This day allowed me to approach professional development day a little differently to what I am used to, a new way of learning through podcasts that I will more than likely continue to do as my teaching career progresses. I was able to listen to the Teachers On Fire Podcast, hosted by Tim Cavey, an eighth grade teacher who resides in the surrey school district in British Columbia. Tim’s guest, Stephanie Edmonds, is a teacher who resides well outside of B.C. in the Bronx of New York. Stephanie is a high school social studies teacher, who expressed a very political approach to teaching in the podcasts title “Passion, Engagement, and Content Creation”. Stephanie provided some very unique perspectives on the political nature of teaching, whether we as teachers face this political autonomy with bias, and many other issues that can create a classroom filled with room for growth and creativity. Stephanie mentions a teachers career and outlines how it is a political career by nature. She brings this to the forefront as something that is automatically brought into the classroom, but she does not see teaching as political activism. Tim brings up that how he loves that Stephanie points out that teachers are all political, but that teachers are not political partisans campaigning for a political party. This is means that it is important to understand that there is autonomy in the profession at many different levels where it is significant to understand the boundaries and limitations of those roles, as well as the operating powers without overstepping or pushing those boundaries too far. I took away from this that it is imperative to be a team player in the workforce and to work with your colleagues, even if there are some disagreements which I am positive there will be. They also talk about the exponential growth in information with the internet and relate that to how the printing press came to light in the Renaissance. This new innovation of information is extremely helpful to create that passion and content creation, which is talked about highly in the podcast with regards to how valuable it is to see other teachers classes and learn from them. Stephanie pointed out how something that I really connected with as a fellow social studies teacher, saying the she teaches that subject but it doesn’t “do it for her”. This meant that the learning is something of more utter importance, creating a video, going to a council meeting, or going on a field trip. Stephanie mentions that these things turn into learning outcomes and that is where the magic of teaching happens for her. I find I can relate to this, even though I have yet to gain as much experience teaching that subject, where I find student growth as the most satisfying aspect of the profession. To sum up, since I was able to find significant value in this different type of learning on Pro D day, I will definitely be continuing to use apple podcasts as a platform for continuing learning to help my development as a new tool in teaching!