Maths, history, God, knitting and me: A reflexive bricolage of identity

Recent research into the lived experiences of out-of-field teachers aims to make recommendations for increasing the quality and effectiveness of the phenomenon of out-of-field teaching (Du Plesis, 2015, 2020; Hobbs et al., 2019). This chapter builds on this research by taking an autobiographical approach, seeking the embodied authentic voice of someone who has experienced teaching mathematics both in- and out-of-field. Using bricolage as methodology (Berry & Kincheloe, 2004) to reflect on my identity as a mathematician (Grootenboer et al., 2006), I explore how others have struggled to situate my passion for mathematics alongside my academic background in history, my creativity and my faith. I reveal a glorious, complex, sometimes contradictory, shifting, fuzzy bundle of intellectual, personal and professional interactions defying traditional subject boundaries. I conclude that the autobiography of one out-of-field teacher can shed light on the centrality of confidence and emotion to lived experience and the importance of the identity work undertaken by the out-of-field teacher (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009) and recommend that structures developed by policy makers and education leaders embrace the existing knowledges that out-of-field teachers bring with them as an opportunity, not a threat.