Turning Poison into Medicine: Exploring the Transformative Power of Soka Educational Philosophy through Narrative Inquiry

Abstract

The three articles that comprise this dissertation use narrative inquiry as a method to explore how Soka, or “value-creating” education, which originated in Japan in the 1930s, has been applied to show the transformative power of this educational philosophy—centering on the heart and attitude of teachers. The first article is an autoethnographic piece that maps my life experiences that lead me to embrace Soka educational philosophy and apply it to my life as a mother and teacher. The second article consists of a collaborative auto-ethnographic article that highlights how I engaged with 4 undergraduate students and how we worked together to create a process that allowed us to excavate ways racism influenced our identities. The second article simultaneously serves as a model of the narrative term of “teachers as curriculum makers” and also, “Soka education in action” in a liminal space at our university. The third article explores how self-identified Soka educators in Brazil who work at the Brazil Soka School and as volunteers who conduct professional development on activities tied to Soka education in local public schools make meaning of what the essential qualities are of Soka educators. Woven within and throughout this dissertation is the way Soka education is used in liminal spaces--as a tool of transformation—within the hearts of educators and students alike. These articles use narratives to show how an educational philosophy can be a transformative educational process in which negative/poisonous experiences can become positive/medicines to support positive growth for individuals and groups.