What if the most powerful thing a teacher leaves behind isn’t a lesson — but a sentence?

In this episode of Grow Your Flow & Glow, I reflect on how learner identity is shaped long before students realise it’s happening — and how teachers play a far bigger role in that process than we often acknowledge.

Through personal stories from school, work, and teaching, I explore how identity forms in micro-moments: a comment on a report, a throwaway remark, or a quiet moment of belief that keeps a student’s future open rather than closing it down.

Drawing on Flow Theory, NSW Department of Education priorities, and ideas popularised by Sir Ken Robinson, this episode reframes equity as possibility — not sameness — and challenges us to think about the long shadow our words and expectations cast beyond the classroom.

Because every teacher leaves an identity residue.
The question is: what kind are we leaving behind?

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Think about a sentence you still remember from school.
Not a lesson — a sentence.

What did it teach you about who you were allowed to be as a learner?

What if assessment isn’t neutral — and never has been? In this episode, I unpack how grades, rubrics, and feedback can either build student confidence… or quietly teach kids to fear learning. Through a personal story from my own school years, I explore what happens when students stop asking “What can I learn?” and start asking “How do I not fail?”
We’ll look at the shift from grades to goals, how rubrics can act as maps (not verdicts), and what feedback sounds like when it actually fuels progress and flow. This is an episode about designing assessment with students — so learning becomes clearer, safer, and more empowering.

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What changed when you redesigned the task, the feedback, or the way success was made visible?

In this episode of Grow Your Flow & Glow, we move to the practical heart of the work: learning design.

Drawing on personal experiences from high school mathematics — where worksheets, worked examples, and “you should already know this” replaced explicit teaching — this episode explores how students become lost in learning when tasks are designed without clear entry points.

We unpack why flow doesn’t happen by accident, and how self-regulated learning, cognitive load, and explicit teaching shape whether students can begin, persist, and succeed.

Framed within the NSW Department of Education context, this episode reclaims design as a core professional skill — even within mandated Units of Learning — and challenges the idea that teaching is simply about delivery.

You’ll hear why:

• learners disengage when they don’t know where to start
• independence is not confidence, but successful transfer
• task design must offer challenge without shame
• and why designing for flow protects both student dignity and teacher wellbeing

This episode is an invitation to rethink “perfect lessons” — and redesign learning so more students can enter, stay, and grow.

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What’s a learning moment that made you feel lost — and how does it shape your teaching today?