Struggle, doubt, and post-graduate clarity: becoming the teacher you're destined to be.

Remember as you went through university, your lecturers spoke about teaching like they all knew you would have a future in teaching? They spoke about teaching philosophies like you could readily remember what yours was at any time. They expected you to grasp learning theories and apply them to practices or connect them to teaching and learning models. You were constantly expected to discuss and justify the best approaches in seminars and have debates to see multiple views of education.

All of these conversations with no students, limited experiences with young people and maybe if you were at the stage of your practical placements you would have some classroom experiences and approaches to base your thinking upon. Early on in your pre-service years you are slowing piecing together what it means to be a teacher. You're constantly questioning yourself while writing assignments "Do I know what I am talking about?" or "Do I have what it takes?" So many questions that doubt your capability. What you may not realise, is that all your classmates studying with you would be having the same, early struggles. They too are trying to navigate the theory, the approaches, preparing for the diversity in students that you will come across and the uncertainty of who you will become as a teacher. This is all part of the elusive and complex journey.

There are many uncertainties. But one certainty, one thing that you're sure to keep close to you the whole time, is your core values of your identity. You are unapologetically you in the whole process, while you are sharing your journey with other budding teachers, you are on your own unique journey of finding your potential as a teacher. Sure, you might not have developed a comprehensive understanding of learning theories, models and policies and followed them to a 'T' when writing assignments and into your professional experience placements. But what you do have is a strong set of core values that help you develop professionally and personally. You've stayed true to yourself and those values the whole time, while simultaneously developing a repertoire of teaching skills and approaches to have the capability to teach.

You will have graduated knowing that you gave your everything to each challenge with what you had at the time. Each assignment, placement and experience building upon the last, while as you progress you are continually developing and refining your philosophy of education and professional practice. Maybe some of that learning theory is becoming more clear to you now than before. You’ll continue discovering your capabilities, your strengths, areas you can see the need for development and discovering your passion for teaching. Maybe you will have discovered an area of interest? A subject you love to teach. Maybe you just love being a generalist teacher and helping students in every which way. You will now have a sense of clarity with who you are as a teacher. Whatever challenges will be thrown your way, you have the values, skills and a passion to keep moving forward. Overcoming the next set of challenges. Thinking back to where you began, those struggles, doubts and even fears have made you who you are today, the values you stood by brought you here. Resilient, brave and ambitious, ready for what the future of education will hold.