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“To Seek Out Something More”:
Knowing the Teacher-Researcher Self
Differently Through Self-narrative
Writing and Found Photographs
Daisy Pillay, Sagie Naicker and Wendy Rawlinson
Abstract “‘To Seek Out Something More’: Knowing the Teacher-Researcher Self
Differently Through Self-narrative Writing and Found Photographs” by Daisy Pillay,
Sagie Naicker, and Wendy Rawlinson showcases the power of found photographs
for evoking, constructing, and reconstructing memory in written self-narratives. The
exemplars are drawn from Sagie Naicker’s and Wendy Rawlinson’s doctoral research
in South Africa. Sagie drew on selected photographs to examine how his disability
identity influenced his leadership practice, and his journey as an activist seeking
social justice for people with disabilities. Wendy’s found photograph evoked a bod-
ily experience of being transported to a more imaginative space that triggered her
curiosity for aesthetic pedagogical adventuring in her racially diverse classroom.
Taken as a whole, the chapter demonstrates how, drawing multi-methodologically
on self-narratives and the visual meaning making perspective of found photographs,
the scholarship of self-awareness of teachers’ ways of being, knowing, and doing
can make significant contributions to teacher professional learning.
Keywords Identity ·Memory-work ·Photographs ·Self-narrative writing
South Africa ·Teacher professional learning
D. Pillay (B)·S. Naicker ·W. Rawlinson
School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
e-mail: pillaygv@ukzn.ac.za
S. Naicker
e-mail: sagie@newagestrategies.co.za
W. Rawlinson
e-mail: wendyr@dut.ac.za
S. Naicker
New Age Strategies, Durban, South Africa
W. Rawlinson
Department of Media Language & Communication, Durban University of Technology, Durban,
South Africa
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
K. Pithouse-Morgan et al. (eds.), Memory Mosaics: Researching Teacher Professional
Learning Through Artful Memory-work, Studies in Arts-Based Educational
Research 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3- 319-97106- 3_2
15
16 D. Pillay et al.
1 Introduction
Writing stories of self can serve as an “act of deliberate remembering” (Mitchell
2011, p. 45) of critical events and past moments to make memories available in
self-narratives, which then can become research artefacts in and of themselves. As
such, self-narrative writing offers teacher-researchers an alternate vantage point to
unravel the complexity of teachers’ lives and teaching practices, and an opportunity
to engage more critically with personal, social, and educational lived experiences
(Bullough 1994).
Hatch and Wisniewski (1994, p. 130) cautioned, however, that self-narratives
shape and limit how teachers construct their own versions of their lived experiences
because they are “bound by discourse structures to a limited range of expression
and understanding.” Visual methods can compensate for these limitations, and can
offer teacher-researchers a way of seeing and studying self from yet another vantage
point (Mitchell 2011; Mitchell et al. 2009). Visual ways of knowing in self-narrative
accounts can reveal the embodied connectedness between the past and present, and
the personal and professional in an integrated, dynamic, and nonlinear view of self
and who one is in the world (Krall 1988).
The potential for visual meaning making in writing teachers’ self-narrative
accounts “lies in harnessing the power of images to bring things to light in both
personal and public ways” (Mitchell et al. 2009, p. 119). In addition, Till (2008)
identified teachers’ visual meaning making in self-narrative accounts as sites for
seeing truth, which, Boulton-Founke (2014) pointed out, can incite moments of dis-
ruption of the normative through affective engagement. Drawing on visual knowing
“connects us to the self, yet distances us from ourselves” and in these in-between
moments of slippage, teachers may imagine new and different ways of being and
doing as teacher” (Mitchell et al. 2009, p. 119).
As Weber (2008) explained, visual meaning making in research can centre on
“found material,” which can include “personal photographs from [researchers’] own
lives [that become] springboards for … insightful work” (p. 48). This chapter draws
multi-methodologically on self-narratives and the visual meaning making perspec-
tive of found photographs. The chapter uses self-narrative accounts and found pho-
tographs to access, examine, and reflect on memories and past experiences, and to
inquire reflexively into imagining teacher-researchers’ lives differently. The exem-
plars are drawn from Sagie Naicker’s and Wendy Rawlinson’s doctoral research.
These exemplars illustrate how the meaning making potential of found photographs
of self, and narrative accounts of self, can combine to embody excitement and emo-
tion for knowing teacher-researcher self differently.
2 The Construction of the Chapter
The chapter writing was facilitated by Daisy Pillay, a teacher educator, educational
researcher, and graduate supervisor working to support teacher learning and teacher
change. In her own professional learning and scholarship, Daisy has engaged in
“To Seek Out Something More”: Knowing the Teacher-Researcher … 17
collaborative co-construction to engage reflexively with visual and written narratives
of self as expressive spaces for autobiographical remembering that involves cognitive,
motivational, and affective aspects (Pillay and Govinden 2007; Pillay and Pithouse-
Morgan 2016; Pillay and Saloojee 2012). For this mosaic chapter, she facilitated
the integration of two autobiographical teacher explorations, which draw on critical
reflections of self-narratives and found photographs.
To begin the process, Daisy invited Sagie Naicker and Wendy Rawlinson to
develop short mosaic pieces on looking at, or working with, their own photographs
from their respective doctoral theses. Sagie’s thesis (Naicker 2014a) was completed
several years ago, and Wendy’s is currently work in progress. Inspired by their own
personal histories, Sagie and Wendy worked over an 8-month period to write about,
and reflect critically, on their found photographs and the narrative accounts of the
lived experiences related to them. They explored how they could use the “embodied
aesthetic engagement” of their found photographs as “objects and social documents”
(Mitchell and Allnutt 2008, p. 252) to engage critically with social injustices, and to
implement socially just practices and discourses in their respective contexts.
During this period, Sagie, Wendy, and Daisy conversed regularly via e-mail and
face-to-face about how the combination of self-narratives and found photographs
were opening expanding pathways for unlearning prejudices and different forms of
self-closure. In time, these conversations included possibilities for teacher change.
The chapter is organised into three sections. In the first two sections, are Sagie’s
and Wendy’s self-introductions and their narrative exemplars, which were composed
from their critical reflections on their self-narrative writing and found photographs
of themselves. The third section includes all three authors’ voices selected from the
audio taped face-to-face conversations and e-mail conversations. These selections
are analysed for the connections between the mosaics about knowing teacher-self
differently, and for suggesting potential and possible development for researching
teacher professional learning.
3 The Mosaic Pieces
Sagie Naicker’s Self-Narrative
I am (Dhanasagaran) (Sagie) Naicker, an Indian man raised in a South African tra-
ditional Indian family steeped in culture, tradition, and values. My father strongly
supported and promoted education because it was linked to progress and a way to
cope with limited opportunities in an apartheid, race differentiated society. After com-
pleting my initial teaching degree, I went on to complete my honours and master’s
degrees in education. After teaching for a few years, I became a school counsellor
and, thereafter, moved into school leadership and management. I have served as a
superintendent of education management (SEM), leadership and management coach,
director of The South African Institute of Sathya Sai Education (SAISSE), and as
18 D. Pillay et al.
founder chairperson of the Forget-Me-Not Sports Club for the Disabled. In 2011, I
enrolled for a doctoral degree.
Drawing from the literature that suggests the value of reflection for educational
leaders, I decided to undertake a self-study for my doctorate after I experienced a
critical incident as a director of SAISSE. The self-study forced me to withdraw from
the hurly-burly, frenetic leadership activities I was immersed in, and to look within
for answers to questions that puzzled me. I created a digital memory box consisting
of photographs, newspaper articles, and documents to act as memory prompts to
remember events, evoke memory and emotion (Naicker 2014b). On gathering the
artefacts, I found myself reminiscing as I started to rebuild connections with the past
and started to reflect on the way I have changed and grown.
The dialectics of the actual self (images of the present self), ought self (others’
images of self), and ideal self (images of the future possible self) were studied
(Higgins 1987) to gain insights into my identities as a leader, and how these identities
have shaped and influenced my leadership practice. In this mosaic piece, I examine
what it is to be regarded as a person with a disability, how this identity influenced my
leadership practice, and my journey as an activist seeking social justice for people
with disabilities. I rely on two photographs, one of me as an able-bodied person and
the second, as a person with a disability, to engage with my exploration and meaning
making.
On Becoming a Paraplegic
I was 25 years old, and I was making progress in life. By then I had bought a brand-
new car, taken over the bond payments for the family home, enrolled for post graduate
study, was in a steady relationship, and was attracted to humanitarian work inspired
by my deepening interest in spirituality. I was physically active and played volleyball
in a league, football for the school staff team, and regularly jogged to keep fit. I was
interested in the social and emotional well-being of my learners, and was appointed
as a school guidance counsellor in a high school. I was blissfully unaware that this
was all to change: that my life as a “normal” or “able-bodied” person was about to
be radically disrupted, and was soon to be replaced with a new identity as a person
with a disability.
Little Did I Know …
Little did I know that the last photograph that I would have of me standing up without
assistive devices was taken at the official opening of the Sathya Sai Welbedacht
Upliftment Project. On December 2, 1985, I was involved in a car accident and my
life as I knew it changed forever. The nurses told me that I had injured my spinal cord,
and the doctors told me that I would never walk again. I had become a paraplegic
and the struggle to reclaim my life had just begun.
This photograph was taken on 23 November 1985, nine days before the life-changing and life-
defining accident. When I look at this photograph, I feel depressed; the hardships, physical
pain, and challenges that I experience as a paraplegic overwhelm me. (Naicker 2014a)
The reference to the photograph (see Fig. 1) is poignant because it reveals my
present self—longing for the completeness that was independent and free of mobility
“To Seek Out Something More”: Knowing the Teacher-Researcher … 19
Fig. 1 Sagie as an able-bodied person (Photographer, Andrew Naidoo, with permission)
assistive devices. Higgins’ (1987) self-discrepancy theory suggested that the actual
self strives towards becoming an ideal self. In this particular instance, there is a
contradiction because I express the desire of going backwards instead of forwards
because my ideal self in an able body is located in the past. The pain and hardship of
being trapped in a body that is disabled with mobility impairment, and the barriers
I experience daily, drives me to moments of extreme frustration. O’Connor et al.
(2004) concluded that for paraplegics, even simple routine tasks demand a lot of
energy and effort. I find the activities that able-bodied people take for granted, such
as standing, walking, running, stepping over curbs, and climbing stairs, very difficult
because both public and private places are not adapted for people with mobility
impairments.
Blanes et al. (2009, p. 19) were of the view that “these barriers have a negative
impact on the QoL [Quality of Life] and self-esteem of persons with SCI [Spinal Cord
Injury].” In addition to the partial loss of sensation, I find the loss of normal urinary
and bowel function, and increased spasticity quite stressful. I concur with Blanes
et al. (2009, p. 19) who argue, “problems associated with an impaired body, such as
pain, fatigue, urinary tract infections, spasticity and susceptibility to pressure ulcers,
have a significant impact upon the lives of many people with SCI.” The accident that
led to my paraplegia has changed my life forever.
20 D. Pillay et al.
An Intelligent Mind Trapped in a Disobedient Body
I struggled to negotiate between the desire to function as an able-bodied person
with an “intelligent mind” trapped in a “disobedient body” (Chib 2011,p.9).The
labels, a person with a disability,aparaplegic, and being differently abled, deter-
mined by my medical status redefined who I was. O’Connor et al. (2004, p. 11)
were of similar view that medical status plays a significant role in defining feelings
of difference, which “emerged as an important and disturbing aspect of living with
paraplegia … related to being simultaneously invisible and overly visible in the eyes
of the community.”
I recalled the initial reaction of my colleagues and learners when I returned to work as
a paraplegic. It was a huge adjustment facing my colleagues, some of whom were very
supportive and others just felt awkward around me … I worried my principal to give me
challenging assignments as I felt he was not fair to me because I thought that he saw me as
someone who was less capable.
At the physical level, I appeared to be very conspicuous—people stared at my unusual swing-
through gait with my crutches, and as I wheeled myself in a shopping mall. Paradoxically, I
was invisible in the workplace and I initially struggled to gain the respect of my colleagues
and seniors. I learnt that I would have to prove to my colleagues that I was competent, and
was a valuable member of the team. I therefore worked very hard to debunk the stereotype
that people with disabilities are not capable and do not add value at the workplace. (Naicker
2014a)
Only the Outer Me Had Changed
I threw myself into my work because I was determined to dispel the notion that I
was not capable because I was now a paraplegic. In time, my colleagues learned that
only the outer me had changed, but the old me was still very much the same.
I struggled to negotiate the balance of desiring independence and at the same time
admitting that I needed help in some matters because of physical limitations. Like
O’Connor et al. (2004, p. 414), I agree that people living with disabilities, makes
them acutely aware of the limits to their independence, and that I need to establish a
“balance between relying on others and maintaining personal control.”
In time, I came across many well-intentioned people who did not feel pity for me
but just saw me as a strong, independent person with mobility impairment. I made
conscious efforts to overcome these barriers and appear to be “normal.” I usually
accepted environments that did not accommodate my special needs and tried to fit
in without attracting too much attention to myself, even if it meant compromising
my self-worth by accessing meeting and conference rooms through rear entrances
that sometimes took me through unpleasant, restricted spaces. Watson (2002) aptly
described the way I tried to fit in society when he wrote:
People who have an impairment or chronic condition, it is argued, suffer a loss of self and
go through a process during which they negotiate their lives in such a way to be ordinary as
possible and so retain some contact with desired life-worlds. (p. 513)
“To Seek Out Something More”: Knowing the Teacher-Researcher … 21
Daring to Dream
Driven by a desire to be able-bodied and normal, I was hopeful that I would walk
again without my elbow crutches. I believed that I would be able to integrate back
into mainstream society and that I would be accepted without being made to feel that
I was different. When a journalist interviewed me in 1988, I expressed this desire.
I was delighted when I retrieved this newspaper article from the photographer (Fig. 2). Hope,
courage, and determination are signified in this photograph. I did not realise then that the
journey would be long and difficult and would eventually lead to the point where I am now
more wheelchair bound. Notwithstanding this, I have no regrets for daring to dream that I
could become normal again. (Naicker 2014a)
Disability Activist: My Personal–Professional Growth and Leadership Practice
My first-hand experience as a paraplegic, coupled with the heightened sense of justice
and fair play that I described earlier, played a significant role when I helped co-found
the Forget-Me-Not Sports Club for the Disabled. I made the following observation:
When I chatted with a few other people who were disabled, I learnt that they did not work,
did not have friends outside the disability sector, did not play sport, and spent most of their
time at home. Their families did not have the means to take them out and they lived a very
insular life divorced from mainstream society. As people with disabilities, we felt different
from able-bodied persons as society saw us as people who were less fortunate and lesser
beings who didn’t count for much. (Naicker 2014a)
The Forget-Me-Not Sports Club has, for the last 28 years, acted as an advocacy
group campaigning for the rights of people with disabilities and empowered people
with disabilities to resist oppression and inequality. Initially, the club started out as a
self-help organisation but over the years, it evolved into a self-organised entity that
started to question the inequalities in society, and reflect its desire for its members to
be included in mainstream society. We felt “discriminated against and marginalised
because of [our] disability and had very limited access to fundamental socioeconomic
rights such as employment, education, and appropriate health and welfare services”
(Howelletal.2006, p. 48).
As a club, we sought a transformed society where we would be treated with
“dignity and equal access for personal development” (Siyabulela and Duncan 2006,
p. 307). In this leadership experience, the vision was driven with the intention of
making a difference, addressing a need, and serving others. Drawing on the success
of Sri Sathya Sai Baba, my spiritual guide whose vision of free health care, drinking
water, and education became a reality, I crafted a vision to emulate my spiritual
guide.
In spite of the trials and tribulations that I have faced as a person with a
disability, I regard it to be a positive and fulfilling experience because it afforded
me the possibility to grow. Gardner et al. (2005) maintained that such life changing
experiences accelerate authentic leadership development, and they described these
moments as trigger events, which are opportunities for reflection, self-awareness,
and self-regulation. In my personal history narrative, I recounted my life experiences
22 D. Pillay et al.
Fig. 2 Sagie as a person with a disability (Photographer, Nithia Naidoo; Copyright, African News
Agency Pictures (The Herald), with permission)
and discussed the different leadership roles I have played, notwithstanding the fact
that I am classified as a person with a disability.
Conclusion
The motor accident that led to my becoming a paraplegic at the peak of my youth
altered my being significantly. Even though 29 years have gone by, I still experience
a sense of otherness because paraplegia differentiates me from able-bodied people.
Through the embodied processes of personal narrative self-study, leadership issues
that challenged and puzzled me were reconstructed, deconstructed, and critically
“To Seek Out Something More”: Knowing the Teacher-Researcher … 23
reexamined to generate a more complete picture. My reflections are consistent with
Gardner et al.’s (2005) exposition of authentic leadership theory, and I maintain that
the trigger event for seeing truth (Till 2008) as a paraplegic enhanced my personal
growth and ultimately my leadership practice—becoming an activist championing
the personal, social, and educational rights of people with disabilities.
Wendy Rawlinson’s Self-Narrative
I am Wendy Rawlinson and I have worked in education for the last 25 years. Trained
in secondary education, I taught in a high school for a short period before moving on
to lecture in higher education, teaching at two quite different technikons.1In 2001,
I moved to the United States to teach for five years before returning to South Africa
in 2007. I am currently a communication lecturer teaching classes of predominantly
black African undergraduate students at a university of technology in South Africa.
For my doctoral study, I am drawing on memory-work and personal history narrative
to remember critical past–present experiences of my life that have fashioned me to
be the teacher I am, so that I may open up thinking and understanding of what it
means to be a communications lecturer in a diverse undergraduate class—and to
debunk the stereotypes I held about the black African students who were failing the
communications course that I teach. A photograph of myself, sitting on the trencadis
bench in Park Guell, Barcelona, after attending a conference in 1995, served as a
visual prompt for reflecting critically on my life as a communications teacher and
the meanings and understandings I had come to adopt over time about my life as a
teacher and my communication practices. Writing my narrative and inserting the “I”
was my real struggle.
Growing Up White, Middle Class, and Privileged
Growing up in the 1960s during apartheid, my experiences of mixing with people of
other races was confined to interaction with labourers, like our gardener. Black people
didn’t live in our area but some domestic helpers caught buses home. I wondered why
the few black people who got onto the buses walked to the back of the bus and sat on
the last seat. Our gardener, Charlie, came on Saturdays to work for us and although
he was a jovial fellow, we had limited conversations with him because we couldn’t
speak isiZulu. Mom always gave him a delicious lunch but one nagging question that
always plagued me was, “Why did he eat out of a tin plate?” Our interaction was
limited because of language barriers, and the separateness of race and class (Soudien
2004).
White Middle-Class Education: A Seamless Transition …
I started school in 1958 as a learner in a white school in a white neighbourhood.
A whites-only school didn’t seem strange to me because it represented my world. I
considered this pleasant, orderly school environment normal. I never questioned the
white middle-class educational landscape because that was what I grew up with—in
1“Technikons were South African institutions oriented to occupationally directed higher education.
The intention was to teach high-level skills and knowledge to add on to the more practical training
offered in technical colleges” (Harrison 2009, p. 259).
24 D. Pillay et al.
apartheid South Africa race would determine where one could live (Jacklin 2001)
and white schools were allotted spacious and resource-filled classrooms.
My privileges continued into my teaching and lecturing life in historically
white institutions. I started teaching in 1975, at an all-white boys’ high school until
my son was born in 1977. I then took up a position as a lecturer at a historically white
technikon in 1982, with an all-white staff and student complement. The transition
to higher education was relatively easy and I enjoyed being a lecturer in a collegial
environment, lecturing to older students. The staff and students all seemed to share
the same values.
It was a seamless move from an all-white school to an historically white insti-
tution (HWI). Because the institution comprised an all-white student and staff com-
plement, and everyone spoke English, there was very little diversity and teaching
was seamless (Jacklin 2001). I taught a prescribed curriculum, and the students were
willing to learn the content I delivered and pass the exam. I felt safe and secure in
my teacher role. After an unsuccessful application for a different position within the
institution I made a decision to teach elsewhere.
An Outsider: “I Can’t Help Being Born White!”
After leaving my position at the white technikon in 1990, I moved into an historically
black institution. My position as white lecturer was inscribed with power, derived
from my historically privileged race group and language (Christie and Collins 1982).
The phrase historically black establishes a distinction between the type of educa-
tional institution with which I have been familiar in the past, and one which I now
had to take up to continue my teaching career—as a single parent. Technikons and
universities were organised along race and ethnicity, and black students were forced
to attend those institutions in black areas that had been designated as black insti-
tutions. Funding was racially skewed and unequal, which meant a disparity existed
between the resources and facilities at black and white technikons and universities.
A lower status was accorded to black higher education institutions (Reddy 2004).
Deciding to take up a position that was available here meant that I had to adjust to a
different sociocultural context from that of the privilege and status I enjoyed at the
white technikon where students and staff were of the same race and language, and
possessed a similar cultural capital.
My struggle is best illuminated in the anecdote below, which I vividly recall in
1991 because it was a dilemmatic moment in which my white middle-class values
were in tension with my professional responsibility as a communication lecturer.
In allowing students to speak on a topic they had selected to develop their oral
communication skills rather than prescribe what students should know about the
subject, I was unprepared for a speech on Bantu Education, which was a controversial
subject because it had, in essence, defined an unequal system of education during
the apartheid era. Sipho was discussing the legacy of this act that had left negative
imprints on his life .
“To Seek Out Something More”: Knowing the Teacher-Researcher … 25
Lesson on Oral Presentation
Sipho (pseudonym): “Blacks were only fit for labour. We were considered not worthy of
receiving a higher education. Maths wasn’t necessary because we would be working in the
fields. This … was the policy of Bantu Education.” I shifted uncomfortably in my seat; it
was true, but did he have to labour the point? I understand—it was a despicable policy.
Sipho: “We blacks didn’t deserve an education it seems.” The sarcasm in his voice was
unmistakable. I could see Sipho’s rapid breathing as the pitch of his voice rose a few notches.
Sipho: “Less than human! The whites did this—took away our power!” he continued. His
anger was palpable.
Me: I wanted to scream out, “It isn’t my fault!” I finally blurted out “I can’t help being born
white!” His voice was trembling, but I felt as if all eyes in the room were fixed on me.
Me: I cried out “I’m sorry … I’m sorry for the enforcement of such an evil system!” I felt
as if the temperature in the room rose: as if a giant boiler had been switched on, and I alone
was simmering in the suffocating liquid. (Personal journal)
I have never before been in a situation like that, where I felt anger so palpably.
I felt as if I became a physical representation of the suffering inflicted on all black
people and hence “the enemy.” I trembled at the barrage of words that seemed to
spew out at me. I felt like I became a target receiving intense hate arrows from the
student. I understood in that moment how hostility and injustice, generated during
apartheid, simmers under the surface, waiting to erupt in every situation of social
and educational life in the South African context.
As an outsider and the only white in the room (McVee 2004), I felt targeted.
The fear that I was outnumbered and not understood overwhelmed me. In negotiating
this tension that I was experiencing as these multiple issues played themselves out in
the classroom, all I could say was “I’m sorry.” I felt out of my depth in the classroom
where I felt I lost all control as a lecturer because I became defensive of my whiteness
(Jansen 2009). Unexpectedly being confronted with my race and emotions shook my
idea of my effectiveness as a teacher in the classroom. Up to this point, I had believed
I was a good teacher—then I was suddenly confronted with my race and emotions
that shook my idea of who I was as teacher in the classroom (Jacklin 2001). I was not
only confronted with the deep-rooted effects of apartheid legislation, but also with
my white privilege (Warren and Hytten 2004), and how particular values crippled
me from understanding my students and the power of their voices enabled through
oral speaking.
“Admitting I Am Sorry”: Exploring New Meanings and Understandings
In considering a comment from a critical friend, “Why are you so defensive?” I
recognised that defending my white privilege (McIntosh 1990) acknowledged how
I have operated and became complicit in reproducing certain rules of apartheid in
South Africa, as privileged white female.
The photograph of me seated on the trencadis bench, taken in Barcelona in
1995 (Fig. 3), is the artefact I chose from my personal narrative to inspire the juxta-
posing and exploration of meanings and understandings of my life as communication
lecturer, teaching predominantly black African undergraduate students.
26 D. Pillay et al.
Fig. 3 Seated on the trencadis bench (Photographer, Marí Peté, with permission)
As I gaze at the trencadis bench with its multicoloured tile fragments, its vibrant patterns, and
its sinuous shape, I recall how it contrasts my life, which reflects unidimensional, linear, and
fixed teaching practices. Through reflexivity, invited by my bodily presence on the bench,
I begin to question my traditional fixed notions of being a teacher that I carry with me, and
my white privilege, expectations, and assumptions. (Personal journal, March 2014).
To Dream of the Kind of Teacher I Can Become
The memory of my body comfortably couched on the bench (Fig. 3) transported me
to the imaginative, dreamlike space of Park Guell. The blurring of time enabled the
recall of this magical experience, which happened 22 years ago—and jolted me to
challenge myself and my fixed views of communication practices, which I enacted
daily in my classroom.
The space–time moment re-spatialises, in a flash, my desire for unknowing my traditional
teacher-self that I struggle with as a white and privileged individual, and to revise what I want
to be and know, and how I want to be known as a communication lecturer. I am inspired to
imagine the potential magic of a new classroom that defies the rigid technicist’s systems and
actions I have called upon in my disembodied professional practices for so long. I imagine
transforming my classroom into a colourful space: not monochromatic, but multifaceted and
connected like the trencadis shards that make up the intricate patterns of the bench.
“To Seek Out Something More”: Knowing the Teacher-Researcher … 27
Fig. 4 Imagining aesthetic communication pedagogy (Photographer, Marí Peté, with permission)
Through confronting the limitations of my privileges and beliefs, I recognise that I can be
a different teacher, nontraditional teacher, capable of changing my classroom where there
are no hierarchies between white and black, where there are no more deficient learners and
disadvantaged students who are judged as English second-language speakers and, by default,
inferior. Instead, I imagine a classroom where many voices are valued—beyond race, class,
culture, and cultural capital.
The photograph (Fig. 4) is of myself on the trencadis bench. Nestled on the bench, my
embodied experience probes the depths of my encounter in Park Guell, transcending linear
boundaries while confronting my comfortable limitations (Falzon 1998). I become free to
think more broadly about new ways of being and becoming. In freeing my thought from
what it silently thinks (Foucault 1985), I renew the choices at my disposal and choose to
act in a different way, unhindered by my fixed values, beliefs, and perspectives. (Personal
journal)
Conclusion
Writing my narrative and inserting the I was a struggle because I felt vulnerable
including personal portrayals of my life into my professional experiences. However,
it was only when I acknowledged that teacher identity is a tangled web of influences
steeped in personal and professional experiences (Bukor 2013), that I was able to
fully understand my communication practices.
The photo of me seated on the trencadis bench in a fairy-tale park setting jolted
my researcher-self and evoked a bodily experience of being transported to a more
imaginative space that triggered my curiosity for aesthetic pedagogical adventuring
in my racially diverse classrooms.
28 D. Pillay et al.
I recognise that personal–professional learning can benefit from artful inquiries
into the self, and that attention to material culture can be a beneficial and freeing
means to learning (White and Lemieux 2015). I was able to examine my prejudices,
attitudes, and assumptions that, prior to then, had not been under the gaze. The self-
reflexivity prompted by the arts- based methods triggered emotions, feelings, and a
probing of beliefs as a traditional teacher with fixed stereotypes of who my students
are. Through the process of reflexivity, I am now able to negotiate a poetics, a creative
space where alternate communication classes can take place, and a space where I can
transcend my limitations—to live and teach more fully as a communication educator.
4 A New Assemblage for Knowing Teacher-Researcher Self
Differently
In our face-to-face and e-mail conversations, we—Sagie, Wendy, and Daisy—shared
and discussed developing points of synergy that we saw through juxtaposing Sagie’s
and Wendy’s self-narrative pieces. We shared and discussed how our encounters with
found photographs and written self-narratives opened up ways, first, to provoke and
disrupt “what is” (Mitchell and Allnutt 2008, p. 260)—normative understandings
of to be, know, and act as teacher-researchers—and second, how we could think
about and enact teaching and researching differently. In the section below, we map
out selected points of continuity that evolved from our conversations and deepened
and expanded our learning about pathways to perform and embody (Boulton-Founke
2014) knowing the teacher-researcher self as an emancipatory and creative experi-
ence. To close this section, Daisy offers a poetic reflection on our co-learning.
4.1 Seeking Selves Outside of Recognition
We discovered that the found photographs developed a gravitas because of the inten-
sity of the representation, and the value they accrued. Sagie expressed this as follows:
“I was delighted when I retrieved this newspaper article from the photographer.”
Sagie was able to create moments to remember and to create a powerful memory of
his tragic accident. Such memories are the kinds that trigger emotion that troubles
and provokes reflexive inquiry into “what was” or “what is,” and to suggest, “what
could be” (Mitchell and Allnutt 2008, p. 260). Sagie wrote in his e-mail conversation
with Wendy and Daisy, “This understanding that identity is ‘composed of multiple,
context-dependent selves represented in an interrelated memory network’ McConnel
et al. (2012, p. 380), demanded from me a stepping back, a stepping away, and through
a closer and deeper studying and exploration of the photograph, it brought to the sur-
face the existential desire to seek answers to the questions: ‘Who am I?’ ‘What am
I?’ and, ‘What can be improved?’ In response Wendy replied, “I am also inspired
“To Seek Out Something More”: Knowing the Teacher-Researcher … 29
to imagine the potential magic of a new classroom that defies the rigid technicist’s
systems and actions I have called upon in my professional practices for so long. I
imagine transforming my classroom into what I desire it to be, and can create—a
colourful classroom: not monochromatic, but multifaceted like the trencadis shards
that make up the bench.”
4.2 A Transgressive Jolt from the Familiar Teacher-Self
We learned that found photographs of a personal event possess the past (Krall 1988)
and remain in the person’s life story. In this reflexive visual encounter, we encoun-
tered our teacher-selves connecting with passionate feeling to the memory experi-
ence. This passionate feeling jolted us into opening up possibilities for a new and
different perspective to reconnect and realign the personal–professional, mind–body,
past–present, and the emotional–cognitive. Then, when we used self-narrative writ-
ing around the found photographs, we discovered that, together, they served as a
conduit and voice for the imagination and the invisible in a momentary, embodied
act by intellectuals (Emihovich 1994).
Provoking affective bodily memories had an empowering effect for both Wendy
and Sagie. Wendy found herself wanting to improve her pedagogical skills in a way
that would challenge her disembodied stance in the context she was teaching. Wendy
now confesses that “awareness of my whiteness prompted an intentional effort to take
an ethical stance to transform both myself and my practices, and to move beyond
them (Foucault1985).” Sagie describes the photo of himself on crutches, thus: “My
first-hand experience as a paraplegic heightened my sense of justice and fair play
as a leader. I take disability as a challenge that offers me opportunities to transcend
limitations and become a fuller being.” Like Gadamer (1976), we recognise how
our past lived experiences can shape and inform our beliefs and perspectives in
the choices we make, hope for, or avoid as teacher-researchers. Simultaneously, we
recognise that we can take possession of any such moment lingering in memory as
it “flashes up” (Benjamin 1968, p. 257), to reveal hidden features of the present and
past (Denzin 2007). We realise that we can create a new and different version of the
past, and a new version of self as teacher from these significant revelations.
4.3 Photographs and Narratives of Self as Pedagogical
Spaces
We agree with Ayers and Ayers (2014) that teachers need to be aware of their teach-
ing selves, their choices, and the preferences that inform their pedagogical practice.
Writing self-narratives with found photographs provides teacher-researchers oppor-
tunities to face up to themselves, and to dwell in their own struggles from a more
embodying perspective, which could inform their teacher identities differently (Vinz
1997).
30 D. Pillay et al.
Wendy’s growing self-awareness is expressed in her remark, “The introduction
of arts-based methods paved the way for me to use creative methods such as collage
and artefacts in my classroom in order to shift power hierarchies in the classroom,
and to foster greater connection and participation of students.” Sagie has developed
a new perspective and perception of himself as a different kind of teacher leader:
“Leading the Forget-Me-Not Sports Club for the Disabled not only enhanced my
leadership development but also provided the opportunity to challenge the stereotypes
I had associated with disability.” We believe that our experiences of the impact of
our reflexive self-narratives have bridged the distance between the private and the
societal, and allowed us an affable and cohesive view of the present and “a more
complete understanding of the human condition” (Krall 1988, p. 478).
4.4 Weaving Different Stories for Embodied, Generative
Learning
From the conversations that took place between the three authors, Daisy selected
phrases and words to create two free verse poems, “Disability Enables” and “Total
Design,” which provided impetus for further reflection on the learning generated by
weaving together Sagie’s and Wendy’s stories.
Disability Enables
Disability, empowering,
disability enables
Disability, something more
transformation of self
Lying under the surface
invisible, powerful
Visual memory of photographic images of dis/abled self, and the meaning of self in
self-narrative writing, serve as sites, not just for “seeing truth” (Bennett 2003,p.29),
but also for feeling and thinking truth. We found that when we were feeling and think-
ing truth, we experienced moments of slipping in and out of the normative and linear
dis/abled self recalled through this affective engagement (Boulton-Founke 2014),
to seek out something more. Researching teacher learning artfully for disruption,
and through the affective dimension, can make available the “invisible of the visible
thought” (Sheerin 2009, p. 73), and the less clearly articulated desires and interests
that create and invite (Boulton-Founke 2014) knowing the teacher-researcher self
differently.
“To Seek Out Something More”: Knowing the Teacher-Researcher … 31
Total Design
different stories
seemingly disparate
woven to fit.
to enhance the total design.
the beauty of mosaic patterns,
side by side
Researching teacher professional learning in visual, storied ways, is an ongo-
ing, nonlinear, complex, and seemingly disparate process. As mosaic patterns, the
beauty of different stories woven side by side can connect to create a total design of
embodied, generative teacher-researcher learning.
4.5 Finishing Touches
We have experienced how the power of found photographs can evoke and construct
memory in self-narratives, which enable a number of possibilities. These possibilities
can include a deepening of the essence of being unique, a provocation of what is
known, (Mitchell and Allnutt 2008), and of possibilities for unknowing (Vinz 1997),
as well as “what could be” for knowing the self and being in the world.
Visual and narrative ways of making meaning of teachers’ everyday lives and
practices hold the power to provoke the imagination and to reflect in order to develop
greater awareness and understanding of one’s perspectives and desires and even
dreams (Greene 1988). Reflection can emancipate (Krall 1988), when we can “think
with a [life] story” (Bochner 1997, p. 436), or when we “open ourselves to ourselves”
(Ellis and Bochner 2000, p. 761) and engage in “thoughtful recovery of [our] educa-
tional experiences” (Krall 1988, p. 467). Such emancipatory reflections inform ways
of freeing up embedded meanings, struggles, desires, dreams, and lingering events.
As Bullough (1994) highlighted, we cannot ignore our life histories and our per-
sonal experiences as teacher-researchers. It follows that we need to explore our lived
experiences to understand how our values and beliefs, perspectives, and perceptions
influence the choices we make daily—personally, socially, and professionally. We
understand that such knowledge is deeply embodied, and requires risk taking and
vulnerability.
When we study self critically, “the formative contextualised experiences of our
lives influence how we think about” and act as teacher-researchers (Samaras et al.
2004, p. 905). These influences open up pathways for professional growth in ways
that not only end up changing oneself, but also serve “as impetus for tackling the
32 D. Pillay et al.
wider social problems that contextualise our individual [teacher] lives” (Mitchell
et al. 2009, p. 119).
We believe that when we draw multi-methodologically on self-narratives and the
visual meaning making perspective of found photographs, an important scholarship
of self-awareness is developing. The scholarship of self-awareness of teachers’ ways
of being, knowing, and doing can make significant contributions to teacher profes-
sional learning.
By assembling Sagie’s and Wendy’s self-narratives and their found photographs,
we were able to explore how the “past surfaces in our ‘everyday’” (Talya Chalef as
cited in Till 2008, p. 107) and how, as teacher-researchers, they chose to deal with
these entanglements. When we work artfully, with memories elicited through chosen
photographs, we can see “truth … that registers the pain of memory as it is directly
experienced to communicate a level of bodily effect” (Bennett 2003, p. 29). This
powerful effect reveals our own complicity and can produce new understandings for
self knowing, and personal and social change as teachers.
Acknowledgements We are thankful to our peer reviewer, Joan Lucy Conolly (Durban University
of Technology, South Africa), for her encouraging and insightful feedback on this chapter.
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