Abstract

This study was undertaken to gain a better understanding of the reality of becoming a teacher as experienced by two beginning teachers. The hermeneutic phenomenology of Heidegger served as the philosophical framework for entering and viewing the lifeworld of the beginning teachers in this study. Two teachers worked with the researcher throughout their first year teaching. Dialogue between the teachers and the researcher was the foundational process through which meaning and understanding unfolded. Journals and other written reflections kept by the participants provided further channels through which their voices could be expressed. Through dialogue and a deeper look at the meaning of language, themes surfaced which were not initially revealed--leading to an exposure of the reality and being of the beginning teachers' lifeworlds. The emerging themes were shared with the teachers and further dialogue led to intersubjective meaning of the interpretation of the experience. ;The pedagogic experience of each beginning teacher was very different. One teacher revealed her authentic existence grounded in caring. She was receptive to explore possibilities for being through her caring and being cared-for. The other teacher struggled to allow being to emerge. This struggle was shared by the researcher who attempted to lead the teacher back to reflect upon her being existentially. The researcher's intent was to create spaces where the teacher could explore her potentiality for being and experience greater freedom to be and become. ;This study charts a journey which was started by the researcher over a period of more than three years. The writing reveals the personal biography of the researcher--this being a natural component of the interpretive process--and how her phenomenological work with the teachers created new possibilities for seeing the beginning teacher experience