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I had an amazing high school teacher who took the time to get to know me and motivated me to go to university to follow my passion. Now I am a teacher like her because of her support.

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Hockey coach. She had high standards and pushed me to be better. She didn't stand out as kind or friendly, but she was authentic and highly skilled in her area of knowledge. She commanded respect because if she felt I wasn't improving in a particular area, she would invest one on one time to model what she wanted me to do. In short, she didn't give up on me.

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My percussion instructor took the time to get to know us and showed regularly that he valued our various and individual contributions to the team. He allowed us to step up and lead ourselves and was also really attentive to our needs. He did a fantastic job of balancing pushing us to achieve more and supporting us as we tried.

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Dr. Dave was a wonderful teacher, and I first recognized this because he was one of my only teachers at the time that gave us opportunities to make up our 0's with extra work, which was a sign to me that he had our best interests at heart. Next, he allowed us every Friday to work on an independent creative projects related to ancient roman culture, and let us figure out how to execute them ourselves. Those projects were ultimately the ones I worked hardest on and exceeded expectations because there were no minimum requirements to meet. I looked forward to his class because once every few months we would have a learning experience that was exciting and interactive, and knowing the class content made those experiences even more fun.

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One of my high school teachers was passionate about her subject, but also learning, and this was inspirational for her students. She was fun, but also firm and with expectations and boundaries that we respected. She encouraged me to not be complacent and extend myself and my learning, in a way that I always appreciated. I realised later that aspects of my teaching style are modelled on her.

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I wouldn't have usually thought of Mr. Brown, but the other night in helping my son develop the patience needed to complement his determination to learn how to play trombone. Mr. Brown comes to mind because he cared enough to get angry enough to push us but not scare us, to laugh when his baton broke because he was so passionate about us doing well. He was authentic in his care and that is what sticks with me.

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My high school band director had a great influence on me. He pushed me to perform at higher levels of competitive performance with my saxophone, but he also cared about how students were doing overall and took interest in how students were doing in their classes. During stretches when I was not always doing well in my classes, he encouraged me to incorporate more strategies for learning and to seek out my teachers for help. He always emphasised the importance of consistency, effort, respect for others, and collaboration.

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HS coach and PE teacher who took time to talk to students, get to know us and supported what we wanted to do in our student council. He helped me get through some challenges with other teachers and would talk to us in a way that made us feel like we belonded.

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She was our dorm supervisor in High school, and went above and beyond with us - She always had time to chat about things that were important to us and had the magic balance of keeping us focused on our education but also had so much fun. She created a community with the walls of our dorms that made us all feel like family no matter where we were coming from. Thanks to Facebook, she is now a friend!

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I just spent an embarrassing amount of time on Facebook pouring through my old photos hoping I would find a picture of my beloved XC coach. I had just gotten a digital camera AND a facebook (lucky me), so there are quite some old treasures on there. I couldn't find any.

My cross country coach was very much an inspiration to me. I was never on varsity, I was never very good. But she still paid me the same amount of attention and pushed me and encouraged me. She got me to run through some pretty heavy stuff that was going on in my life during high school. She was my coach all 4 years, and has continued to keep in touch after I graduated.

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I had a middle school Drama and Life Skills teacher we'll call "Mr. P". He had a massively outsized personality and pushed his students to be great. He was a coach and often had a coach's affect, which might seem out of place in a drama classroom, but it was such a wonderful challenge to traditional gender roles to see a masculine teacher talk about emotions, relationships, and conveying both through performance. I was a shy, quiet kid but a very dedicated actor, and Mr. P saw that immediately. He pushed me into ambitious roles I would've never had the bravery to take on otherwise, even encouraging me to take the starring role in multiple productions in 8th grade. This padlet got me wondering about him, so I looked him up on social media and we've reconnected after more than 20 years! Thanks for that!

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My creative writing teacher in college was hugely influential to me and not because of anything specific she taught in class about the technical aspects of writing, but entirely because she saw writing as a personal endeavor and sought to connect with each student on a personal level. I flourished as a writer in her class, but can't remember anything specifically she taught me about writing. I just knew she cared equally about me and my writing and saw how the personal was connected to the educational. I've tried to mimic her approach when I work with my students.

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My high school biology teacher was so passionate about biology. She thought it was fascinating, and complicated, and she wanted us to appreciate this as much as she did. I think people always valued her because of her expectations she had of us. She cared us about doing well and wanted to prepare us. But she also worked so hard herself that we also did. She also had our AP class over to her house one night a week for a few months leading up to the AP exam. I feel like she might've even cooked us all dinner! Or maybe we brought food to share, but we all ate dinner together halfway through the review. There was something so cool about that and like a right of passage. We were all working hard together, but that closeness and time outside of school working toward the same thing was really a bonding experience.

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When I was writing my undergraduate thesis, my adviser was an inspiration to me. Her name is Prof. Rose Eusebio. She was the key on how I was able to get through two difficult semesters in my Uni and how she motivated me to keep pushing and inspired me to become a better teacher.

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Unfortunately, I did not have a trusted adult at my high school who I felt understood me or pushed me to be the best version of myself. This was very lonely journey for me that I had to navigate by myself. I mostly relied on my friends for guidance and support, and they would tell me if I was screwing up..and it wasn't until my credential program in my mid-twenties did I have not one, but a group of professors that I considered mentors, who understood me, made me feel heard and valued, and made a huge impact on me and my career.

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My Year 13 Physics teacher, Deb Pressage

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My Year 13 Physics teacher, Deb Pressage

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I was failing Physics in Year 12, luckily I got a different, fabulous teacher for Y13. It was the first female Physics teacher I ever had and she made me feel very seen when I had (with hindsight) been having my first experience of 'girl's can't do Physics'. I think she decided that the only female student in a Physics cohort of 40+ wasn't going to fail, so she pushed me incredibly hard (and sometimes stressfully) in Year 13. I now have a BSc/MSc in Physics so it worked. She was the definition of a warm demander - not a friend, just exactly who I needed right then.

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Mr. + Mrs. Buck listened to me and treated me like an adult who could make her own decisions. My senior year they gave me a key to the TV studio and told me to use it any time (even for naps if I was having a rough day). They gave me honest feedback on my work and pushed me to succeed. They are still important people in my life.