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Volume 22, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 1743-5234
  • E-ISSN: 2040-090X

Abstract

This article explores the intersections of personal grief, secondary trauma and compassion fatigue within the teaching profession, drawing from my experience as a K–12 art teacher who returned to work shortly after a family loss. I use visual autoethnography and arts-based research to examine how trauma shaped my pedagogical presence and emotional capacity. Through mixed-media artworks, woodcut, painting and digital collage, artmaking became a site of inquiry and reflection, allowing emotions that resisted language to surface visually. Grounded in trauma-informed pedagogy, this research highlights the often-invisible emotional labour of teachers and repositions artmaking as a reflective method for sustaining well-being and professional growth. It contributes to discussions about teacher care, emotional resilience and the ethical possibilities of art-based reflection. Ultimately, this study offers both personal and pedagogical insights into how visual storytelling can serve as a tool for healing, meaning-making and humanity in emotionally demanding educational contexts.

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/content/journals/10.1386/eta_00221_1
2026-03-09
2026-04-22

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