"Miles to go before I sleep"- Background & Experiences

  My Professional Growth Plan

I dreamt of writing a book when I was in primary grade. I wanted to emulate and create a fantasy and mesmerizing world like Harry Potter. The ambition of becoming a journalist captured my interest in high school. I enrolled in Mass Communications in college and guess what I am now? A Primary Vice Principal and English teacher. Much of me becoming a teacher was accidental. I did not aspire to be a teacher. I think like most people I too assumed that being a teacher is an “easy” job and isn’t a challenging or growth oriented profession. During my first year as a teacher, I realized that teachers are not made but are born. Becoming a teacher is not measured by whether one has majored in a certain field or has had aspirations of being a teacher since day one. What makes all of us teachers is the same passion and love we feel for the students when we step inside a classroom. The mission to mold kids and allow them to give their best. This continues to be my motivation even after being in the education space for nine years now. After completing my first year as an educator, I stayed rooted to my passion for teaching. I realized that it was my true calling as I cherished my interactions with the kids and felt like I was making a positive impact in their lives.

With time my career coincidentally evolved. Throughout the journey thus far, I have learnt a great deal about effective teaching from things that worked and didn’t work in my classroom. In addition, partnership with my colleagues and teacher friends who seek professional growth and have high aspirations for themselves as educators have contributed greatly to being an effective teacher. My growing commitment to the education space comes from the fact that I want to be a ‘change maker’ in the education space. One way of doing this is by imparting good values as we build lifetime learners. As educators it is essential to bring about social change by leading kids to think critically and look for solutions to problems in ways that require compassion and imagination rather than force and anger (Walden University, 2017). As I work with kids on these things, I have started practicing these skills too. I have become better at thinking critically and looking for compassionate and imaginative solutions (Nieto, 2014). 

Last day of school with my Grade 2 students

To pursue my passion to teach, I must develop my passion and enrolling in the MSED program will help me with this. According to Walden University (2016), it is essential to engage in Professional Development/Growth. As an educator, I started to realize that I had to engage in scholarly continuous learning and interaction with educators from other parts of the world to be able to level up existing knowledge, build credibility and learn new skills. So far, it has been such a wonderful experience and with just six weeks into the program, I believe that I have gained a scholarly approach to teaching, learnt from the experiences and stories of other educators. I believe that pursuing a MSED program has been one of the best decisions of my life and I have my family to thank for this as they have been the source of inspiration for me to enroll and finally pursue a MSED program. My family planted the seed of thought into my mind and then the teacher in me thought about how this could possibly be a good idea  to develop myself as an educator and eventually discover new ways to improve my teaching skills and keep up with the changes and advances in the education space. In the future, I see myself as a school leader who is positively impacting student learning and a MSED program is my first step towards that vision. As a school leader, I hope to develop an instructional model, build assessment in the school, implement personalized strategies, practice competency based education and self-directed learning practices. All these changes in the learning environment can be made if I start to equip myself with the necessary skills and knowledge. 

Music Appreciation Night 

According to Castro et al. (2022), an education professional’s identity is formed through  sociocultural  practical experiences. I agree with this as I believe that our professional identity as educators  is partly formed by our sociocultural experiences. It starts with our own relationship with education and our teachers as children. When I reflect on my favorite teachers from school, I can associate them as professionals. They were fun, made lessons interactive and adjusted lessons when needed. They stayed calm in stressful situations and most importantly they were always there for their students’, engaging in learning alongside so they could expand their knowledge. My definition of an education professional stems from these experiences. The artifact below is a memento that I received last year during Graduation. It was awarded to me based on the votes of the students. The fact that I was able to forge a deep and respectful relationship with the students made me feel great. It made me realize that the essence of teaching is being a good listener, showing up for your students and a balance of freedom and structured academic disciplines.

Graduation Memento