Who are you when you teach?

Most academics join education as a scholar, a professional or both. We start our professional lives as a biomedical researcher, an allied health practitioner, an engineer, a historian, an architect (the list goes on!) and at some point, through choice or circumstance, find ourselves a teacher.

When you start teaching, you set out to be the best teacher that you can be. Initially, you draw on your own experience as a student. You model your teaching on the teachers and approaches that worked for you, and do things differently from the ones that didn’t. You might look to your peers to see what they are doing.

In these stages of growth, when we think of becoming a better teacher, we often focus on what we can do. You think of enhancing the learning resources and activities that you provide to students. Perhaps you replace didactic lectures with chunked online videos or incorporate gamification into learning activities, examples of literature-backed modifications that you know can deepen student learning. 

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Teaching, though, is more than the delivery of a product. It sits under the broader umbrella of being an educator, where we teach, design, mentor, support, care and lead. Our personal identities, values and experiences inevitably shape how we approach each of these multifaceted roles. While it is essential to reflect on what we do, we must also consider who we are.

‘I am an educator’

By embodying the many roles of an educator, while knowing that they are shaped by who we are inside and outside work, we bring authenticity to our practice. This, in and of itself, can directly impact student learning. But its influence can extend beyond this immediate benefit. Feeling that our personal and professional selves are aligned can, in turn, strengthen our sense of educator identity. 

As we cultivate our educator identity, we lay the foundation for the transition from being a professional who teaches to a teaching professional. An educator identity empowers us to seek opportunities to further our educational practice. Just as scholarly practice and research defined our expertise in our original discipline, engaging with pedagogic theory and literature provides the foundation for educational expertise. 

Through valuing and embracing this identity, we link our ambition and professional drive to the pursuit of educational excellence. When we see ourselves as educators and declare our identity with pride, we are motivated to be the best that we can be. This desire fuels a commitment to continuous improvement, driving us to engage in reflective practice, evaluation and scholarship, advancing both our own teaching and the field more broadly.

Educator identity shapes how we engage with our own practice as well as the learning environment we create. When educators show up authentically, we foster connections with and between our students. This creates fertile ground for students to engage, take risks and become active partners in their learning. When we adopt literature-informed approaches and reflect on our practice, we model a commitment to learning and growth, encouraging our students to develop these same qualities.

The spectrum of identity 

Developing an educator identity and determining how we want to express it is an individual journey. While incredibly rewarding, it is not without its challenges. One is a fear of loss, of having this new identity erase one that we may have held firmly to throughout our professional lives. This false dichotomy can prevent our taking the steps to allow the fullest receipt of the benefits outlined above. 

For many of us, when we think of adopting a professional identity, the metaphor of putting on a hat may come to mind. We might, for example, put our “lawyer hat” on when representing a client. Developing an educator identity could be thought of as getting a new hat to wear. You might be tempted to think that you put your “educator hat” on when you enter the classroom or design curricula. To do this, you would first have to take off the other hat you had on, a hat that you may have worn for a long time and still feel connected to. 

Rather than this, perhaps professional identity could be better thought of as a blending of colours. Just as blue and yellow do not remain separate colours when blended, a clinician who becomes an educator may develop a clinician-educator identity that is different from having a clinician and an educator identity. The result is not simply two identities existing side by side, or the replacement of these with a singular distinct identity, but a spectrum of identity. In different situations and different life stages, we can navigate this identity spectrum to leverage the strengths and synergies of each wavelength.

Becoming a better teacher, then, is more than improving what we do. It is about developing an educator identity, shaped by our personal and professional experiences. In doing so, we create the foundation to transform our practice, the learning environment and, ultimately, student outcomes. 

The development of an educator identity and its integration with an existing professional identity is personal and iterative. Acknowledging that everyone’s path to identity is different, we share three recommendations and experiences that have shaped the identities of the authors:

1. Identify your personal values

Complete a values exercise to identify three key values that guide you. For each value, consider how you could express this through your practice as an educator.

2. Discuss your professional identity with a critical friend

Coming to education from different professional backgrounds, we found that we conceptualise the relationship between our professional identities differently. Discussing these differences helped us refine our own identities.

3. Engage broadly with identity literature

Looking at the education identity literature, and beyond, can provide language and perspectives that will help you form and articulate your own sense of identity. We suggest reading up on developing your teacher identity, how postgraduate qualifications can influence it, perspectives on how identity forms and changes, and how to combine professional and personal identities.