reflecting on an ideal: student teachers envision a future identity

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Reflecting on an ideal: studentteachers envision a future identityCatherine Beauchamp a & Lynn Thomas ba School of Education , Bishop’s University , College Street,Sherbrooke, Québec, Canadab Université de Sherbrooke , Québec, CanadaPublished online: 11 Oct 2010.

To cite this article: Catherine Beauchamp & Lynn Thomas (2010) Reflecting on an ideal: studentteachers envision a future identity, Reflective Practice: International and MultidisciplinaryPerspectives, 11:5, 631-643, DOI: 10.1080/14623943.2010.516975

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Reflective PracticeVol. 11, No. 5, November 2010, 631–643

ISSN 1462-3943 print/ISSN 1470-1103 online© 2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/14623943.2010.516975http://www.informaworld.com

Reflecting on an ideal: student teachers envision a future identity

Catherine Beauchampa* and Lynn Thomasb

aSchool of Education, Bishop’s University, College Street, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada; bUniversité de Sherbrooke, Québec, CanadaTaylor and FrancisCREP_A_516975.sgm(Received 9 October 2009; final version received 28 July 2010)10.1080/14623943.2010.516975Reflective Practice1462-3943 (print)/1470-1103 (online)Original Article2010Taylor & Francis115000000November 2010Dr [email protected]

Reflection is generally acknowledged as an important part of teacher educationand a central activity in teacher development. The close connection betweenreflection and identity development has been noted in literature on teachereducation. This paper will focus on the interplay among the concepts of reflection,identity and the ideal, and will report the results of a pilot study which attemptedto elicit from student teachers their reflections on an ideal identity for their futurelives as teachers. The implications of such reflection for teacher educationprogrammes will be indicated.

Keywords: teacher education; reflection; teacher identity development; studentteachers; teacher development; professional identity

Introduction

During their field placements student teachers are encouraged to reflect on their obser-vations of practicing teachers and on their own development as professionals. In theirreflections, they consider ways their beliefs and values are transferred into their teach-ing practice as they grow into the profession and begin to consider their identities asdeveloping teachers. The close connection between reflection and identity develop-ment has been noted in recent literature on teacher education (e.g. Freese, 2006;Korthagen, 2004; Walkington, 2005).

Much reflection that student teachers do involves retrospective thinking abouttheir practice teaching, or reflection on their actions; reflection-in-action, happeningin the midst of practice, may come progressively as they gain experience (Schön,1983). However, reflection for the future may also be beneficial for teachers, and mayassist them in anticipating future actions in useful ways (Conway, 2001). Similarly,looking ahead to a future or ideal identity may aid student teachers in progressingtoward a desired notion of the teachers they would like to become. In addition, it mayinvoke tensions of embodiment (Alsup, 2006), or their ability to envision themselveswithin a future identity as a teacher. While retrospective reflection relies on memory,anticipatory reflection contains an element of imagination, a looking forward to afuture possibility that the student teacher might construct.

This paper will focus on the interplay among the concepts of reflection, identityand the ideal, and will report the results of a pilot study designed to elicit from student

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

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632 C. Beauchamp and L. Thomas

teachers their reflections on an ideal identity for their future lives as teachers. Theimplications of such reflection for teacher education programmes are indicated.

The importance of reflection in learning to teach

Since the work of Dewey (1910, 1933) and later Schön (1983), the idea that reflectioncan enhance the process through which teachers develop as professionals by makingmeaning of experience in systematic ways remains undisputed. As current literatureon reflection and its role in professional life encourages a moving beyond thesenotions to include a critical approach to social change (Boud, 2010; Fook, 2010), anda deeper focus on ‘productive reflection’ within work contexts leading to ongoinglearning (Boud, Cressey, & Docherty, 2006), clearly reflection continues to beregarded as essential to the development of quality teaching (Rodgers, 2002; Zeichner& Liston, 1996; Jay, 2003). In teacher education, reflection is an acknowledged wayfor student teachers to learn about their practice and about themselves, a process lead-ing to self-discovery (Bengtsson, 1995).

Conway (2001) proposes that in addition to reflection that focuses on past orpresent actions in teaching, it would be helpful to pay attention to reflection that mighttarget future actions. In Conway’s view, such anticipatory or prospective reflection ispart of what teachers regularly experience. This forward looking reflection draws onthe past, is situated in the present, but attempts to consider a future time in teaching:

Reflection is not only about taking the long view backward in time, but also, and this isborne out in experience, about looking forward to the horizon. Looking toward the futurewith knowledge of the past from the viewpoint of the present … is a particularly salientaspect of novice teachers’ everyday experience. (p. 90)

Recent work (Collier, 2010) supports the connection between imagination and reflec-tion, linking reflection to the arts, for example, as a way to ‘apprehend images, to bepresent in the imagined moment’ (p. 147). In programmes of teacher education, afocus on future directed reflection could help student teachers consider the possibili-ties for development that lie ahead. It is this type of reflection that concerns us.

Reflection and identity development in teaching

An aspect of teacher development prominent in recent teacher education literature isthat of identity. Understanding not only how to act but also how to be as a teacher isa significant part of what student teachers must do (Sachs, 2005). A teaching identityis generally recognized as multi-faceted and constantly shifting, because teachers areinfluenced by the contexts that surround them (Day, Kington, Stobart, & Sammons,2006; Flores & Day, 2006). Their identities are seen as unstable, subject to the ongo-ing effects of their own past experience as learners and the context in which theypractice, including the school environment, their colleagues and their learners(Smagorinsky, Moore, Cook, Jackson, & Fry, 2004). A part of this ongoing identitydevelopment is the pre-service teacher’s growing sense of self and the connection toa self-concept that may be useful in practice. While there is some discussion in theliterature about how identity and the self are linked, it is clear that there is an inextri-cable connection between the two (Rodgers & Scott, 2008). In developing an identity,a prospective teacher must necessarily draw on her self:

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Reflective Practice 633

becoming a teacher means that an individual must adopt an identity as such. I take thisstrong position – insisting on identity – because the process of teaching, at once socomplicated and deep, involves the self. (Danielewicz, 2001, p. 9)

One way of conceiving of the varieties of identity and the self that might emerge asstudent teachers develop is the notion of multiple selves, the idea that one might haveseveral identities, often simultaneously. Lauriala and Kukkonen (2005) have describedthese as the actual self, the ought self and the ideal self. The actual self of a teacher,the self that currently exists, might be different from the ought self of a teacher, anotion of the teacher self-imposed by society; furthermore, a teacher might have inmind an ideal self, a self that represents a goal. Others have identified similar notionsas the actual self and the designated self (Sfard & Prusak, 2005), the latter representingthe self that a teacher sees as an aim. One author mentions a ‘fictive’ identity (Jenlink,2006), the idea of a teacher composed not only of early life experiences but also of thecultural myths about who a teacher is as accepted by society. Similarly, Ronfeldt andGrossman (2008) draw on the notions of possible selves and provisional selves asaspects of professional identity. In another perspective on identity and the self asteacher, Jenlink (2006) suggests that identity might be viewed as palimpsest, the accu-mulation of various versions of an identity over time based on experiences. Thestudent teaching situation might allow for some early creation of this palimpsest aspractice teaching situations provide opportunities for identity development.

A further dimension of identity development, that of agency, is also important toconsider (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009). The obviously close and perhaps reciprocallink between identity and agency, which also has a connection to self-concept, is notedthroughout literature on identity in teaching (e.g. Danielewicz, 2001; Day et al., 2006;Parkison, 2008), and even beyond in broader literature on identity and agency (e.g.Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998). A definition of agency suggested byMcAlpine and Amundsen (2009), drawing on Edwards, as an ‘evocation of identity’,and representing ‘the capacity to perceive personal goals towards which one is direct-ing action’ is helpful in understanding this link (p. 2). In connection with teaching,agency has been defined as the ‘quality of an individual that makes doing possible; itmeans believing that one’s self is capable of action’ (Danielewicz, 2001, p. 163). Forteachers, agency is obviously highly important in the carrying out of professional tasks.Developing or forming a strong identity has to do with the emergence of agency as away to externalize an identity; it may be the outward expression of one’s identity, yetmight also be influential in the ongoing shaping of an identity. As student teachersdevelop identity, one might also assume that a growing sense of agency will be a natu-ral result, a sense of the teacher’s potential as a force for effecting change, for movingforward, for transforming the teaching context and for achieving goals.

What becomes clear in an exploration of identity development in teachers is theimportance of reflection in the process. Teacher education literature has consistentlyacknowledged that the systematic examination of their teaching helps student teachersunderstand their shifting self-development (e.g. Freese, 2006; Korthagen, 2004).Korthagen and Vasalos (2005) propose that core reflection, encompassing levels ofreflection that attend to a student teacher’s mission and identity, among other areas offocus, is what is needed in teacher development. Their cyclical model of reflectionincludes an ‘awareness of an ideal situation’, framed by the question ‘What do/did youwant to achieve or create?’ (p. 57). The attention to such an ideal situation is a focusof the work we report on in this paper.

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Reflecting on an ideal

We have been interested in the notion of student teachers exploring an ideal as a wayto consider their current teaching or current selves and to project forward toward theirgoals. Thinking about who they would like to become as teachers strikes us as apowerful way for them to move toward an identity they envision as positive for theirfuture practice: ‘that aspect of the identity of the individual which is related to what isnot yet realised, but which the person would like to achieve in the future’ (De Ruyter& Conroy, 2002, p. 510). De Ruyter and Conroy have explored the notion of idealwith respect to the development of students in school classrooms; however, one couldconsider the same notion in terms of the development of student teachers. In fact,some teacher education literature puts a focus on the ideal. As Korthagen and Vasalos(2005) suggest, reflecting toward an ideal could permit student teachers to envision afuture teaching self that would inform their development. A study of the future-oriented discourse of student teachers reveals a similar position:

We believe that prospective reflection offers a unique opportunity to engage in activeand meaningful decision-making, problem definition, exploration, and evaluation, andone that allows teachers to envision the future and to imagine themselves in that future.(Urzúa & Vásquez, 2008, p. 1944)

Student teachers individually could be encouraged to think ahead in positive, affirm-ing ways to construct a worthy ideal and to work toward this ideal. This idea resonatesalso with the suggestion that imagination is a neglected part of teacher development(Beauchamp & Thomas, 2006). Student teachers could benefit from the ‘cultivationof the inner life, in particular, the imagination’ as it is ‘critical for teacher developmentand the reshaping of professional practices’ (Klein, 2008, p. 111). Our study attemptedto tap into the sense of an ideal held by student teachers and the ways they imaginethis ideal by asking them to articulate a vision of the teacher they would like tobecome.

An examination of student teacher future reflection

As part of a broader examination of student teachers’ developing sense of their iden-tities, we posed questions to graduating student teachers regarding their ideal identityas future teachers. The overall study (Thomas & Beauchamp, 2007) explored theunderstanding of their identities through a series of questions designed to elicit theirunderstanding of their teaching identity as they graduated, their recognition ofelements of their teacher education programme that promoted identity development,and their sense of an ideal future teacher identity. Due to space restrictions we limitour report to the responses to the interview questions pertaining to this ideal, with acommentary on the implications of these responses for teacher education.

The study

Forty-eight volunteer participants in three cohorts over three years were interviewedduring the summer following their graduation from a four-year teacher educationprogramme at two institutions, one English speaking and one French speaking, in theprovince of Quebec, Canada. They were again interviewed after seven or eightmonths of teaching to examine the shifts in their sense of identity that happened

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during the early months of their initial practice. Our overall research questions werethe following: (1) what sense of identity as teachers do graduating student teacherspossess?; and (2) What development occurs in their identity as they begin their initialpractice as teachers?

We focus here on the first interview with the three cohorts, particularly on twoquestions included in this interview pertaining to an ideal future identity and the meansto achieve it. A complete list of the interview questions appears in the Appendix.

Methodology and analysis

We structured our qualitative study around the following methodological steps, inkeeping with approaches to qualitative research studies (Creswell, 2008):

(1) Selection of participants: The 48 participants were volunteers recruited fromtwo teacher education programmes in Quebec.

(2) Interviews: Interview protocols were developed for two separate interviewswith the students/teachers: one immediately following graduation and asecond after seven to eight months of teaching in their first jobs. The inter-views contained questions related to identity on such issues as the effect oftheir teacher education programmes, their expectations of their first experi-ences in teaching, their perceptions of change in their identities, their vision ofan ideal teacher identity, the ways in which they might reach this ideal, theirideas about factors that have influenced or will influence their identity devel-opment, the metaphors they associate with teaching.

(3) Reflections: Immediately prior to each interview, participants were asked towrite brief reflections on their sense of their own identities, either in text ornote form or graphic form, to trigger ideas and set the context for a discussionof identity.

(4) Coding of transcripts: Once the taped interviews were transcribed, an iterativeprocess of reading the transcripts and coding was carried out by the tworesearchers who worked separately. Essential responses to each question wereisolated, recorded on charts and further analyzed for thematic similarities.Themes were allocated to general categories to group the responses. Constantconsultation between the two researchers resulted in categories and themesthat were consistent, sometimes as a result of negotiation.

(5) Analysis: The nature of the categories that resulted permitted a sense of thestudents’/teachers’ identity development to emerge; in addition, recurrentthemes that emerged across questions and categories were tracked through list-ing the number of times they appeared in the data.

(6) Representing voice: Conscious of the challenges of accurately interpreting thevoices of others, especially when looking at small excerpts of longer inter-views, we returned to the data repeatedly to ensure that the representations ofour participants’ words were clear and correct. We also shared our writtenwork with our participants for their feedback and confirmation of accuracy.

Results for questions involving a sense of ideal identity

Included in the first interview were two questions focusing on the graduating students’sense of an ideal future identity they would like to achieve:

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(1) Do you have a vision of the kind of teacher you would like to be? Explain.(2) How do you think you will reach this ideal?

Responses to Question 1: Do you have a vision of the kind of teacher you would like to be?

Participant responses to the first question about an ideal identity fell into three catego-ries: (a) their relationship with learners; (b) their perception of the role or the stanceof the teacher; and (c) the personal characteristics they hoped to develop.

Relationship with learners in schools. When articulating their sense of an idealteacher self, graduating students were preoccupied with their relationship with learn-ers. They indicated the importance they placed on establishing effective relationshipsand promoting a community within the classroom conducive to learning. Theydemonstrated a need to establish good relationships, to create a caring community andeven to be a mother to their learners. Examples of their statements follow:

A teacher that inspires students to believe in themselves and to do their best. I want tobe that teacher who has real faith in her students.

A teacher who is open and where students can come if they have problems.

I want them to be able to come and talk to me as a person.

Approachable so students will realize that I’m someone who is there to help them.

Somebody with good connections to kids. I want to be human.

Statements in this category were strongly idealistic, suggesting their serious desire toconnect with learners and their notion that they are central to the establishment of awarm and open atmosphere in the classroom.

Teacher role or stance. In addition, the graduating student teachers could projectahead to the role or stance they would like to assume in the classroom. Their responsesindicated they had a picture of the way a teacher should be, and sometimes noted thatthey felt this was not their present stance. Responses were divided between an idea ofthe importance of the teacher in promoting learning, and at the same time the concernwith adopting a role that would allow for this learning to happen. As examples of thefirst type of response, students noted the need for a teacher to provide inspiration, andexpressed their desire to be the type of teacher who would engage and motivate thelearners. The following are examples of their comments:

A teacher who pushes students to achieve.

Always care about student enrichment.

Really engaging students in every area of the programme.

A very inspiring teacher that creates projects that no other teacher would create

a person who not only teaches kids but makes them want to learn.

Other participants were more concerned that their future would involve taking a stancethat allowed for learning to occur. They revealed their need to establish themselves asfirm and in control. Their comments clearly indicate this need:

Be a stricter teacher, more of a disciplinarian, be firm and consistent, be fair.

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Someone that is personable, that can teach and be able to put your foot down and yetknow when it’s okay to just be yourself and have a good time with the students …approachable even though I would be strict in the classroom.

As they made these statements, they often indicated their sense that they did not seethemselves this way at present. They felt insecure in their ability to adopt this role offirmness and consistency in their approach.

Personal characteristics. The participants mentioned in their forward reflections thepersonal characteristics they considered important to develop. They noted the lack ofsuch characteristics in their state as they graduated, and spoke of them as valuableaspects of a possible future identity:

Someone calm, organized, confident in their teaching.

Confident, fun.

One who learns with the students, creative.

Knowing my limits and respecting myself.

I want for myself not to be lazy and just let things go, but to make the effort to followthrough on things.

Many of these comments stemmed from their recent student teaching experiences.They appeared to be highlighting areas that had been problematic or challenging forthem, and they therefore included these desirable qualities as an identity for which tostrive.

Responses to Question 2: Do you have an idea how you will reach this ideal?

In answer to the question regarding their ideas about how to reach their ideals, theparticipants provided a range of comments related to factors that might influence theirdevelopment: (a) experience and practice; (b) engagement with other teachers; and (c)knowing their learners.

Experience and practice. Some participants were convinced that gaining experiencewould allow them to reach their ideals. This experience would come through contin-uous practice and perseverance toward their goals. Examples of their commentsinclude the following:

A lot of work and observation and practice.

I think it’s going to be a lot of work. It’s going to be a lot, many years of experience. Byproving that you … are a good teacher and by … having experience. So, experience.Facing challenges that you will go through successfully.

Clearly, the participants recognized the need for hard work in the time ahead. Theirrecent practice teaching experiences and their connection to the experienced teachersof these practice teaching classrooms may have emphasized for them the gaps in theirabilities. There was some sense in their statements that experience alone might bewhat is needed, although they did recognize that this experience needed to be coupledwith success.

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Engagement with other teachers. Students also recognized the important relation-ships they would develop with other teachers in the school community. Theircomments consistently indicated the value they placed on this interaction with others,particularly with more experienced teachers:

Learning from other teachers … you can’t really do it on your own, but you can, gettinghelped. From senior teachers that are better, older, role models, and friends, teachers whoare friends.

By working with more experience teachers, by having a mentor within the school.

I want to be involved … I will have to go slowly at first and stay in the classroom andthen maybe come out … and involve in the committees and different sectors. I believein the community and want to reinforce the community …

The participants’ interest in community and acknowledgement that they must developties to the community contexts of their future practice were evident. They anticipateda role in the school community and sometimes even in the community beyond theschool, and noted that this involvement would be a strong factor in learning how toachieve their ideal.

Knowing the learners. A third category of response about attaining their ideal had todo with getting to know and understand the learners. These comments were consistentwith their ideal of relating well to learners and of establishing comfortable relation-ships with them. They clearly placed high value on this area of their development forachieving their ideal teacher selves. The following statements exemplify theirresponses:

Always put students first, but make it realistic.

I think bonding has something to do with that. Like getting to know them from the verybeginning. Learn to know who they are … being able to set the rules from the beginningof the year, tell the students your objectives, what you expect from them.

I need to get to know my students so that I can work with them … there has to be respect.

Getting to know my students, knowing where they come from, where they grew up, whattheir interests are, what they enjoy doing, activities, what makes them want to learn.

In a few cases, the participants acknowledged that reflection might have something todo with their ability to reach their ideal. Although both programmes of teacher educa-tion place an emphasis on reflection in teacher development, this was not a responsethat came up frequently. The participants who did mention it saw the link betweenreflection and learning:

Spending time reflecting on my practices.

You have to be someone who is really ready to keep learning and not stop learning andstop tolerating how the world changes. …

The absence of any more significant mention of reflection was somewhat surprising,as the two teacher education programmes from which the students had graduated both

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promote the notion of reflection for development as a teacher. We wonder if theparticipants were not able to see the value of any kind of anticipatory reflection, asthey did not exhibit a strong sense of the importance of reflection as a helpful way toenvision and move toward their ideals. This gap makes us concerned about the needto stress this type of reflection in our teacher education programmes.

Implications for teacher education

Overall the participants’ responses to the two questions revealed an ability to reflectabout an ideal they held for a possible future identity. They were often somewhattentative in their replies to the questions, as most had not had to articulate such think-ing during their programme and were now confronted with the need to consider afuture self. They were used to retrospective reflection on their practicum situationsand the ways in which they could improve, but not on the connections between theperceived possible improvements and their vision of an ideal teacher.

The uncertainty they displayed, however, may be beneficial to them. It has beenargued that uncertainty can be a positive aspect of reflective practice; it can be seen asan ever-present component of reflection that gives rise to continued inquiry (Attard,2008). Holding an ideal of their future selves and recognizing the varying influencesthat may affect the achievement of these future selves may be a way to help themmonitor their progress through the uncertain time ahead.

As we resolve ways in which we can promote anticipatory reflection as a meansfor our student teachers to envision their future selves and identities, we are concernedabout developing what one author has called a ‘pedagogy of identity’, and allowingfor a space in teacher education programmes within which students can begin toconstruct their ideal identities (Jenlink, 2006, p. 126). A pedagogy of identityapproach to teacher education implies not only acknowledging students’ actual andemerging identities within the curriculum, but recognizing the importance of profes-sional identity development in the lives of teachers by making it integral to initialteacher education programmes. Our challenge as teacher educators is to promote apedagogy of identity that ‘understands the necessity of providing a space within whichone can become the author of one’s own interpretations of one’s identity as teacher’(Jenlink, 2006, p. 15). Consciously enacting such a pedagogy could strengthen studentteachers’ perceptions of their own developing teacher selves.

Asking our graduates about their future vision of themselves as teachers, theirideal of themselves, made us aware of the need to explore this future directed reflec-tion to a greater degree. Evidently a missing part of the discussion with the partici-pants was the possibility that their vision might ultimately not be a satisfactory orfulfilling one, and that this vision might, and most probably will change and adjust asthey move into practice. In the second interviews with these same participants, wehave posed the question about whether their ideal holds. Eventual comparisonbetween the two sets of responses may provide an insight into the possibly shiftingnature of their perceptions of their selves and their identities.

In terms of teacher education programmes, we are convinced that making room forfuture-oriented reflection that allows students to anticipate and consider their futureidentities can only be helpful. Their ability to reflect on the future has been noted else-where in recent literature (Husu, Toom, & Patrikainen, 2008) and has been confirmedhere. Such reflection allows students to look beyond the boundaries of theirprogramme into a future world of practice and to foresee an identity for themselves

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within that world. As we consider their ability to do so, we are intrigued with thenotion of appreciative intelligence, or ‘the ability to perceive the positive inherentgenerative potential within the present’ (Thatchenkery & Metzker, 2006, p. 5).Student teachers could be looking forward to an ideal teacher identity built on positiveaspects of their present identity. Our role as teacher educators could involve helpingthem to recognize their strengths and construct from them toward their ideal in keep-ing with the appreciative intelligence notion that this would require reframing of anidea, focusing on the positive and recognizing the development of a possible futurefrom a positive position on the present (Thatchenkery & Metzker, 2006). A viewbeyond the boundary of the present, building on existing strengths, can stimulate theirthinking about who they are now, and how they want to direct their development toreach desired goals. It may, in fact, engender the important sense of agency that wouldhelp them move toward their goals, and link their reflections on the future to identityand an ideal teacher self.

Notes on contributorsCatherine Beauchamp is a professor in the School of Education at Bishop’s University inQuébec, Canada, where she teaches undergraduate student teachers. Her research interestsinclude teacher reflection and teacher identity.

Lynn Thomas is associate professor in the Département de pédagogie at the Université deSherbrooke in Québec, Canada. She is involved in the preparation of ESL teachers andconducts research in second language teaching, second language learning and literacy, andteacher identity.

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Appendix The following are questions for the larger study from which the findings presented in this paperwere drawn.

Interview 1, undertaken immediately following graduation:

1. How has your teacher education programme affected your perceptions of teaching? Whatspecific aspects of the programme (courses, practicum, etc.) influenced your perceptions?

2. Is there anything you would like to say about how your image of yourself as teacher haschanged during the programme?

3. Do you think imagination has played a role in the way you see yourself as a teacher?4. What metaphor would you use to represent yourself as teacher at this time? Could you

explain?5. How do you imagine your first year of teaching?6. Do you have a vision of the kind of teacher you would like to be? Explain.7. How do you think you will reach this ideal?8. What changes might you anticipate in your image of yourself as teacher? What might

influence these changes?9. Is it helpful to imagine how things might work in advance? Does thinking ahead about

your future practice help you to see yourself as a professional?

Interview 2, undertaken midway through the first year of teaching:

1. Now that you have taught for part of a year, how do you perceive your identity as ateacher? Who are you in this role?

2. Can you name any specific changes in your sense of a teaching identity since you beganteaching?

3. What aspects of your practice have influenced this change?4. Is there a metaphor you would use to represent your teaching identity?5. What is your present vision of the kind of teacher you would like to be?6. How do you think you will you reach this ideal?7. How does a teacher develop a professional identity?8. Does your subject area have any influence on your identity as a teacher?9. As you reflect on your experience in a teacher education programme, what would you now

consider the most helpful aspects of this programme in the development of your identity?10. What suggestions would you make for teacher education programmes to enhance the

development of a teaching identity in student teachers?11. Is there anything you would like to add about developing a teaching identity?

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Note: The first question invites participants to look back at their Teacher Education programmeand consider what they learned in light of the topic of the study. The second question asksabout changes in professional identity; for the third, we probed the role of imagination in theenvisioning process. We have found metaphors to be particularly enlightening when discussingpersonal topics that some participants find difficult to express. The remaining questions arerelated to gaining an understanding of the participants’ envisioning of their future professionalidentities. The second set of questions takes into account the participants’ first months of teach-ing experience.

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reflecting on an ideal: student teachers envision a future identity

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