Welcome to the summer edition of “The Educationalist”! You are here probably because you are interested in ideas and resources about teaching and learning, or more broadly, in discussions on where Higher Education is heading and what we can do about it. “Regular service” will resume in September, so don’t worry. But I would be grateful if you didn’t leave just yet. This summer edition is, seemingly, about something else. It’s about the stories we tell ourselves about our identity, and how wrong we often are. About rediscovering ourselves, in a different version. Surprising ourselves, even after many years, with new nuances. This year I finally put some more time and intention in developing my creative self, outside my field of work. Finding new ways of expression feels really freeing, moving from words to images, to colours, shapes, textures offers me a new playground that I am planning to explore in the near future (who knows, maybe in a dedicated newsletter :)). So this post (more of an essay, really) is a bit of a confession, but also hopefully a nudge for you to reflect on how much you can still learn about yourselves if you have the courage and the curiosity. You see, it’s all still about learning, just more inward looking this time. I hope you enjoy the read while having a cold drink by the pool or maybe on a quiet day in the forest. See you back on our educational carousel in September!
This line in the title comes from Walt Whitman's 1855 poetry collection “Song of Myself”. I found it really fitting for this reflection I’m sharing with you today.
We are never just one thing.
We are many things, and none of them defines us by itself. But at the same time, we cannot be fully defined without all of them.
Growing up, we are told we need to have a coherent story. The better you are at that, the more successful you will be. So we keep ourselves busy building it, as if there were only one identity. It’s funny to see how diligently we do that: we work on our CVs, we keep gathering evidence, all pointing to one direction. We specialise. We are set on our path.
But what if there are more stories? What if there’s a story that’s hidden behind the story, behind the narrative that’s so dominant because we made it dominant?
My other story
Born in a family of artists, I often described myself as the “non-artistic” one. I chose another path, studied politics, then moved into education, and the only moments when I would- remotely- describe myself as creative would be through photography, the only hobby that has followed me throughout my life. And yet. Growing up in an environment where art and beauty were highly valued and practiced has probably planted some seeds that were waiting to be nurtured so they can reveal themselves. I was just ignoring them because I was so busy building my own story.
The seeds are not a mere metaphor. Nature has in fact been the catalyst of this self-rediscovery. In the past years I’ve been intentionally spending more time in nature, both as a refuge/ happy place and as a source of inspiration.
My artistic practice revolves around my love of nature as a guide to deepen attention and spark creativity. I use and often mix various media to capture my observations of nature: photography, cyanotype, monoprinting, ikebana, creative writing and pottery. I believe that each medium and technique can help reveal the essence of what surrounds us: where words fail, a print of a leaf, a flower cast in clay or a picture of the sunrise colours can paint the picture perfectly.
As an educationalist, my job is to teach people how to learn, and learning all these different techniques has helped me broaden my perception and find new ways to express myself. While I did take some courses (mostly online, safe-paced) to become familiar with the new techniques, I mostly learned through full immersion in nature, deep observation, mindfulness, reflection and sustained practice.
Immersing myself in something new has given me the unique opportunity to use my “beginner’s mind”, to approach everything with curiosity and open heart, not afraid of making mistakes.
The fact that this is so remote from my profession and my everyday work eliminated the pressure and the barriers and allowed me to just have fun, experiment, play, be bad at it, and start again. This is a privilege we don’t often have, in a world that rewards perfection and often sanctions mistakes.
Being able to immediately see the results of my work has given me the kind of satisfaction we often miss in academia, specifically in research, when publishing an article can take years. It is similar, though, to seeing the “aha moments” in my students’ eyes when something clicked.
So now, I gently let that part of me out. I’m curious about it. I’m curious about me in that role, and I just let it play.
“None of us are ever finished. Everyone is always a work in progress.”
Haruki Murakami, “Killing Commendatore”
We mostly show people only a part of us—the “label” that we think will help us best connect with them. But we always connect as full humans. Full humans with passions, not just with a profession. Full humans with worries and fears, with hobbies, with guilty pleasures, with families, with luggage. We often edit these things out, and we think it works for us. But I think it often works against us. We limit ourselves. We reinforce those labels. When, actually, our essence is fluid.
This is the reason I chose to share this here. Here, in a space that I designed for a specific purpose and on a specific topic. I am learning how to embrace my different identities, indulge them separately and sometimes together, giving them a voice, sometimes playfully, other times more seriously. When reflecting on this, I came across Carl Jung’s concept of “individuation” and found it quite relatable (with the risk of making this post more philosophical than it needs to be :))
We are so many things.
There is never just the highway. There are many small roads, many cobblestone alleys that we walk along throughout our life. They are all important on our personal map.
It’s never just one path. It’s never just one me. It’s never just one you.
Are you curious to meet yourself, every day?
Yet again a really touching and helpful post. Since my retirement in 2020 I have reassessed my notion of identity which remains still bound up with the teacher I have been throughout 30+ years. Now I also find my notion of advocacy for learning technology challenged by the appearance of AI. https://teresa-nextsteps.blogspot.com/2026/08/pick-side.html
I love the idea of the “story behind the story”, especially the way you describe discovering an artistic self that had been there all along. It also makes me wonder whether some parts of ourselves are not simply waiting to be discovered, but come into being through the relationships and practices we enter. Perhaps the cyanotype, the leaf, the clay, the act of observing nature don't only reveal another version of you — they participate in making that version possible.
Maybe this is another reason why identities can remain fluid: we don't only discover ourselves; we keep becoming different versions of ourselves through what we attend to, practice and relate to.