ABSTRACT

When I began teaching I did not have the professional language to frame my ideas. I now know that my educational values were also rooted in values that have their basis in my humanitarian stance – my ontological stance – or how I view myself in relation to others. Perhaps you recognise that although I was motivated in my work by core values of care, compassion and respect for the other, I continued to teach in ways that denied these values. It is hardly surprising that I felt a sense of dissonance. Essentially, the difference between the values I held and the way I behaved towards the children in my class was at the root of my anxiety about my practice. Articulating this took a long time (Roche 2011).