Daring Not to Lead: A Poetic self-study Examining the Tensions of Teacher Educator Identity

ABSTRACT This article simultaneously explores the dynamic nature of teacher educator identity and highlights the methodological potential of poetic inquiry in self-study. Using tensions as a conceptual framework to explore identity as a process of becoming, I draw from a series of found poems to examine my identity as a mid-career teacher educator working in a leadership position at an Australian university. In this article, I assert that poetic inquiry is a vehicle for representing the embodied, emotive aspects of ongoing identity development. I contend that poetic inquiry is a doorway to sharing experiences and understandings of identity in authentic, lived ways that speak back to metanarratives of academic work. Poetic self-study enables us to map the otherwise hidden tensions mediating our identity development and generate collective knowledge of what it can mean to be a teacher educator in higher education contexts.