Women as Empowered Learners and Leaders: Looking Back

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    Women as Empowered Learners and Leaders: Looking Back

    My educational journey began 15 years ago. Having graduated from high school at 16

    years of age, I was 17 years old, sitting in a Calculus class at Springfield Technical Community

    College, twirling my engagement ring around my finger. It almost seemed too big for my finger;

    would it be overthinking to attribute some sort of symbolic meaning to this observation: that

    maybe adult life was a little too loose for my tiny feet? I had no idea what I wanted to do with

    my life and walked around with a head and heart full of many wistful ambitions; doctor, lawyer,

    writer, psychologist. Like many at such a young age, I was in desperate need of guidance and

    procedural, step by step learning for life itself; the evasive concepts that extend beyond the

    academics and cant be taught in the classroom, or could they?

    I struggled through many semesters, frustrated because IQ tests and sporadic stellar

    performances indicated I was capable of doing anything I wanted, yet I was lost in a whirlwind

    of facts, mental catalogs filled with decades of information, facts and observations constantly

    being organized. I was forced to withdraw from many classes, changed my major many times

    from Mathematics, to Pre-Medical, to Psychology, and even took a handful of writing classes

    and contemplated philosophy, law, social work/counseling, or the path of a starving artist: a

    Masters in Fine Arts for creative writing. I was no closer to finding my purpose after 10 years of

    college attendance. If anything, I felt like even more of a failure, irreparably malfunctioned with

    so many withdrawals and failed attempts to complete classes despite excellent grades and

    retentions on the assignments I could complete. At the age of 27 (5 years ago), I was diagnosed

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    with Autistic Spectrum, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and a profound Central

    Auditory Processing Disorder. This was actually a defining moment because it meant,

    theoretically, a bridge could be formed, utilizing my many gifts to forge a path across the abyss

    that was my many weaknesses and deficits. There are some things we cant change about

    ourselves. I cant understand what I hear; to this day, even after 5 years of twice weekly

    sessions, I still operate on a 2-8 second delay before understanding of what I have heard finally

    registers. I saw a glimmer of hope, that maybe I wasntterminally defective, but still I was quite

    lost with regard to direction. In all these years of stumbling about the cascade of racing

    thoughts-many productive but too much to contain inside one head at any given time- I still had

    no idea what I really wanted to do with my life. As I entered Bay Path last year, a college junior,

    with 3 children, with not only severe and vast learning disabilities but also a degenerative,

    progressively crippling rare spinal cord disorder to now try and fit even more, into some non-

    existent plan of what I was going to be; the plan for my life that still squirmed and recoiled from

    contact, evading my desperately seeking eyes. I saw the problem before me as a pragmatic

    logical formula that cried out to be solved. I considered the many factors, my children, my

    abilities, my declining ability to walk, and of course the ever present, slightly odd personal

    presentation that has Autism to thank. As far as I was concerned, it was so blatantly apparent: I

    would work in a lab where I wouldnt stick out so much, where I could handle the job duties

    intellectually, and maybe this would be something I could do in a wheelchair. It all seemed to fit

    my needs and abilities quite nicely.

    And then there was Bay Path College, and the WELL program, the last and final stop on

    my runaway train to no-mans-land. Bay Path would not accept my pragmatism or logic as a

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    substitute for true purpose. Bay Path would not allow me to think in terms of a sick person

    seeking the most logical solution. If the collective mission of our campus was not powerful

    enough to sway me to the side of passionate pursuit flinging the purity of logic to the side; well,

    then there was the WELL program. There were two classes left, two more opportunities to

    force me to look inside for answers and be okay and celebrate what came of that exploration.

    As I watched my campus community pour over from the front of classrooms into each and

    every student, everyone from public safety officers to the book store clerks, to the president

    herself, Bay Path practiced what it preached, passionate and unwaveringly persistent in their

    contribution to my life and education. I realized that logic could not tell me in what ways I can

    give back to my community, nor was logic synonymous with truly believing that what I had to

    offer was worthwhile, desirable, and necessary. There would be no more hiding behind raw

    ability which had always been easier than having to believe in myself, or the ultimate extension

    of self-love: daring to assert that belief of myself to others around me. My six weeks in

    WELL310 taught me that it only hurts, but for a moment. When that moment unravels and

    fades away, as it is merely an inherited slave to the demands of time, I found beauty left in its

    place; a monument of my strength erected where fear once lay. Public speaking, presentations,

    and *GASP* a cover letter and resume that boasted of my talents and abilities. The only thing

    worse than those was the assignment where I had to tell a fictitious potential employer, You

    want me, and let me tell you why, on video tape as my partner and I recorded our mock video

    interviews. This was a nightmare come true for me, for all of my insecurities that had long since

    taken over feeding instructions to the physical presence that navigated life. I felt like more of a

    bystander, powerless and at the mercy of these deeply rooted insecurities. In 30 years I never

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    dared to wonder if I had something somebody wanted, or needed; instead I settled for a long

    but flimsy list of things I could do well. The WELL310 experience for someone like me was life

    shattering and liberating all at once, in the same breath I had been holding for 5 weeks. I felt

    incredibly uncomfortable with myself, to such an extent that I truly struggled to write positive

    things about myself, spending 8 hours on that cover letter to a potential graduate school

    program. But I did it. That is to say I gave myself over to truth. I believed in Bay Paths mission

    and the mission and goals of the WELL program enough to put one shaky, hesitant foot in front

    of the other, writing line after line of my favorable personal attributes; one foot in front of the

    other to the front of my WELL classroom to present my career portfolio. I faked it until I truly

    did make it as I told Dr. Lauren Way, my WELL310 instructor during my junior year. I had used

    that phrase often throughout my adult years, but sadly, before this experience I was still faking

    it.

    For many younger students, WELL teaches prepares them for the next steps in their life,

    those that are rushing dangerously close as they reach the completion of their college years. It

    is a path of self-discovery, learning responsibility, breaking down fears and barriers and

    teaching young woman how to stand tall, strong and unwaveringly as they present themselves

    unashamed; as they prepare and hone their gifts, gleaming what adult life will look like. For

    me, WELL has been a journey of assimilation; a joining of the talents I knew I entered in with,

    but also weaving my unique essence and passions between each of these morsels and wrapping

    them neatly with a bow, ready to present to the world. I was drawn to an unfamiliar, whole

    hearted faith that these things I had to offer were both desirable and ought to be coveted.

    Most importantly my Bay Path and WELL experiences taught me something I could never

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    fathom on my own, the idea that what I was, what I had inside of me, my passions and sense of

    justice were plain necessaryto the community around me. It has always been hard for me to

    see myself or anything I had to offer as necessary; as if many important things hinged upon my

    offertory. WELL forced me to see beyond a logical decision of what I do with proficiency,

    instead I began to see myself as discussed in the 310 book, Great Career, Great Work by

    Stephen Covey. I saw my life as that Venn diagram described, four perpendicular, overlapping

    ovals (talent, conscience, passions, and societal need) the convergence at the center of all four

    was where my unique contributionlay. Unique is not a word to be taken lightly, it truly refers to

    something indigenous ONLY to me; something no one else on this earth could ever replicate

    being unable to feign the 3 factors that created the unique center I was needed to fill . I had

    never considered myself as having such a unique contribution before Bay Path, or the WELL

    program, and this knowledge only proved to deepen my sense of moral obligation to the

    community around me, to such an extent I grappled with my plans with deep conflict as I

    entered this semester of my senior year.

    I was mentally set to attend a graduate program in Neuroscience; more specifically I had

    decided to pursue neuroendocrine research. Shamefully I had before me, a long list of potential

    graduate labs, all fascinating to me but this path demands that we choose one minute area of

    neuroscience, often with only one avenue through which we pursued answers, humans, mice,

    birds, even zebra fish; just one. I almost felt as if I was flipping a coin amidst so many things I

    would love to do, and likely would do well. That one decision, the coin flip, sets in motion a

    series of events that destines you to swim in that one tiny puddle for many years to follow. And

    in the few seconds it took to reach in the hat and pull out a number, I had all my logical ducks in

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    a row, but once again, I wasnt following the WELL rules. How quickly even the older and wiser

    women wander from the truth when left to their own devices. I clung to comfort, to the plan

    and put one foot in front of the other upon that path to being a scientist. All the pieces seemed

    to fit together so nicely, expect it wasnt my unique contribution. It wasnt the one thing I had to

    offer that no one else could do like I could. My plan was paper perfect and effectually

    meaningless. It lacked integration of my compassion for others, my passion for young adults

    and teens at the heavily embroidered junction of transition in their lives. My plans to be a

    scientist left me unable to touch people, be intimate, or to read them with such clarity it is as if

    I am feeling their emotions in my own being; my ability to be a chameleon and adapt as years of

    undiagnosed autism forced me to do from such a young age. My fixation of choice as an

    autistic child was people, full and rich with so many staggering combinations of expressions,

    word choices, actions, inaction, and interaction. I catalogued it all to such an extent I would

    wonder how much of empathy is an intangible emotional quality as opposed to an input output

    machine with a 20 year old database to draw off of, the process refined over time now lightning

    fast. Regardless of where it comes from, it is simply me. I love all knowledge and loathe the

    practice of resigning oneself, indefinitely (or forever?) to a specific model organism, in a

    microscopic area, of a sub-science, of a specific field of science, distinguished as one of the

    biological sciences. I wanted to mull over thoughts of varied disciplines and connect them

    together seamlessly, engage others, even argue from time to time wrapped in the blind heat of

    philosophical passion. To me, math, science, law, psychology, philosophy and even writing are

    all born of the same mental process, merely different in the superficial manifestations of the

    same root existence. It seemed like such a shame to decide to work with neuro-estrogens, with

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    song birds, in neuroendocrinology, in neuroscience, which is one of the biological sciences. A

    commitment to such a thing is against everything that makes me who I am, defies my passions

    mentally and intellectually. There are so many other facets of the whole that is on display all

    around us; so many dimensions wasted, lost, out of reach from this tiny hole I created myself,

    obscuring the intoxicating light show that danced all around me.

    When conflict reached its peak I fought and twisted, maybe so much that fate created

    its own obstacles to make sure I wouldnt miss the train. I began formally tutoring Math Physics

    and Writing, at the same time I contemplated changing my major to Biology. I was

    overwhelmed with a gift I never realized I possessed. So many years of not understanding what

    I hear and I literally see everything around me, concepts in a lecture as intertwined imagery, all

    a part of a larger unit; pieces of a map when if missing leave one hopelessly lost. Without even

    meaning to I offered this to my peers, analogies, visuals, the thread that connected scattered

    pieces that seemed impossible for them to memorize. I took those pieces and created a picture

    we fondled and twisted about together. I felt alive; I felt whole-maybe really for the first time

    ever. My WELL400 capstone project only fueled the fire that was raging within as we discussed

    educational performances in our country, students lacking writing abilities as they enter

    institutions of higher education; many from high school, illiterate. Our WELL400 students, set

    ourselves to the task of designing a web resource for a local high school. As I surveyed our

    handiwork with pride and admiration for the classmate that created the framework from her

    own vision, as I watched the gratitude of high school administration and faculty I couldnt help

    but think how many more out there need someone to teach them, to pour passion and gifts

    into their academic and closely paralleled personal lives as they embark on difficult transitions.

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    I created an eportfolio which includes a wide array of work samples, that are quite

    eclectic; because this is what I am. And in many respects, this hunger to understand everything

    around me, to open my scope of vision to include every single facet, is what makes me unique.

    This desire to see the world as one functioning unit is what caused me to change my graduate

    plans, now pursuing a Masters in Education. My passion is to show others how everything

    around us is interconnected, interwoven and impossible to separate for inspection without

    consideration of the whole. I hope to open students eyesto this type of world they live in, one

    where every field of study, every culture and person intertwined and tightly woven together. I

    hope to instill a hunger in those I continue to tutor and teach. Ironically enough, almost 6 years

    ago I began to homeschool my three children, strengthening my skills an ability to meet a

    student where they are and manipulate material and make sense of the pieces as a part of the

    collective whole; all the while not realizing that the same was true of my adventure that had yet

    to begin, the many pieces of me and the catalyst (Bay Path and WELL), at the right time, would

    come together and my unique contributionrevealed. I am quite certain that such an awakening

    would still be obscured by fear and insecurity if it werent for my WELL experiences, liberating

    the many things I was unaware of, hidden inside of me.