When personal experience becomes professional power: how pre-service teachers discover their creative capacity during teaching internships

This creative capacity flourishes when certain conditions are met: extended time for authentic relationship-building, supervision that encourages personal and professional integration, and institutional environments that support thoughtful innovation. Rather than viewing difficult life experiences as barriers to effective teaching, participants converted personal wisdom into professional resources. These findings suggest that teacher education needs fundamental rethinking. Rather than focusing primarily on fixing deficits, programs could recognize and systematically cultivate the creative power that emerges during intensive field experiences. This requires redesigned supervision approaches, curriculum modifications, and institutional structures that support principled innovation during teaching internships.