What’s Your Education Story?

We all have an education story. These stories tell much than details of the drone inside the four walls of a classroom. These stories paint pictures of different phases in our lives. These stories explain who we are today.

Some stumble upon an educational path ridden with thorn bushes and thunderstorms. Some fly into their educational path in an all-expense paid for fighter jet with gilded wings. Some are encouraged, and led onto their educational path being told that their future will be grand and full of success. And unfortunately, some are discouraged from the moment they step into the light of their path. Some are told they are not capable, that theirs is a lost cause.

What kind of educational story do you have to tell? Were you let down one too many times by the teachers, professors, and the institution which bound you? Were you encouraged to overcome the adversaries you faced? Were you even noticed at all?

In high school, my main motivation for attending was for the said “extra-curricular” activities. I tested my own endurance by running on the track and field team. I honed my interpersonal skills by performing onstage and assisting on costume and prop crews backstage. I learned how to be a leader and public speaker by assuming roles in the student government. I learned to be a compassionate and giving person by volunteering in community service. These opportunities taught me so much, I gained much life experience, something I did not necessarily receive in the classroom.

During regularly scheduled classroom hours, I learned how to behave. I learned the tricks to perform in order to make authorities, the powers that be, happy. My motivation in the classroom was to keep my head down as to not be noticed, and do whatever I had to do to make the elders happy. I performed for decent grades so I could attend college.

I wasn’t a horrible student, but I wasn’t brilliant either. I was simply playing the game, like many high school students. I was acting the role of student, and not seeing the real connection to what I was learning to my real life. Graduating from high school, I apprehensively meandered to the road ahead of me: public higher education.

During my first two years, I took general education classes and things were not much different than they were in high school. I played the game, I assumed the role of student never truly owning my own learning journey. I behaved in more risky student behavior like swearing off the lab of my environmental science class because I saw it as a waste of time, and stayed out late nights before major tests or papers were due.

Then my third year, I joined a learning community and everything change. I had enrolled in a difficult seminar on the practice and theory of tutoring. Concurrently, I put the theory into practice by working as a tutor in the university writing center. It was then, in that learning space, that I finally became what I had been longing for all along:  a realized academic.

I questioned, I pondered, I pontificated, I argued with the theorists I read, I demanded to more fully understand, I craved to go further. One of my fellow students was experiencing this same epiphany and we often spent our evenings mind-mapping on giant pieces of craft paper, sitting on the front porch, drinking tea and discussing theories.

It was then that I began sitting closer to the front in classes, and becoming more engaged and focused. It was then that I opened myself to the idea that I was in fact a smart, capable thinker. I was lucky enough to  work with a few amazing professors who pushed me and encouraged me on this path.

I am completely engulfed with the writings of bell hooks. She is a brilliant theorist and reminds me of the myriad layers of diversity within the classroom. Her philosophy is completely in line with mine, as she notes that the well-being of a teacher is imperative to a good classroom:

Progressive, holistic education, “engaged pedagogy” is more demanding than conventional critical or feminist pedagogy. For, unlike these two teaching practices, it emphasizes well-being. That means that teachers must be actively committed to a process of self-actualization that promotes their own well-being if they are to teach in the manner that empowers students. Thich Nhat Hanh emphasizes that “the practice of a healer, therapist, teacher or any helping professional should be directed toward his or herself first, because if the helper is unhappy, he or she cannot help many people.” In the United States it is rare that anyone talks about teachers in university settings as healers. And it is even more rare to hear anyone suggest that teachers have any responsibility to be self-actualized individuals.

I hope to strive towards becoming a self-actualized healer-teacher. I see no other way. Bad teachers are the ones who are so caught up in their own stress that they forget that their job is about the students. I may have to place bell hooks words near my desk for constant reminding: engaged pedagogy.