Sharing your “Teacher Self”

mirror-reflection-in-sphere2A bit of a reflective post today while I pack and then head off to TESOL Toronto.

Looking forward to seeing many “teaching friends”. It’s put me in a contemplative mood, about my journey as an educator. About saying who we are as teachers and shining that light into the dark to lead others.

One of the invaluable things a teacher can do is pass on the torch, to help the next generation of teachers. This can be done many ways. Through becoming a mentor, by sharing with colleagues, by becoming a teacher trainer, through writing and reflection. Our lives as teachers touch so many others and the more we do touch, the more we benefit the age we live in – the little green plot of grass upon time’s wind swept hill we tend.

I’ve tried in my writings over the years, to share myself personally and in that way, mentor fellow teachers coming up the ranks. See a few of them HERE. Also, a very well read post, “What I know now but didn’t know then“.

Looking at my life now, as if from a mountain top, it all seems so improbably. Traveling the world, speaking to audiences, having a platform to be heard/listened to, teaching here, teaching there – in a word, FREEDOM. It is as if a dream. I’ve really mucked about during my 25 years teaching and made some very hard decisions along the way. Decisions always in favor of the unknown rather than staying put and just staying in one place. For me, its worked, I need that change to feed my soul and really be alive. The present must be filled with a lot of teaching possibility for me – that’s how I define freedom as a teacher.

I recently left the world of academia and ventured out to help build a company (a long post and story there) and make my way however I might as an educator, speaker, consultant, edupreneur. Lots of hard work but so rewarding and full of self-discovery. It’s working out and I’ve no regrets forsaking the security and repetition of the “standard” university classroom. I love a place, the now, filled with the future, however contradictory that might sound. Just didn’t find it in a regular, workaday university. I’m continuing to muck about and will continue to share my teacher self in the hopes it might inspire other teachers.

I highly recommend sharing your own teaching story. Please do and let us know when it’s been told. Vicky Loras has a nice series of these on her blog. Take some time to read one or two. Great for your teaching soul.

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ddeubel

Teacher trainer, technology specialist, educational thinker...creator of EFL Classroom 2.0, a social networking site for thousands of EFL / ESL teachers and students around the world.

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