The above subtitle is regarded to be authored by a female correspondent commenting on the classical book Émile (Rousseau, 1961, p. vii). The comment may be seen as a sort of critique or as evidence that Émile was not a thesis on education, echoing what Rousseau states in the Preface: “this is not so much a treatise on education as the visions of a dreamer with regard to education” (Rousseau, 1961, p. 2). Despite of any controversy about the legitimacy of Rousseau as an educationist, or about his speculations on principles, the fact is that Émile was extremely influential not only in the field of education but far beyond it. In addition to the contributions and meanings of this classical work, Émile is an excellent example of the use of narrative as an educative tool in the education process. The main character of the book is a fictional construction “constantly enlivened by the author’s experience of life” (Rousseau, 1961, p. ix). To illustrate Émile’s influential role we can take the writings of Pestalozzi, which are highly influenced by Rousseau’s work. Although the most essential influence of Émile was its content (the philosophy), it is also interesting to notice that Pestalozzi’s greatest success (Pestalozzi, 1900, p. xvii) was also a novel, Leonard and Gertrude (Green, 1912), which reveals too the influence of the form used by Rousseau, in other words, the literary genre, the narrative. In this sense, the Rousseau’s narrative was strongly educative to Pestalozzi, in the view of education as a transformative, generative and emancipatory process. Another fascinating aspect of education is the construction of knowledge and the potentiality to extrapolate it, which is brightly demonstrated in Pestalozzi’s solution for a problem regarding the popularity of Leonard and Gertrude. The novel was a great success more recognised as a tale rather than as an educational writing “intended to show that the world might be regenerated through education” (Pestalozzi, 1900, p. xvii), fact that disappointed the author. The solution was brilliant in terms of the use of narrative to make sense. The author wrote another story called Christopher and Elisabeth which consisted of a “commentary in the shape of evening conversations in the family of a farmer, where Leonard and Gertrude was read chapter by chapter and talked about” (Green, 1912, p. 41). Pestalozzi could have written a conventional commentary on the book, especially considering that the use of the story was in the heart of the problem, but he chose to write another story instead.
The above fascinating examples – both Rousseau’s and Pestalozzi’s narratives – could be seen as sufficient evidence of how an understanding of narrative might be regarded as an educative process; however, their intrinsic moral and philosophical implications are far more substantial that the mode they are presented, therefore, further applications of the use of narrative in more recent instances are discussed in the following sections. On the other hand, the purpose of this essay is not to do a sort of literature review on narrative or on education. The main purpose of this paper is to present some perspectives of the discussion together with reflections made through the lens of my own experience with narrative in the making sense of my own life story.
The paper is organised in four sections, starting by the analysis of concepts of education and narrative, taking into account my personal perspective, stressing the similarities between both. The second section presents a set of principles that can be argued as fundamentals of both education and narrative, which I labelled here as ‘intersections’. The third section comprises an analysis of those intersections in contrast with educational research. Finally, the fourth section comprises a conclusion split up into chunks, first my personal account and then my understanding of it. In short, this essay intends to answer the proposed question about how an understanding of narrative can be regarded as an educative process, taking into account mainly my understandings of the question. According to Denzin and Lincoln “every text that is created is a self-statement, a bit of autobiography, a statement that carries an individual signature” (1998, p. 184), therefore this paper is clearly marked by glimpses of my autobiographical accounts.
Narrative and educative process: a reflection on possible intersections
Introduction: ‘I have read your romance on the subject of education’
1. Narrative and Education: comparing the concepts
1.1. Examining the concept of education
1.2. Examining the concept of narrative
2. Narrative and Education: four non-arbitrary intersections
2.1. Principle of authorship
2.2. Principle of temporal continuity
2.3. Principle of empowerment
2.4. Principle of Interaction through communication
3. Conclusion: beginning and finishing from my standpoint
3.1. Personal account: autobiography as an emancipatory learning experience
3.2. Conclusion: how I regard my understanding of narrative as an educative process