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The Dragons are Coming: Stories to Live and Learn By

Files

Exegesis(4.84 MB)
Artefact Access(2.68 MB)

Date

2025

Authors

Isom, Philippa

Supervisor

Gibbons, Andrew
Tuari Stewart, Georgina

Item type

Thesis

Degree name

Doctor of Philosophy

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Auckland University of Technology

Abstract

The classroom hums with history. Every lesson, every bell, every row of desks carries the weight of narratives passed down through generations, shaping what schooling is—and what school refuses to become. This PhD thesis is presented in the practice-orientated format with two interwoven components: the artefact, which comprises an anthology of 18 original short stories, and this exegesis. Supplementing these texts are original images: photographs, drawings and icons. This doctoral project arises from frustrations I have experienced in my practice as a teacher and teacher educator in and for the schools of Aotearoa New Zealand. It is a compulsory schooling system that undergoes continual reforms but persistently produces inequitable outcomes for children. With this thesis, I have sought to use creative writing to explore what lies beyond, beneath, behind, and between enduring narratives about schooling in this country, rather than following more traditional approaches to educational research. The anthology presents a series of stories of diverse genres and narrative structures. Developed through the study of narrative theory and short story writing, these stories serve as provocations, unsettling the taken-for-granted, and inviting readers to critically engage with underlying assumptions about education. Various layouts, photographs, and drawings have been used to enhance the text of the short stories and the presentation of the website. The anthology is informed by posthuman philosophies that offer conceptual tools to challenge human exceptionalism and individualist notions of agency. The stories invite new ways to engage with old and enduring problems in education through leaving invitational lacunae for readers to participate in the construction and deconstruction of the text, to align with the story collection which they hold as part of themselves. The exegesis forms the second component of this doctoral project. It elucidates the design of the project and provides a theoretical foundation to consider enduring narratives of education in Aotearoa New Zealand today. In addition to the text, photographs are used in Chapter 2 to represent material figurations, in Chapter 5 to illustrate thoughts about time, and in Chapter 6 to represent the time between starting and completing the doctoral project. Other text types included in the exegesis are the timeline of events in the appendix, and Māori textual forms: the pepeha of introduction in Chapter 1 and the proverbial whakataukī in Chapter 6. The exegesis operates as a dynamic engagement with the ideas, methods, and emergent possibilities of the research, rather than being a traditional linear explanation. After establishing the historical, political, and social context of compulsory schooling in Aotearoa New Zealand, it investigates two key concepts in schooling: concepts of time; and the persistent allure of silver bullet solutions. Together, the anthology and the exegesis offer a contribution to educational research that is both theoretical and creative, inviting readers to engage with education not as a fixed system to be reformed, but as an evolving assemblage where new possibilities might be imagined and enacted.

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Permanent link

http://hdl.handle.net/10292/19574

Collections

Doctoral Theses