Mindful Practice as Professional Identity Work

Abstract

This chapter reflects on my professional identity work as a teacher educator, shaped by mindful practice and explained using Goffman’s dramaturgical framework (1959). As a teacher educator, I have experienced regular transitions between settings (Higher Education Institutions) with each setting requiring unique performances (roles and functions performed) within initial teacher education (ITE). During this time, there has also been significant and rapid reform within Australian ITE, with particularly focus within my area of expertise, Professional Experience. As a result of my constant grappling with new settings, roles and expectations, my manner and appearance as a teacher educator has often been the source of great tension for me. Often what has been scripted for these performances demonstrates a difference of what has been required front of stage and what has been in contrast to what has been required backstage or off stage. This has impacted on the ways in which I have understood my roles but also how I have understood myself and my motivations for this work. The performances of my work have therefore produced feelings of ongoing transition and perpetual identity work, scripted amongst changing sets, for diverse audiences and alongside a cast also grappling with the same inconsistencies between their required appearances and the manner by which they have sought to perform. This complexity has emphasised the importance of key members of the cast (fellow teacher educators) as community in shaping my evolving professional identity. This professional identity work as mindful performance (practice), co-scripted and co-directed by others, has enabled me to navigate trying conditions and wrestle with the manner by which this performance occurs and why.