To Live and Die as a Teacher

Abstract

There are many pathways and motivations in the decision to choose education as a career. For some, teaching is an innate quality that seemingly comes naturally. This chapter tells the story of this author's identity development as a teacher and lifelong learner from playing pretend schoolteacher to professor of graduate teacher education candidates. Told through the eyes of the author, and contextualized with memories and perspectives of others, this is the story of the early influential experiences that led to education as a career pathway, the loneliness of being a beginning teacher, the tribulations of young children cracking the code of literacy in elementary classrooms, the growing awareness of the inequities in our education system as a teacher leader, and the struggle to maintain an identity as a practitioner in academia. Along the way, the author highlights life lessons learned in each phase and how they aided her along her career path to higher education.