History * autobiography * growth (fifty years since Dartmouth)

This essay explores how my professional experiences as an English educator have been shaped by the values and beliefs that are typically associated with the Dartmouth Seminar of 1966 as they were presented by John Dixon in his immensely innuential report of that seminar, Growth Through English. Rather than seeing 'Growth' pedagogy as some kind of all-embracing orthodoxy to which I gave my unswerving allegiance, I tease out the ways that I have operated both inside and out side the model o f English teaching that Dixon advocated, cultivating a reflexive awareness of my identity as an English teacher even as I espoused the values and knowledge of 'Growth'.