| Summary: | This study examines reasons why successful and dedicated women classroom teachers become disillusioned with teaching. The four women teachers who participated in this study embody the "good and ideal" woman teacher. Yet, over a three year period of time during which we engaged in a written correspondence, they disclosed personal stories about teaching that showed their anger, pain and disillusionment. The purpose of drawing on the narratives of these women was two-fold. First, I wanted their stories to better inform my practice as a teacher educator. I reasoned that if it is successful and dedicated women teachers who become disillusioned with teaching, then it follows that their stories are worth listening to. For pre-service teachers who enter teaching for any number of reasons, these stories help us to better understand the entirety of what it means "to be a teacher". Second, I wanted to situate their stories throughout the body of literature on women teachers that challenges age-old stereotypes and the notion of teaching as "women's work". Of particular interest to the study was their silence, their unwillingness to give voice to these feelings. As such, I named this essence I was seeking to better understand, "teacher shadows": those stories that dedicated and successful women teachers are reluctant to tell, but highlight their feelings of being devalued by a society that doubts their abilities, and a structure of schooling that has little room for shared authority.
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