Van Gogh and Me
Last November my grandmother was visiting and wanted to do something fun. Instead of fun, my mother dragged us to the traveling “Beyond Van Gogh” exhibit that was in Salt Lake City at the time. As we entered this big warehouse where the exhibit was located, my fears seemed to be confirmed. I walked along a winding path with backlit, large-canvas reproductions of Van Gogh’s paintings with excerpts of letters written between Vincent Van Gogh and his brother Theo written over top of the paintings. For me, because I have a visual field cut and other sensory processing issues, it was painful and overwhelming to look at. The backlighting of the artwork made every detail pop and screamed for my attention. So everything smeared together and my brain could not process anything. I did everything I could to avert my eyes as I felt myself slowly becoming overwhelmed and on the verge of melting down.
I did notice that not everything in this room was yelling at me. In between these paintings, there were various empty picture frames invisibly suspended from the ceiling. As people, including myself, walked by, we all became the subjects. I became part of the artwork for a fleeting moment as I was framed within the borders. Then, once I turned the last corner, I entered a dark room with projections of moving color on the wall and floor. I went from being the one who moved around stationary pieces of art into a stationary person watching as the brushstrokes of color and light moved around me and swallowed me whole. As my mind and senses adjusted to this new reality, I entered a huge warehouse-sized room, projections of Van Gogh's work enveloped me on all sides. I was completely immersed in all the colors and details. Music written about Van Gogh or his works was gently playing in the background. For me, it was like a reverse fishbowl effect. Instead of feeling alone and exposed while something stared at me, I was a natural being that was happily swimming amidst the wonder around me. As I watched colors and paint strokes slowly morphing one painting turned into another, for the first time, art moved me in ways I never experienced before. By magnifying details that I would never normally see, I finally understood why art is so powerful. I watched his artistic process from start to finish as sketches were recreated and deconstructed before my eyes. I did not know about his work as a portrait painter, but seeing his side-by-side gallery of his many subjects, including himself, showed such an incredible imagination. This was the first time that I felt art really move me. Van Gogh’s artwork is so powerful and now I understand why his work lives on today. Visiting the “Beyond Van Gogh” exhibit has made me rethink what is possible. Please do not tell my mom that she was right and that I had so much more than fun.
Works Cited: “The Immersive Experience .” Beyond Van Gogh Salt Lake City, 2 Dec. 2021, vangoghsaltlake.com/.
"Beyond Van Gogh" traveling art exhibit
November 2021
Julia Reardon, Mountain Heights Academy, Utah
van-gogh-and-me
Overcoming with Otis
When I was in a dark place in my life, Ottis Redding's song, "(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay" helped me get through the hard times.
Otis Redding
"(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding
2018
Brian Blankenship, 19, student
overcoming-with-otis
Reading <em>Dune</em> as a Woman
I am in the middle of reading <em>Dune</em>, and while Frank Herbert has some good takeaways and powerful quotes, I was most specifically struck by how far women in media have progressed since 1965, when the book was published. In <em>Dune</em>, even the most powerful women follow a common trend of submission, even when they do not agree with their husband or the leadership. In general, there are very few lead female characters who are portrayed as important to the narrative, especially in comparison to the many military men depicted. The "Bene Gesserit," described in the novel as a fearsome and dangerous group of women, have power and wisdom, but ultimately serve the purpose of creating good genetic matches with men across the empire. Their power is immediately usurped by the protagonist of the novel, Paul Atreides. The women of this novel are continually overruled by men, and it is almost exhausting to read this as a woman in a time where we have more agency and chances to advocate. Rather than give up on the book entirely, I was met with the realization that <em>Dune</em> is an example of how far we have come. I had finished reading Leigh Bardugo's <em>Shadow and Bone</em> series right before starting <em>Dune</em>, and in this series, as in many other modern works, women are given more advocacy. The trend in more modern books shows how we have continued to overcome the oversights of past literary and cultural norms for women, and though much progress still needs to be made, it is encouraging to read older works with this mindset.
Frank Herbert
<em>Dune</em>
January 2022
Christine Taylor, 20, College student and copywriter
reading-dune-woman
Global Education Beyond the Classroom: Engaging the World through Scholarship
For many years, I have challenged myself to advocate for global education and international studies across the world. I have read many books, travelled on my own, and engaged with other people about culture, traditions, and politics. I have formed relationships that connect people across a host of competing ideologies, religion, and beliefs that sometimes conflicted with my own thoughts. However, these contradictions challenged and inspired me to keep pursuing research and unlock such contradictions by participating in a host of scholarship competitions around the world. I have competed with thousands of scholars and researchers to earn opportunities for scholarships and funded programs. I am on a global quest to visit 10 countries and gain a variety of my own Humanities Moments. I have been face-to-face with a WWII Japanese soldier who believed his mission was his destiny, visited North Korea clandestinely to understand how the South felt about the war, learned about the travails of a Filipino family because of the influence of the Spanish conquest on their culture, seen the desperate experiences of the Bantu folks in Soweto in post-Apartheid who still struggle to find their identity and culture, and seen the eyes of our students when they sit among others in an International Competition during the World Animation Championship for Children in Greece. Each of these events triggered my Humanities Moments and will always continue to inspire and challenge me to also keep mentoring our students to do the same.
Travel through the Fulbright Program, the South Korea Foundation, the Rotary Foundation, the European Union, the Toyota of North America Foundation, and the Institute of International Education
1986-2021
Dr. Conrad Ulpindo
global-education-beyond-classroom
Forking Paths
My music education was primarily as a professional pianist. As part of this training, I went to the Dartington Hall international summer school in music to play in the piano master class by William Glock, who was Head of the BBC and a strong supporter of young musicians. Also at Dartington was Hans Keller, Head of BBC Modern Music and an expert on the works of Beethoven and Schoenberg. Keller gave a series of analytic seminars on Beethoven's late string quartets with a live string quartet to play the examples, the Chilingirian Quartet. While I had studied musical forms in college, Keller's seminars were a revelation of insight into these extraordinary works, their logic of structure and power of innovation. I decided, suddenly and definitely, that this was the path in music I was going to follow. During the course of the summer school I got to know Keller, and he encouraged me to bring my analytic work on Schoenberg to him at the BBC, which I did. Much of my professional work as a teacher, educator and writer stemmed from this powerful 'centeredness' of musical understanding: that music, and the humanities more broadly are essential parts of human experience and understanding. They give us the tools to delve deeply and internally into texts and works to find meaning, and opportunities to share those insights with others.
Beethoven
Seminar in the late Beethoven quartets at Dartington Hall
1978
Barbara Barry, 72, music theorist and philosopher
forking-paths
<em>The White Tiger's</em> Impact
My most recent humanities moment would have to be a book I recently finished based on my brother's recommendation. Named <em>The White Tiger</em>, the book was recently adapted into a Netflix film, which follows the story of an ambitious and cunning rich family's driver in India and how he manages to overcome his impoverished lifestyle and rise to the top as an entrepreneur. The reason why this book resonated with me so much is because it perfectly encapsulates the reality of India's ranked social and political system and how it can play a role in every individual's life. The author, Aravind Adiga, does such an amazing job breaking down the characteristics of society through a metaphoric and satirical tone. Upon finishing the book, I enthusiastically discussed it with my brother and our family. My parents were born and raised in Jaipur, India. The realities of Indian society explained through the book came as a surprise to my brother and I, but were quite the norm for my parents. They found it amusing how my brother and I could not believe the atrocious events that took place in the book whereas they'd witnessed these events every day growing up. It definitely put into perspective the vastly different lifestyles that people like my brother and I, who were raised abroad with expensive international educations and privileges, have from people like my parents. This book is a current favorite and I definitely recommend it. If you're considering simply watching the film on Netflix so you can get away without the extra reading, I'd highly advise against that. After all, we all know the book is always better than the film.
Aravind Adiga
<em>The White Tiger</em>
June 2021
Vyapti Wadhwaney, 18, Student
white-tiger-impact
Enjoy Your Life
Hong Kong is a prosperous and fast-paced city. Last month, i went to Peng Chau, which is an outlying island, to get away from the stress of the city. There are some residential districts on the island, but it is different from other outlying islands such as Lamma Island and Cheung Chau. Most tourists would choose to go to Lamma Island or Cheung Chau because there are more spots for tourists to visit. However, I think Peng Chau is a spot off the beaten path. Most people don't see the beauty of it. When I arrived at Peng Chau, it was already around 5 o'clock. There were some elderly people sitting in chairs and chatting with their friends or enjoying the scenery. This scene was really incredible because most of the citizens in Hong Kong are busy working and studying. I wandered around observing what people were doing. I discovered that they was enjoying their life and weren't doing things in a hurry. An hour later, I sat down to watch the spectacular sunset. The beauty of the sunset is indescribable. The trip to Peng Chau let me get a close-up of myself. Most of the time, I just stay at home and watch YouTube or concentrate on studying. I seldom slow down and enjoy my life, but after visiting Peng Chau, I've found that I spend more time with my thoughts.
Peng Chau, Hong Kong
2021
Anna Chan, 18, Student
enjoy-your-life
Preserving Tradition and Embracing Change
This was my fourth trip to Georgia since 2016 and each trip I have noticed a slow-and-steady increase in the amount of "western" influence in the city. From one year to the next, hotels- huge skyscrapers in a city of modestly tall buildings- are being built with seemingly no regard for the traditional architecture of the ancient city. To me (and truthfully, many of my Georgian friends share similar sentiments), these buildings are massive eyesores that break-up a beautiful, low cityscape that is not only the view from the balcony of the house in which we stay, but also seen from all over the city. This has an impact on me because I contextualize the city's expansion and economic growth within the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades ago. Since the collapse, this small but vivacious country has seen civil war, invasions and annexations from foreign adversaries, and a multitude of diplomatic relationships developed with countries both previously in and out of the Soviet bloc. The context and the subsequent developments have ushered in a new era in Georgia- one where there are no foreign powers at the helm of their government. One in which Georgia is in control of their own future for the first time in a long time.
As you travel in the city and beyond, you can see a host of influences from the Soviet era and of western countries. However, what remains clear is a strong Georgian tradition. You can travel in Tbilisi or even venture out into more rural villages and find feasts, toasts, celebrations, similar driving patterns, urban planning, architectural influences and more. All of this is to say that the architecture of their capital is one example of the tension between preserving tradition in Georgia and in welcoming innovation and change into the fold. You see it in other ways, too: social developments, cultural developments, and even the fact that the Georgian alphabet, spoken and written language is almost completely isolated to this small country of about 3.5 million people, with most people speaking at least one other language, sometimes even two or three. I feel as though I am witnessing a critical point in the development of the modern state of Georgia.
This beautiful country has welcomed me several times in the past five years with warm hospitality, friendship, delicious food, unique and incomparable experiences, all within a changing physical and cultural landscape. I have learned an immense amount about different subcultures of Georgians, what the people as a collective share and cherish, and how they've fought for their independence as a nation and a people. Their traditions are cherished, yet they are turning a new page and ushering themselves into a more modern era. I look forward to seeing the continued preservation of the traditions while also seeing the innovations they welcome.
Architecture in Tbilisi, Georgia
Summer 2021
Maggie, 29, High School Social Studies teacher
preserving-tradition-embracing-change
Artifacts at the Museum
Recently, I've found myself longing to take advantage of the Smithsonian Museums that are so conveniently located ten miles northeast of my home- maybe it's because such destinations were closed for a long period of time due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I figured that I might as well take advantage of these attractions re-opening and welcoming guests. Only a select few Smithsonian venues have opened their doors and so I decided to visit one that I've always enjoyed in the past, the Freer Gallery of Art. The Freer Gallery of Art boasts an impressive collection of art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, and the Middle East. The collections range from the late Neolithic period to the modern era- there is certainly plenty to see. One of the main attractions located in the Freer Gallery is the <em>Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room</em>. This is a beautifully decorated room that serves as a lasting example of aestheticism. Despite the beauty and enveloping nature of the Peacock Room, I found my humanities moment in other places within the museum. <br /><br />My humanities moment came to me while viewing pottery, porcelain, ceramics, paintings, and sculptures from East Asia and South Asia. The connections to be made between cultures in India, China, and Korea, simply by identifying the similarities and trends in the artifacts seemed endless. Whether it was a ceramic-making technique or the spread and artistic display of Buddhism that could be traced across civilizations- regional interaction was present. Part of being a Social Studies teacher is facilitating the process of students making connections through the examination of regional interactions across time. Making those connections helps students be more globally-minded citizens.
Freer Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
July 17, 2021
G. Lee, 33, Social Studies Teacher
artifacts-museum
When <em>Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?</em> Is More Than a Trivia Question
In the summer of 2006, my best friend and I stumbled upon a book called, <em>Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb</em>. The book summarizes the post-presidential lives of the American Presidents, details their passing and funerals, and finishes with a commentary on each. After reviewing how close many of them were to our apartment in Virginia, we decided to embark on a pilgrimage to the burial sites. What followed has been a decade plus journey throughout the country to the biggest of big cities, New York, to the smallest of small towns, Plymouth Notch, to visit these final resting places. <br /><br />Each site, like the president memorialized is unique in its own way. Some presidents, like Lincoln, have giant memorials that match their legacies where others, like Coolidge, are the definition of unpretentious. Some, like Washington, are on sprawling plantations. Others, like Van Buren, are in rural cemeteries. This is a testament to the impact that power and privilege play even in death. <br /><br />Traipsing through countless cemeteries, I have often reflected on the role that memory and memorialization play in our lives. Mixed in with some presidents are people whose stories have long been forgotten or, perhaps worse, were never even told. I wonder: Who are these people? Why are they buried here? What was their life like? Thankfully public historians are actively seeking to rectify this. <br /><br />When I mention my macabre hobby I inevitably get asked, "Why?" The easy answer is that it blends my interest in the presidency and my love of travel. The more philosophical answer? I suppose there is a particular unexpectedness of observing the humanities in a cemetery, yet what is more universally human then death? For it is on these trips with my best friend, other friends, family, and my wife that I have felt the greatest connection to people. Be it laughing with friends on a car trip, eating and connecting with the local townspeople, or meeting and reflecting with other history aficionados. <br /><br />So who is buried in Grant's tomb? Well, not even Ulysses Grant as he is interred above ground.
Brian Lamb
<em>Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?: A Tour of Presidential Gravesites</em>
Summer 2006
Bradley T. Swain, 38, Social Studies Teacher at West Springfield High School
buried-grant-tomb-more-than-trivia-question
A Trip to Antietam National Battlefield
When I was ten years old my family took a day trip to visit the Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland. This family activity was the idea of my father, a Civil War enthusiast with a lifelong passion for history. As a ten-year-old, I was excited to just go somewhere different and see something new, but I lacked a genuine appreciation for the significance of the battlefield and the importance of this place to American history. Towards the back of line, at the beginning of the tour, I walked with my dad and by chance happened to kick up a small section of dirt in which I noticed a small dark grey object amidst the footpath. It was an actual Civil War bullet from the battle that I stumbled upon by pure luck and good fortune. I was pumped, but my dad was thrilled beyond belief, if not a little jealous. Sharing in his excitement, this was a moment when history truly came alive for me. I was immediately hooked. Here I was at a real Civil War battlefield, with a real Civil War bullet, and participating in a real historical discovery with my dad! Even at a young age I was interested in history, and enjoyed reading, but this Humanities Moment intensified that connection and inspired a lifelong passion for history and learning. I left Antietam with a new understanding of how the importance of past, place, and shared experience can truly be a powerful force to bring people together, and I still have the bullet too.
U.S. National Park Service
Antietam National Battlefield
1998
Jeff Vande Sande, 32, High School History Teacher
trip-antietam-national-battlefield
Scotland the Brave and The Flower of Scotland: A Wee Moment with Huge Impact
We tend to remember "firsts" in our lives. Hopefully we recognize the importance and value of experiences as we live through them. My first travel overseas was as an undergraduate on a semester study abroad to Stirling University in Scotland. It was absolute magic! All the experiences associated with travel - language, food, smells, conversation, relationships, sounds - were amplified because it was my first experience like this. I recall the side trips to Orkney, Portree, London, Bath, and Edinburgh equally to the moments on campus as a student studying history and education in another nation. In Scotland I discovered soccer, Caravaggio, William Wallace, scotch, hiking, history, music, other people and, most importantly, my self. Traveling overseas as a student is an experience that is hard to replicate in another part of your life. I tried, by working in another country for six years, but the student experience provides a unique moment in time that can't fully be recreated later. I encourage students in college to make this experience of their college career. Some fear they will be missing something by leaving. You won't.
And I remember that semester as if it happened yesterday and is happening now.
Stirling, Scotland
1994
Craig Perrier, 48, Social Studies Curriculum Specialist and Adjunct
scotland-brave-flower-scotland
The Day I Knew I Was Going to Teach History
In what has become a defining moment of my entire life, my first true humanities moment provided clarity and direction for my future in the midst of all things awkward about being a middle school student.
Doing well in school was a safety net for me. The excitement of learning new things and the validation that came with "good grades" and being a teacher's pet type person were anchors in a time of social and hormonal upheaval and a family move the summer before 8th grade. If I was going to be at a new school, at least I knew I would do well in my classes, (failing math for a grading period, not withstanding, I mean, this isn't my "math moment," it's my humanities moment). My 8th grade US History and language arts teacher, Mrs. Batsford, was young and energetic, and seemed to genuinely like us and think we were fun humans. Now, after teaching 9th graders for 20 years, I know just how special that was. But it was the creativity with which Mrs. Batsford presented content that really created my humanities moment.
One day while studying the Civil War, Mrs. Batsford had us spend an entire class period constructing a "city" out of empty milk cartons. She gave us no context or explanation for this craft project, just set us to work. The next day, our city was complete and laid out on a large table. She came out from behind her desk and I watched in shock as she climbed up on top of the table wearing big laced-up boots with her early 90's long floral dress. Without a word, she began stomping all over our milk carton city with her big giant boots, flattening every single little crafted square while we watching with our mouths hanging open. Her destruction complete, she daintily got back down from the table and said, "that's what happened during Sherman's march to the sea."
I was floored. I couldn't believe a teacher would behave in such a demonstrative manner and do something that seemed so brash, just for the purpose of helping us understand something. In that instant I knew that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to help students learn history with a little drama and a lot of storytelling. I began on a path that day, that has guided my steps from 8th grade to now, a 21 year veteran of teaching history. Later I learned that Mrs. Batsford's dramatized version of razing cities to the ground was not quite the real story of what happened during that episode of the Civil War. That never diminished the importance of this moment and what it showed me about how people can connect with history. She made me want to learn more. And that is certainly a legacy worth striving for.
8th grade US History class
1991
Kim Karayannis, FCPS Social Studies teacher
day-knew-teach-history
World History Puzzles
I have vague recollections of eating my packed lunch on the stone steps of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art after completing a scavenger hunt for facts about particular paintings deemed important by my elementary school teacher. <br /><br />I more distinctly remember returning to that art museum with my mom a few years later to view the <em>Monet’s Water Lilies: An Artist’s Obsession</em> exhibition. I had already developed a partiality for impressionism, and Monet specifically, probably from that early field trip, and we discussed the similarities and subtle differences in each iteration of the painting. Alongside the paintings were photographs of the gardens from Monet’s time as well as modern images that immediately put this French commune on our travel bucket list. <br /><br />My mom and I haven’t made it to Giverny yet, but this summer we traveled to see the <em>Monet and Boston: Legacy Illuminated</em> exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts. This collection featured Monet’s paintings alongside works from his predecessor Millet and contemporary Rodin, but it was the comparison to the Japanese artist Hokusai that I found most surprising - until I learned that the forced reopening of Japan to foreign trade in the nineteenth century exposed Western Europeans to Japanese style and culture which inspired many artists of the time, including Monet. <br /><br />This art exhibition displayed the interconnectedness of political and economic power plays, expanding global trade networks, and cultural diffusion. And it has been by teaching my students how to analyze the content and context of paintings, maps, and other images that they have been able to put together the pieces that make up the puzzle that is world history. But I was doing to my students what my elementary school teacher did to me twenty years earlier. <br /><br />I selected all of the visual sources used in my classroom and explained how students should analyze them in order to understand the past - I was making them all complete my version of the world history puzzle. But then I came across the <em>Black Histories, Black Futures</em> exhibition curated by local high school students who developed a theme to explore, selected the works of art to display, and wrote the labels to provide context for three galleries throughout the MFA. These students actively researched and interpreted historical information to reach their own understandings about a past that was important to them. Next year, I look forward to seeing how my students put the pieces of world history together to create their own unique puzzles … and maybe even to curate their own museum galleries!
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
<em>Black Histories, Black Futures</em>
June 18, 2021
Sarah Bartosiak, High School Social Studies Teacher
world-history-puzzles
<em>The Great Gatsby</em>, Revisited
When asked what my favorite book is, I often quickly answer with <em>The Great Gatsby</em>. I first read <em>The Great Gatsby</em> in 2009 in my 10th Grade English class and fell in love. I loved the description of the clothing and parties of the 1920s. I loved the characters, I thought the (spoiler alert!) unrequited love between Daisy and Gatsby was so romantic, and I felt heartbroken by the tragic ending nearly every character received.<br /><br />Throughout the years, I have defended this novel from students who claim it is boring and adults who describe the characters as self-centered. They were, in my opinion, misunderstood. Recently, I realized I had not re-read <em>The Great Gatsby</em> in a long time and decided it was the perfect time to re-read. Wow, was I wrong.<br /><br />Perhaps it is because I am now looking through the lens of someone who lived through a pandemic or the lens of being nearly 30- I am not sure what changed but something has and wow are these characters insufferable! Everyone is privileged, entitled, and whiny. What I once saw as romantic (buying a house with a view of Daisy's dock) now seems creepy and manipulative. The characters who I once loved now seem like absolute trash people. <br /><br />As I reflected on the way my thoughts on this book have changed, I thought about the importance of perspective and lived experiences. It gave me more insight into how my high school students might interpret things differently than I do and how important it is to bring multiple perspectives in as often as possible.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
<em>The Great Gatsby</em>
Summer 2021
Maggie Jones, 28, Social Studies Teacher
great-gatsby-revisited
Perspective from <em>Waiting for Superman</em>
When I was in high school, there was an incredible amount of buzz around a new documentary, <em>Waiting for Superman</em>. The documentary focused on the struggle some students faced to get a quality education in major U.S. cities, like Washington, D.C. For many the film was enlightening, but for some the idea of "lottery schools" were controversial. <br /><br />My teacher encouraged our entire AP English class to watch this documentary, as we were all attending a nationally ranked "lottery school" just a few miles outside of Washington, D.C in Arlington, Virginia. She encouraged us to look for the similarities and differences in the two education systems that were separated by only a few miles. To set the stage, I lived in Arlington with my family, and our home was situated 3.5 miles from the Washington Monument. My neighborhood school was a nationally ranked Top 10 High School as calculated by the U.S. News and World Report, while the lottery school I was attending was a nationally ranked Top 3 High School as determined by the U.S. News and World Report. No matter which school I went to, I would have had a great education by any standard. <br /><br />Before watching this film, I had never thought of the privilege that my zip code brought me. I never knew how vastly different the education system was 10 minutes from my home. It had never occurred to me that some students worry about whether their school is able to provide what they need to have the life they want for themselves. This film showed me that the education system was not "fair", nor equal. I didn't "earn" my zip code, I was simply born into it. Thus, I didn't "earn" my education; I didn't do anything special to obtain my education. <br /><br />Every student is entitled to a quality education, no matter their zip code. After seeing this film, I was convinced that something needed to be changed in our education system. Every student deserves to have access to the same education that I was able to experience. It is a basic right for students to be safe, supported, and challenged to their greatest ability in school. All children should have access to a top tier educational experience. No child should have to worry about having access to a quality education. The lasting impact this film had on me, ultimately led me to choose a career in education as a teacher.
Davis Guggenheim
<em>Waiting for Superman</em>
2010
Samantha, 27, Teacher
perspective-waiting-superman
"Teach Them Well and Let Them Lead the Way"
For many years, my school district hosted an annual Academic Diversity Institute prior to the start of the new school year. At this institute, teachers had the opportunity to hear speakers and attend seminars that taught about and encouraged the implementation of new teaching strategies and methods in the classroom. The theme of the 2012 institute was "Reaching All: Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century." The keynote speaker at the 2012 institute reinforced many of the concepts and arguments that I had studied in my graduate school cohort program, from which I had graduated just three months earlier. As I listened to the keynote speaker, her words really resonated with me, further confirming my belief that the integration of technology in the 21st century classroom is critical to helping students to be academically successful, both in the present and in the future.
The keynote speaker tugged at my heartstrings through her incorporation of Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All". It is the song that my dad and I had danced to for our Father/Daughter dance at my wedding a year earlier. Although there is a very personal reason why my dad and I chose this song for our special dance, much of the meaning that he and I both share in connection with this song also carries over into my beliefs as a classroom teacher. My own analysis of Houston's lyrics further supports my belief about the importance of technology in the classroom.
"I believe the children are our future," as past and current generations have shown that they will be who shapes the workplace environment once they become the majority of the population. "Teach them well and let them lead the way" in how they will acquire, master, and utilize knowledge. "Show them all the beauty they possess inside" in order to intrinsically motivate them to want to learn. "Give them a sense of pride to make it easier" for them to find their own meaning in the standards that they must master in order to pass a particular course. "Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be" when we ourselves were students (Whitney Houston, "Greatest Love of All").
That last line in particular reminds me of how excited I was to use Ask Jeeves for the first time in my 9th grade Regional World Studies class in order to do research on the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. At the time, Ask Jeeves was a newly developed research tool on the Internet. My own memory of this experience reinforces the need for teachers to not only continuously learn about and incorporate new learning strategies and methods, but to also serve as a guide on the side of student learning and to let students find meaning in their own learning.
Whitney Houston
"Greatest Love of All"
August 2012
Kathryn Thayer, Social Studies Teacher
teach-them-well-let-them-lead
Facing History is Not a Walk in the Park
I recently returned from a two week mini "Grand Tour" of Europe. The last stop on our itinerary was the Bavarian capital, Munich. As a World History teacher, I had to sign up for the Third Reich walking tour of the city. Along the two hour walk, we saw many significant sites like the Nazi Headquarters, Dodger’s Alley, and Hofbrauhaus. However, the most remarkable moment for me was actually the very end of the tour.
As we stood in Marienplatz, the last stop on our journey, our guide asked if we had any questions. The ten of us looked around at each other and remained silent, except for one man who asked, “How is Nazi history taught in German schools?” Our tour guide explained that when he was in high school in the 1980s, he learned about Nazi history for about two weeks. After a tumultuous year, teaching online during the pandemic, I only had about two weeks to teach most units which spanned hundreds of years, rather than a few decades. He added that his children who are currently in school spend about two months learning about the Nazi period. Additionally, every student in Bavaria is required to visit Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp in Germany.
I was in awe listening to how the German education system teaches the darkest period in the country’s history. I thought about how I learned about slavery in the US when I was a student. I grew up in Northern Virginia, an area rich in Civil War sites and mansions owned by slaveholders. However, our field trip to Mount Vernon in 1st grade and trip to a Civil War era mansion in 4th grade completely ignored the lives of the enslaved people who lived and worked on the grounds. Then I considered how controversial teaching accurate history in the US has become, especially the last few years. I reflected on how I taught. I try to provide students with a more detailed understanding of often oversimplified topics like slavery, colonialism, and imperialism but was I doing enough? What perspectives was I missing?
Germany’s commitment to providing a thorough and accurate understanding of one the most inhumane and difficult topics to teach motivated me to improve upon my instruction for the upcoming school year. I hope to reframe many units to highlight the experience of the oppressed and those who tried to enact change, rather than focusing on the elite who fought to maintain control.
Third Reich Tour in Munich
July 2021
Natalie Glees, 25, teacher
facing-history-not-walk-park
Inspired by Activism
It was my first day of observations at the school I now teach at. The day had progressed as a typical day and I had the chance to observe two World History 1 courses. After those classes my mentor teacher got into a conversation with two administrators about the events they were expecting for later that day. There was a planned student walkout in response to the school shooting in Parkland, Florida which had happened a month before.
Students of all ages across the country had coordinated what became the first student-led movement for gun control. I was inspired by the students for elevating their voices and creating a platform to stand up and demand that action be taken. I was also inspired by the teachers and administrators of my school who wore shirts in support, helped to answer questions for confused students, and supported any and all of the students who participated in the walkout.
These students were willing to stand up and say they have seen enough and can not sit idly by as more and more of these tragedies occur. The reason I got into teaching was to work with students like this and I hope to be able to inspire some of them. Everyday I get more and more inspired by these students.
Student Protest
March 14, 2018
Josh Britton, 25, High School Teacher
inspired-activism
Parts Unknown, or How a Great Mind Taught Us to Be Better
"Maybe that's enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom ... is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go" (A. Bourdain).
I just fell in love instantly with the show, the concept, and each episode. The way Bourdain would narrate each place he visited would awake something that I longed ever since I moved from France to the US: traveling. It is not just the food and the connections he created when filming all parts of the world that resonated with me, it is the way he is taking us on a private tour and taught us not just the gastronomical facets of a culture, but its history, complexity, as well as the challenges it faced and what each region tries to do to overcome them.
Bourdain became a historian, a chef, and curator, a tourist, and an environmentalist, but more than anything else a story teller. He was able to find the most remote places and exposed their beauty, their secrets, and their tortured histories.
This empathic way of approaching a different culture just opened my eyes to see beyond a place and to try to understand its context, its narrative and peculiarities. The episode on Mexico takes us not only through all the food stalls and typical tacos joints, it showed the dependence America has with its workers working the fields as well as the tension arising from the wall being built and expanded. It is with food though that Bourdain discussed all of these sensitive topics, rallying and unifying opponents and critics around a meal. He was raw and unapologetic and was able to engage in a constructive discussion while sharing wine and food.
To walk in someone else's shoes to see how one lives was his advice and soon a motto I embraced. Traveling is one of the best ways to learn and I can't express how invaluable he was to the community. He made us dream of places and took us on adventures that connected us to all parts of the world. To say that his show opened my eyes and deepened my understanding of different cultures is an understatement. His impact was truly immeasurable.
Anthony Bourdain
<em>Parts Unknown: Mexico</em>
Sorya Or, 42, High school Social Studies teacher
parts-unknown-great-mind-taught-us-better
Learning to Differentiate
I grew up in suburban Ohio and I knew from an early age that I wanted to experience more of the world than the mall. In high school, I applied for a student exchange program and desperately wanted to go to Argentina. Surprise -- I was accepted into the program, but selected for Japan. Not just Japan, but a very (very) small town in rural southern Japan. I was the first foreigner that most of the residents of Ogi (the name of the town) had ever seen and I literally could stop traffic while bicycling to school each morning. I certainly wasn't in Ohio anymore.
In the course of the school year that I spent in Japan, I attended school in an unheated, uninsulated school building in which students learned by listening and repeating what the teacher told them; no room for creative thought. I witnessed a student who had dozed off in classics class (learning 1,000 year old poetry written in archaic Japanese) get hit by the teacher with a book to the head -- and no one said anything. I lived in the home of a local sake producer who grew the rice and made the barrels used to age the sake. I attended a Shinto wedding and a Buddhist funeral. I learned how to participate in a tea ceremony, how to create ink paintings, and how to avoid getting hit too hard in kendo class.
It was all strange and difficult and hard to understand until that one day that I came face-to-face with a lesson in stereotyping and sweeping generalizations. Coming back from the movies with my friends, one of them asked me casually how I was able to differentiate amongst my friends in the United States. I was taken aback and, at first, thought I misunderstood the question, but no, my Japanese friends thought "we" all looked alike -- tall, blond, and blue-eyed! (I am tall, but not blond and my eyes are hazel colored.) And, there, on the other side of the world at the young age of 17, I learned that we are all very much alike in our prejudices and that to truly know another person means to get beyond the physical characteristics and meet the person on the inside.
Exchange Student Program
1975
Jim Wagner, 64, History Teacher
learning-differentiate
The Shoes
We (my mother, father, sister, and I) were travelling in Poland (where my mother's family is from). One of the places we visited was Auschwitz.
Every year I teach about World War II including the Holocaust. I share photos from my travels with my students throughout the school year, but it is something I was not able to photograph that chokes me up every year. The shoes. There is a large room, really more of a warehouse, with what looks like a large aquarium along one side (glass floor to ceiling). It is mostly (and used to be) full of shoes. Over time the shoes have begun to disintegrate and settled, making the number look smaller than what they represent. Knowing that it was common for individuals to have only one pair, maybe two pairs, of shoes means that every pair represents a person. You can talk about the sheer number of people who died in the Holocaust, in World War II, but those are abstract and sometimes too large to comprehend. But the shoes make those numbers real - real people, real families, real lives lost...maybe people my mother's family knew or lived near or went to school with. People who were removed from their homes, put on trains, sorted when they disembarked, stripped of their possessions and identities and murdered. Every year when I talk about this with my students, I have to pause and collect myself. And every year I hope that I am providing a sense of the personal into our history class so they don't ask the question "why are we learning about this?"
Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum
2008
Rebecca Watt, Social Studies Teacher and avid traveler
The Power of a Perspective Change
In my first semester as a history grad student, I remember reading an assigned book that changed my perspective on history forever. Prior to grad school, I had a very basic and foundation building education at that point. Looking back to my undergraduate years in a history program, I realized now how traditional the views and sources were. It wasn't until I entered my grad school program that I realized how much more open the field of history has been in recent history with its intersectionality and fresh perspectives in modern scholarship. <br /><br />I had a moment that completely deconstructed my idea of U.S. History when I was participating in our class discussion on Daniel K. Richter's <em>Facing East from Indian Country</em>. In the book's introduction, Richter shares a narrative of a moment he had in a St. Louis hotel room overlooking the famous Arch structure and thought to himself what if we viewed U.S. history facing east instead of facing west? That simple perspective shift upended my grade school education and historical upbringing as a young student. No longer was the story driven and told simply from the powerful and oppressive sources. The victims of the powerful were now being told that there was value to their stories and provide a fuller understanding of history. <br /><br />Richter shares the historical problem of the lack of primary sources from American Indians but still attempts to share a narrative with their perspectives at the center. He uses an unconventional method of sourcing to achieve his goals and provides an alternative history that highlights the pain and brokenness that European colonization has caused in North America. As an educator and historian, I am inspired by Richter's work and methodology and I hope to create learning experiences for my students that will not only inform them of the traditionally missing voices in history but also share with them the new ways that the field of history has been trying to create a fuller, more accurate and balanced history that will hopefully inspire them to do the same in their futures.
Daniel K. Richter
<em>Facing East from Indian Country</em>
Fall 2017
Michelle Lukacs, 30, Social Studies Secondary Teacher
power-perspective-change
One Ship Connects Generations
On the morning of March 17, 2008, I called my grandmother as I was getting ready to board the Queen Mary. I remember telling her - "I am next to your ship!" I sent photos to my mom to share with her and she was looking at them while we were still on the phone. My grandmother couldn't believe that she was looking at "her ship" again. That is when my humanities moment happened. In that moment, grandmother and granddaughter were connected in a way that they hadn't been before. Minutes later, I stepped on board for the tour, standing on the ship my grandmother immigrated to the United States on.
My grandmother immigrated to the United States from Port Glasgow, Scotland in the early 1950s. She has shared many of her own memories with me over the course of my lifetime, and some she has kept close to her heart. I remember learning about Ellis Island when I was in elementary school, coming home and asking her about her experience coming to America. Ellis Island was closed as an immigrant processing station, so she had no memories of that, but she always talked about the ship she came here on - RMS Queen Mary. The ship was built in her hometown of Port Glasgow. Both her father and grandfather worked on it, her father as an electrician and her grandfather as a carpenter. It was christened in 1934, a month after she was born and 21 years later, it was the ship she sailed to America on- a one-way ticket in hand.
The Queen Mary is currently used as a floating hotel in Long Beach, California. Having had the opportunity to explore the ship, I was able to connect with my ancestors. Not only my grandmother who set sail on it, but also her father and grandfather, people I would never know, but who felt part of me as I encountered their work. While there, I also learned about the role that the RMS Queen Mary played in shuttling troops across the Atlantic during World War II. This is all part of my history and one of the most significant humanities moments that I have experienced.
RMS Queen Mary
2008
Kathleen Stankiewicz, 39, High School History Teacher
one-ship-connects-generations
<em>People of the Book </em>Reminds Me Why I Love the Humanities
I read <em>People of the Book</em> by Geraldine Brooks a few days ago and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. This book combined many of my loves: reading, historical fiction, and stories of survival and humanity.<br /><br />As a history teacher, with two young kids, I don't get much time to read for pleasure during the year. And this past year of the pandemic was the hardest of my career and I had even less time for reading. I have been so happy to slow down and relax this summer and to escape into the world of this book that was so captivating. <br /><br />This book had been sitting on my nightstand for months and once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. It was such a powerful novel about imagined and embellished stories about a real live artifact, the Sarajevo Haggadah. The stories that the author created felt so real and I grew so attached to the people who helped protect this book. I learned so much about history and religion that I didn't know before. I also learned so much about the human condition. <br /><br />This is why I love my job. You can always learn more. I was so inspired by this book to keep reading others and keep learning more. I can't wait to travel and eventually see the real Haggadah. I want to share its story and hope others will get the opportunity to read this book!
Geraldine Brooks
<em>People of the Book</em>
July 2021
Natalie Hanson, 36, History Teacher
people-book-reminds-love-humanities
The Solace of Libraries
For as long as I can remember I have found peace in libraries. Just the idea of them makes me smile. My earliest memory of being in a library is from when I was a young child, around four years old, in the town of Franklin, Tennessee. The War Memorial Public Library was housed in a historic Victorian house in the downtown area of what was then a small city of about ten thousand people. I remember walking into the main room and seeing a large, dark-wood desk occupied by a matronly librarian who greeted me with a friendly smile. I remember that the children’s books were in a room to the right, which was filled, floor-to-ceiling with closely spaced shelves of books and the worlds they contained. It smelled old in there and was always kind of dark, with light entering mainly through the large windows on one side of the room. This lent an air of mysteriousness and I always felt like I was on an adventure, an intrepid explorer alone among the aisles of books that dwarfed me. I remember being a little anxious and maybe even a little frightened, but I loved the feel of the books in my hand. The excitement of getting to choose a pile of them to take home, as many as I could carry, was stronger than my fears. I felt empowered.
When I reflect on it now, I realize that these trips to the library must have been just as important to my mother as they were to me. She was and still is a voracious reader, and was always in the middle of numerous books, which were scattered throughout the rooms of our house. I have always admired her ability to pick one up and read a few pages in the interstices of her busy day, grasping onto moments of escape wherever she could find them as an effectively single mother, nursing student, and homemaker in the early 1970s. There were four of us and I was the “baby” by six years, which meant that I was privileged to spend time with her and do things that she didn’t have the time to do with my older brothers and sister, who were all spaced a couple of years apart. While they were in school, we sometimes got to do special things like going to the library.
Sitting alone among the stacks, pulling a book off the shelf to see what was inside, reading some of it right there to see if it was worthy of taking home to read again and again…I still get the same excitement from it today as I did when I was four years old. That same profound sense of peace and possibility comforts me every time I enter a library, and I still do it every chance I get.
1973
Lauren Eastland, 52, PhD Candidate, University of California, Davis
solace-of-libraries
Le Magic School Bus
No, it wasn’t the real Magic School Bus from the books and TV. But one of my most poignant humanities moments did happen on a bus. And I did learn a lot from it. And, yes, the bus was French.
I grew up in Arizona in a monolingual family. I studied French in my last years of high school because I needed it to graduate. I loved it. I loved it more than I loved any other subject ever before. So much so that I majored in French and History in college. I aced my French classes. Then I started taking Spanish and Italian. Languages came really easy to me. Growing up with a brother who had known he was going to be a pilot from the age of five, I thought that maybe I had finally found ‘my thing’.
In 2010, I took a job opportunity to move to Lyon, France as an English Teaching Assistant through a bilateral program between French and American embassies. I arrived and had the normal struggles adjusting to a new city and to how quickly people spoke French. I left the U.S. with my straight A grades and the language in my mind as a bunch of binary code of 0s and 1s that could be pulled out of my mind to fit any situation.
Except for the bus.
About two thirds of the way into my one year contract was when I had my humanities moment that still serves as a reference today. As is required in a French memory, I was on my way to meet my friends at a cafe and was running late. I was speed walking through the main square in the center of town growing more and more anxious about being late, proof that I was still not as French as I had liked to think. As I was rushing, getting my heart rate up, and tensing up all of my muscles to try to walk even faster, I noticed an idle bus facing the general direction I needed to go. As I walked up to the door, the driver opened it and I came gusting into the bus out of breath.
In the process of making eye contact with the driver, I asked in French, ‘Does this bus go to [name of cafe’s street]?’
The bus driver sat up straight and looked at me for an extended moment before saying very seriously ‘Mademoiselle, we say hello to each other first. We don’t just ask. So, let’s begin again. Bonjour Monsieur.' His attempt to instruct me on how to be polite can be very easily considered rude, but that didn’t faze me because I had already felt the weighty guilt of making cultural missteps.
The bus didn’t go where I needed to go, so I got off and the driver drove on. I was very late to meet my friends. However, I stood on the street corner for a minute or two thinking about what happened. I thought about how I took my knowledge of the French language and framed it in my American habits of often being quick and in a rush. I began to realize the real world of language and cultural competence is just as important, if not more important, to learning a language. There are different styles of formality, salutation, turn-taking, interactions with strangers, etc. It wasn’t just the 0s and 1s that my French degree gave me. There were also 3s, 8s, 5s, and maybe even a few exclamation points mixed into the code. It was a rich world of human interaction that was accessed by travel. This has led me to language and its social implications. This has led me to sociolinguistics and researching language and belonging. So, this magic school bus did actually end up taking me somewhere I needed to go and it got me there just in time.
Travel
2010
Ashley Coogan, 34, PhD Student in Linguistics & Applied Linguistics, Arizona State University
le-magic-school-bus
Rebecca: The Novel & its Various Adaptations
Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of Daphne DuMaurier's <em>Rebecca</em>
Primary School
Alexis Lygoumenos, PhD student, actress under the stage name Alexis Nichols
rebecca-novel-adaptations
<em>Bite Me!</em>- A Florida Humanities Moment
People frequently talk about being haunted. Usually by spirits, both by the friendly Casper types and the decidedly less friendly Poltergeist types. Sometimes people are haunted by bad decisions. This is a spectrum too. Some must repeatedly face the time we developed a temporary and acute stutter during an eighth-grade presentation. While others face a scarier specter born of a truly terrible decision, like buying a monitor lizard as a pet. Perhaps one of the most pervasive and long-lasting hauntings of all is that of our hometowns. We swear that we’ll leave it forever. Pack our bags and only talk about home to family and in the occasional childhood anecdote while we live somewhere exciting and exotic. This attitude was especially pandemic to my hometown of Orlando, FL.<br /><br />You see, Florida is often presented as an exciting place for people to visit. And they do, by the millions. Everyone eventually comes to Florida, at least for a while. To quote Jerry Seinfeld: “My parents didn’t want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty and that’s the law.” <br /><br />To offer a few examples of this phenomenon: The spiritualists founded the town of Cassadaga, FL (which still has a major spiritualist camp). Jack Kerouac bought a house in Orlando to quietly read and write. Laura Ingles Wilder briefly came to the state for her health. Ernest Hemingway, on the other hand, famously came to stay. He went so far as to buy a house and began a long line of six-toed cats. The cousins of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (grandchildren of Alexander II) came to South Florida after the Revolution. One even became the three-time mayor of Palm Beach. Florida is a holiday and a safe house. It is where people come to escape—they escape the grind of daily life, illness, political prosecution, revolutions, icy winters, writer’s block, and sometimes even the law. <br /><br />In these imaginings, Florida then is understood as a land where people bring "culture." The locals are people who supposedly accept "culture." This view is pervasive, and many (including me in my teenage years) believed this. It was for this reason that my friends and I dreamed of leaving Orlando and go somewhere where things happened. It all changed one afternoon, thanks to a rather unexpected humanities moment. <br /><br />How I got the book in the first place is part of its random charm. In 2005 or 2006, Tom Levine—a local fisherman, author, and “character”—showed up in my parents’ two-person CPA business in Orlando, FL. Levine periodically sells his books business-to-business or in farmers’ markets in Central Florida, using his charisma and humor in equal measure. My parents declined to turn their office into a small-scale bookstore but did buy a couple of his books—including Bite Me! I, a twelve-year-old girl who didn't fish, was clearly not the intended audience. And yet, I quickly came to love this book. <br /><br />Tom Levine’s <em>Bite Me!</em> is an admittedly unusual choice for an inspirational book. It’s a slender collection of essays about Levine’s travels. Described in one paper as “Part Hiaasen, part Hemingway,” Levine writes to celebrate nature, critique the overdevelopment of “paradise,” and of course to support his fishing expeditions. On the surface, his book <em>Bite Me!</em> is a humorous take on his journeys around the world. But what truly struck my interest was his deep and open love for the natural world of Florida. Levine articulates a clear argument for preserving our natural splendor. Not for tourists to ogle on vacation, but because the swamps, coastal wetlands, and pinewoods of Florida were innately valuable and worth saving—just as much as any mountain, scenic alpine lake, or rocky beach. It changed my relationship with my surroundings, I started thinking of Florida as a place within the world rather than a suburb outside of it. <br /><br />This new appreciation, in turn, led me to investigate my state’s history, environment, and literature. I started reading in earnest the works of Zora Neale Hurston, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Carl Hiaasen, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, and others. I realized that there was a cacophony of voices in the state who all have painted a full picture of Florida as a strange and special place that doesn’t need others to determine its worth. That the land and its many peoples are historied and important, and that Florida's troubled past and diverse actors deserved consideration. The land they lived on transformed from a boring backdrop to a central part of the Flordia story. <br /><br />This radical new point of view ultimately brought me to a MA and Ph.D. on Florida’s colonial past. You can say that Florida has become, to my great surprise, my life’s work. <br /><br />When I moved away for graduate school, I thought I may feel triumphant in realizing my childhood goal of leaving. Instead, I have found myself longing for the woods and beaches I used to traverse. Every time I return to this unexpected book, I feel like I’m with Levine searching the waterways and coastlines of the world to rediscover Florida and an elusive bite. From where I sit today, the ghost of my hometown still sits at my side. It floats around in my thoughts and writing and appears to have settled in for good.
Tom Levine
<em>Bite Me!</em>
2005-2010
Rebecca Earles, 27, graduate student (Rice University)
bite-me-florida-humanities-moment
<em>Asian American Dreams</em>
While a double major in Biology and Studio Art at Colgate University, a predominantly-white university in Upstate New York, my coursework provided challenging STEM curricula and liberal arts classes steeped in the classical Western tradition. However, I did not realize what I was not learning (and had desperately, subconsciously been seeking to learn) until a guest speaker came to our little, snow laden school in the “middle of somewhere.” <br /><br />As a junior in college, I joined a newly formed club called the “Organization of Asian Sisters in Solidarity,” which brought Asian American and Asian international women and femmes together (a small group of about ten of us) to discuss our experiences at a predominantly-white campus. We did not have a single Asian American Studies class on campus, and at 20, I did not even know that Asian American Studies was a field with an activist history stemming from 1968 strikes which originated in San Francisco, the California Bay Area where I was born and raised. We, naively, decided to find guest speakers of Asian American background to bring to campus via Google search. Somehow, we convinced a famous Asian American activist, Helen Zia, to visit. <br /><br />When Helen Zia came to campus, our small club and about forty or so students and faculty gathered in the Women’s Studies Center for a lunch time discussion. Even as a co-organizer of the talk, I had no idea how pivotal Helen was to the development of Asian American Studies. (Six years later, I kick myself for not making a bigger deal out of the event or trying to get an even larger turn out, despite having already invited all of my friends on campus). Helen’s talk was based on her book, <em>Asian American Dreams</em> (2000), and she drew out personal anecdotes such as: why she chose to work in an autofactory instead of going the STEM route; her journalism and activism surrounding the unjust murder of Vincent Chin in 1982; her experience coming-out in the public eye; and what it means to have Asian American dreams. [The image is my visual notes taken of this event]. <br /><br />Helen Zia coming to Colgate was the first of many humanities moments that catalyzed my life path toward a drastically different direction than I thought it would take in 2016. In college, I was a Biology honors student who spent hours in the lab studying the relationship between mitochondrial damage and cancer and dreamed of becoming a pediatrician. However, after graduation, instead of going forward with my plans, I finally found the time to read Helen Zia’s <em>Asian American Dreams</em> (2000) in its entirety. It was the first Asian American Studies book I’d ever read and it inspired me to pursue my MA in Asian American Studies at UCLA and now my PhD in Cultural Studies at Davis, where I am a Teaching Assistant in the Asian American Studies Department. <br /><br />It saddens me to know that Ethnic Studies courses continue to be few and far between but I am hopeful that work in Asian American Studies, as well as African American Studies, Chicanx and Latinx Studies, and Indigenous and Native American Studies, will continue to emerge in our higher education and K-12 classrooms.
Helen Zia
<em>Asian American Dreams</em>
December 2016
Angel Trazo, 26, PhD student in Cultural Studies at UC Davis
asian-american-dreams