Having attended private schools and a competitive International Baccalaureate program, I was immersed in an environment where I learned to equate rigor with value, and access as a necessary gatekeeper to quality. For much of my academic life, I internalized the idea of no pain, no gain was a marker of worth. The more I suffered or struggled to earn my place in a program, the more I believed I had proven myself. Getting into selective programs through testing, financial aid, or my ability to conform to expectations reinforced the belief that I was “smart” because I could handle difficulty, not necessarily because I was deeply engaged or growing. In many ways, that mindset became self-reinforcing — the more grueling the experience, the more valuable I assumed it must be. I equated hardship with excellence, and any support that eased the path felt like it might cheapen the outcome.

When I began taking my master-level course at university, I was focused on obtaining my Michigan secondary education certification for French and TESOL. That credential was a priority, but my day-to-day mindset was centered on preparing for the realities of a “real” classroom: learning to lead, manage, and reach students in diverse and often unpredictable settings. I approached this work seriously, believing that a strong educator needed not only deep content knowledge, but also the ability to persist through any challenge. In that early phase, I equated rigor with readiness: to be effective, I believed I had to prove myself capable of managing intensity, navigating complexity, and meeting high expectations.

Now, as I near the end of my master’s program, I find myself identifying new challenges and areas for lifelong learning. The world has changed dramatically since I began this path in 2018 and so have I. The COVID-19 pandemic, the rapid evolution of online learning, increasing pressure on the education system, and broader cultural debates about who learning is for and how it should be shaped. Through these shifts, I’ve moved from being a newly graduated university student seeking to prove myself as an educator to becoming a more seasoned professional working outside of K–12 education. My understanding of what makes learning valuable needed to be examined from the inside out to get to where I am today, and that started with examining “rigor.”

Rigor as Value

I credit much of my early growth towards a change in thinking when it came to the value of learning to Dr. Sandro Barros during the teacher preparation program. For the first time in my university career, I was faced with something that wasn’t concrete. Instead of following a tightly structured syllabus designed to signal academic prestige, Dr. Barros focused on cultivating dialogue within our small cohort. His priority wasn’t checking boxes, but rather creating the space to ask questions that mattered to us. At the time, I was still in the early stages of what I now call the deprogramming phase of my education. For so long, I had been through systems of education as a learner that were prized for the competitive nature of their programs. While my instructors all certainly strived to meet the needs of all of their learners, I was still certain that my value as a lay in meeting and exceeding expectations irrespective of the challenges in front of me.

As a senior in college when I took my courses with Dr. Barros, I was doing everything I could to make my undergraduate years count: assisting in academic research, excelling in my part-time in-school placements, working at a language resource center, maintaining my grades, and making finding space for cultivating friendships. I measured the value of learning by how much I was juggling and how hard I had to work to keep up. Dr. Barros disrupted that mindset. He invited us to co-create a syllabus based on our own questions about teaching and learning—an invitation I initially met with skepticism. I couldn’t imagine how I, or my classmates, could select topics that would be rigorous enough. How could I trust others or myself for that matter to push for depth when I was still convinced that struggle was the only path to meaningful learning?

What I didn’t realize then but began to unpack more fully in Dr. Brittany Dillman’s course later on, was that this fear revealed just how deeply I’d internalized the idea that rigor only exists when it is imposed. Dr. Barros helped crack that notion open by showing me that student-led inquiry can be demanding in a different, more relevant way.

Growth over Compliance

In the fall of 2024, working with Dr. Brittany Dillman allowed me to pick up where I left off with Dr. Barros, but now with more experience behind me and a deeper understanding of myself as a learner, particularly as someone who naturally gravitates toward structure and clear rules. What struck me most was how someone who shares my inclination for structure could design a course that offers such an open-ended, exploratory environment, in the best way. What once felt like cognitive dissonance—embracing play, risk-taking, and self-direction within an institution bound by credit hours and certification requirements—started to feel like a more honest expression of what learning could be.

Dr. Dillman’s guidance also helped me develop a clearer, more grounded theory of learning. In CEP 800: Psychology of Learning in Schools and Other Settings, I revisited major theories, but this time from a place of lived experience. I wasn’t just absorbing abstract concepts; I was testing them against my own practice. Developing a personal framework centered on autonomy, authenticity, and achievement, and grounding it in scholars like Kumaravadivelu, allowed me to articulate beliefs that had long been implicit. This process helped me reshape my designs so they align more fully with values I now see as central to an education worth having.

CEP 800 was also my first introduction to an “ungrading” model, in which all students began with a 4.0 and were expected to iterate and reflect in order to maintain it. For someone who had long equated grades with rigor, this was a transformative experience. I had clung to traditional grading systems because they gave me a sense of earned validation, a way to prove that I had struggled and succeeded. But I gradually began to see how these systems can obscure actual learning and even dehumanize learners. Au (2008) captured this realization perfectly stating:

“In the process of the quantification of student knowledge and understanding, students themselves are necessarily quantified as a number. This quantification lies at the heart of the measurement itself, which turns real people and real social conditions into easily measurable and comparable numbers and categories.” (p. 40)

This idea helped me recognize why I had found comfort in conventional forms of rigor. They gave me a way to feel in control and to measure success clearly. As a designer, it provided me with concrete way to justify my practice. As I have grown in my practice, I see again and again how this kind of control flattens the complexity of learning and undermines the accessibility of education for those who don’t thrive under narrow metrics.

Another course taught by Dr. Dillman, CEP 813: Electronic Assessment for Teaching and Learning, also helped me connect assessment to real-world expectations. In a professional setting, no one assigns you an A. You meet expectations, exceed them, or receive feedback to improve. Performance becomes iterative, reflective, and contextual. This framing mirrors how adult learning often operates and has reshaped how I think about assessment in the kinds of learning and development projects I hope to design. It has also made me question what in fact our K–12 education is preparing students for after graduation. If we want learners to thrive beyond school settings, we must give them an education worth having, one that fosters growth rather than compliance.

Supporting our Learners  

The opportunities for support and guidance in the MAET program are as extensive or minimal as you choose to make them. Early on, I was lucky to form a strong connection with my academic advisor, Candace Robertson, who consistently made me feel that I belonged in the program. In our very first advising appointment—before I had even applied—she told me I was already a connection, and that she’d be happy to help me as I started to look for new avenues in my professional life, even if I chose not to enroll. That moment stuck with me. It challenged my own narrow view that value only comes from struggle and reminded me that connection and community are also part of meaningful learning.

Candace later introduced me to a local program alumnus and supported me during a job search, cheering me on throughout the interview process. These kinds of relational experiences, while once something I may have dismissed as “extras,” have come to shape what I now see as an education worth having: one where learners are not just pushed, but also held and supported.

I also experienced this kind of support in CEP 822: Approaches to Educational Research, where I attended an open Zoom office hour. When others dropped off the call early, I expected things to wrap up quickly, but instead my instructors took that time to ask about my motivations, career path, and goals. That conversation led to a deeper connection and a valuable exchange about how they each carved out their own paths in the field of education. These weren’t scripted teaching moments; they were generous human interactions that stuck with me.

Later, when I was applying for a new position and needed feedback on my digital portfolio (an early version of this site), Dr. Anne Heitz made time on very short notice to provide thoughtful suggestions. Her feedback helped me represent myself more clearly and confidently to prospective employers.

Beyond coursework, I’ve also benefited from mentorship through campus programs like the Center for Language Teaching Advancement, where I developed professional relationships and worked on applied projects. This semester, I even collaborated with a professor in another department on assessment design for their course. These kinds of cross-disciplinary and mentorship experiences have helped me reflect on my own teaching practices and challenged me to adapt my learning to new, real-world contexts.

I used to think that the only kind of learning that mattered was the kind you had to fight for. But this program has helped me see that meaningful education is not just about rigor. That balance between challenging aI’ve come to realize, is what makes education truly worth having.

An Education Worth Having

From my days in my classroom to my current role designing learning experience for adults, my focus has always been to provide access and to foster growth to the best of my ability. This was not always the same message I received from some of the institutions where I studied which boasted a high pressure environment, cutting students who could not “hack-it,” or providing a cost that was just too high to pay to attend these facilities. Throughout the program, I challenged my beliefs about what makes the experiences we design worthwhile and have come to realize rigor and logistical rigor are really the same thing. Instead of “rigor” I want to focus on something different. I want to offer challenges that are relevant, empowering, and transferable. These challenges should encourage learners to think critically and creatively, and to construct knowledge they can carry into their lives beyond the classroom. This kind of intentional, human-centered design is, to me, what makes education truly worth having.

While I’ve long believed in creating inclusive, accessible experiences for others, it wasn’t until I became a learner in this program that I fully confronted my own assumptions about support, rigor, and growth. I had been generous with my students but far more rigid with myself—believing that struggle was the only valid path to learning. No pain, no gain, right? But I’ve come to realize that, like strength training, effective learning design should challenge you, not injure you. Pain signals that something’s wrong; good challenge builds strength through gradual, supported effort. Flexible frameworks like ungrading, collaborative learning, and open-ended inquiry helped me unlearn the idea that harsh conditions prove worth. As I began to extend the same grace and curiosity toward myself that I offered my students. That shift has not only reshaped my own development—it’s also deepened the care and intentionality I bring to designing experiences that make education truly worth having.

References:  

Au, W. (2008). Unequal by design: High-stakes testing and the standardization of inequality. Routledge.