I always imagined I’d spend my career as an elementary school teacher. Becoming a professor? That was never part of my plan.
But then, during my own teacher education journey, I encountered some truly remarkable professors. Jan Riggsbee at Duke, who enrolled me in an independent study when I couldn't articulate my reasons for becoming a teacher, helping me find my voice as an undergrad. 🙏🏾 Icy Lee and Paul Sze at CUHK, who taught with such passion, clarity, and fervor while their research centered the lived experiences of teachers. 🙏🏾 Carol Benson at Columbia, who worked directly with teachers all over the world, showed me how to translate research and teaching to policymakers and advocacy. 🙏🏾 And Heather Woodley at NYU, who embodied meta-teaching practices, modeling the tenets of critical pedagogy that she preached to her teacher candidates. 🙏🏾
And so, my career took an unexpected turn when my wife and I went back to graduate school. I (somewhat reluctantly) left the classroom after six fulfilling years because I had developed countless questions about language education—questions about pedagogy, curriculum, systemic inequities, and global concerns about who gets to speak certain languages and how we prepare them to do so.
Transitioning to teaching adults—specifically pre-service teachers—was an adjustment, and not a day goes by that I don’t miss working with young children. But the potential and privilege of working with passionate teacher candidates who are eager to walk alongside and shape the lives of children is truly remarkable. Together, we consider how they might become a fierce advocate, a trusted role model, a speaker of truth, an educator to the children they teach. Teaching is such sacred work.
And so, with immense gratitude to the California Council on Teacher Education and the teacher candidates (now teachers!) who I've gotten to work with, I express my heartfelt thanks for this recognition and honor: the Outstanding Emerging Teacher Educator Award. It affirms and validates that while I'm no longer in the elementary classroom, my work in teacher education—through research, teaching, and service—is making a meaningful impact in the lives of students and teachers.
#TeacherEducation #TeachingJourney #LanguageEducation #PassionateEducators #LifelongLearning #TeacherImpact #FutureTeachers