When you find something you're passionate about, the motivation to pursue it will follow. Let go of practical concerns for a moment and focus on the one thing you're most passionate about.

Career

Identify what you're most passionate about.

There are many paths to becoming a teacher. Learn more about helpful tips and steps you can start taking today to start your career in teaching! 

Find out how to become a teacher.

There will always be obstacles in your journey. Life is not about avoiding those obstacles, but learning how to navigate them. Get advice on how to overcome your obstacles! 

Day to Day

Watch a TED Talk about overcoming obstacles.

Ethnic and Cultural Studies Professors

Teach courses pertaining to the culture and development of an area, an ethnic group, or any other group, such as Latin American studies, women's studies, or urban affairs. Includes both teachers primarily engaged in teaching and those who do a combination of teaching and research.

Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.

Social

Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

Investigative

Artistic occupations frequently involve working with forms, designs and patterns. They often require self-expression and the work can be done without following a clear set of rules.

Artistic

First Interest High-Point

Third Interest High-Point

Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.

Enterprising

Conventional occupations frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These occupations can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.

Conventional

Second Interest High-Point

Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

Realistic

Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed

Area, Ethnic, and Cultural Studies Teachers, Postsecondary

Social Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary

Education, Training, and Library Occupations

Postsecondary Teachers

Keep abreast of developments in the field by reading current literature, talking with colleagues, and participating in professional conferences.

Conduct research in a particular field of knowledge and publish findings in professional journals, books, or electronic media.

Evaluate and grade students' class work, assignments, and papers.

Prepare course materials, such as syllabi, homework assignments, and handouts.

Prepare and deliver lectures to undergraduate or graduate students on topics such as race and ethnic relations, gender studies, and cross-cultural perspectives.

Initiate, facilitate, and moderate classroom discussions.

Compile, administer, and grade examinations, or assign this work to others.

Maintain regularly scheduled office hours to advise and assist students.

Plan, evaluate, and revise curricula, course content, course materials, and methods of instruction.

Maintain student attendance records, grades, and other required records.

Advise students on academic and vocational curricula, and on career issues.

Supervise undergraduate or graduate teaching, internship, and research work.

Collaborate with colleagues to address teaching and research issues.

Select and obtain materials and supplies, such as textbooks.

Serve on academic or administrative committees that deal with institutional policies, departmental matters, and academic issues.

Compile bibliographies of specialized materials for outside reading assignments.

Write grant proposals to procure external research funding.

Participate in student recruitment, registration, and placement activities.

Act as advisers to student organizations.

Incorporate experiential or site visit components into courses.

Perform administrative duties, such as serving as department head.

Provide professional consulting services to government or industry.

Participate in campus and community events, such as giving public lectures about research.

Carousel slide projectors

Compact digital cameras

Compact disk CD players

Computer data input scanners

Computer laser printers

Computer projectors

Conference telephones

Desktop computers

Digital calculators

Digital video cameras

Digital video disk DVD players

Handheld microphones

Interactive whiteboard controllers

Interactive whiteboards

Laptop computers

Laser facsimile machines

Liquid crystal display LCD projectors

Liquid crystal display LCD televisions

Microphone podiums

MP3 digital voice recorders

Multi-line telephone systems

Multimedia projection equipment

Opaque projectors

Overhead data projectors

Photocopying equipment

Poster printers

Projector screens

Student response systems

Tablet computers

Television monitors

Universal serial bus USB flash drives

Videoconferencing equipment

Webcams

Wireless microphones

Blackboard Learn

Calendar and scheduling software

Collaborative editing software

Course management system software

Data entry software

Desire2Learn

DOC Cop

Email software

Google Docs

Image scanning software

iParadigms Turnitin

Learning management system LMS

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft Word

Sakai CLE

Web browser software

Appreciate the small things and always ask questions. Build community with the people who can answer those questions. Find a community of individuals that you can think and create with. 

As a professor of Educational Policy Studies and African-American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I attend classes and prepare lectures twice a week. I spend the majority of my time volunteering and working within the communities I hope to influence in order to better tell their studies. I also write and do a lot of research. 

Associate Professor

Everywhere you turn, people try to tell you who to be and what to do. But what about deciding for yourself? Roadtrip Nation is a movement that empowers people to define their own roads in life. Every summer we bring together three people form different backgrounds. Together they explore the country, interviewing inspiring individuals from all walks of life. They hit the road in search of wisdom and guidance to find what it actually takes to build a life around doing what you love. This is what they found. This is Road Trip Nation. [MUSIC] >> Ed got the genius idea to jump into the Atlantic Ocean while it was raining. And me, I'm thinking all these people are crazy. Like, Ed, really? You good? Yeah. I'll say okay. I'll go. [MUSIC] And we take a dip. [LAUGH] We dipped in that day, and it was actually really fun. It's really nice. I was reluctant to do it, and there's been a lot of things on this trip that I've been reluctant to do. And like once you guys ask me more than once, I pretty much give in to the peer pressure. I'm pretty much stoked every time I say yes to some crazy thing you guys are trying to do. [SOUND] >> Water is like that. It's cleansing, and it's coming over to the next step. You can just jump in the water and cleanse these four weeks that you've completed. [MUSIC] >> It felt significant, yeah, like coming out you're like, I feel fresh. I feel ready. And then to go from that, like suddenly coming out of the ocean to going to an interview. Should I park here or how far towards the end of [INAUDIBLE]. We're doing an interview here for a woman called Beverly who's a writer. >> If you look up Beverly Donofrio on Facebook, Drew Barrymore's picture comes up. >> [LAUGH] >> That's too weird. >> [LAUGH] [MUSIC] I was a teenage mother and I didn't get to go to college until I was 24 years old and my parents were very working class and senior year I missed 60 classes before I got pregnant. I went to community college eventually and heard early on that if I got straight A's I could get a scholarship. I was on welfare, I was a single mother, I didn't have a car, I couldn't get a job without a job without a c ar, there was no daycare. It was a real real scary trap. So I did get straight A's and I got the scholarship and by then I'm gonna be a writer. This is what I want to be. And I write my first paper and the teacher asks if he can talk to me afterwards, and he says, I think you'd really benefit from remedial English. >> Wow. >> Yeah. Well, yeah, because I didn't know. I'd never studied it. I didn't know how to make connectives. I couldn't say therefore, and moreover. So I took remedial English, and got all those skills. But when I graduated, I quit writing all because my thesis got failed. [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> I guess that remedial writing didn't work [LAUGH]. >> [LAUGH] >> That's amazing. >> I know. >> What was the title of your thesis? >> I forget what it was called, but it was Riding In Cars With Boys. It was the beginning of Riding In Cars With Boys. It was 150 pages, probably written horribly, under dramatized. I thought who am I kidding, I can't write. I quit. >> You're heart must of >> It was devastating, my heart was broken. So I quit, and I got a job at Manhattan Ink. It was not a pretty picture. They fired me. [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> Obviously you were devastated at the time. >> Yes. >> Now you are not too devastated about it. >> You gotta laugh. >> I doesn't seem to be. >> You gotta laugh. >> What's the reasoning behind that? >> Well, I think I've thrived from that, because it has happened so often I thrive from adversity. It's like, all right, I'll show you. That's not gonna get me down, so collapse, cry, oh I'm a failure, and then think oh well, I bet I could get freelance. And then I can write more, and now I have all these connections. >> When did it start to pick up? When did things start to get good? >> Well, so I'm freelance writing, and a friend had a front page piece in the Village Voice, Village Voice was a big deal then. And so I thought of writing something about being an Italian American feminist hippie with a father who's a cop. And I called up the editor, and her father was a cop too, and she said cool go ahead. So I wrote it and they printed it and my Mentor, Richard Price from graduate school, calls up and says, Bev you can get a book contract with this. And I said, how do I do that? And he says, call my agent. And she submitted it and we sold it. And in those days Hollywood agents would go to the book agents and say, you have anything for me? You have anything for me? And that was Friday morning. And by that evening there was a Preemptive offer from Disney. $100,000 on signing, $400,000 when the movie is made. But the deal is you sign all rights away and you let them know by midnight tonight. And that felt to me an awful lot like bullying. And I said no. And then I thought, oh my god, what did I do? I just threw away more money than I made in my entire life that I would. The most I'd made in one year was $10,000 up to that time. But on Monday morning, what was it, Fox Came in with exactly the same money, saying we wanna fly you out, we wanna meet you, we want you involved, and so on. My life changed, [SOUND] just like that. >> That's always the thing is, does money equal happiness? Does success equal happiness? >> No, it does not, no. I've always struggled with depression. So it would, revisited. Revisited really until I got God, to tell you the truth. And that, was when I was 40. So, I was in therapy constantly, probably 20 years., different therapists. >> What led you to the Montessori? >> Well, I was raped in my house in Mexico, in my own bed. It was horrible. It was, I don't know, you know, in spiritual terms it was like a dark night of the soul. And I then had a even stronger mandate, like I've gotta get out. I've gotta go heal. How can this happen? How can this God that I was so sure with all love allow things like this to happen? How can there be evil in a world that I think was created all in love? I want to go contemplate this. How am I going to live with this? How am I going to digest this? How am I going to go on? I thought, I will never be the same person again. But then, after a while, I came to realize why would I want to be the same person? You are so great. It's like change is good, you know? Like a friend recently said to me, I used to feel so sorry for you. You were always crying and always depressed, and it was true. It was hard. You know I don't wanna diminish the horror rape, because I mean it was horrible. But I just recently said this in a radio interview, and I'm gonna repeat it here. I was. I'd found a spider in a dish bin, and walked outside with it, and dumped the spider onto the grass, and thought, wow, that spider had been trapped in the bin, had lived all its little spider life in a house, and now suddenly, it's lifted out of it, and is in the grass. And it was like that with the rape. It was like it lifted me out of my life, and put me somewhere else and go into the monasteries and the prayer life and you know reading the mystics and just being in that contemplative mode. It turned into a good thing, life is difficult, bad happens, what are you going to do? You just have to make the best of everything, trust that the universe is leading you along. It's all a process and you don't know how one thing is gonna lead to another. Before I got fired when I was in my MFA program I thought, I'm never writing journalism, I'm not gonna write for magazines, I don't want to be that kind of writer. And then a little opportunity to write a little thing in the beginning of a magazine that led to then a longer thing in a magazine. Then a memoiristic piece in a magazine and then my book, and I wouldn't have known that, and I wouldn't have gone that way had I been rigid about, no, this is what I am. This is how I'm gonna do it, you don't know how it's gonna happen. So, when an opportunity come take a real look at them, and say yes as often as you can. [MUSIC] >> Just say yes, and know you are loved. I love you, good luck. >> I think just say yes is actually amazing advice. Yeah. Personally, I've been trying to do it a lot. >> I'm glad you have. >> It feels good, doesn't it? >> Yeah, it does. [MUSIC] >> We are in route to Detroit [MUSIC] Michigan, right? >> Right. >> Good, my Geography's getting a little better. >> My father was a factory worker for GM, so my family and hundreds of thousands of other people are affected by what happened. In Detroit and in those companies at the time and what it meant to America, this huge revolution of this is America and we build things and this is industry and it is nothing anymore. I mean literally nothing it has taken over by renegade artists. >> As artists we do not see necessarily decay, we see possibility, you know? You can't know dark, but by knowing light, you can't know decay, but by knowing growth. And so we see that and try to reconcile the unity of opposites. [MUSIC] >> We are gonna touch by the friend of us here and did the whole breaking and entering experience. >> Oh good, you got to do that, totally trespass. >> [LAUGH] >> Totally trespass, there's beautiful buildings, amazing architecture still inside. Like people just left how they left, yeah, just left suddenly. I mean you can look at it and say, oh my God, it's not safe, or you can say, I can forge a way there. I can make a way there, I can make my own rules there, you know? I think I'm gonna do an older performance piece, I wrote this about what happened in New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina. And the people that were left behind, there's something in her spirit that I want you guys to hear. My daddy built this house, 1917. Callous, gloved hands, sweat softened, dirt dug, foundation deep. Said he wanted me and mamma to live in a castle, a hundred room shy. He never did finish. I revolted against his body. Papa dropped dead on the basement floor. Trenched his own grave. We Wisdom's always use our hands. Sometimes against ourselves. I ain't never been much in this world. I done cleaned more cracked toilets, shined more broken mirrors than my fair share. I heard ghosts in the halls of moneyed mansions with more heart than flesh and bone touched. There's no blood in them house's veins. Everything's dead. But this house, oh this house right here has souls between the walls and if you listen real close under the cloudy moon you can hear them laughing. This here patch of dirt belonged to me. Crying, New Orleans clouds over my raggedy roof, my own to comfort. And I'll inhale a moonshine flood through my flat black nose, before I set one foot off my land. And you're too young to understand, but when you ain't never had nothing. A little something, always better. And though this don't look like home to you, it's mine. These are my cardboard windows. That's my house. That's my front door. So I'm ready. Ima ride. I said I'm ready. Ima ride. [MUSIC] Cuz I sure ain't fitting to go. Nowhere. [MUSIC] >> In about an hour we're going to leave for Chicago. [MUSIC] >> Detroit has treated us well. [MUSIC] It's interesting to see all these kinda fake buildings. It's got a kinda sense of freedom, [MUSIC] And the people we've met, all the people who live here really wanna get out running again. There's a lot of energy here I fell, to regenerate Detroit. [MUSIC] Right now, I'm 18 and a lot of people think that I should become a professor. So, it was like one of those things that I was like huh, maybe, maybe I do want to be a professor. But then, where I'm kinda at in my life right now I'm at a place where I don't feel like school's for me at the moment, so I'm for sure gonna take a year off. [MUSIC] So yeah, I reached out to a mentor and then she reached out to her friend and based on what was there, I just Googled him and watched like an interview with him on YouTube and was like this guy's amazing And he looks like me. This is incredible. I even put that in my email, I was like, I just think it would be amazing to talk to somebody who has similar experiences as me, doing in this field of work, that's huge. [MUSIC] Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in the world. So when people talk about gang issues or what have you, you can't talk about that without talking about hyper-segregation, marginalization, and disinvestment. For me, the driving force is, what is that story that we don't talk about? What are those things that have gone missing, and now, what is the responsibility to work with others in bringing those things back? >> To get to that level of critical thinking, I mean, you gotta start asking questions first. What was the moment when you started asking those questions? >> Kindergarten. [LAUGH] >> Kindergarten? >> Once I got the bogus Columbus story, 1492, sailed the ocean blue, and my father told me an entirely different story. He said, look, he was trying to find India, but landed in the Bahamas, and called folks the wrong name. And in my mind, in my five year old mind, I was just like, well, how do you discover something where people already are? When people already there, how do you discover that? So in my five year old mind, I was like, the teacher is lying. >> [LAUGH] >> Right, so we, I'm done, I'm done with this school, this school is just ridiculous. I mean, why are we doing this? And in fourth grade, I had a teacher who was really stern with us and saying, look, the rest of the world is saying all these things about you, and have these particular negative expectations of you. What are you going to do to prove them wrong? So for me, it was just like oh, oh, okay, now this is making sense. Any type of tangible, critical analysis, forthright change is directed by people who have found those conditions intolerable and are working to change those conditions. So that piece, I think, really accounted for my education, and I can say quite a bit of that came outside of traditional school space. Education doesn't always happen in schools. It can, but that's not necessarily the norm. >> Even with that perception of education, cuz I'm feeling like we got the same kind of feelings about educational institution in itself, and I've had a bunch of mentors tell me, T, you should think about being a professor, I think you'd enjoy it, I think it's for you. And for a minute, my senior year in high school, I was like, you know what, I might be a professor, but then that changed for me. So I'm wondering, when did you make that decision? When did you think, even with these views on the educational institution, that you want to be a part of that educational institution? >> So, my classes meet twice a week, so my official teaching assignment is Monday and Tuesday. So a lot of professors can use that for this research time, the rest of the time, or what have you. But for me, I always thought about that, it's freedom of schedule here. So if I'm working with community organizations, young folks, schools, but I could actually use that time to be in schools, so actually work with folks, as opposed to just pontificating about what I think is happening with these folks, but actually working with folks. And then, as part of the research, writing about what I do in those spaces. So you don't have to worry about being confined to the institution, because the institution has very little to do with influencing how you interact in that work. So that's a thing that you don't have to worry about as much. >> How do you find happiness amidst all that? I once talked to a man who's been working with gang-involved youth, and so I asked him, I was like, same question, are you happy, are you content? And he was just straight up with me, he was like, I don't even know how I can be content when I see the same things that ruined my life growing up, because he spent most of his life in prison, is still happening to the kids in the community I work in. So where do you find contentment? >> Happiness is in the little things, an ability to wake up, halfway decent day, weather-wise. This ability to actually build with others, be in a space of others who are also doing this work, because if we don't appreciate those small things, then it becomes toxic, and we do start to engage in these bad habits. That's where addictions come in, that's where these feelings of angst and anxiety come in. So we have to be able to perpetually ask questions, and build community with the folks who answer them. So, think and create, and find a community of folks that you can think and create with. I think that's critical in this day and age. >> Yeah, that was huge. He's taking the privilege of the higher educational institution, and bringing it to those who don't have access. He's going to the social justice high school, and bringing all that knowledge of being a professor into this whole other space. I can definitely see myself doing that, so, I mean, shoot, I don't know, professor's looking good right now. [LAUGH] [MUSIC] College was like this huge question. I had my own politics around the educational institution itself. But after talking to David Stovall, I'm more confident now that I'm gonna go back to school. I see so many other things, beginning to feel like all these other doors just opened up. [MUSIC] >> We're on the road about seven and a half weeks now. >> And it's almost over. >> Which feels really weird cuz it's kind of been my life for the last two months. [LAUGH] We have one interview left and that is right now. >> I'm not afraid of work because I was brought up to really work hard, so hard work doesn't scare me. >> Mama, it's the last one, it's crazy. >> We have another week of traveling home. >> A time to really absorb everything that we've experienced and that we've learned. >> Roadtrip Nation extends beyond the program you just watched. It's a movement that empowers people to define their own roads in life. Here's a quick snapshot of the Roadtrip Nation experience at the Social Innovations Summit. >> So, I'm Jazmin, and I am 17. >> My name's Sandra, I'm 18. >> I'm Jonathan Iola, and I go to Willow Glen High School, and I'm a senior. Tomorrow, we're going to a conference in Stanford. >> We're gonna be around a whole bunch of business people. >> A couple questions I wanna ask is, how did, what where they doing when they were my age? >> What kinds of obstacles did they endure when they were our age? [MUSIC] >> What were some of the obstacles you had to face? >> What's a typical day in your job? >> I was just wondering, what you were doing when you were our age? >> One thing I've learned is not to be afraid to fail. And sometimes it's better to make a decision and be definitive about it, even if you don't have perfect information, because that's going to be a better outcome than if you sit and do nothing. >> I didn't really expect for them to be that open, but they actually made a connection with us. >> It makes me feel pretty cool, cuz they're actually appreciating me asking their life story. >> It gave me more confidence in speaking to people. >> With this, I learned that after failure, there's success. >> No matter what you do. >> Or where you come from. >> You've got wisdom to pass down. >> Help young people find their way by sharing the lessons you've learned Take 15 minutes to tell us what you love to do. >> The door's open. >> We're all ears. >> Become a leader at ShareYourRoad.com. [MUSIC] 

The road-trippers interview writer Beverly Donofrio at her home in Long Island before they head on to Detroit, where they talk to spoken word poet Airea Dee Matthews about possibility and growth in an unlikely place. In Chicago, Tele'jon reconsiders his reservations about going back to school when the team interviews Professor David Stovall.

Rounding the Bend

Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in the world. So when people talk about gang issues or what have you, you can't talk about that without talking about hyper segregation, marginalization and disinvestment. For me, the driving force is what is that story that we don't talk about? What are those things that have gone missing and now what is the responsibility to work with others in bringing those things back. >> To get to that level of critical thinking, I mean you gotta start asking questions first. What was the moment when you started asking those questions? >> Kindergarten. [LAUGH] >> Kindergarten? >> Any type of tangible critical analysis, forthright change, is directed by people who have found those conditions intolerable and are working to change those conditions. So that piece I think really accounted for my education. So we have to be able to perpetually ask questions. Think and create and find a community of folks that you can think and create with. >> Yes. >> I think that's critical in this day and age. >> Yes. 

Community

Dedication

Passion

David Stovall Highlight

(David) Chicago's one of the most segregated cities in the world. So when people talk about gang issues or what have you, you can't talk about that without talking about hyper-segregation, marginalization, and disinvestment. For me, the driving force is: 'What is that story that we don't talk about? 'What are those things that have gone missing 'and now, what is the responsibility to work with others in bringing those things back?' (Tele'jon) To get to that level of like critical thinking, I mean, you gotta start asking questions first. What was the moment when you started asking those questions? You know-- (David)  Kindergarten. (Tele'jon)  Kindergarten? (David) You know, once I got the bogus Columbus story, you know, 1492, sailed the ocean blue, and my father told me entirely different stories. He said, "Look, he was trying to find India but landed in the Bahamas and called folks the wrong name." And in my mind, in my five-year-old mind, I was just like, "Well how do you discover something "where people already are? People already there--how do you discover that?" You know, wh-, so in my five-year-old mind, I was like, "Ah, the teacher is lying." [roadtrippers laughing] (David) So we-we, I'm done, I'm done with this school. This school is just ridiculous. I mean, why are we doing this? And then fourth grade, I had a teacher who was really‚ stern with us in saying, "Look, the rest of the world "is saying all these things about you and have "these particular negative expectations of you. What are you going to do to prove them wrong?" Right? So for me, it was like, "Oh, oh, okay. Now, this is making sense." Any type of tangible, critical analysis, forthright change is directed by people who have found those conditions intolerable and are working to change those conditions. Right? So that, that, piece I think really accounted for my education. And I can say quite a bit of that came outside of traditional school space. It took me much longer to really understand, education is the process of thinking and making informed decisions. Education doesn't always happen in schools. It can, but that's not necessarily the norm. (Tele'jon) Even with that perception of education, 'cause I'm feeling like we got like the same kinda, you know, feelings about like the educational institution itself. Um, and I've had a bunch of mentors tell me like, "T, you should think about being a professor. I think you'd enjoy it, I think it's for you." Um, and for a minute, like my senior year in high school, I was like, "You know what? I might be a professor." Um, but then that changed for me. So I'm wondering, when did you make that decision? Like when did you think, even with these views on the educational institution, that you wanna be a part of that educational institution? (David) So my classes meet twice a week. So my "official teaching assignment" is Monday and Tuesday. Right? So a lotta professors can use, you know use that for their research time the rest of the, the rest of the time or what have you. But for me, I always thought about that, 'Well there's freedom of schedule here. 'So if I'm working with community organizations, 'young folks, schools, then I can actually use that time to be in schools.' Right? To actually work with folks and opposed to just pontificating about what I think is happening with these folks. Right? But actually working with folks. And then, as part of the research, writing about what I do in those spaces, so you never have to worry about being confined to the institution because the institution has very little to do with influencing how you interact in that work. So that's-that's, uh, that's a thing that you don't have to, you don't have to worry about as much. (Tele'jon) How do you find happiness amidst all of that? I once talked a man who's uh, who's been working with gang-involved youth, and so I asked 'em, I was like, "How do you"-- same question--like, "are you, are you happy, are you content?" And he was just straight-up with me, he's like "I don't even know how I can be content. When I see the same things that ruin my life"-- 'cause he spent most of his life in prison-- "is still happening to the uh, to the kids in the community that I work in." So where do you find contentment? (David) Happiness is in the little things, right? You know, an ability to wake up‚ halfway decent day, weather-wise, this ability to actually build with others, be in a space of others who are also doing this work. Because if we don't appreciate those small things, then it becomes toxic, and we do start to engage in these bad habits. That's where addictions come in, that's where, um, this, these feelings of angst and anxiety come in. So we have to be able to perpetually ask questions and build community with the folks who-who answer them, right? So think and create, and find a community of folks that you can think and create with. I think that's critical in this day and age. 

Culture

Education

Focus

Interview

Cuz I'm feeling like we got the same kind of feelings about the educational institution in itself. >> Right. >> And I've had a bunch of mentors tell me, T, you should think about being a professor. I think you'd enjoy it. I think it's for you. And for a minute, my senior year in high school, I was like, you know what, I might be a professor. But then that changed for me. So I'm wondering, when did you make that decision? When did you think, even with these views on the educational institution, that you wanna be a part of that educational institution? >> So my classes meet twice a week. So my official teaching assignment is Monday and Tuesday. So a lot of professors can use that for their research time. The rest of the, the rest of the time or what have you. But for me, I always thought about that, it's freedom of schedule here. So if I'm working with community organizations, young folks, schools, but I can actually use that time to be in schools. Like to actually work with folks in opposed to just pontificating about what I think is happening with these folks. But actually working with folks. And then, as far as the research, writing about what I do in those spaces. So you don't have to worry about confined to the institution because the institution has very little to do with influencing how you interact in that work. So that's a thing that you don't have to worry about as much. 

Planning

The Institution

I once talked to a man who's been working with gang involved youth, and so I asked him, I was like, same question, are you happy? Are you content? And he was just straight up with me. He was like, I don't even know how I could be content when I see the same things that ruined my life growing up, because he spent most of his life in prison, is still happening to the kids in the community that I work in. >> Dang. >> So where do you find contentment? >> Happiness is in the little things, right? You know, an ability to wake up. Halfway decent day [LAUGH] it's a weather-wise. This ability to actually build with others, be in the space of others who are also doing this work. Because if we don't appreciate those small things, then it becomes toxic and we do start to engage in these bad habits. That's where addictions come in. That's where these feelings of angst and anxiety come in. So we have to be able to perpetually ask questions and build community with the folks who will answer them. Right? So think and create a finer community of folks that you can think and create with. >> Yeah. >> I think that's critical in this day and age. 

Beliefs & Faith

Contentment

For me, the driving force is what is that story that we don't talk about? What are those things that have gone missing? And now what is the responsibility to work with others in bringing those things back? >> To get to that level of like critical thinking, you gotta start asking questions first. What was the moment when you started asking those questions? >> Kindergarten. >> Kindergarten. >> You know once I got the bogus Columbus you know 1492 sailed the ocean blue and my father told me entirely different story. He said look he was trying to find India, but landed in the Bahamas and called folks the wrong name. And in my five year old mind I was just like, how do you discover something where people already are? Well people are already there how do you discover that? So in my 5 year old mind I was like the teacher is lying. >> [LAUGH] >> I'm done with this school this school is just ridiculous I mean why are we doing it? And in fourth grade I had a teacher who was really stern with us in saying, look, the rest of the world is saying all these things about you and have these particular negative expectations of you, what are you going to do to prove them wrong? Right, so for me it was just like, oh, oh, okay. Now this is making sense. Any type of tangible critical analysis forthright change is directed by people who have found those conditions intolerable and are working to change those conditions, right? So that piece, I think, really accounted for my education. 

Experience

Driving Force

In a lot of the recovery rhetoric, people talk about a moment of clarity. So always think about these moments of clarity that would happen. For me, eighth grade was this moment of clarity to say, oh, this is what this thing really is. This is what school, this is what education is and education and school don't always match. Right? And then I had a couple of professors in college, and they would always say being in college is not necessarily a sign of intelligence. Right, it just means you're in college. What are you doing outside of this space? Any type of tangible, critical analysis, forthright change is directed by people who have found those conditions intolerable and are working to change those conditions. Right. so hat piece, I think, really accounted for my education. 

Self-Reflection

Moment of Clarity

Everything from exercising, eating right, it sounds so cliche, but it's so critical when you're in these high stress environments, right, when you're in these spaces where your existence is perpetually being threatened. Right, so that really becomes important, so the happiness and the joy is in those smaller things. Those little things remind me of the work to be done. 

Character

Hard Work

Pressure

Simplicity

Little Things

We have another interview, our interviewee said her passion was kind of identifying what would break her heart, what would piss her off, and then working to counteract. >> Yeah, it is in that space around our anger, disdain and just sheer rage at some points has to be directed. Right? And directed, and organized with, and actually collectivized to actually, I think, bring about the necessary changes in a place like Chicago which has become ground zero for educational deform if you want to talk it, I won't even call it reform in the country. 

Negativity

Educational Deform

I applied again for grad school and I got in. And then when I started, so in-between that year, I actually talked to a group of friends of mine who were doing work in an organization, and we were like, man, if we looked at our jobs. Could we potentially leverage resources from those jobs to work in our communities? So one person was interested in going to med school, another person was interested in going to law school. And then, me and another guy, we were interested to go into teaching and finishing up our PhDs. So our thing was, could we use those skills with the communities that we had been working with? And the PhD, that for what for me was to bring resources from the university space into the places like the ones that I come from. And then from that to say, all right, not just for what, now with who? And then that brought me to a lot of community organizations, and then now perpetually revisiting that question, right, so it's not just a PhD for what? A job in academia for what? Tenure for what, right, so really being able to kinda push myself around that and ask those questions because these spaces on the ground aren't necessarily concerned that you got a PhD. Yeah that's nice, but what does that mean for work moving forward to address these real life issues that folks have? 

David Stovall

Associate Professor

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David Stovall

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