What does “teacher identity” mean to you? What does your identity look like at this phase in your career as a teacher?

My understanding of teacher identity changed in response to this course and the professionalism conversation that continued through the course and as I learn more about the history of teaching broadly and locally. At this point my identity is still very vague, I have a passion to bridge the gap between interest and understanding in science for my students but and just starting to learn of all the difficulties and frameworks that must be accommodated in order to bring good teaching to my future students.           

How did the type of school I was in shape my high school experience?

My high school gave me a greater sense of trust in schools and belonging than I think most students experience. I went to Murray, a large and technical collegiate in the city which defined my expectations of high school.  I was in what is now called SAGE which gave a consistent cohort of classmates for my main subjects but had a huge amount of options for my elective courses which were all well resourced. I think this allowed me to form a lot of connections to different people and find belonging despite being a weird kid (like all kids) without having to change myself.

I feel that this experience is one that not all people have, especially in smaller communities where options are limited, and the social sphere is much narrower. I must remind myself that bad experiences were not rare for everyone and that stereotypical terrible high school are not only in movies.