Weaving Forgotten Pieces of Place and the Personal: Using Collaborative Auto-ethnography and Aesthetic Modes of Reflection to Explore Teacher Identity Development

Abstract

How do we develop understanding of our teacher identities and what can aesthetic modes offer to assist reflection and learning about shifting images of identity? These questions provoked our auto-ethnographic project. As two experienced early childhood teachers, we found ourselves transitioning into new professional terrain as teacher-researcher and teacher-director. This progression represented a significant shift in how we conceptualised, enacted, and located our respective identities. Using a new aesthetic framework, we explored what was known about our professional lives at key moments of “self and the other in practice” (Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009, p. 12). We IJEA Vol. 20 No. 6 http://www.ijea.org/v20n6/ 2 discovered that our histories matter, place matters, as do relationships made within these social spaces. This work opens opportunity for collaborative dialogue and critical reflection on self-as-teacher. Situating selfunderstandings within social systems of learning recognises forces influencing identity development (Hickey & Austin, 2007) and expands pedagogical frameworks for navigating sociopolitical complexities of educational realities. Introduction: Picturing Teacher Identity Teaching and developing concepts of self-as-teacher involves interactions that are inherently relational. As our professional understandings of teacher self develop, we are guided and shaped in social contexts of learning that influence both our thinking and practice (Flores & Day, 2006). Sachs (2005, p. 15) describes teacher identity through developing expectations of “’how to be’, ‘how to act’ and ‘how to understand’ their work and their place in society.” Accessing and sharing teachers’ insights from these socialised processes of becoming ‘teacher’ opens multiple sites of ambiguity as we struggle to identify the meaning of sociopolitical discourses that underpin lenses of viewing, negotiating and adopting images and experiences shaping our teaching lives (Marsh, 2002). As part of a larger project, this article presents the identity journeys of Leanne and Fiona; two Australian-based early childhood teachers. Adopting aesthetic processes of thinking, drawing, speaking and writing identity, we seek to untangle and unify borders of meaning across intersections of past and present images of teacher self-in-place (Marsh, 2002). Using a newly developed aesthetic framework (see Lavina, Fleet, & Niland, 2017), seven linked components provided us with multi-modal forms of representation to reflect on our teacher identity development. These included: early memories of teacher (photo), professional image of teacher self (photo), place of personal significance (photo), early image of teacher self (drawing), present image of teacher self (drawing), expression of self-as-teacher/teaching experience (narrative), and an artifact with identity meaning. Inquiring through these artistic forms of expression, we explore contexts and experiences influencing constructions of our teacher selves (Jenkins, 2008) and negotiate the duality of identities felt whilst transitioning to new roles of teacher-researcher (Leanne) and teacher-director (Fiona). Engaging arts-informed approaches, we critically reflect on personal understandings of teacher self by using “systematic artistic process” (McNiff, 2008, p. 29) to explore identity development. This methodology was chosen as “arts-informed research...enhances [emphasis added] understanding of the human condition through alternative (to conventional) processes and representational forms of inquiry” (Cole & Knowles, 2008, p. 59). In the process, we seek to engage meanings beyond “a splash of colour or an illustrative image” (Knowles & Cole, Lavina & Lawson: Weaving Forgotten Pieces 3 2008, p. 27), to open more critical readings of situations and experiences influencing our evolving identities (McNiff, 2008). As “art-based tools and ways of knowing” provoke reconsideration of “habitual responses” (McNiff, 2008, p. 37), additional insights are revealed and the unexpected valued through “creative process” (McNiff, 2008, p. 40). Resisting linearity and “standardised procedure” (McNiff, 2008, p. 39), arts-informed approaches embrace “the unfolding of thought” as meanings are examined and interpreted (McNiff, 2008, p. 35). Adopting this same mindfulness in our project, multi-layered images of self-as-teacher were created to revisit assumptions about self and experience (Gillis & Johnson, 2002); thereby expanding upon ways of connecting identity understandings (Cole & Knowles, 2008). Documenting significant personal experiences of identity through past and present aesthetic frames of ‘knowing’ teacher-self (see Lavina et al., 2017) illustrates the value of multi-layered approaches into understanding teacher identity development beyond simplistic conceptualisations. This framework-as-resource provides a dynamic method for examining the discourses of self and teaching that influence practice (Marsh, 2002). Adopting auto-ethnography as a “multivoiced form” (Ellis & Bochner, 2006, p. 435) of visual and textual description presents accounts of identity development beyond a singular reading. Compilations challenge intersections of the personal and social as meanings of experience are interrogated to forge new understandings of self and practice (Denshire, 2014). Opening opportunity for conversation, collection, creation and reflection across these modes assists teachers to develop strong and resilient identities and offers a platform for sharing questions, provoking inquiry and establishing collaborative support systems to sustain images of teacher self in early childhood contexts (see Lavina et al., 2017). In this article, we consciously strive to situate our teacher identity development through a sociological place-based framework wherein we go beyond “the writing of selves” (Denshire, 2014, p. 833) to explore spaces or silences “in both ourselves and others” that influence identity development (Dauphinee, 2010, p. 818). Engaging diverse forms of image creation, we search the relationship “between visual images and words” to critique the “kinds of stories...images tell” of our teaching experiences (Weber, 2008, p. 50). These often overlooked fragments strip back self-protective layers to reveal the person-in-the professional (Denzin, 2003). In this way, we attempt to look within ourselves to make meaning of our lived experience (see van Manen, 1997) and enhance understandings of our teaching and learning selves. While we see this process as deepening our self-understanding, presenting ‘data’ through different aesthetic and textual forms allows for different readings of teaching experience, invites a wider audience (for example, Barone, 2000; Sparkes, 2002) and contributes to knowledge exploring the complexities of educational contexts. The adoption of an auto-ethnographic approach using aesthetic modes of creation and reflection provokes teachers to consider and re-consider forgotten pieces of place and the IJEA Vol. 20 No. 6 http://www.ijea.org/v20n6/ 4 personal influencing their identity formation. Using the aesthetic framework as a springboard, our sharing of stories visualised through aesthetic frames invites teachers to make connection with our experiences and enlarge ‘seeing’ of an evolving teacher self “that is moved by and may move through, refract, and resist cultural interpretations” of ‘teacher’ (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 739). Multi-modal compositions exploring our developing teacher identities offer renderings that are deeply personal and located within social interactions of knowledge and practice (Ellis, 2009). These vivid pictures ask teachers to reflect on and create their own storied images, in the process, retracing “experiences buried under...conscious reasoning” to more deeply understand the social construction of identity (Scott-Hoy & Ellis, 2008, p. 131). Early Childhood and Teacher Identity: Positioning Context Early childhood teacher identity is recognised as an evolving construct shaped by the interaction of personal and contextual frameworks of influence (e.g., Beltman, Glass, Dinham, Chalk, & Nguyen, 2015). As identity is continually reshaped in relationship with others, there are multiple, often hard to define nuances shaping identity: “teacher identity is hard to articulate, easily misunderstood and open to interpretation” (Olsen, 2008, p. 4). Whilst there have been several studies looking at pre-service and early career teacher identity development through visual methodologies (Beltman et al., 2015; Sumsion, 2002; Weber & Mitchell, 1996), these focus on early childhood teachers working in school contexts. Apart from Black’s (2011) case study of ‘Andrea’, an early childhood teacher working in a privatelyowned child care centre with 4-year-olds, there is a noticeable absence of Australian-based studies examining identity journeys of early childhood teachers working in prior-to-school contexts. Identifying potential reasons for this research gap means taking a closer look at the ideological and socio-political forces influencing early childhood education in Australia. A draft report from the Productivity Commission (2014) does little to assert the importance of early years learning for children under 36 months; with recommendations suggesting minimal qualifications are needed to work with infants (Productivity Commission, 2014). Accepting the Productivity Commission suggestion of nannies and au pairs as favourable over highlyqualified educators heralds the return to historical images of children as fragile beings needing of maternal care and protection (Brennan, 1998). Arguably, this deficit image of young children speaks of the “economics and convenience of the system to meet family work pressures” and strongly contradicts the strong and capable image of young children presented in the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF, DEEWR, 2009) a teaching and learning framework for early years ed