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

Abstract

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.