Teacher Identity

Before reading Early Career English Teachers in Action I never really thought about the different aspects that have to be put in to find a teacher identity. Honestly I never really thought about teacher identity at all. In Chapter 5 it talks all about finding your teacher identity within yourself and within others around you like other teachers, family, and even the students. I guess it makes sense now thinking about how different those all are.

The way you act with your fellow teachers would be completely different from the way you act around your students in and out of the classroom. https://ed.psu.edu/englishpds/inquiry/projects/yerkes04.htm this link is written by Krista Yerkes during her first year teaching and in she writes about how she found her teacher identity. During the paper she splits it up into different questions she was to answer. Two of the different questions are the difference between who Krista is and who Mrs. Yerkes is. Although it is the same person she is talking about they have to be separated and different when it comes to being a teacher. The way we interact with our friends and family is completely different than the way we should act with our students. Of course we can use personal stories to tie into what we are teaching but there are time when we have to realize our boundaries and what is an appropriate way to act in front of the students.

I liked reading the stories from chapter five, I think it was a good thing to read about new teachers and how they were on their first day and how they struggled with finding their identity. It was refreshing learning about how everyone isn’t perfect, and that some people do fail. But then other who don’t and make it past five plus years of teaching who have found what works for them and found their teacher identities.