My Vincentian Story Through Education
I have wanted to be an educator for as long as I can remember. They said I should skip a grade when I first entered school but instead I wrote book reports on the different Magic Tree House books in kindergarden. I was a peer tutor in first grade. Then I had a brother who showed up in my life and I wanted to teach him everything — or at least everything I knew as a seven year old kid. I wanted to help empower others. I wanted them to know everything and be able to thrive — not just live. But I also had to learn.
My senior year of high school I was able to leave school at noon every day and go to a local elementary school to teach. Here I was able to begin to explore the profession of being an educator. My cooperating teacher was great — I made and executed lessons, worked parent-teacher (and Miss B.) conferences, and went on field trips. I never wanted to go to high school again. I just wanted to be an educator.
At this school I was exposed to the art of reflecting upon the injustices which are being perpetuated in society. My cooperating teacher and I created lessons to empower our students who were oftentimes experiencing oppression. We wanted to educate our students on how to actively exist in a community. We wanted our students to be able to live. To be able to thrive.
One of the students who was of lower socioeconomic status came into school one day before Christmas with presents for both myself and my cooperating teacher. He said to us “we aren’t having a Christmas tree this year because dad says we can’t afford one but here is a present for you”. This experience has stuck with me and inspired my Vincentian heart before I knew what all of that Vincentian stuff even meant. It had me thinking about my students even more and asking myself what I could do to support them, what the community does which oppresses them, and how we can empower students.
Inspired and infuriated by all that I had experienced during my teaching internship, I applied to be a Golden Apple Scholar. Their mission is to inspire, develop and support teacher excellence in Illinois, especially in schools of need. This radiated with the mission in my heart — to empower those in need; to empower those whose voices were being silenced. I was accepted into the program and was then introduced to living in community and working in low income schools in Chicago the summer after my freshmen year. I was living at DePaul during the summer and was reflecting, living in community, and doing what must be done for justice before college orientation even happened. It’s what I felt was right. It’s what I thought must be done.
Every summer since I have gone back to the same community, in different physical locations to get to know the community I’m working with, immerse myself in it, educate, and empower students for justice. This community of future educators has grown together as a family. These are the people I call when I don’t know what step to take, when I’m fuming and laying on the floor paralyzed by the new laws being set in place to threaten education as I know it, and when I just need a community who understands. This is the community I feel like I can completely be myself with and we continuously challenge one another to be better people and educators. I have come to learn that this is the relationship Vincent and Louise had with one another. They were each other’s companions, fighting for justice with one another, crying with one another, empowering one another. This is what I view to be Vincentian community.
My freshmen year I learned about RefugeeOne, a nonprofit in Chicago which helps refugees coming to the United States understand rules, regulations, social norms, and the culture established within the United States. I wanted to get involved so I signed up and was paired with a family from The Democratic Republic of The Congo via Tanzania. My heart fell in love. I didn’t know how to speak Swahili and they didn’t know how to speak English but there was bio homework that needed to be done and mathematical word problems which needed to be solved. This was my introduction to teaching English and furthered my understanding of the problematic nature behind education, language barriers, inequitable assessments, and so much more. As the family and I grow together we exchange languages and cultures. We eat Oreos and fufu together. We speak in Swahili, Spanish, French, and English together. We’ve grown together. Vincent once said, “the poor have much to teach you. You have much to learn from them”. While the family might have learned about ice cream from me, they taught me how to continue to open my heart. They showed me how to be comfortable with not knowing. They continue to shape my Vincentian heart by teaching me more than I will ever be able to teach them.
Going into education is frustrating. It’s infuriating. It’s scary. It’s sad. The inequalities surrounding public education and the policies set in place — and which are currently being created — make me want to hide in the Interfaith Sacred Space and cry into the broken world. The school to prison pipeline is real and the practice of defunding public education since it doesn’t produce quick results is wild. The wall of barriers is never ending.
Then I think about Louise and her lumiere moment. Sometimes I experience something of what I imagine her lumiere to be and feel this overwhelming sense of hope and empowerment for the future to be made better. I try to throw out my uncertainties and stresses about everything and live presently. I know there is a wall of barriers and obstacles in the way of equitable and accessible education for so many individuals but I believe that we can get there. We can work the system and reach for success. We don’t have to play exactly by the book but we can act between the lines. As educators, we know the best education is when the new knowledge is able to be integrated into the student’s everyday life and connections are able to be formed. The best education happens by experiencing. The best education pushes boundaries with the conventional sense of what should be. Authentic education is the key to empowerment. Don’t listen to those creating the laws who don’t even know students: listen to your students. Listen to your heart. It’s beating saying, “we gonna be alright”.
The past two school years I have been working with an incredible mentor at a school in Uptown. These students and my mentor teacher continue to teach me more about myself and how education should be. They teach me how to smile and how to live. They’ve taught me that being passionate is an incredible thing but you must also take care of yourself. Last year one of them asked me what I did for fun. I couldn’t really think of an answer. This year I’ve really taken time to balance DePaul education, educator education, work, and FUN. Vincent and Louise took note of this too. When working towards justice, it is easy to get burnt out. Fighting the educational powers, laws which promote gentrification — which in turn evict students so they have to transfer without saying goodbye — experiencing family members of your students being murdered, inequitable assessment, and funding nightmares, is a lot to have to manage. You have to breathe. You have to take care of yourself.
Being part of the Vincentian Heritage Tour showed me how centuries ago Vincent and Louise were fighting for justice and how it was a continuous battle for them to empower others and to fight the oppressors. It reminded me that while time continues to pass, oppression is happening in different ways and we have to just sit and eat a grilled cheese with Father Egan sometimes to reflect on how we can best fight for justice under the current circumstances which are in place. Louise fought for educational rights during her time and I continue her legacy by fighting for educational rights today. I hope that I can be as cool as she is and continue to let go of my uncertainties and to trust that I have a path, to work with awesome mentors which come my way, to breathe and enjoy living, and to continue to empower others through education for the rest of my life.
