ABSTRACT
What brings one to teaching? What does one bring to teaching? Why do these questions present themselves now? Despite their resonance in various workday contexts, from interviews with candidates for teacher education programs to discussions in teacher education classrooms, for me, now, these questions have renewed meaning within the changed circumstances of my (work) life-where I am and what has brought me here. It is the manner in which these changed circumstances have come to bear on these questions that I wish to explore here. The ordinary and mundane form of the subtext of any curriculum vitae, the context of any course of life. Between the lines of my vitae, for example, is a series of movements, one of which may be described in this rudimentary manner: The work of teaching took me away from my familial, geographic, and spiritual home; during my years away from home, both parents died, my mother more recently; and, two years following my mother’s death, I returned home. From this very ordinary story of movement/migration, loss, and return arises a series of questions about the interrelationships of love, loss, and teaching. It is to the exploration of these questions, which attempt to probe the emotional and psychic life of (my) teaching, that this paper is directed.
