, our continual rereading of Naomi’s storyled us to uncover stronger images of her person-hood. Naomi’s story was not one of internalizedoppression imposed upon her from a distance. In-stead, we saw Naomi as a woman who was intenton acquiring her own agency, of authoring her ownstory to live by. Unlike the school story whichseemed disembodied, Naomi’s story to live by wasgrounded in a narrative history which seemed tooffer her the strength to sustain her isolated posi-tioning in places on her school landscape outsideher classroom. Drawing on Hurtado’s (1996) no-tion of how we acquire and use ‘‘subjugated know-ledge,’’ we wondered if Naomi’s deep sense ofpresence to her embodied knowing of self had en-abled her to temporarily suspend or repress the‘‘knowledge’’ pouring onto her school landscapethrough a sacred story of inclusive education. Was

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her alternative understanding of this story whatenabled her to ‘‘resist structures of oppressionand create interstices of rebellion and potentialrevolution’’ (p. 386)? Had it been her presence toher own knowing which had enabled her to dwellwithin an in-between positioning, gaining thecourage to name the lack of spaces for differingways of knowing to exist on her school landscape?We believe so. And, in this believing, we came torecognize Naomi’s story as a place of possibili-ty—possibility for understanding the central rolethat presence to our narrative histories plays inenabling us to live and to sustain stories that runcounter to those being scripted for us on schoollandscapes.

Acknowledgements

We wish to express our gratitude to D. JeanClandinin and F. Michael Connelly for their ongo-ing contributions to our work, and would also liketo acknowledge the support of their grant throughthe Social Sciences and Humanities ResearchCouncil of Canada.

It is necessary for us to recognize the relationalcontext in which this paper was written. Our know-ing is a relational knowing that can never be re-duced by a hierarchical ordering of names.

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