Teacher Lore

Learning From Our Own Experience

edited by

William H. Schubert & William C. Ayers

"These narratives capture life in the classroom and insights into the craft of teaching better than any quantitative research ever could.  As such, they serve as tools for the education and validation of other caring teachers.

                                                                                    —Herb Kohl, Mothering 1993

            "This book not only adds to a genre of literature becoming extremely popular (narratives about teaching) but it also gives the genre a name–"teacher lore." . . . a seminal piece because the concept so nicely captures the disparate literature, giving it a rationale and language as well as a bridge to the more formal idea of research on teaching."

                                                                                    —Noreen Garman, University of Pittsburgh

Teacher Lore: Learning from Our Own Experience is about affirming teachers' experience as legitimate knowledge about teaching.  The text is arranged in three parts:  Part I establishes the theoretical and methodological framework for the book.  In Part II, five contributing authors discuss their own studies of teachers researching and learning from their personal experience.  Part III helps reader to engage in forms of teacher lore themselves.

Teacher Lore:  Learning from Our Own Experience:

·        Depicts real teachers and real teaching

·        Gives teachers credit for being reflective and insightful contributors to the understanding of teaching

·        Emphasizes reflective teaching and the use of personal accounts as the best source for understanding teaching

·        Offers alternative methods of research and inquiry into education