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Prophet, priest, and king: an interpretive rewriting of an English teacher’s vocation

University of British Columbia

In this inquiry I examine the spiritual significance of English pedagogy through a rewriting of my spiritual and pedagogical voices: prophet, priest, and king. Being poetic, the inquiry "plays out" my teaching experiences stressing the ambivalence of language and the pervasiveness of metaphor. With each word the poetry shifts, its meaning likewise, and with every shift this inquiry is destabilized. At the same time, because each word holds a history of infinite facets, everything depends on the words. Thus, somewhere between each shift grows an intertextual relationship of the prophet, priest, and kingly voices. Keeping the poetic voices constantly in play, constantly combining and recombining them in provocative new ways, is the emerging nature of this inquiry. Emerging in this way, the point of my re-search is to explore further what a spiritual English pedagogy itself entails, particularly, staying open to the lived experience, which in turn leads to deeper understandings. Thus, this inquiry is not framed in traditional modes of pedagogical inquiry. It has been the result of living in tension—so much so that what has emerged is not another teaching model, frame, or skeleton, but the breath of poetry which brings a skeleton life. It is my central purpose to "play out" my existential experience of English pedagogy. My poetic reflections, will not only contribute to our knowledge of English teaching and the curriculum, but also will anticipate a fuller understanding of spirituality and education as a source of possibility.

Thesis/Dissertation

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2009-01-27

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/3945

Language and Literacy Education

University of British Columbia

UBCV

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