ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the stories, compelling accounts of first-year teaching, that told by early career English teachers. Digital technologies are changing the face of schooling daily as we wrestle to make best of their potential. The book considers the trends in the last decade: video lectures, individualized modules, social networks, and logarithmic assessment of test scores and other big data. Global economics has affected local public school budgets, which in turn have shaped teacher hiring, pink-slipping, and pensions. Out of the jumble of visual, auditory, physical, and emotional memories of days in school, the contributors have drafted narratives. In contrast to paradigmatic thinking, narrative thinking tells stories of human actions across time. One way is to suspend disbelief and fully enter the story world, vicariously experiencing what the characters are experiencing. The book considers the possible critiques of a collection of personal narratives.
