"I Can See You": An Autoethnography of My Teacher-Student Self

Authors

Erika França de Souza Vasconcelos, University of GeorgiaFollow

Abstract

This article is an autoethnographic investigation of my second-nature teacher-student self. What has made me into the teacher I am? What makes me the teacher I am? In order to address these questions, I draw upon my memories of my own teachers and students. As I portray my teaching-learning experiences as textual "snapshots," I find that my most cherished memories come from when my teachers acknowledged my presence and listened to me, and when I have been in dialogue with my own students. My autoethnographic journey ends up linking the personal to pedagogical theory centering attention to relationships between teachers and students, mirroring qualities of the humanizing pedagogy I discover, embrace, and which redefines and recreates my always evolving teacher-learner self.

Keywords

Autoethnography, Memories, Textual "Snapshots", Teacher?Student Relationships, Humanizing Pedagogy, and Teacher Identity

Acknowledgements

This article would not have come to be without the presence of two very special teachers who entered my life three years ago. Dr. JoBeth Allen introduced me to Paulo Freire’s groundbreaking Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and Dr. Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor inspired me to explore the unlimited possibilities of arts-based educational research. I am profoundly grateful for their caring and attentive eyes and ears. This study was conducted with support from the Fellowship Program of the Center for the Advancement and Study of International Education, Atlanta, Georgia.

Publication Date

3-1-2011

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2011.1063

Recommended APA Citation

Vasconcelos, E. F. (2011). "I Can See You": An Autoethnography of My Teacher-Student Self. The Qualitative Report, 16(2), 415-440. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2011.1063