Teacher Tales #12 – Teacher influence, trailblazing and advocacy: Dawn – French teacher, District Supervisor, Director MORE Professional Learning

In this episode, we meet Dawn, an accomplished and nationally renowned educator. As the daughter of missionary parents, Dawn’s learning journey began as a non-French speaking student in the French educational system. She talks about how she had to figure things out on her own and how there weren’t any support systems in place to help guide her. As such, this has sparked a passion in Dawn to be a trailblazer and advocate for figuring out what teachers and students need in order to become successful. She reflects on the lessons learned from teaching and learning in a pandemic, and says we must advocate for change. We must stop measuring ourselves against “what was” because that just will lead us back to old practices and misguided beliefs. Instead, we need to be strategic in our approach. Dawn calls herself a “disruptor” who goes down roads others haven’t traveled before. She says that it is uncomfortable at first, and even painful at times. We will make a lot of mistakes, BUT we also need to make room for those mistakes…room which can only be created through trust and healthy relationships. Finally, Dawn truly believes in the power and impact of a good teacher, mentor and true experts in the field. “We need to model and share and not be afraid to hold hands and build each other up” so that we can blaze a new trail in education!