Helene Dwyer Poland

Bio: Helene Dwyer Poland is an academic researcher. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 395 citations.

Stories of Experience and Narrative Inquiry

Abstract: Although narrative inquiry has a long intellectual history both in and out of education, it is increasingly used in studies of educational experience. One theory in educational research holds that humans are storytelling organisms who, individually and socially, lead storied lives. Thus, the study of narrative is the study of the ways humans experience the world. This general concept is refined into the view that education and educational research is the construction and reconstruction of personal and social stories; learners, teachers, and researchers are storytellers and characters in their own and other's stories. In this paper we briefly survey forms of narrative inquiry in educational studies and outline certain criteria, methods, and writing forms, which we describe in terms of beginning the story, living the story, and selecting stories to construct and reconstruct narrative plots. Certain risks, dangers, and abuses possible in narrative studies are discussed. We conclude by describing a two-part r...

Narrative Medicine: A Model for Empathy, Reflection, Profession, and Trust

Abstract: The effective practice of medicine requires narrative competence, that is, the ability to acknowledge, absorb, interpret, and act on the stories and plights of others. Medicine practiced with narrative competence, called narrative medicine, is proposed as a model for humane and effective medical practice. Adopting methods such as close reading of literature and reflective writing allows narrative medicine to examine and illuminate 4 of medicine's central narrative situations: physician and patient, physician and self, physician and colleagues, and physicians and society. With narrative competence, physicians can reach and join their patients in illness, recognize their own personal journeys through medicine, acknowledge kinship with and duties toward other health care professionals, and inaugurate consequential discourse with the public about health care. By bridging the divides that separate physicians from patients, themselves, colleagues, and society, narrative medicine offers fresh opportunities for respectful, empathic, and nourishing medical care.

Teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning: A constructivist perspective.

Abstract: Teachers are viewed as important agents of change in the reform effort currently under way in education and thus are expected to play a key role in changing schools and classrooms. Paradoxically, however, teachers are also viewed as major obstacles to change because of their adherence to outmoded forms of instruction that emphasize factual and procedural knowledge at the expense of deeper levels of understanding. New constructivist approaches to teaching and learning, which many reformers advocate, are inconsistent with much of what teachers believe--a problem that may be overcome if teachers are willing to rethink their views on a number of issues. This article seeks to advance this cause by identifying important aspects of current thinking that may get in the way of teachers adopting a constructivist approach to teaching and learning.

Criteria Against Ourselves

Abstract: In the social sciences, we usually think of criteria as culture-free standards that stand apart from human subjectivity and value. The author argues in this article, however, that conflicts over which criteria to apply usually boil down to differences in values that are contingent on human choices. The demand for criteria reflects the desire to contain freedom, limit possibilities, and resist change. Ultimately, all standards of evaluation rest on a research community’s agreement to comply with their own humanly developed conventions. The author ends by considering the personal standards that he applies to works that fall under the new rubric of poetic social science. When Laurel Richardson invited me to contribute to this conversation about judging “alternative” modes of qualitative and ethnographic inquiry, I consented reluctantly. Too often, I have seen discussions about criteria deteriorate into unproductive conflicts revolving around differences in values that cannot be resolved. The word criteria itself is a term that separates modernists from postmodernists, foundationalists from antifoundationalists, empiricists from interpretivists, and scientists from artists. It is not that one side thinks judgments have to be made and the other side does not. Both agree that inevitably they make choices about what is good, what is useful, and what is not. The difference is that one side believes that “objective” methods and procedures can be applied to determine the choices we make, whereas the other side believes these choices are ultimately and inextricably tied to our values and our subjectivities. The differences of which I speak are not unreasonable, but they are unresolvable. As Richard Rorty (1982) says, these are not issues to be settled, but differences to be lived with. Until we recognize these differences as a reflection of incommensurable ways of seeing, we cannot begin to engage in meaningful conversation with each other. Thomas Kuhn (1962) observed more than 35 years ago that there is no paradigm-free way of looking. When our ways of looking are incommensurable, we can look in the same places, at the same things, and see them differently. Given each side’s belief in its own premises—its own way of seeing—and recognizing that validity depends largely

Learning and Teaching about Values: A review of recent research

Abstract: (2000). Learning and Teaching about Values: A review of recent research. Cambridge Journal of Education: Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 169-202.