A return to the garden, re-interpreting personal stories : a hermeneutic narrative inquiry into my experience of learning

grantor: University of TorontoSignificant personal learning often comes through the hermeneutic re-construction of narrative. Unfortunately, we have few accounts of this complex process as it unfolds and that is what this study provides. This study is a demonstration thesis. This hermeneutic narrative inquiry highlights an aspect of narrative inquiry. It focuses our attention on that aspect of narrative inquiry that Connelly and Clandinin refer to as restorying. My thesis question is "What happens when we restory the narrative?" In this inquiry I emphasize the experience of hermeneutically returning to the story. In each hermeneutic return to the story I elaborate and interpret the original story. In this way I demonstrate the nuance of my learning experience. I apply the educational theory and practice of Connelly and Clandinin, who understand teachers as curriculum makers (Connelly and Clandinin, 1988; Elbaz, 1983) to my experience as a learner. I take Connelly and Clandinin's idea deeper into a hermeneutic context (Gadamer, 1994). I discovered and demonstrate how image making plays a major role in my narrative constructions and learning experience as aesthetic experience. I discovered that as I re-interpreted personal stories, shared them, and re-interpreted them again, learning occurred as a constant unending process of narrating my experience. I found the goal, what some call 'narrative unity', seemed to enhance my 'personal learning narrative'. I shared these findings with a doctor of chemistry. The concept of ' learning recovery rate' as a way of thinking about my narrative experience as learning experience emerged. I define 'personal narrative recovery rate' as my ability to learn; it depends on my ability to revisit and recover stories in the past and then return to the present. The speed with which I can do so reflects my ability to transform my stories and my life. This, in essence, is what I consider an example of my 'personal narrative learning' and personal 'narrative recovery rate'. This hermeneutic narrative inquiry into how I learn, demonstrates the potential for developing a theory of learning based on image making and re-interpreting personal stories through hermeneutic narrative inquiry.Ph.D