This study examines teachers’ short stories as reflective narratives of classroom experience and proposes an integrative framework linking pedagogical experience, dimensions of reflection, and narrative structure. Using a qualitative interpretive design, the study analyzes a corpus of 30 short stories written by practicing teachers from elementary, junior secondary, and senior secondary schools. The narratives are treated not as literary texts, but as reflective pedagogical artifacts through which teachers reconstruct and interpret classroom experience.
The findings show that classroom experience is predominantly represented through moments of disruption, uncertainty, and pedagogical tension rather than routine instructional activity. These moments include instructional challenges, student participation issues, socio-emotional dynamics, and assessment dilemmas. The analysis further identifies four interrelated dimensions of pedagogical reflection: cognitive, affective-relational, ethical, and action-oriented reflection. These dimensions emerge dynamically within narratives and are mediated through narrative structures such as plot development, conflict, retrospective perspective, and open-ended resolution.
The study also demonstrates that narrative form plays a crucial role in shaping reflective depth, as pedagogical meaning is constructed through storytelling processes rather than explicit explanation alone. Overall, the findings suggest that teachers’ short story writing functions as a meaningful form of pedagogical innovation that transforms lived classroom experience into structured reflective understanding and professional learning.