‘Teachers are meant to be orthodox’: narrative and counter narrative in the discursive construction of ‘identity’ in teaching1

Narratives are important to us not only or even primarily because they tell about our past lives, but because they enable us to make sense of the present. We attempt to create coherence and give meaning to our lives by learning to read time backwards. This paper examines a counter narrative of entry into the teaching profession showing how the construction of one teacher’s identity is presented as a biographical narrative that he assumes to be at odds with an ‘orthodox’ narrative of becoming a teacher. The paper offers an interpretation of the personal narrative, told as counter to an assumed ‘orthodox’ story of entry into teaching. It also examines the relationship between the personal narrative and the contested site of the master narrative and its counter as the point at which the individual both positions themselves and is positioned within the discourse of teaching.