The aha moment defined as "a moment of clarity, a defining moment where you gain real wisdom - wisdom you can use to change your life."
After 4 years of slogging through a philosophy degree at the University of Toronto in the continual challenge to answer the question of 'how do you know your right?', it all came down to a simple "aha!" Simple in theory, but bassed on so many conditions: our nature, our nurture, our collective and personal experiences all leading us to this supposed point of clarity. Concepts that are not fixed but fluid, continually shifting and changing. A concept of morality that is both liberating in its individual freedom and at the same time frightening, because it presupposes that as citizens of the world we may never come to the same conclusions about the nature of right and wrong.
Don't worry, I can already hear the groans at the mention of philosophy. 4 Years of worrying that I better perfect my ability to say "and would you like fries with that?" I had difficulty, as I am sure many philosophy students can attest, imaging a job or career at the end of my degree. I toyed with the idea law school, graduate studies in ethics, starting all over again in a major that was more ... practical. But at the end of my 4 years, I put practicality aside and thought what do I love to do?
And it didn't come from philosophy. It just came from having fun. Throughout my teen years I had been a coach, a camp counsellor, a snowboard instructor ... all periods in my life when I felt pure joy with what I was doing. The career of teaching had never really occurred to me as my own school experience had been a hard road. A learning disability, a propensity to always see things differently than my peers, a stubbornness in my convictions, and questions about my own sexual identity, all creating the perfect storm for a difficult school experience.
Yet the desire to teach, to reach out, to help, to explain the world around me that wasn't something I couldn't ignore. So in an "aha moment' I decided that I wanted to learn how to be a teacher. And what a journey it has been: as an inner city school teacher, an alternate school teacher, and indigenous and rural educator, a school and district administrator, and a presenter in the filed of Special Education and Behaviour Support. My carrer has taken me from Toronto, to Sydney Australia, Figi, the UK, to the far north of Canada and final home to the Pacific North West, to Vancouver B.C where I proudly work as a Vice Principal at Glenwood Elementary School in Maple Ridge. My journey in teaching has been epically emotional, exhausting, fulfilling, joyous, and life altering; something that I never could have dreamed or imagined.
Yet, even after 15 years of an amazing career I still reflect back on a system of schooling that was in its nature broken for me. With the best intentions of making education individualized and engaging I see my own students struggling with the same things I did over 20 years ago. So here I find myself, reflecting back on my days as a philosophy student asking once again, 'how do we know we are right?' My hope for this Blog is that it is a place where I can write, reflect, and challenge myself as an educator, and in turn allow myself to be challenged by others... all in the hope of that "aha moment" where I know that we can get it right for kids.
