This weekend at ASCD’s Empower 17 conference Deb Delisle shared this quote from Jill Biden during the opening session. As she shared it, you could hear the collective agreement of the 7,000 educators in the room. You could feel the comfort we all felt being in a space with others who understood this sentiment to their core.

I have thought about this very idea a lot lately as I navigate a transition in my role. I have written a few times on this blog about how teaching found me. For years I told myself teaching was a temporary gig. I always figured one day I would be working in a cultural institution of some sort. But, eventually education grabbed hold of me and I don’t see it letting go…ever.

Yesterday I ended my Empower experience with Neil Gupta’s session on Transformational Leadership. He spoke about the importance of building clarity by not only writing down our core educational values, but also articulating them to our colleagues. Those core values define who we are as educators. They ground us in our practice. For many of us they make teaching who we are and not what we do. But, how often do we share these values with our students and our colleagues? How often do we think about how these core beliefs shape our teaching and our decision making?

So I have decided to re-calibrate over the next few days and write about my core beliefs, how I came to them, and how they guide my practice.