This demonstration offers an experiential journey through a collaborative US/UK project drawing using techniques drawn from process drama, graphical art and narrative research to explore the developing identities of student teachers as they embark on the path of becoming the teacher they want to be. Participants will be guided through the process to share their own stories exploring the tensions that exist in being the teacher we wish to be and the teacher we feel we are required to be. The demonstration will follow Carl Bagley’s schema for research as performance in that it will offer ‘Space to Explain’; ‘Space to Perform’ and Space to Reflect’. The focus of this experience is on experiential learning The first part of this process we will use a 'process drama' technique which asks individuals to place peers to form a range of tableaux to express • A moment when I felt in control The group does not know what this image relates to but 'analyses' the 'image' as a way of drawing out emotional responses to the images. Participants then work in smaller groups to form narratives of their won which have been triggered by the experience This is repeated to express • A moment when I felt out of control We will then ask participants to analyse the narratives using these key questions • What does this tell me about what it is like to be a teacher at the present time? • What does this tell me about the nature of society and the • nature of teaching and learning? • What does this tell me about my practice and myself? The final reflective section will draw on the participant narratives and explore common themes within these narratives and the narratives of the student teachers from the institutions in the UK and the US

‘To be yourself is to be in process of creating a self, an identity’ (Maxine Greene 2000 p20). This demonstration draws on ideas of collaborative memory work first described by Michael Schratz and Rob Walker in Research as Social Change. Such memory work offers new ways of describing experience through a process which confronts our own tacit knowledge, and challenges common sense views of the world. The method described has been used in a collaborative research project engaging students in Universities in the US and the UK. John Dewey sees transitions are seen key points at which imagination can be used as a gateway to renewed ways of being in the world. The use of these techniques is also underpinned by Hannah Arendt’s idea that even though we are on common ground we have different locations on that ground.

The room will be configured as an alternative space in which the experience can take place. A brief contextualisation will offer a ‘space to explain’ so that participants have a shared learning space in which to embark on the experience. The group will then be taken through an experience of narrative building described in more detail below. Finally we will offer a ‘space to reflect’. The first part of this process we will use a 'process drama' technique which asks individuals to place peers to form a range of tableaux.Participants then work in smaller groups to form narratives of their own which have been triggered by the experience The final reflective section will draw on the participant narratives and explore common themes within these narratives and the narratives of the student teachers from the institutions in the UK and the US