Stories to Live By: Narrative Understandings of School Reform

Recently, writers on school change and implementation have shifted from the grand schemes and projects of the 1960s to school-based curriculum development and person-oriented approaches. Though more sensitive to local conditions and to teacher knowledge, these latter-day approaches inadequately recognize that (1) school reform is a complex practice/theory social process in which undirected change is inevitable; (2) schools and their participants have narrative histories; (3) the educational reform literature stretches back deep into the last century and is preceded by a relevant philosophical literature; and (4) school reform is an epistemological matter that involves issues of practitioner knowledge. These four points are elaborated in this article. Also, a sketch is offered of how school reform might be viewed in narrative terms that address these points.