The entire life cycle of the plant has so much intricacy and beauty. People literally marvel over the beauty of the flower and pray and give thanks for the deliciousness of the fruit. I believe the unsung hero is the seed. After surviving the elements, the plant comes full circle to give some of the life it was once given, through the seed.

I compare the life of a teacher to that of a plant; growing, struggling at times and thriving in others. Like the plant, although we are eager to feed our students the fruit of knowledge, that is not what they need from us. Our students need to have experiences and stories of their own: they need the seed, the potential to learn and to grow without us.

~ Investigate educational theories and philosophies to inform their practice ~

At the beginning of this two-year journey, we were asked to put ourselves along a continuum for each capacity, to try to reflect about where we saw ourselves in relation to our goals. I distinctly remember this activity and taking that sticky note and placing it as low as I could along the capacity to “investigate educational theories and philosophies to inform our practice.” At the time, I even struggled to make sense of what it meant, let alone find examples of how I might be building my capacity to do so. Two years later, I am surprised to find myself in a place where I feel that this is the capacity in which I have grown the most. It is difficult to pin-point any one event or experience that helped me develop this capacity, rather it feels like an awakening. An awakening of my own potential and an understanding for what it takes to tap into it. Being a teacher, I have learned, is a constant evolution that includes questioning every single value we stand on. Over the last few years of being a practicing teacher and through the GDE program, I have come to understand the importance of metamorphosizing in our roles as and how critical it is to question the way that we do things, the way that we see things, and the way that we are.

Today we strive to develop students whom we might consider to be 21st-century learners (Butler, Schnellert, & Perry, 2017): students who possess several competencies that allow them to navigate and work in a faced-paced, ever-changing world. We stress the need for adaptability, flexibility, and creative ways of thinking. Yet, despite such high expectations for our students, the way we do our work as teachers can be slow to change. Although we have a 21st-century vision, we sometimes feel like we lack the expertise, resources, or time to really be the kind of teachers who can foster a 21st-century mindset. In my own job as a resource teacher, I understand the resistance to change and the fear of being challenged to do something that we aren’t always sure we know how to do. The difference now is that I understand why I need to do it. I understand now that I truly must be part of the change that I want to see in my students and that I have to come out of my comfort zone and seek to improve myself first. I see that I can do this through continuing to explore different educational theories so that I can challenge my own beliefs and thinking. I think this is done through a continued dedication to inquiry and reflection and through teaching in a way that develops those same capacities in our students. As Nikos Kazantzakis eloquently describes in his work Bridging English: “True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own” (as cited in Lewkowich, 2019, p. 5).