about to tear up because oh my gosh what an honor it is to be writing an email to Ruth about my goals as a learner and teacher – essentially, my goals to become just like her.
what an honor it is – how lucky I am – to get to sit in a classroom where the MOTHER of narrative research is walking us through how to learn and how to wonder and how to let it inform our understandings of how to teach.
golllllly I am lucky. this is why education rocks
so huge for my journey of believing what the things I want to discover and the things I have to say matter.
what an awesome example of someone who lets her obsessions with culture and curiosities about her students lead her to generative places. let's go
FYI here are the goals I listed for her:
Hi, Dr. Vinz!
I hope you’re having a great week so far. I’m looking forward to class this evening!!
As I think about my role as a learner and a teacher, my main goal is not only to allow myself the time to follow my curiosities down the rabbit holes into which they may lead me, but also to consciously and intentionally create space for me to do so.
When you first introduced the project for this class, I was surprised that I didn’t feel daunted, or even overwhelmed, by the open breadth of its potential scope. Instead, I started to realize how many seeds of ideas I had in my back pocket (my “special topics” as I like to call them when I incessantly bring them up to my unsuspecting friends). I was filled with excitement at the thought of being assigned the task of diving fully into one of those interests and emerging from the rabbit hole with something to show for it. But, therein lies the issue: I don’t think I would have ever actually committed myself to exploring these topics, which might as well be the beating heart of my mind’s life, without the assignment of doing so.
I’m wired with the urge to uncover things – I want to be immersed in the things that interest me; I love being a consumer of media and yearn to understand the worlds behind these things deeply. Despite this desire, it’s rare that my explorations go past cursory-level – it’s as if I’m only ever able to poke my head over the edge of the rabbit hole before I feel the tug of another White Rabbit frantically pulling my hand to go see about yet another world or Wonderland that’s just waiting for me to discover it. I’m reminded of the quote from Rayne Fisher-Quann that Nawshin shared on our very first Padlet forum: “let those things become a part of you instead of a distraction from yourself. I think the act of loving something should be generative and consuming – it should add something to who you are and lead you to a new understanding of all the parts of you that were already there.”
So, maybe another goal of mine as a learner and teacher is to also start to think of myself as a researcher and as a writer – as someone with important things to discover and important things to share. To take myself and my interests seriously.
As a preservice teacher, I anticipate my students being an endless source of curiosity for me – and I would love to hear more about what your initial steps into student-driven narrative research looked like. It likely goes without saying that I am so deeply inspired by how your career – as a teacher, learner, and narrative researcher – serves as such a clear testament to the generative power of paying attention to your students and asking “Why?”
As a learner and teacher, for my students’ sake as much as my own, I hope to learn to embody each step of Mary Olivers’s instructions, rather than just the second one: “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” 
(My apologies that this ended up being a little lengthier than I expected, but I am very grateful for the space to process and articulate these goals – so thank you thank you thank you!)
Thank you for taking interest in our personal goals and for taking the time to help us work toward them. See you tonight!
Best,
Maddie Joyner