Note: This essay was written in coursework requirement of EDUC 222: Design-Based Research Forum F23, University of California Berkeley. The prompt asked me to write a reflective essay on a pivotal learning experience from my childhood and how it transpired to my current life.
ESTIMATED READING TIME: 3-4 MINUTESI remember sitting at an office desk in front of a bulky computer, its hardware spanning a cubic foot and breathing heavily as it processed basic functions. I was so small that my feet dangled from the office chair, my little arms reaching for the mouse and keyboard. I had not even entered pre-school, but I spent my time exploring the computer’s applications, clicking around and testing every feature available. I was fascinated by toolbars, file explorers, and the ways in which this software could structure a vast array of options for a user to organize their ideas.
My curiosity continued to grow with maturity; I loved manipulating Microsoft applications such as Word and Powerpoint documents to create art pieces. It was never for a particularly productive purpose, it was autotelic, it enabled me to stretch applications beyond their intended use. This experience was beneficial throughout my education. I loved my technology courses and always wanted to test how I could find outlets for creative self-expression.
This experience grinded to a halt when I moved from the large city of Las Vegas, NV to a rural farming community in Idaho during my formative years. I lost access to educational opportunities and advanced courses. Although it was challenging, this motivated me to search for little pockets of inspiration within my rural school district and the limited resources available to me.
I joined my high school yearbook club and used Adobe Photoshop to mash visual concepts together. I enrolled in a web development course that allowed me to find structure in computer applications through coding. And lastly, I enrolled in an advanced literature course that allowed me to formalize my personal philosophies. These various classrooms I had access to were a melting pot of digital media, technology, and self-reflection. It was the perfect storm for developing a system in which to organize my passions.
I was recently introduced to the term possibility spaces, which identified all the possible artifacts that could be created using a given tool (Compton & Mateas, 2015). These classrooms were my possibility space, and the work I produced within a curriculum were the artifacts. Despite falling off track with my education during adolescence, the creative systems I was introduced to helped me rebuild a life for myself.
Upon graduating high school at 17 years old, I saved up enough to move out of my rural town and attend community college one city over. It wasn’t far, but it was a start. I funded my tuition by writing scholarship essays and explaining my passion for creative technologies. Soon after, I built a portfolio website that led to my internship as a web developer for my college. The portfolio site, although expressing professional interests, also showcased my personal projects across art, writing, and community engagement.
This created a positive feedback loop that I still reap the rewards of to this day. People always ask me why I keep documenting my experiences even though nobody assigned me the task. It is because self-reflection got me out of a directionless, rural town in Southern Idaho. I was desperate to find a way to share my ideas in an environment that didn’t have the means to support it.
It always comes back to simply clicking around on a computer, exploring all of the options available to a user. These experiences built my philosophy of education, that being: if an opportunity does not exist, create it. Through these computer programs, I was able to reinvent myself regardless of circumstances. I want to pass that experience on to students I mentor throughout my career.
With the exponential growth of emerging technology, there are so many outlets for students to explore their identity while still aligning with the educational curriculum. If anything, connecting their personal experiences to the subjects they’re learning will bolster the quality of education. There is always going to be a “blank canvas” paradigm in classrooms, but I want to build tools that guide students to document their passions in a way that can accelerate their progress towards a career and life they’ve dreamed of.
An update: since writing this article in August 2023, I have conducted a year of educational research, mentored undergraduate student researchers, taught a university course on professional development frameworks, been a web developer for my department, and am now researching AI in Higher Education in the Netherlands.
Never stop striving for more. Don’t worry where you came from, focus on where you’re going.
Works Cited
Compton, Kate & Mateas, Michael. “Casual Creators.” International Conference on Innovative Computing and Cloud Computing (2015).