This synthesis is a reflective narrative scaffolded by three years of living and learning in a culture of thinking. I designed it to function as a record of my personal thinking evolution that I can refer back when I need inspiration months or years from now, as it defines where I was when I arrived, includes salient highlights from my three years in the program and ends with future directions. I came to CCT as a discouraged teacher confused about my future in education and frustrated with the rigorous demands of preparing students for high stakes testing. Learning to employ reflective thinking tools like freewriting and mind mapping led to significant personal discoveries, through which I came to a deep level of self-understanding. While I tried to avoid the difficult emotions that accompanied teaching in a poverty stricken urban school district, they covertly influenced my thinking, leading me to question who I was and whether teaching was the right career choice for me. Unpacking my emotional history was an exercise in self-definition. I am an educator at heart and the learning I did and support I received from peers in the CCT program enables me to go forward to find my niche teaching others.
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