Klingenstein Part 4: Connections and Personal Growth

Klingenstein also provided me with a network of amazing teachers and people to connect with.

Every morning we had "morning meeting" after breakfast. A group of four or five teachers were assigned to lead the whole group in some sort of bonding activity. One morning we played 7-Up.

Thumbs up for team Klingon!

Another morning meeting, we played a game of sardines. The lead teacher in each curriculum group hid somewhere on campus. All of their teacher-students had to set off an find them. When the full curriculum group was together, we had to take a picture of ourselves and report to the plenary hall. The first team to make it back won. TEAM MATH WON!

Our lead teacher his in the elevator.

Our math group continued to get closer and closer. One of our running jokes was that our lead teacher, Varghese, saved his name placard every year. Across the institute, participants found name placards for Varghese. One morning, we ended up with three Varghese name placards among us. The rest of the group decided to flip their placards inside out and write his name so that the entire room was filled with Varghese Alexanders.

I was also able to open up deeply with my math group. One day we were talking about stereotype threat in math. In particular, we talked about how being from a minority group that is stereotyped as "bad at math" can lead to high levels of stress and anxiety, to the point where we underperform. As a woman in math, I have definitely felt this before. I realized how much stress it has caused me to be a woman, who dropped out of her PhD program in math, and moved to Utah with her PhD boyfriend. While I am happy with all the choices I made in my life, I realize that to outsiders and students it looks like I am living the stereotypical life of a woman in a STEM field-giving up to have a family (even though this was not my motivation, of course I love my partner and want to be with him wherever he goes, but I dropped out in order to pursue teaching. A career in math research was not right for me.) It has created tremendous stress on me, a need to prove myself, and a deep fear of looking incompetent. This information is all very personal and my time at Klingenstein as well as my comfort with my math cohort helped me to externalize these feelings and put a name to them.

Our morning meetings also helped us connect across curricular groups. One morning that I will never forget is the morning of the "Random Object Olympics". 16 random objects were collected and competed head-to-head, bracket style. In each pairing, the random object that received the loudest applause advanced to the next round. It came down to a Ticonderoga pencil and the "tiny hand". In the end, the Tiny Hand won and the crowd went nuts. By the end of the institute, we all got a tiny hand to take home. Mine is sitting on my desk.