12 Beginning Teachers 12 Years Later: A docudrama (movie version)

<p dir="ltr">My research explores moments of identity transformation through performed research, with a particular focus on the discourses—liminal, hegemonic, and survival—that emerge not only from teachers themselves, but also through their interactions with mentors, leadership, initial teacher education, and the media. Beginning teachers, despite being a highly researched group, continue to face unique challenges and opportunities as they transition into the profession.</p><p dir="ltr">The initial research focused on teachers’ ‘first’ experiences as a lens for understanding identity formation. I had no idea at the time that I would be fortunate enough to stay connected with the original twelve participants—and to trace their careers and development over more than a decade. Now their reflections on whether to stay or leave the profession have become central to the project. Teaching is demanding work, and conditions can change rapidly. Capturing teachers’ intentions to stay or leave is complex: on one hand, their responses are real and meaningful in the moment; on the other, they are necessarily fluid and shaped by ongoing changes.</p><p dir="ltr">The analysis of their reflections, as depicted in the film, revealed six key factors that influenced teachers’ intentions to stay in—or leave—the profession:</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Work–Life Compatibility </b>– How parental responsibilities, family leave, and the flexibility (or rigidity) of employment conditions affect a teacher’s ability to sustain their role.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Relational Pressures and Supports – </b>The influence of personal and professional relationships—both inside and outside the workplace—on teachers’ wellbeing, job satisfaction, and sense of belonging</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Viable Career Pathways </b>– Teachers’ perceptions of alternative options within or beyond education, including the financial, emotional, and professional trade-offs involved in leaving or shifting roles.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Emotional Sustainability </b>– The emotional demands of teaching, and whether the work continues to nourish or deplete their sense of self, purpose, and wellbeing.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Workplace Conditions </b>– The broader environment teachers navigate daily, including strategies for managing student behaviour, role expectations, leadership expectations, employment conditions, and school culture.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Perspective Over Time </b>– How reflection over the years reshapes teachers’ understanding of their experiences, prompting them to reframe challenges and rediscover what sustains their commitment.</p><p dir="ltr">These findings and methods add depth to our understanding of teacher retention by foregrounding participants’ voices, and personal and professional complexity over singular narratives of burnout or resilience.</p><p dir="ltr">Back in 2012, when I created the play <i>The First Time</i>, I made a conscious decision to cast teachers—rather than professional actors—in the performance. I specifically chose teachers I had previously collaborated with on performance-based projects, knowing they not only had the skills to perform but also possessed lived experience as educators. My aim was to encourage them to bring their own perspectives into the work. I invited them to contribute ideas about how their characters might be interpreted, adding a layer of authenticity that would resonate with teacher audiences.</p><p dir="ltr">I wanted the performance to go beyond mere entertainment—to feel emotionally true. My goal was to craft an experience that felt like teachers speaking to teachers. This approach also avoided the potential pitfalls of using actors unfamiliar with the profession, who might unintentionally reinforce stereotypes or misrepresent the nuances of teaching life.</p><p dir="ltr">From the outset, I chose to match the gender of the teacher-actors to that of the original research participants. At the time, this wasn’t strictly necessary, as the stories were not overtly gendered. However, twelve years on, this decision has proven important. It has enabled more layered and embodied portrayals—particularly in scenes where female characters reflect on the impact of maternity leave and caregiving responsibilities on their careers.</p><p dir="ltr">Originally, I cast the teacher-actors in roles I felt closely aligned with their own professional experiences. Interestingly—and perhaps inevitably—striking parallels have emerged over time between the actors and the participants they portray. These include relationship breakdowns, having children, taking time off for overseas travel, moving schools, navigating contract employment, stepping away from and returning to teaching, and transitioning into leadership roles. These shared experiences have only deepened the empathy, insight, and realism the teacher-actors bring to their performances—creating a rich, evolving portrayal of life in the profession.</p><p dir="ltr">Non-traditional research outputs (NTROs) are research outcomes that fall outside conventional categories like journal articles, books, or conference papers. NTROs often include creative works, performances, exhibitions, and commissioned reports, and are particularly valuable in fields such as the creative arts and social sciences. They play a vital role in demonstrating the impact of research in ways that engage broader communities. NTROs create space for multiple ways of knowing, enabling researchers to reach diverse audiences through multimodal, affective, and experiential forms. In doing so, they challenge dominant norms of knowledge production and expand the possibilities for research dissemination and public engagement.</p><p dir="ltr">While my research spans both traditional and non-traditional formats, I use performed research methods to harness the expressive and communicative power of the arts, making research more accessible and meaningful to audiences beyond academia. In education, this includes expert audiences such as teachers, school leaders, policymakers, and education stakeholders—parents, carers, and students. The processes of scripting, rehearsing, performing/filming, and editing allow for critical engagement with the data. Performed research is not simply about creating an aesthetic object; it is a methodological practice in itself—one that experiments with how interview data is analysed, interpreted, and represented.</p><p dir="ltr">My body of performed research includes:</p><p dir="ltr">A short film <b><i>New Teacher</i></b> about a beginning teacher navigating a new workplace, highlighting the importance of effective mentoring in easing this transition.</p><p dir="ltr"><b><i>The First Time</i></b> – a play comprising 13 thematically connected scenes, each capturing a beginning teacher’s ‘first’ experience as a moment of identity transformation.</p><p dir="ltr">An additional dance work to <i>The First Time: </i><b><i>Dancing the Data</i></b>, expressing the insufficiency of waiting until a teacher is ‘sinking’ to offer meaningful support.</p><p dir="ltr"><b><i>maelstrom</i></b> – a standalone dance piece using the concept of centripetal force to reflect the complexity of professional induction, socialisation, and initiation.</p><p dir="ltr"><b><i>12 Beginning Teachers 12 Years Later</i></b> – a docudrama presented as both a film and a playlist of episodes, representing interviews with the original participants from <i>The First Time</i> as they reflect on their mid-career intentions to stay in or leave the teaching profession.</p><p dir="ltr">Together, these works demonstrate how arts-based research methods can illuminate the lived experiences of teachers in ways that are academically rigorous, publicly accessible, and emotionally resonant.</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">Monash Human Research Ethics Project ID: 18414</p>