GoPost 1: Reflecting on the Deresiewicz and Brooks articles, what does it mean to have moral

imagination and moral courage? How are we taught (or how do we learn) these qualities? What
stands in the way of us learning and embodying them?
Deresiewicz directly mentions "moral imagination" and "moral courage," which he defines as the
pursuit of fulfilling ways to live that might be off the common (synonyms: accepted, normal)
path, and furthermore the courage to actualize these ideas. Brooks speaks to something similar,
though without those exact terms. Brooks describes his experience with people "who radiate an
inner light" and his quest to achieve this same kind of attitude, generosity, character, and balance
in his life.
Both authors believe that these types of qualities cannot be cultivated through the current
educational system, or more generally, the American culture. In fact, both Brooks
and Deresiewicz indicate that not only can these qualities not be borne from these systems, these
systems actively (though perhaps not intentionally) work against the formation of these
qualities. Deresiewicz discusses at great length how colleges (and high schools and middle
schools) put a lot of emphasis on following this accepted educational path; college and higher
education is expected of all members of society and without this education, people cannot make
meaningful contributions to the larger society. Foucauldian panopticism prevents us from fully
embodying moral imagination and moral courage-- our peers, parents, teachers, bosses, coworkers all expect us to follow this outlined path and may ostracize or reject us if we deviate in
the pursuit of what we really want to do.
So alright, cool. However, my main question to both of these authors, mainly Deresiewicz, is
how? I felt very resistant to many of the ideas put forth by his article, mainly because he posed
these ideas of "moral imagination" and "moral courage" as things that someone could simply
possess if they attained some kind of transcendence that allowed them to break free of the jail in
which society traps us. But the type of person who could do this is very specific-- someone with
the economic and social means to diverge from the path and pursue a career they're passionate
about, even if that means less financial stability. I think he ignores the larger social, political, and
economic context in which the status quo he pushes against operates. In a similar vein, Brooks
suggests developing all of these qualities and traits without suggesting how. I did appreciate
Brooks's article more than Deresiewicz's and felt his advice might be more realistic to follow and
adapt; his article seemed more focused on the personal strides we can take to better ourselves,
while Deresiewicz's article gave me the impression that we should diverge from others simply
because "others" are not living correctly or fully.
I appreciate and resonate with the overarching themes of both authors, but think that a personal
change is not enough to gain "moral courage" and "moral imagination." The system that is
causing these traits to be necessary or desired needs to change-- society needs to value these
qualities, not just individuals. Otherwise, an even greater hierarchy might arise: those who have
moral courage and imagination, and those who don't. Personal change is of course welcomed and
encouraged, but I think the type of qualities Deresiewicz and Brooks mention will be better
actualized if we make an effort to change the education system and society rather than focusing
solely on personal betterment.

GoPost 2: What did you learn from the the mini-teach? What did you do that worked? What
would you change to improve the experience? What did you see a peer do well that you would
incorporate into your teaching?
The main thing I learned (or perhaps, relearned) was that you can't really predict how your
students will react! When I practiced my mini-teach with a friend, she was hesitant to participate
and didn't really engage even after I asked her to. So I was worried I would get the same reaction
in my working group and would have to do some deep encouragement to get them to learn and
participate! However, everyone in my working group was really engaged and I didn't have to
spend as much time coercing them into following my lead as I expected, which forced me to
reallocate time in order to still meet the 4 minutes.
I think one thing I did well was engaging the audience-- my working group was actively
repeating the word back as I said it (I taught them how to say "fifty-five" in German, which is
"fnfundfnfzig" and really fun to say). I broke the word down into digestable parts and was
happy to see my working group repeat the pronunciation back to me with minimal prompting
from me. That being said, I wish I had more structure to my teach so I could corral the responses
in a more organized way. Instead of all of them mumbling the word in unison, I wish I had asked
each one to say the word upon my request or to practice saying it back and forth to one another. I
think this would have resulted in better engagement between the learners and less focus on me as
the teacher. Likewise, this would have allowed for every member in my working group get an
individualized chance to practice the pronunciation rather than be expected to do it on their own
while everyone else was trying to do it too (a bit cacophonous).
As for a technique I saw a peer do that I would like to incorporate in the future: I really
appreciated how Tressa made everyone on the same level-- teacher and students were all
physically standing and engaged equally. And even though Tressa was instructing us, it felt like
she was just as equally a part of the activity that we were, which was nice and helpful. In the
other mini-teaches, including mine, the PE was standing while everyone else was sitting-- which
didn't detract from the learning, but I feel Tressa had a good idea in making sure everyone was
more "equal" in terms of physical structure and participation.
GoPost 3: After doing this week's readings, reflect on high-impact practices in your own
education thus far. Choose 2 practices youve experienced and discuss how you envision them
impacting your life (both professional and personal) in the future.
While reading through the High Impact Educational Practices pdf, the category that stood out to
me the most was Collaborative Assignments and Projects. Many of the practices listed applied to
me, but surprisingly, I realized that one of the most impactful academic experiences I've had here
was a group project I participated in last Spring. I took an Honors class on American History and
the Politics of Space (which was a bit misleading-- many people thought it was about outer
space, but it was instead focused on spatial politics and the everyday spaces we move through
and how they can be racialized, gendered, and non-inclusive). We were instructed to research a
spatial phenomenon in Seattle and draw conclusions about the space; our findings were finalized
through a paper and through a presentation given to the class. My group members were all

equally interested in our topic (LGBTQ+ spaces in Capitol Hill) and we leaped at the chance to
learn more and engage with the subject matter. We conducted interviews, traipsed around Capitol
Hill, did scholarly research, and were even invited to speak on our findings at LBGTQ+-focused
meetings. I had never really done a project before that connected me so tangibly to the Seattle
community at large, and meeting with and talking to people outside of the university
environment was extremely impacting. This opportunity showed me the significance of reaching
beyond campus borders and interacting with a variety of different people and listening to their
stories.
The second High Impact Educational Practice I think has meant the most to me has been
studying abroad (Diversity/Global Learning). While the program indeed offered many chances at
academic growth, the most memorable and impactful part of my study abroad experience came
from personal reflection. My study abroad tripped was plagued with the question of "is this a
life-changing experience?" I had heard lots of comments from fellow students and my relatives
that studying abroad "will change your life" and be "one of the best experiences you ever have."
So I was worried about not enjoying myself or being neutral about my trip if it's evidently
expected to come back with changed perspectives and a new outlook on life. Neither of those
happened. I definitely know more about German memorialization politics, education, and
discrimination than I did before, but I don't feel like a changed person. Working through this
concept took a lot of reflection on how we engage with and process our experiences, and really
helped encourage my personal growth and develop my thoughts on my study abroad program. So
perhaps Germany was not life changing as I had been told it would be, but it was definitely a
different flavor of impactful and an experience I'm grateful to have had.
GoPost 4: Reflect on your group teaching experience. How did your teaching session go? What
surprised you about the experience? What went well? What would you do differently if you were
to teach the same lesson again? How does it compare to your mini-teach and your reflections on
that experience?
I'm finding it difficult to reflect on my practice teach experience-- due to timing issues, my group
got less than 20 minutes and since I covered the portfolio last, I had to cut out my entire activity
and quickly pick out the most important points of my planned teach. I suppose I could say that
this experience illustrated the importance of time management and flexibility in teaching, but I
think that if, in an actual Honors 100 section, I ended up with less than 3 minutes to talk about
the portfolio, I would rather rearrange my lesson plans for the following section than try to cram
everything in. All in all, I'm disappointed that I didn't get the chance to present my activity in full
and I think I would have gotten more out of the experience had I had this time.
That being said, I am pleased with my group's activities. When we got together to discuss our
plan, we really wanted to emphasize the "why" behind the Honors requirements and make the
logistics and requirements available via a handout, but not the focus of our talk. I think this
worked really well and our activities were unique, fun, and seemed to get at the core of the
philosophy of Honors. I'd really like to adapt this mindset when making lesson plans for the fall,
though, like Siena, I am worried about my ability to make activities that really mesh well with
talking about coursework-- to me, this is the hardest to make engaging since it's so logistics

focused. (Though I loved the energy Tressa put into making the coursework part of her talk more
engaging and meaningful and I hope to emulate her pizzazz this fall.)
GoPost 5: Reflect on our retreat. What did you learn about your leadership style? Additionally,
share one idea or suggestion from the PE community that you now want to incorporate into your
class in the fall. Feel free to share any other thoughts you have following our time together.
I'll mirror the above posts and say I enjoyed the retreat. While we all get along and chat with
each other in class, I appreciated the time to get to know everyone better and I definitely feel
more connected to you all. I was the analyst in the leadership style activity and for the most part I
agreed with the corresponding characterization (I do think I'm a little bit more emotional and less
indecisive than described). I think this style is reflected in my in-depth lesson plans and my need
to plan out every possible detail, lest I be overwhelmed. Knowing this, I think I could work to be
a bit more spontaneous and less structured in the fall and be open to deviations from my plans
even though I might not have a good idea of what's going to happen anymore-- sometimes I need
to relax and be open to the unknown. I liked the other reflective exercises that we engaged with
(the sentence completion worksheet, for example) and would like to incorporate something
similar into my class in the fall-- perhaps not that exact activity, but one that makes my students
think about where they are, why they're here, where they'd like to go, and what will get them
there ("there" and "where" being both a personal and professional place).