Exploring learning for professional growth: stories of lived experiences of an economics teacher in a rural setting.

Abstract

This thesis presents an understanding of my personal and professional development as an Economics teacher in a rural setting. I adopted a self-study methodology with narrative inquiry in this study to examine my lived experiences therefore I am the main participant in this study. I made use of storytelling to tell about my lived personal and professional experiences that contributed to shaping and moulding me into the teacher that I have become. This study was framed by the theories of Evans (2014) and Reid (2007) who concentrate on teacher formal and informal learning. The purpose of this study was to understand how my learning happened as a teacher in a rural setting. In addition, this study focused on the movement of unqualified teachers to qualified teachers. As the researcher and the researched in this study, my curiosity was to explore how my personal and professional learning contributed to my professional growth as an underqualified teacher in an under-resourced school. By using personal narrative inquiry, I was able to reflect on the personal and professional events that happened in my childhood and professional life. Through this study, I have discovered the meaningful experiences that I had never shared with anyone previously and I was able to reveals the factors that contributed to my professional development and more importantly, I identified my weaknesses and strengths. I have gained the strength to continue with my professional growth and to further my studies in Economics. I have discovered that there is a link between planned and unplanned learning which enhance teacher professional growth. The findings reveal that I acquired a deeper understanding of the self through memorising, retelling and reflecting on my lived personal and professional experiences. Through sharing my lived experiences, I was able to reinvent myself. Through this study I have learn that sharing of stories of lived experiences, contribute positively to personal and professional growth.