Can You Ever Really Go Home Again? Lessons Learned from a Teacher Educator Returning to the K-12 Classroom

This article reports on my experiences as a tenured teacher educator who spent a semester back ‘home’ in a middle school science classroom after 12 years. The goal of this work was to understand the ways in which the teaching profession has changed over the past decade, which included a global pandemic, to improve/update my teaching of teaching in the areas of science methods and instructional technology, in particular. Using self-study research, I reflected daily on a private blog viewable only by a critical friend, who used the comment feature to regularly engage in the reflective space. These blog posts and comments were then analyzed thematically through a critical lens revealing themes such as tensions, workload, and teacher educator practice. The experience not only helped me to understand and consider revisions of my teacher education pedagogy but also allowed me to rediscover my passion for teaching in the place where it all began, a place that still felt like home, which led to deeper insights into the daily work of teachers and the importance of spending time in schools.