Students’ memories of a teacher’s touch: Explaining teachers’ actions

Authors

• Ulla Karvonen Helsingin yliopisto
• Pilvi Heinonen Helsingin yliopisto
• Liisa Tainio Helsingin yliopisto
• Sara Routarinne Helsingin yliopisto
• Maria Ahlholm Helsingin yliopisto

Keywords:

school memories, touch, explanations, oral history, discourse analysis

Abstract

This article examines a large corpus of written memories about school that were collected in 2013 by the Finnish Literature Society and the Finnish Society for the History of Education, in order to explore the ways in which former students explain and make sense of teachers’ actions in situations that involve touching students. When writing their memories down, the writer is involved in an active process of choosing, reconstructing, interpreting and making sense of past events in a particular context. This has an influence on what they consider is worth describing. While memories are unique and personal, the writers draw on shared cultural discourses in making sense of teachers’ actions. Our particular interest is in uncovering those discourses that writers exploit while explaining being touched by teachers, and hence we have chosen to use discourse analysis as the method of analysis. Our findings show that writers either offer a consistent explanation for teachers’ actions, contrast previous explanations with current ones, or do not have explanations for teachers’ actions either at present or in the past. The explanations are connected to previous and current discourses on school pedagogy, particularly discourses on discipline, as well as on teachers’ personal attributes and life situations that affect their role as a teacher. These discourses create a framework for the writers to evaluate the meaning of a teacher’s touch in relation to their subsequent experiences in life.