As educators, we are privileged to teach students. I have always believed in the reciprocal relationship between teaching and learning, but this year I had the honor of seeing it reflected in a profound way as one of my graduate students presented a book review on Jeremiah Conway's The Alchemy of Teaching: The Transformation of Lives.1 I was struck by the strong analogy between the ancient process of alchemy and education. Alchemy involves taking raw metals and processing them into precious gems. This sounds amazingly similar to education when you think about it. Conway talks about how through the processes of education—listening, questioning, examining, evaluating, synthesizing—we create new levels of human awareness.The Alchemy of Teaching is a collection of stories and instances throughout Professor Conway's life wherein he witnesses human transformation. The book is centered on the idea that stories such as these are to be shared, not “submerged in that ancient River of Forgetfulness that flows through all our lives.”1(p11) He contends that if we do not allow ourselves the time to reflect on and share these experiences, we will become disconnected and “the love of teaching diminishes.”1(p9) Conway's love and appreciation for the growth and realization of students is prevalent throughout the text. His stories pull the reader into his classroom to share in the transformation experience. In this book we are swept along through experiences and thoughts unique to one professor, yet remarkably applicable to us all. In this book, we witness student transformation, and we can't help but grow as educators as he copes with a multitude of confrontations and professional struggles prevalent in today's educational culture. As we walk through the stories with Conway, we learn that “[w]e teachers are involved in the alteration of lives, not because we demand it, but because students are engaged in change whether we like it or not.”1(p133)A very powerful story shared in the introduction of the book is about Conway's sister posting Pieter Bruegel's painting Landscape With the Fall of Icarus2 outside her office as a symbolic reminder of the depth of our responsibilities as educators. In the story that inspired the painting, Icarus and his father want to escape a labyrinth where they are being held, and thus create wings out of twigs, feathers, and wax. This story portrays a young Icarus flying too close to the sun despite warnings from his father to stay away from the dampness of the sea and the heat of the sun with his new wings. In this painting, Icarus is lying in the sea, reflecting the theme of failed ambition.3You may wonder how this is relevant to athletic training education. I see incredible parallels. First and foremost, as educators, we have an obligation to transform our students. We need to pay close attention not only to the content, but to the entire transformative process. In athletic training, we are suffering from a “transition to practice” dilemma that is perhaps a reflection of this paradigm. Are we spending so much time worrying about competencies, pass rates, and standards that we have failed to address the overall transformation of these young people into skilled, self-directed, self-regulated lifelong learners who can competently practice unsupervised when they cross the threshold from their academic programs into clinical practice? As I teach a course in education and supervision in athletic training, I am constantly reminded by some really great athletic training students who received wonderful academic degrees at well-established programs how fearful they were when first practicing despite their stellar undergraduate grade point averages and first-time pass experience on the Board of Certification examination.The second parallel relates to us as educators consistently telling our students, much like Icarus' father, about the proper ways to succeed. We tell our students to do well in class, excel in clinicals, and develop a professional self so that when they “fly alone” they can be ready to take on the challenges they are about to face. However, we often fail to provide our students with the most powerful lesson of critical thinking. We often structure their experiences so rigidly that they have very little authentic experience when they graduate. We give them a false sense of security that contends that if you do well in school you will be fine in the actual practice of the profession. But if they have so limited authentic experience, how do they succeed? Are we setting them up for failed ambitions from the start? It certainly isn't a matter of desire or willingness to be successful, because I have witnessed students with an incredible work ethic and brilliant mind experience tremendous dissonance as they enter they enter the workforce. So, is it that we have created wings of twigs, feathers, and wax for these students? Are they really ready to practice autonomously when they are immersed into the field? It is becoming more and more clear to me each year that maybe we have created this false sense of security for these graduates, because once they are employed, I hear the horror stories of their experiences from the students themselves and the employers who hire them.We cannot continue to build wings that will not fully support our students when they fly toward the sea or soar toward the sun. We must take a serious look at this transition-to-practice dilemma we are facing in our profession so that more ambitions do not go crashing into the sea. We have worked very hard as a profession to build a sound educational process that prepares our students for the challenges of the profession. Part of a strong educational process is to evaluate the outcomes and determine what is working and what is not. As athletic training educators, it is our obligation to research what is working and what is not working in the current system. Just like in the clinical education aspect of our programs, we too much pursue evidence-based outcomes to guide our future directions and best serve our students and our profession. If we are to transform these ordinary materials into precious gems that will be able to sustain the rigors of our profession, we must work diligently to address this issue of transition to practice. Educational research is instrumental to discovering how to construct wings that will support our students as they go out on their own to test their newfound freedom.