An arts based narrative inquiry into children’s experiences of the five foundations of the social-emotional and academic learning program you can do it! program achieve

Abstract

My research aims to narratively inquire into students’ experiences of the five foundations of the social-emotional and academic learning program ‘You Can Do It (YCDI) Program Achieve’ (2007) and explore the impact the program has had on their lives on and off the school landscape. I also present and explore how eight primary school children composed their individual stories to live by, a narrative form of identity (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), through stories shared throughout this inquiry. What might I learn by inquiring into these experiences, where children’s stories of the YCDI foundations and the program intersect and bump against school stories and other stories we live in (Morris, 2002)? How might inquiring into emerging tensions deepen understanding of cultural, institutional, and social narratives shaping the students' lives and stories? How might my inquiry expand knowledge about the YCDI program and the meeting of diverse lives on school landscapes? My research puzzle considered YCDI conversations as spaces where children engaged in meaning and identity-making, where tensions arose as stories bumped against dominant cultural, institutional, and social narratives in an out-of-classroom place (Clandinin & Connelly, 1999). The participants’ stories and my autobiographical narratives revealed the complexity of navigating the school landscape and the workshops. This complexity led to a re-imagining of the school landscape as a space where students’ and teachers’ lives and stories entwined, entangled, bumped, and shifted in relation to others in creative, curious, and often tension-filled ways. I understand the context for teacher knowledge in terms of the professional knowledge landscape (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995) and teachers’ personal practical knowledge (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988). I also wish to IV make space for students' personal learner knowledge to attend to their embodied lives, wisdom, and school experiences. Drawing upon the relational nature of narrative inquiry, I use the guiding metaphor of a ‘life-timeline’ to ground myself and my participants in the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space of the personal, social, temporal, and place or series of places (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). During the first stage of my inquiry, I came alongside my participants as we engaged in arts-based workshops based around the students’ experiences of the five foundations of the YCDI (2007) program; Organisation, Confidence, Getting Along, Resilience and Persistence. We came alongside each other again, one year later, where we engaged in one-to-one creative conversations where I shared their stories with them while also revisiting and, in some instances, restorying their pieces of art. This narrative inquiry has revealed numerous threads and plotlines such as storylines of YCDI foundations, storylines of the program's impact, storylines of competition, marginalization, resistance, tension, family, school, belonging, and care