the educational journey of a gritty teacher-student: a critical reflection on my academic life

Identity is relational, constructed not per se but in relation to others through different conflicts, fluxes, and changes. the nature of identity construction will be considered as defined by beijaard, meijer, and verloop (2004), recursive, which is formed through time in different kinds of interactions. there have been attempts to know why some teachers leave their jobs since dweck (2014) reported a high attrition rate among young teachers. the answer to such questions can be found in a new movement of psychological research that focuses on a non-cognitive and personality trait known as grit and noddings caring theory (1984). research on the role of grit and caring in the l2 teaching domain has started to gain attention, but its role and effect on the l2 teachers' and students' identity formation are yet to be fully captured. to this aim, i have used six guidelines of lunenberg and samaras (2011) to structure my self-study, which represents a reflective account of the experiences of my academic life. i reflected on several critical events which changed my identity as a gritty student and later english teacher during three different periods of my educational journey in an efl setting (i.e., ba, ma, and ph.d. levels). i will critically describe my educational experiences from the reflective journals written during my university classes. later, some major themes of my reflection, caring relationships between teacher and student, and the effects of such relationships on teacher-student identity development and grit formation will be discussed. the self-revealing findings demonstrate various challenges and conflicts in different phases of my life. through such critical reflection, conflicts and changes to my identity as both student and teacher will hopefully become tangible. therefore, the results could provide implications for teachers and students to develop or reconstruct their identities.