“I would like to be a scholar in whatever I do, a scholar is never finished, he is always seeking and I am always seeking.” Ahmad Jamal
Dissertation Survey Draft 1 (link no longer available)
My dissertation topic arrived at S. John’s University with me. Perhaps it was what brought me there in the first place.
In all of my experiences in education, from my beginnings as a Teaching Assistant, through 21 years as a Special Education teacher, and finally throughout my 13 years administering a Special Education program, I have always wondered how drastic changes can be consistently made for a particular population of students without adequately preparing the leaders who will ultimately be responsible for them.
They say there are different types of knowledge. I offer this graph to represent my own:
I expected to breeze through SJU’s program. I love to write, I had my topic, and I have so many more years behind me that so many in my cohort. Easy, right? But then the others in my cohort began to speak and I realized just how much I had to learn.
I was so full of what I knew that I knew, and hungry for what I knew I didn’t know, that I was completely unprepared for the stuff that I didn’t know that I didn’t know.
I learned a great deal of this from the wonderful professors at SJU. I learned much more from the theorists, scholars, and writers that my professors exposed me to. But I learned most from the others in my cohort who each brought their unique experiences, and perspectives to class and shared them generously with me.
And so my “Scholar” page doesn’t complete my portfolio. It simply records this newest step my ongoing journey as I continue to seek what I still don’t know that I still don’t know.