“Yeah, That’s Not Okay”: What Teaching Stories Tell Us About Early Career Dance & Theatre Teachers

• In Event: Critical Approaches to Teacher Development in Arts Education

Abstract

Using qualitative approaches to research, such as arts-based and narrative inquiry, we examined stories collected from early K-12 career dance and theatre teachers to better understand a common experience shared by nearly all of our participants: most of them encountered some form of extreme displacement from their classroom – days when they were removed by those with more power (actual or perceived) to make room for other school-related activities, such as guest artists or fundraising events. Our results address teacher retention in the arts and extends arts education discourse by illuminating challenges specific to the field of dance and theatre, especially around embodiment and a sense of displacement in school landscapes.

Authors

• Betsy Maloney Leaf, University of Minnesota

• Emily Jane Wall Burnley, University of Minnesota