The Psychology of English

In the second week of school I always have a get-to-know-each-other-assignment.  Often, I do what is called a memory map where students take 7-10 memorable events from their lives and draw pictures and map them out on a poster board.  Most think it's quite fun to color in college.  When I used to do this at UNLV I got cookie cutter boards, the same at UNR.  Most students were 18-yr-old millennium scholars living in the dorms off mom and dad's buck and pledging to various sorority/fraternities.  TMCC is a completely different experience.  Every time we get through the day of presentations, I find myself humbled and silenced.  This semester, it was evident my students felt the same.  I'm greatly motivated and impressed by these peoples' lives.  Many of them (at least half of which are a good decade older than I) visibly shake as they stand before the class.  It takes bravery, heart, willingness, and a good dose of psychological therapy to tell a group of strangers some of the intimate details of your life.  I'm awed by the amount of struggle, sacrifice, and dedication these students have.  ALL have had to trade something for their educations.  NONE have the luxury of living on mom and dad's buck.  I heard of students selling prize possessions, losing business, burying children, overcoming drug addictions, getting out of gangs, getting out of prison, all in order to better their lives... to become something they could be proud of when they looked in the mirror.  They told of loss, of love, of hurt, of joy.  They opened up their hearts to one another.  The feelings of camaraderie at the end of this exercise were tangible.  You could see this group of strangers get closer, much like that of group therapy.  One particularly boisterous woman is going to school to be a substance abuse counselor after over a decade in prison from drugs. She had ten children taken away and when she shared that she has since gotten all ten of her children back, a job when everyone told her it was impossible for felons to work, and is now back in school, the entire classroom broke out in cheers and applause, rooting her on.  Likewise, when two students got too emotional to finish their presentations, I had them sit down and their fellow students were so supportive.  There were such feelings of support, of understanding, of therapy.  As I listened to these heart wrenching stories of abuse, a man getting his head almost entirely severed by his old best friend, a girl leaving her gang and getting an education in jail, motivated by all the things she was missing by resorting to violence, I found myself thinking about people.  Despite this wide array of experience (the white man from the south originating from a family derived from the KKK sitting in front of the black guy from South Africa having endured endless torment).. despite all this, the human heart is the same.  Likewise, when people told of their joys, their marriages, trips, children, accomplishments, motivations, their happinesses and sadnesses were no different.  It little mattered what their backgrounds were (integrated in the 60's or jumped into the Mexican Mafia in the 70's) their hearts all bleed red.  They all experienced tragedy, success, failure, and heart breaks.  They all picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and mustered the courage and strength to make better lives for themselves, to move forward, to try again.  And it was completely and utterly motivating.  After each class I had multiple students come to me saying, "thank you for this exercise."  Never before have I considered the psychology of English in such a way.  It was beautiful.