Your life is an epic journey, and you are the hero of the story. Joseph Campbell developed his concept of the “Hero’s Journey” through studies in comparative mythology, finding that cultures around the world have hero stories sharing an underlying story structure. The protagonist receives a call to adventure, faces a series of trials and challenges, learns and perseveres to get a treasure, and finally brings the treasure back home to share. The Hero’s Journey is therefore symbolic of personal development and acquiring special gifts to contribute to society. This workshop uses The Hero’s Journey as a lens to look at our own life journeys, asking how we became ourselves, what trials and challenges we faced, what we learned along the way, why we decided to become educators, and what special “treasures” we can bring to support our students and colleagues. When a hero complete’s their own journey, their role is supporting young people’s agency as they become the heroes on their own life journeys.
