Ali Black

A focus on productivity and performance has seen uniformity and standardisation pervade educational policy, systems and sectors world-wide. The reality is that most significant innovations and enhancements in quality originate from the frontline. Yet, too few studies seek to understand the meanings educators at the frontline are making. For educational researchers, policymakers, practitioners and society, arts-based narrative inquiry holds much promise. This type of inquiry honours aesthetic perspectives and supports the making of meaning that is personally and professionally significant. During times of transition, disconnection and world-wide educational change, aesthetic inquiry that releases the imagination and opens spaces for meaning and connection-making is all the more important. Arts-based narrative research is grounded in the belief that the materials of our lives are essential to our interactions, our identity, and our work and how it is understood. The stories of our lives are the fundamental way in which we know ourselves and are known by others. As we resolve to reflect on our life stories we become critically reflective and able to act more intentionally in the personal, local, regional and global spaces that we live and work. To illustrate and explore the value of this type of educational research I offer a personal narrative where identity, life-history, transition and connectedness are examined. In this self-study, the creation of self-portraits acted as catalysts for reflection providing opportunities to feel the experiences of my life in authentic and productive ways. Attending to personal meanings using self-portrait supported my capacity to revisit and learn from my stories. They connected me to memories; they communicated my knowing of and in the present; and they encouraged imagination about how to live life with intention and proceed meaningfully in ways that might deepen and sustain me amidst life's challenges and changes.

If unprepared for them, the realities of teaching can challenge, confront and paralyse the valued ideals and philosophies of teachers. An orientation to teacher education that embraces the ambiguous, dilemma ridden nature of teaching and encourages teachers to contextualise personal knowledge and ways of knowing within an understanding of story, time and place is crucial if teachers are to stay the course, manage surprise, and maintain their hope and vision.

Transitions are inevitable, and are part of a continuous process of invention and exploration that is often linked to disequilibrium and dissonance (Stacey, 1992). Beginning professionals are often frustrated with the uncertainty and realities of their profession. This paper reports on a case study that aimed to identify early childhood education students' transition issues and to enhance their transition from the final semester of study into professional practice. The project aimed to develop a framework for supporting the transition journey for these students as they found a place within the field to develop and construct identities that align with the community in which they are socially situated. Three phases of transition (Bridges, 2003) were identified. 1) First, as students left university to transition into professional practice, they experienced feelings of insecurity, and a sense of loss and uncertainty. Also, they perceived personal and professional attributes as interchangeable. 2) Second, graduates struggled with their new identities, and searched for answers to their insecurities. Some searched for answers from their university peers; others sought out peer mentoring and professional development opportunities in their sites. 3) Third, graduates were able to separate personal and professional qualities, and could begin to look back on their transition experiences in a more reflective way. Findings from this work have informed the provision of learning opportunities, experiences and approaches which have been strategically embedded in the final year units of study at university

Teaching is an uncertain, dilemma ridden endeavour. Attending to the significance of these characteristics of teaching for teachers involves taking their meanings and meaning construction seriously. This paper does this, focusing on one teacher's meaning making in relation to her expectations, tolerance of uncertainty, changing roles and shifting identities/images of teaching. In doing so it calls attention to how the professional development of teachers can be based on the meanings they themselves develop and examine, and how cognitive and affective sense-making reveal personal orientations toward uncertainty, influence teaching practice and expectations for the future.

During a professional development program, teachers working in child care centres reflected on their images of teaching and their images of self as teacher. Teachers explored their images by engaging in conversation, drawing, metaphor and journal writing. Insights provided by these reflective strategies enabled teachers to experience greater self-understanding, awareness and knowledge and reduced feelings of isolation common to teachers who work in child care centres. This renewed awareness was empowering leading teachers to feel more certain and confident about their complex teaching roles and their teaching decisions. Feeling better equipped to deal with ongoing complexity, the teachers were able to imagine new possibilities for their work and felt liberated to progress in new directions.