Unlearning my communication pedagogy through poetic inquiry

Abstract

Feeling disenchanted with my communication pedagogy to undergraduate students at a university of technology, I searched for a means to improve my practices. Poetic inquiry assisted in unveiling how my personal and professional lived experiences had moulded my lecturer self and negatively influenced my communication practices. The reflexive writing of poems created an imaginative space in which embedded values and assumptions could be excavated, and the complexity of my entrenched beliefs made visible. The creative space helped crystallise my thinking and generate fresh insights into my white race and class privilege. New interpretations of how a merging of my personal and professional identities could improve my classroom teaching and learning were evoked through poetic inquiry. Furthermore, as a form of analysis, it served to disrupt ingrained instrumentalist patterns of thinking and acting whilst enabling a more imaginative envisioning of my communication pedagogy.