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Abstract

Drawing from the notion of autoethnography as pedagogy (Banks & Banks, 2000), the purpose of this thesis is to ignite a process of reflexivity through writing and re-writing the self (Gouzouasis, 2020) as I recollect and write my own lived experiences as an Early Childhood Educator (ECE) and artist teaching and creating during the initial year of the COVID-19 pandemic. By adopting autoethnographic and a/r/tographic practices, I aim to examine the concept of ‘becoming enìlikogical’, noting the distinction of enìlikogy as the study of adult-oriented learning (Gouzouasis, 2019). Thus, the act of storying my own processes of teaching and learning serves to invite a reflexive inquiry in an enìlikogical sense. I aim to not only inform transformative growth on a personal level but also to initiate dialogue around the complex experiences of Early Childhood Educators, illustrate the relationality of ECE praxis, and to promote a culture of reflexivity in the field of ECE. My intention is to redefine my practice and identity as an educator through this process, as I reflexively examine (1) how my identity and pedagogical practice have shifted in the context of a global pandemic, (2) how my practices as an artist, educator, and researcher intersect with each other, and (3) how a ‘living curriculum’ may be invited or suppressed within the milieu of a pandemic. Over the course of a year, I engaged in various creative practices to capture my own lived experiences of teaching in the age of a global pandemic. This inquiry is predominantly centred around a series of short ‘factional’ stories (Gouzouasis & Ryu, 2015) written in the genre of creative nonfiction, a feature of contemporary autoethnography. Additionally, I integrate elements of poetic inquiry, photography, and aligned textile arts to deepen my reflexive inquiry and position my work as a/r/tography. Storying my experiences, whether through creative nonfiction, poetry, or visual text, reveals an avenue for embracing my practice as a form of ‘living inquiry’ (Aoki, 2005).