Secret, sacred and cover stories - Clandinin and Connelly (1995)

Clandinin, D.J. and Connelly, M. (1995). Teachers’ professional knowledge landscapes. New York: Teachers College Press. Chapter 1. Secret, sacred and cover stories

How is the embodied, narrative, relational knowledge teachers carry shaped by their professional knowledge context?

Personal-practical knowledge: practice, intellectual acts, self-exploration; a practitioners' way of knowing their school and classroom, and as the determining influence on practice

C&C understanding of teacher knowledge is a narrative one; teachers know their lives in terms of stories.

Stories of practice tend to be "secret stories" told only to other teachers in secret places

Teachers tell "cover stories" in which they portray themselves as characters who are certain, expert people.

Sacred stories have their basis in theories that are unquestioningly thought to lead practice. They are "elusive expressions of stories that cannot be fully and directly told, because they [...] lie too deep in the consciousness of the people"

Cover stories are told by teachers outside their classroom in order to prove their competence and hide any uncertainties.

Secret stories are the stories teachers live out in the safety of their classroom. They are only told to others in safe places where teachers do not feel they have to defend themselves.