About

Starting Anti Apathy Arts 2026

I have always wanted to make the world a better place. From a young age, I internalized the belief that there is justice in this world, but it is an arduous process. It is a never-ending fight. When contemplating the purpose of life, and trying to understand the manipulative rules being forced upon us, and what true justice, freedom, and happiness is, I think critically of how human lives are treated. In any capacity, I wanted to make others feel safe, cared for, and supported. I debated being a mental health counselor, a wilderness therapist, and other similar professions that focused on wellbeing.

Background

I graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in English, and a Bachelors of Science in Psychological Science in 2017. After focusing my psychological studies around adolescent development, I decided to serve a year in Americorps to gain experience working with youth. I learned how to develop programming to help students achieve success in school through alternative pathways, such as the self-directed, project-based learning. Also learned a lot about impoverished people, and how our systems prevent people from escaping debt.

When I completed my Americorps service year, I confirmed that I wanted to work with students, particularly adolescents. Through my service year, I was truly lucky to learn so much. I have always believed that we are never done learning, students of the world and whatnot, but also that each person deserves to feel happiness, safety, well… the entirety of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and the ability to access the free and appropriate education promised to all American children.

After a two year hiatus from working in a high school, I determined my next steps toward a future working with students. With the state of the world at the beginning of 2020, I was determined to find a way to help kids through the pandemic and help lift their voices as we fought for equality with the Black Lives Matter movement. I jumped back into the public education system, working with elementary students doing remote learning and transitioned to working as a substitute teacher supporting the services middle school students with learning disabilities. I provided after school enrichment to elementary students for extra income to save for a one year intensive master’s program to get a teaching license.

How can I make a positive impact in the world?

I wanted to combine my love and joy of reading and writing, with my desire to support adolescent students.

A quote from the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services’ “Thirty-five Years of Progress in Educating Children With Disabilities Through IDEA” (2010), that resonates with me in connection to this performance criterion stands alone on page 2: “We cannot afford to leave anyone out of our efforts.” On the first page after the front cover, this quote has heightened importance. It calls us all to take responsibility for all students’ learning. For many years, people with disabilities were not taught effectively, and were not given the education that every person deserves. Through the establishment of the Individuals with Disabilities Act, with the enactment of the law that guarantees every child the right to a free and appropriate education (FAPE), and the numerous laws, cases, and acts that followed, the government played a role in holding schools accountable for the education of their students, including those with disabilities (DREDF, 2021). Though these laws protect students’ rights to access their education, they may still need people to advocate for them in school, and within their communities. Family-school partnership (IRIS 2008, 2020) can help educators holistically educate, help, and advocate for students in their learning communities. By researching community programs and organizations that may be of interest or benefit students with disabilities within the student’s community, an educator can continue to advocate for the student’s continual development outside of school, and even after they have graduated (IRIS, 2013).

Upon trying to give students quality education, I couldn't keep up with the way our schools have been shaped and adjusted by people who do not know about kids, or education, but by people who use money to manipulate the voters to destroy public education.

Leaving my students broke my heart. I explained to 70ish middle school students and a handful of high schoolers, that I had to leave for my health, and it wasn't them, but the systems at play. They understood. I think that they were also filled with the same flame of rage at the harms of the systems that we are powerless to stop… by ourselves. It broke me each time students asked what they could do to make the outcomes change, but it was adults who were responsible, and it is adults who need to make some serious changes for the well-being of our collective futures.

I have found that some of the ways of learning best practices for joy and justice, is seeing how the elders under oppressive conditions both survive and thrive (or at least keep the flame of hope lit inside). bell hooks inspires me.

"Education as the practice of freedom affirms healthy self-esteem in students as it promotes their capacity to be aware and live consciously. It teaches them to reflect and act in ways that further self-actualization, rather than conformity to the status quo.”

bell hooks, Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope

Even though a public school environment is not accessible to me with my dynamic disabilities, it doesn't mean that I don't have other ways to help people learn. It has recently become clearer to me how valuable it is to be a role model who upholds their values and does not stay silent in the face of injustice. I have a piece of art hanging on my wall at home that reminds me that “queer teachers are living proof of queer futures.” I am not going to be beaten by the system in my advocacy for students and their rights.

Taking Action

I adore a demographic of humans who most of adults do not care much about. They give me hope. They are learning still. They are grappling with what they believe in a world filled with antiquated, supremacist views and mythology. They are kind, and thoughtful. As an adult, I think it is my responsibility to help protect this group who does not often get the representation they deserve. They deserve a future. A free one, a just one.

Step one for me is recovery time; self-care. Making art is bringing me joy and keeping me going as I take care of my mental health. I am doing hard things. It is hard to do it for me, but (thanks to bell hooks) I know getting better is the best way to be a self to be able to help others again.

I have been in dark places, I have witnessed and listened to the suffering of my people. I hope that my words reach out and remind people: carpe diem, memento mori.

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute.
We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?