The need to include indigenous perspectives in curricula is a challenge facing education internationally. In the context of higher education, decolonising practices and processes are the responsibility not just of institutions but also individual academics. Despite individual aspirations to decolonise teaching, it can be difficult to know where to…

This article discusses a pedagogical activity--an autobiographical creation--adopted in a second language teacher education context to support teachers working with plurilingual learners. Using decoloniality to reposition praxis, the article presents a creativity-infused autobiography creation project to help teachers access their cognitive,…

As a poet, researcher, and teacher in the academy, I have pursued my vocation with an abiding commitment to both creative and critical discourse. I inquire into my autobiographical experiences as a poet, researcher, and teacher in the institutional contexts of a Faculty of Education by creating a performance of poetry that seeks to honour…

Over the past decade, an increasing number of overseas Chinese PhD graduates have returned to China to develop their career. For these academic returnees, one of the challenges is to (re)construct an academic identity in a familiar context that is also strange because they have been absent for a few years. In this autobiographical paper, the…

"The fish becomes aware of the water in which it swims" is a metaphor that represents Yuli's revelatory journey about the hidden power of culture in her personal identity and professional teaching practice. While engaging in a critical auto/ethnographic inquiry into her lived experience as a science teacher in Indonesian and Australian…

Sonia Nieto wrote this essay in response to the topic "Even Laureates Were Beginners Once: Lessons Learned Along the Way," which was the title of the Laureate Panel she moderated at the Kappa Delta Pi Convocation in October 2017.

The primary objective of this collection is to document the lived experiences of queer teachers of color who work in P-20 education, as a means of identifying and analyzing how the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality impact teaching dispositions and lived struggles. Similar to Anzaldua, Tate, and Valadez and Elsbree call for 'queer border…

This autoethnography discusses the trials and wonders of joining the teacher force fresh from college. It is a first-hand account of the author's experiences, as well as stories from other teachers the author has met along her journey. The article demonstrates the education field's attempts and failures at helping the new staff transition into the…

This reflective essay, which is both autobiographical and historical in nature, is framed by answering the questions posed by the editors regarding my work: What values inform it, how I actually do it, and why do I do it? Quite simply, I am writing to encourage social change for all queer people, be it merely the little corner of my own social…

Stella M. Flores writes about how she learned to participate in the American political process through lessons from her immigrant family. As a quantitative scholar, she documents the commitment to rigorous, evidence-based research on equity noting that not all datasets are without politics or bias. From this perspective, the story of the Latino in…

Evaluation of staff has always been a contentious issue in education and even more in South Africa where education and specifically schools were politicised during the years of struggle for a truly democratic dispensation. During this period teachers refused to participate in any form of evaluation or inspection as it was referred to then.…

The author has worked as a language teacher, teacher educator, and second language acquisition (SLA) researcher for over forty years. During this time grammar has figured largely in his thinking, in part because it has traditionally been so central to language pedagogy and in part because he became fascinated with how the human mind grapples with…

Apartheid was a system of government in South Africa, abolished in 1994, which systematically separated groups on the basis of race classification. The Apartheid system of racial segregation was made law in South Africa in 1948, when the country was officially divided into four racial groups, White, Black, Indian and Coloureds (or people of mixed…

The choice of a teacher to be "out" in the classroom is perhaps unadvisable, possibly joyous, potentially disastrous, positively political, and just plain hard. For me, the choice to be out in the classroom has met with some consequences that do not match my expectations. This essay is an autoethnographic writing performance of my identity as a…

Collaborative autobiography formed the basis for a professional development project in an Alberta school district. The project encouraged participants to reflect on personal issues that shaped their teaching and to share their thoughts and experiences with colleagues. As a result of the project, two vice-principals developed a support system that…