Rethinking good teaching from the voice of memorable teachers in higher education corroborated by Ortega y Gasset and other academics

Abstract

Narrative inquiry constitutes a body of knowledge and research which reveals teachers’ personal practical knowledge landscapes as enacted in the privacy of their classrooms. Narrative inquiry has had considerable impact on the ways in which teachers’ learning of their craft and subsequent development of their practice take place. This presentation aims at reexamining several categories retrieved from two in-depth biographical interviews with a memorable professor at the State University of Mar del Plata, Argentina. The study analyses and theoretically resignifies good teaching categories —derived from the interviewee’s life experiences— involving, among other aspects, teachers’ personal knowledge, their love for the students and their work, the moral principles of their practices, and the view of teaching as a game that deserves to be seriously played.