Andrew is a Design teacher who for the last four years has worked at Dulwich College Beijing. We reached out to Andrew having seen the quality of work produced by his students showcased on social media and this conversation has so much to offer,  for educators and students worldwide. 

Born and raised in New Brunswick, Canada, Andrew followed an unconventional pathway to his teaching career, first following a route to engineering and, realising this was not for him, switching to EFL teaching and packing everything that he owned into a large rucksack and heading to China. 

After a few years of travelling that included some time spent in South Korea, it was Andrew's wife that suggested that he might want to take teaching seriously. It turns out this was not a bad idea and they returned to New Brunswick where Andrew qualified as a teacher and taught for two years in a local school. 

This experience was challenging, and in Andrew's own words the experience "took the shine off something that he loved" and Andrew returned to China and an educational institution but this time in a position within school communications and marketing. 

Once a teacher it sort of stays in the blood, and Andrew returned to teaching and is doing some amazing work with his students in Beijing. 

This conversation touches on personal growth, pedagogy, the need to acknowledge but then learn how to silence the inner critic that exists in us all, but mostly this is a powerful story of personal growth and how to become the very best that you can be. Huge thanks to Andrew for sparing us the time in a busy schedule to record this podcast. 

In the pod, we reference Andrew's website https://www.andrewwalton.ca/ We also mention the Nik Ramage and artist and sculptor, who can be found on Instagram or here at www.nikramage.com Finally we reference the Stoic Coffee Break podcast - available on all platforms.  

So sit back, relax and enjoy Designed for Life - In conversation with Andrew Walton. 

This podcast has been recorded with the help of our sponsors, The Edge Foundation https://www.edge.co.uk/ inspiring the education system to give all young people across the UK the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to flourish in their future life and work, and PTC Onshape Providing industry-standard cloud-based CAD to education  https://www.ptc.com/en/news/2020/ptc-onshape-education-enterprise-plan-available-free-of-charge

We are indebted to both The Edge and PTC Onshape for their continued support.