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This chapter is an autoethnographic account of my journey from a working-class childhood and youth to becoming an academic in a large UK university. Using the techniques of poetics (Bachelard, 2004), the chapter focuses on several pivotal periods in my life, where I encountered a sequence of events that were to influence my journey towards transformation. Back in my early 20s, I knew that I wanted to change and to grow in new directions; however, infused with a particular heritage, set of experiences and cultural values – none of which embraced, recognised or understood learning and university as a possibility – I struggled to make sense of my feelings of frustration and being stranded. This is where my strange fascination with the airport, music, daydream and the notion of flight emerged (see Bachelard, 2011; Seres, 1993). Here, the nebulous and seemingly futile ache for an alternative and better future emerged as a potent hope and journey towards transition.

Teacher retention and continued teacher growth and development have long been critical global issues in education. The recent pandemic crisis and subsequent “great resignation” (Lodewick, 2022) have returned our attention to the need for positive and enriching educational landscapes that promote teacher collaborative reflection, knowledge, and growth in order to sustain teachers in the field. This chapter explores the ongoing teacher learning that has occurred within two knowledge communities (Craig, 1995b) in the United States. It begins with an overview of Craig's early work with teachers, during which her conceptualization of knowledge communities emerged. According to Craig, knowledge communities are safe, collaborative spaces that cohere around teachers' intra/inter-school dialogue and their storying/restorying (Clandinin & Connelly, 1996, 1998) of experiences. Additionally, knowledge communities (Craig, 1995b) begin with originating events, allow teachers' experiences (Dewey, 1938) to resonate with others in the group, feature reciprocity of members' mindful responses, and promote the development of shared ways of knowing. Equally important, knowledge communities evolve and change, fuel ongoing reflection in community, and bring moral horizons into view. Employing these knowledge community qualities as our lens, we examine the interactions of the Portfolio Group and the Faculty Academy. The Portfolio Group is a teacher/teacher educator/researcher group formed in 1998 during a US education reform era (Craig, Curtis et al., 2020). Its sister group, the Faculty Academy, is a cross-institutional, cross-discipline higher education group of teacher educators/researchers formed in 2002 (Craig, Turchi et al., 2020). Employing a parallel stories representation (Craig, 1999), exemplars (Mishler, 1990) from both groups show how teacher collaborative groups have the capacity to be safe spaces in which critical professional dialogue, reflective exchanges, and generous scholarship occur among members. Furthermore, they are nurturing spaces in which teachers can thrive and be their best-loved selves (Craig, 2013; Schwab, 1954/1978). These two groups exemplify the ways in which knowledge communities support teacher collaboration, promote ongoing teacher growth and development, and foster teacher sustainability.

This narrative inquiry centers on teachers' longitudinal experiences of policy-related reforms systematically introduced to T. P. Yaeger Middle School, a campus located in the fourth largest, second most diverse city in America. The embedded research study, with roots tracing back to 1997, uses five interpretive tools to capture six mandated changes in the form of a story serial. Special research attention is afforded pay-for-performance, the sixth reform in the series. The deeply lived consequence of receiving bonuses for his teaching performance prompted Daryl Wilson, Yaeger's long-term literacy department chair, to proclaim “data is [G]od.” Wilson's emergent, inventive metaphor aptly portrays the perplexing conditions under which his career ended, and how my long-term research project likewise concluded.

In order to teach science effectively, teachers need a strong background in science content as well as an understanding of productive methods of teaching. This includes inquiry-based learning that will cultivate conceptual development of science concepts with their students. Furthermore, it is imperative to use student-focused activities in high-needs schools to engage all students, particularly students of color, in the learning process. As a result, faculty from the teachHOUSTON Program and the Department of Physics at the University of Houston produced a Physics by Inquiry course to engage middle school and high school preservice teachers in interactive, inquiry-based teaching pedagogies for physics. This chapter provides an overview of the course. It also highlights the benefits of including such a course in a STEM teacher education program.

This narrative inquiry examines teachers' influences on undergraduate/graduate students who enrolled in STEM programs and intended to enter STEM careers. Three National Science Foundation (NSF) scholarship grants sat in the backdrop. Narrative exemplars were crafted using the interpretative tools of broadening, burrowing, storying and restorying, fictionalization, and serial interpretation. Three diverse students' narratives constituted the science education cases: one from teacher education, another about cybertechnology, and a third involving cybersecurity. The influence of the university students' former teachers cohered around five themes: (1) same program-different narratives, (2) in loco parentis, (3) counterstories, (4) learning in small moments, and (5) the importance of the liberal arts in STEM education. The students' narratives form instructive models for their siblings and other students pursuing STEM degrees/careers. Most importantly, the multiperspectival stories of experiences capture the far-reaching impact of “unsung teachers” whose long-term influence is greatly underestimated by the public.

This chapter is a collection of reflections on the broader concept of my “story to live by” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Craig, 2008, 2014) as a beginning English Language Arts teacher. Burrowing deeply into the impact of a single phrase from a conversation with a found mentor at the close of my first year, the chapter explores the journey of sustaining in the profession by examining what is here within discussed as a narrative undercurrent that carries each educator toward his or her “best-loved Self” (Craig, 2013; Schwab, 1954/1978). This concept is introduced, and then reflected upon in correlation with the development of knowledge communities (Olson & Craig, 2001; Craig & Huber, 2007), narrative authority (Olson, 1995), and narrative identity (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999; McAdams, Josselson & Lieblich, 2006).

In meditating on the broader narrative, I arrived at the conclusion that the conversation referenced initiated my discovering essential elements of my best-loved Self, and my seeking to actualize them within a forged knowledge community. I moved forward and expanded my knowledge “for,” “in,” and “of” practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1998). Through this process, I authored and re-authored myself through conflicts noted across the literature as factors contributing to beginning teacher attrition rates (Craig, 2014; Schaefer, 2013) and preserved my story to live by.

As part of a larger study into the influence of a Writers in the Schools (WITS) professional development consultancy, this narrative inquiry began just as Hurricane Harvey, the second most costly hurricane to hit the United States, devastated the Texas Gulf Coast in August 2017 and drew to a close in late 2020 during the COVID-19 global pandemic. This chapter explores the 2017–2018 school-year interactions between WITS Collaborative writer, Mary Austin (pseudonym), and six writing teachers with whom she worked at McKay High School (pseudonym) in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. With record flooding and widespread damage causing school-opening delays, teachers, students, and WITS consultants navigated a rip tide of emotions as they strived to balance educational/professional needs and duties with personal loss and unexpected financial burdens. This inquiry examines how WITS teacher professional development was carried out in the midst of these trying circumstances.

Education, and especially the life of a teacher, is constantly evolving. Teachers' roles and responsibilities have become more complicated and multifaceted over time. Therefore, they have to invest a great deal of time, energy, and effort to navigate the demands and complexities of their role. In the last 20 years, education has changed in response to increased workload, the rise of high-stakes testing and accountability, social-emotional and behavioral challenges among students, school safety concerns, equity concerns, and now the coronavirus pandemic. These factors have been linked to high stress and teacher burnout, which leads to more teachers leaving their jobs (Arvidsson et al., 2019). Nonetheless, those who endure the flames of burnout do so because they are resilient in the face of adversity and persistent in their commitment to the call of teaching and learning. This chapter examines the effects of stress and burnout among three alternatively certified teachers and the behaviors and strategies these educational first responders employ to build resilience and persistence in their service to the students who shape our future.

This chapter provides a look at the experiences of two Teacher Educators in the Field (TEFs) as they work to shift writing instruction in suburban districts across the Houston metroplex. A review of the literature on most promising practices for literacy educators is provided along with narrative interspersion of restoried enactments of TEFs in public education systems serving students in grades 6–12. Our planned and lived experiences were often dissonant due to the complexity of increasingly diverse demographic populations in fast-growing districts who struggled to shift the focus of instruction in correlation to audience. Our stories present focused reflection on the need for additional supports geared toward teacher development, TEF retention, and consistent engagement from campus and district-level administrators.