This, the final week but certainly not the final frontier, is a significant marker. Just as our cohort begins to jel and as we gain a familiarity with this new frame as doctoral students, our intensive summer comes to an abrupt end.
Sure, we will all be glad to return to what has been the primary focus of our lives: our jobs and families. Yet, we have started something here, and like all committed and passionate folks, it’s hard to leave midstream. Yes, we will be back together at the end of September, and yes, we have a vast array of assignments to complete for this summer and for the upcoming fall semester. There is plenty to read, research, write, contemplate. I have just fully appreciated this space to learn, reflect, synthesize, and develop as an educator and human being. We are among such dedicated, intelligent, and diverse folks here at Teachers College and in our Urban Education Leaders Program.
After five weeks of intense scrutiny and reflection, I find that I am further along the path but still my sights remain squarely set on equity, race, opportunity, language, leadership, and advocacy. No one issue has emerged as MY issue, but I’m deeply committed to addressing the root causes of inequity and continuing to seek out solutions to the very real consequences of our current dropout crisis and school-to-prison pipeline in American urban school systems. I would like to find a way to link this uniquely American experience to a more globalized movement to fight oppression and the resulting poverty and marginalization through youth activism and media experimentation. I have some initial ideas on this kind of project, but first and foremost, I need to focus myself where I truly know the most: American inequity.
In some ways, I would like to stay in this stasis of summer–pondering and experimenting intellectually and indefinitely. I have to admit though I’m looking forward to the next steps of action, of some sort of job, and of more fully putting theory into practice.
