Staying with difficulty: on the emotional and social uses of childhood objects in unbecoming a teacher

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article examines how five teacher candidates conceptualized meanings of teaching and childhood through discussions of childhood objects within a focus group. Drawing on psychosocial methods, we show how teachers used their objects to work through tensions between professional roles as educators and the return of personal memory. We highlight the ways in which meanings of teaching and childhood were affected by the shifting dynamics of compliance, anxiety, and conflict within the group. Through our analysis, we illustrate the value of using objects to support emerging teachers’ engagements in complicated conversations within a divergent community to represent conflictive meanings of childhood and education.KEYWORDS: Teacher educationcurriculum theorypsychosocial methodsfocus groupschildhood objectsmemory Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. This research was approved by York University’s Human Participants Research Review Committee.2. Earlier findings examined the pedagogical significance of childhood memories of nuisance-making leading to school surveillance (Farley et al., Citation2020), the colonial construct of innocence (Garlen, Chang-Kredl, Farley & Sonu, Citation2021), the relationship between memories of parental care and empathy (Chang-Kredl et al., Citation2021), and childhood memories of injustice and illness as catalysts for teachers’ dreams for just futures and pedagogical practice (Sonu et al., Citation2020, Citation2022). The second phase of research surfaced the role of nostalgia in teachers’ understandings of childhood under Covid-19 (Farley et al., Citation2022) and the meaning of childhood agency in oppressive contexts of schooling (Garlen et al., Citation2022).3. Webkinz are a stuffed animal franchise with interactive online counterparts (GANZ, Citation2012).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.