Performing with teachers: Voices from an embodied narrative

• In Event: Sustainability Praxis: Teacher Innovations and Professional Development

Proposal

Introduction and Research Background

“Performing with teachers” is a performance text (Denzin 1997 & 2003) created through collaborative inquiry between university researchers and teachers from a public primary school in China. While China has encouraged collaboration between university researchers and teachers, the majority of teacher development programs relies on the “acquisition mode,” which may suppress teachers’ agency and hinder their innovative practices (Chen, 2022). Additionally, due to the strong accountability and authoritative culture, teachers often conform to the tasks and ideas delivered by researchers and administrators, with their voices frequently being ignored (Wang & Wong, 2021). Therefore, this study presents embodied narrative as a collaborative inquiry to deconstruct the “expert discourse” and value individual teachers’ knowledge, fostering collaboration in a transformative learning community between teachers and teacher educators.

Research Question and Theoretical Framework

In this performance text, we attempt to explore the positionalities of teachers and teacher educators in the process of embodied narrative. Therefore, this research draws on the theoretical framework of embodied narrative, which is primarily influenced by narrative inquiry for teacher professional development by D. Jean Clandinin (1986 & 2013), Forum Theater by Augusto Boal (1992 & [1979] 2000), performance studies—particularly ethnography as dialogical performance suggested by Dwight Conquergood (2013), and Chinese philosophical thoughts on the equalization of things by Zhuangzi ([1931] 2020).

Methods
This performance-based research project took place at Lotus Primary School since March 2022 in the city of Changsha, China. Our research team included one faculty member and four assistants (one doctoral and three master students) from the same university. In searching of a critical and collaborative relationship with the teachers, we invited a group of eight in-service teachers who were interested in this project to collaborate with us. In the past three semesters, we conducted 20 workshop sessions and two final Forum Theater. Each session lasted about three to four hours. We started the workshop by engaging teachers physically in their storytelling and spent time discussing and reflecting on ideas in the plays that were performed. In order to better play their roles in the stories, the teachers conducted informal interviews and conversations with the roles they played. Field texts for this research include transcripts from digital video-audio recorded workshops and the two Forum Theater, teachers’ journals, monologues and art work, student’s work, and teacher educators’ journals throughout the process. In addition, we conducted semi-structured interviews and conversations with the eight teachers. Except for the teacher educators’ journals, we shared all field texts, interim texts, and research texts including this performance text with the teachers. In the process of coding, narrative analysis was used to guide the interview and observation field notes, discussion, and performances analysis, along with descriptive and in vivo coding as the coding strategy (Saldaña, 2009).
Organization of the Performance Text

The performance text comprises three acts, each containing two scenes. The first two acts explore the perspectives of the teachers and teacher educators through selected vignettes from the embodied narrative process. The negotiation of multiple identities and character roles allows both partners to gain reflexivity into themselves, others, and the educational world. The meaning of “conducting research” is epistemologically redefined. The final act proposes the application of Forum Theater as a collective action and suggests embodied narrative as a collaborative inquiry for both university researchers and school teachers. Limitations are also discussed in the act. The performance text features eight characters: university faculty, doctoral student, home-room teacher, school administrator, Clandinin, Boal, Conquergood, and Zhuangzi. Below is the organization of the performance text.

Act I: Teachers
Scene 1: Arriving
Scene 2: Staring

Act II: Teacher Educators
Scene 1: Self-Other
Scene 2: Borderland

Act III: Pas de deux
Scene 1: Action
Scene 2: Proposal
Conclusion

In this performance text, we argue for “embodied narrative” as a theory, method, practice, and collective action for in-service teachers to critically explore their professional lives. It critically challenges the deficit model that assumes teachers lack research competencies within the current expert discourse of teacher education in China. We advocate for collaboration and collective action, blurring the boundaries among participants, researchers, and performers (Norris, 2009). Moreover, we promote the praxis of embodied narrative as educational transformation through self-creative activity. It challenges the textualism in educational research and re-emphasizes the argument of “culture as performance” (Conquergood 2013) and “practice as research” (Kershaw & Nicholson, 2011). Within the realm of embodied narrative, which is both pedagogical and political (Denzin, 2003), teachers and teacher educators, as whole persons, can bridge the theory-practice gap, transgress borders between the individual and the public, and proactively launch into action.

Reference

Boal, A. (1992). Games for actors and non-actors. London: Routledge.
Boal, A. (2000) [1979]. Theater of the oppressed. London: Pluto.
Chen, L. (2022). Facilitating teacher learning in professional learning communities through action research: A qualitative case study in China. Teaching and Teacher Education, 119, 103875. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2022.103875
Clandinin, D. J. (2013). Engaging in narrative inquiry. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, Inc.
Connelly, F. M. & Clandinin, D. J. (1986). On narrative method, personal philosophy and narrative unities in the study of teaching. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 23(3): 15-32.
Conquergood, D. (2013). Cultural struggles: Performance, ethnography, praxis. University of Michigan Press.
Denzin, N. (1997). Interpretive ethnography: Ethnographic practices for the 21st century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Denzin, N. (2003). Performance ethnography: Critical pedagogy and the politics of culture. Sage publication, Inc.
Norris, J. (2009). Playbuilding as qualitative research: A participatory arts-based approach. London and New York: Routledge.
Saldaña, J. (2009). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. Los Angeles, Calif: Sage.
Wang, X., & Wong, J. L. N. (2021). Teacher leaders’ brokerage practice in China: Impact on teacher learning in a school-university partnership. Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1177/17411432211009902
Zhuangzi. (2020) [1931]. Chuang Tzu. Beijing: Foreign language teaching and research press Beijing.

Authors

• Xiangyan Liu, Hunan Normal University

• Sisi Yang, Hunan Normal University