INTRODUCTION

Pointing Ahead:

A narrative of the Master of Education program goals

George Bernard Shaw once said, “I'm not a teacher: only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead - ahead of myself as well as you” (Shaw, 2015).  As a playwright and an author, Shaw had an outlook that suggested that learning is not one that is meant for the student alone.  Being an educator is about looking ahead and challenging one’s pedagogy in order to enable learning.  Throughout my journey in the Master of Education program at Wilfrid Laurier University, I have engaged with many texts, professors and colleagues that have expanded my understanding of education on many levels.  I came into this program with preconceived notions of what education means; I believed that the current education system is an institution with students’ best interests in mind and that the framework of education was developed to help students achieve their highest aspirations.  I would not have believed George Bernard Shaw’s quip about what educators should aspire to become.  However, throughout the program, I have grown as a student and an educator and now see education as a system that requires educators to constantly reflect upon their practices in order to move forward.  I now understand that educators must engage with research and develop meaningful, student-centred approaches that will foster the best education for all students and not merely a system that pushes students to achieve good grades as means to understanding who they are.  The world has changed, but education is not moving quite as quickly.  I am impatient for the change that I wish to see in the framework of the education system, but I have come to realize, through the Master of Education program, that I am that change and I can shift my thinking to meet the needs of students, colleagues and the community on all levels.  My greatest achievement in this program has been recognizing that I am ready to use critical thinking and reflective skills to “move ahead of myself” in education with a pedagogy that will enhance the relationships, and learning, of those that I engage with.