I work with college students who are being prepared to become teachers. As such, they are always in a state of "becoming." As they learn I know that they wrestle with their identities - who are they? Students or teachers? How do they transition from being a good college student to a good teacher? Is the shift obvious or does it happen subtly over time? After all, just because you walk in a graduation ceremony doesn't mean you're suddenly a good teacher.
Every one of our journeys follow a similar path. Just because I wore a white dress and exchanged vows in a ceremony didn't mean I really knew how to be a wife. Just because I went through the pains of labor didn't mean I knew what it took to be a mom. And when I had my first book published didn't mean I knew all that it took to be a good author.
Experience teaches.
Are you open to the experiences that help shape who you are "becoming"? Can you allow those placed in your life to trigger your transformation? Will you recognize what it is that you lack and seek out what it takes to live out your new roles and responsibilities? It's up to you - we are participants in our own transformations. It doesn't happen "to" us - it happens "with" us.
Parents, students, administrators, and the general public all contribute to a teacher's professional identity. Our interactions with and on behalf of kids transform us.
Who in your life is participating in your transformation?
1 comments:
Eighteen years after graduating from an excellent education program at a liberal arts college--a Christian one--I am still "becoming" as a teacher. God's refining fires have been on me in some painful ways much of the last three years, in particular, as he teaches me that I have not yet "arrived" and still have much to learn!
Experience certainly does teach, and it is aided by fellow educators that are willing to be vulnerable with me in an exchange of ideas and trust that builds one another up to become better teachers. By learning together and teaching one another we are more equipped today than yesterday. Humility and trust have been keys that have unlocked doors to learning for my friends and me.
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