Occasional Paper Series #55
Thinking Narratively About Science of Reading Forces, Moral Injury, and Teacherhood
by Kyle C. Arlington
Stories are powerful. Throughout human history, mythology, origin stories, and fairy tales gave us images to live into, to pattern our lives after, to learn from. They helped us locate our own experience against the backdrop of something wider. They still do. We still need stories.
—Megan Devine (2017, p. 35)
In this research essay, I give shape, voice, and narrative expression to the experiences of Lisa, a veteran elementary teacher navigating the complexities of teaching literacy within a Science of Reading (SOR)-mandated landscape. Telling teacher stories such as Lisa’s is not about romanticizing individual experience or claiming access to a singular truth. Rather, it is a way of exploring how experiences are constituted and interrogating the broader forces that shape, limit, and enable what it means to teach. To honor the complexities of teachers’ lives more fully, we might shift away from binary notions of the “good” or “bad” teacher in favor of rendering stories that foreground nuance, embrace partiality, and acknowledge that any narrative, told by or about teachers, is but one thread in the layered fabric of their professional and personal worlds.
This is especially true in the context of literacy education, where teachers’ stories unfold within policy- driven landscapes that tightly regulate what counts as knowledge, what materials matter, and how reading should be taught. Through a narrative inquiry into Lisa’s experiences, I aim to illuminate the ways SOR mandates shape her teacherhood—her evolving sense of identity, efficacy, and purpose amid shifting policy and professional demands.
Kyle C. Arlington is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he is also an instructor. He is a public school leader who has held various administrative roles, including curriculum director, assistant superintendent, and superintendent of schools. His research interests include the interplay of teachers’ visions, identities, and experiences.