“I think we got these degrees for our writing [and voices] to be read [and heard]”
I never thought of myself as a writer. Or being articulate with my words. When I graduated high school I wrote and mailed thank you cards to my relatives. I wrote to each family a personal message of gratitude for their love, guidance, and support through my adolescence and getting me to that point in my life. One of my aunts adored what I wrote. She said it was heartfelt and beautifully written. That was the first time someone had ever told me that my writing was beautiful.
I’ve become someone who finds writing to be a tool of expression. And probably the most powerful tool next to your voice. So I have been encouraged by many loved ones to share it. I love forms of art. Writing, photography, cinema, music, and drawing. I’ve always been attracted to or felt this desire to create. But I never had the confidence in doing anything with it—especially when everyone around me could draw these TV-like images. I would simply create for fun or to be like mimic someone else’s art. When I saw someone’s imagination run wild, I wanted to experience the same thing. But I could never figure out how and discouraged myself from even trying.
“I think we got these degrees for our writing [and voices] to be read [and heard].”
Eric eroles
My co-worker told me that after he suggested I get back into writing. He always saw me scribbling things down at the end of the day. My girlfriend expressed the love and emotions she felt in my writing with her actions and her own writing. My brother and one of my closest friends look at some of the work I do and encouraged me to curate or post it somewhere. Until today, all of the things I have ever written were trapped in lined paper, a google/word document, or the notes of my phone.
As a friend and educator, I don’t take my own advice. I tell others to curate, to document, create, and share. But I rarely do it myself. Over time I fell in love with these mediums that allowed me to be creative—simply because I never thought I was. After I started my graduate program for teaching, I learned about this notion that,
“Everyone is a learner”
Some education theorist, professor, or author
And this informed a lot of the work I do now as a teacher. My studies in the field of education revolved around lots of reflexive practices. It required me to dig into my primary and secondary education, examine what shaped me into the student that I was, into the incapable learner I thought I was.
I always thought of myself as average. Normal. Nothing particularly special about me. I wasn’t a 4.0, but I wasn’t failing either. I hovered around “below standards” a lot. In college, I wasn’t like other kids in my English Literature program. I wasn’t in love with the Harry Potter series growing up. Or a book worm. Or with a pen and paper in hand. Or a poet. Or a creative writer. I always thought that people were born with creativity. And that I was missing that bone or gene that would have made me creative. But then I learned, that I could learn to be creative, despite the fact that I just didn’t have the confidence in myself to believe that my ideas were unique. That what I could create was artistic. That my story, my writing, my art—is important because it tells the story only I can tell.
And I guess that’s why I’m here now.
Balasbas Says 