ABSTRACT
This chapter is rooted in the personal experience of a further education (FE) Tutor and explores the early dreams and desires of a trainee teacher, swaddled tightly, naïve to the true complexities of teaching in the FE Sector and the subliminal undertones of a profession ablaze with power battles and governed by regimes of truth. Through revisiting the tutor’s earlier experiences and position (whilst undertaking Initial Teacher Education) and journeying through her ever-changing identity, the chapter unearths the underlying theoretical tune that makes sense of these experiences and awakens her true position and stance with respect to her identity as an FE tutor.
Moving forward, in her new role as a co-ordinator in the IQA team at an FE institution, it is there that the world of ‘performativity’ awakens. Her experiences echo what Lyotard refers to as “the law of contradiction” (Ball, 2003: 221) whereby the demands of first-order activities – relating to the day-to-day role of an FE tutor – are in direct competition with the demands of her newly acquired second-order activities – relating to performance management, audits and other similar performance measuring activities. It is during this phase of her career that she experiences for the first time “institutional schizophrenia” (Blackmore and Sachs, 1997).
