ABSTRACT
There’s definitely not a dull moment during the day . . . but in saying that I can normally contain all my after-school work to the weekend. Because you just get too tired otherwise, you can’t do it, you’ve got to get home, I have got three young children, got a farm to organise, food to cook . . . [Stephanie]
Attending to bodily energy levels during the school day relies on teachers listening to their bodies, as was discussed in Chapter 7 in the section on caring for the self. More importantly, as teachers we listen to our own bodies and, in doing so, become aware of ourselves as teachers – of our identity as teachers and what it means to be a teacher (Macintyre Latta and Buck, 2008). Eight aspects of teaching as an embodied practice are now discussed in turn. First, by considering teaching as an embodied practice, we are viewing the body and mind in a relational way, and no longer ignoring the body as in the Cartesian body-mind split. Centrality is given to situated knowledge that is inscribed in the flesh, with no ‘separation of mind and body, thought and feeling, creativity and existence’ (Shapiro, 1999: xiii). The body/subject can be seen as a means for producing pedagogical knowledge and practices through an engagement with our own body experiences and memories (Shapiro, 1999). In this view, we are constructing the knowing mind, the knowing heart (emotions) and the knowing body as one. For example, experienced teacher Megan discussed teaching as an embodied practice when talking about how her non-verbal (bodily) behaviour communicated to students:
not a random or arbitrary set of genetic material – it recognises the material conditions of race, gender, sexuality, ability, history and culture. Embodiment therefore indicates a holistic experiencing individual (Barbour 2006: 87).
