[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ next_background_color=”#000000″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.48″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”1_4″][et_pb_post_title date_format=”j M Y” categories=”off” featured_image=”off” _builder_version=”3.12″ title_font_size=”20px” title_font_size_last_edited=”off|” title_font=”|700||on|||||” date=”off” comments=”off” meta=”off” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_4″][et_pb_image src=”http:\/\/radicalteacher.com\/playbooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/IMG_0712.jpg” show_bottom_space=”off” align=”center” _builder_version=”3.12.2″ \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ custom_padding=”0|0px|42.5833px|0px|false|false” prev_background_color=”#000000″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.12″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.12.2″]<\/p>\n
In the 2nd grade, I wrote a 12-page, hand-written essay on dinosaurs. I wrote about the T-Rex, brontosaurus and pterodactyl.\u00a0 I drew colored pictures (with captions!) of every dinosaur I could think of, and described, in detail, their size, habitat and what they ate.\u00a0 In the 2nd grade, there is space and freedom to let passion dictate learning.\u00a0 But, somewhere between elementary school (and perhaps pre-K these days) and adulthood, that integration of passion and learning is lost.\u00a0 By my senior year of high school, my intellectual self-worth was predicated on an archaic, futile system of standardization and letter grades.\u00a0 I had forgotten what it felt like to learn for fun and to explore something because I was genuinely interested in it.\u00a0 When I look back on high school, I cannot remember one thing I learned about that I was truly passionate about.\u00a0 I read interesting books and had inspiring teachers, but there was always this intangible box students were forced to exist in, and while you could bend and jump and sit in this box, you could never smash it and rebuild it.<\/p>\n
I smashed this glass box my sophomore year of college when I decided to take Intro to Global Studies.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014 it wasn\u2019t this beautiful, easy learning experience.\u00a0 No, no.\u00a0 It was a pain in my ass mixed with awe and excitement.\u00a0 At times I tried to glue the glass back together and then I would sit on the glass (metaphorically, of course) and it\u2019d hurt and I\u2019d cry.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know what to make of a \u201cclassroom\u201d structure that defied every perception I had of academia.\u00a0 I was confused and inspired and intrigued.<\/p>\n
During one of the first few weeks of 101, tom asked that we write a \u201cself-identity\u201d essay.\u00a0 In typical, robotic fashion, I wrote where I grew up, what I thought I might major in, why I chose PC.\u00a0 The next week my essay, along with my 15 or so classmate\u2019s, was returned.\u00a0 Dig deeper.\u00a0 Give me more.\u00a0 I\u2019ll never forget sitting down in my dorm room, still relatively new to the college experience, not knowing where to start.\u00a0 I remember thinking, \u201cbut I even wrote it in 5 paragraph format!<\/em>\u201d How open was I supposed to be?\u00a0 How vulnerable was he expecting us to get?\u00a0 Dig deeper?\u00a0 So, I said screw it.\u00a0 I decided I didn\u2019t want to do this assignment 3 times, so I better make it good.<\/p>\n And it was great.<\/p>\n I wrote from a place of freedom and passion and vulnerability.\u00a0 I wrote about hating Harry Potter, even though all my contemporaries loved it growing up.\u00a0 I wrote about being sexually assaulted when I was 12.\u00a0 I wrote about my strained relationship with my sister and her struggle with body image and anorexia.\u00a0 It was cathartic and empowering.\u00a0 When he and Leah asked to anonymously share it during the following week\u2019s class, it felt incredible to be academically validated for submitting an assignment from a place of honesty.\u00a0 I was hooked.\u00a0 A few weeks later, I declared GST as my major.\u00a0 And suddenly, tom king, with his intimidating 6\u20198\u201d stature and quiet presence, became my teacher, my mentor and my friend.<\/p>\n When I look back on my experience in Global Studies, from 101 to piloting a Global Activism course to Capstone and team-teaching, it\u2019s easy to remember those years with nostalgia and fondness.\u00a0 But they were hard.\u00a0 They were really, really, hard.\u00a0 Not only because the level of effort and passion tom demanded from his students was high, but because it required significant mental and emotional effort to undo a decade plus of schooling.\u00a0 Wait, I can swear at my teacher?\u00a0 I don\u2019t have to raise my hand?\u00a0 I can challenge his feedback?\u00a0 I can choose what I want to learn about?\u00a0 It was incredibly difficult for me to breakdown the archetypal hierarchy of learning I had existed in for so long.\u00a0 But, because tom viewed his \u2018students\u2019 as co-learners and partners and collaborators, it became easier with time.\u00a0 It also became easier to tell him when I felt uninspired or pissed off or disinterested in an assignment.<\/p>\n For example, tom asked if we\u2019d go on a class field trip one Saturday.\u00a0 So, we woke up at 8am (which in college years felt like 4am) and went to a farm in the middle of Rhode Island.\u00a0 We had just completed our \u2018food diaries\u2019 in which we tracked every food we ate for a week (dining hall, grocery store, restaurant) and listed where it came from, how far it traveled to get to our plate, what type of food it was, etc.\u00a0 I HATED this assignment.\u00a0 I was like a petulant child complaining about it over and over again.\u00a0 It felt tedious and annoying and, well, hard.\u00a0 So, the culmination of this assignment was to go to this farm and learn about local food systems.\u00a0 The next week, as we sat in class reflecting on the assignment and field trip, an incredible discussion unfolded about food and body image and agribusiness and culture.\u00a0 Having now worked in healthcare for 5 years, specifically within the realm of pediatric obesity, I feel immense gratitude for this assignment.\u00a0 From tracking food and learning about sustainable farming, I learned how agribusiness relates to the economy and how this exacerbates global warming.\u00a0 As a class we discussed the intersectionality of wealth and food insecurity and racism and poverty.\u00a0 I remember all of this now, almost 10 years later, because we each brought our own experiences and passion to the discussion.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t memorize stats or take an exam.\u00a0 I remember now because I cared then.<\/p>\n When I came back from my semester abroad in Cape Town, South Africa, I was asked by tom to team-teach GST 101.\u00a0 Having spent 6 months in a country rife with socio-political history and incredible culture, I couldn\u2019t wait to start motivating and working with students the way tom had motivated me just two years prior.\u00a0 However, with senior year stress being as pervasive as it is, I got scared and backed out.\u00a0 But, tom emphasized to me that team-teaching is collaborative.\u00a0 It\u2019s a partnership.\u00a0 Being someone who often puts too much pressure on myself and then cracks, I was reminded in that moment that I wasn\u2019t alone in this experience and that there was room to create something unique and awesome.\u00a0 So, I brought my loud, bubbly, enthusiasm to a classroom full of nervous, fidgety freshman (who turned out to be among the most inspiring, intelligent, challenging group of freaks, whom I love dearly).\u00a0 tom brought his quiet, compassionate, pain-in-the-ass, always-deflects-the-question-back-at-you self and together, we created a space rooted in learning and exploration and passion.\u00a0 Team-teaching 101 with tom taught me about mentorship, about the importance of confidence and the value of humility, about working partnerships (which has transcended every job I\u2019ve had post-college) and about integrating excitement and curiosity in everything you do.<\/p>\n tom\u2014thank you for your friendship, for your guidance and for the impact you\u2019ve had on my life.\u00a0 Here\u2019s to many more years of laughing and learning together.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ next_background_color=”#000000″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.48″ background_size=”initial” 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I wrote about the T-Rex, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-30717","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/radicalteacher.com\/playbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/radicalteacher.com\/playbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/radicalteacher.com\/playbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/radicalteacher.com\/playbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/radicalteacher.com\/playbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30717"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/radicalteacher.com\/playbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30995,"href":"http:\/\/radicalteacher.com\/playbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30717\/revisions\/30995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/radicalteacher.com\/playbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}