Leadership
through Stories
I have always
found a peace by being by myself. It is only now that I am at the University of
Texas that I realize how important it is to me to be alone, slow down, and just
examine my life. I do this often with the aid of a good book. I had thought
that reading was just a relaxing hobby until I came to college. Now, fifty
thousand people that seem to be going as crazy as little kids going for candy
at a Halloween party are surrounding me. A lot of the time, it seems like I am
living in an ant colony and everybody is moving around frantically like little
ants, but I cannot understand the whole picture. I am supposed to be able to
keep my head screwed on straight and focus on my priorities in the midst of
seeming anarchy and bedlam. I have been thrown into the deep end of the pool,
and now it is the time to find out if I will sink or swim. However, I find that
I strangely relish my newfound freedom. In this do-or-die context, my life has
seemed to come into perspective and the things that are profoundly important
have come to the forefront of my life. I have found that the only way to stay
sane and true to myself is to never lose sight of my passion and ultimate goal.
It seems like
everything in my life has been building up to realization of that goal.
Curiously, I was reminded of that goal recently when the UniversityÕs motto
ÒYou Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Set You FreeÓ[1]
John 8:32 was brought to my attention. Childhood memories were stirred. I
remembered a hilarious little boy in my fourth grade class, Quentin Lewis. He
was a black ministerÕs son who used to always say in a preacher's kind of
voice, ÒThe truth shall set you free!Ó It was quite comical because he used it
as the perpetual solution to any problem. It is only now that I am more mature
that I realize the profound truth of that statement, on many different levels,
and its relevance to my life. It is true on the Biblical level: the truth that
GodÕs forgiveness sets us free from the consequences of our sins; it is true in
the context of everyday wisdom: honesty is always the best policy and frees us
from guilt; it is also true about ourselves: accepting our particular gifts and
personality frees us to truly be ourselves. My truth and goal is to serve God
and honor him with whatever gifts and passions He has given me.
Finally, IÕll
let you in on my grand passion: my love of stories. I aim to share my love of
stories with the world, and thus become a free, fulfilled, and peaceful
person. By sharing my love of stories
I will be a leader and make the world a better place because stories help build
our spirit, give information, teach how to write and think better, record
history, build identities, open our minds to the world, and make us better
persons. The only question is: how do I achieve this? For me the solution is to
be a teacher. John Maxwell said, ÒThe first step to leadership is servanthoodÓ[2];
teaching is certainly a serving profession. I hope to communicate my love of
stories by completing my education in a correlating field such as English or
Education, by joining activities that will allow be to share my love, and by
eventually traveling the world as a teacher in some capacity. Some of the steps
to my goal I have already begun, some are just over the horizon, and some may
take a lifetime to complete.
Kids at VBS 
First, I will give you a little bit of background about
myself, outlining how I came to this point in the vision for my future. Looking
back over my life, I see that the things I am most successful at, not surprisingly,
stem from my love of stories. For example, I am good with children because I am
ridiculously enthusiastic about keeping them occupied with miscellaneous tales
of all sorts. I noticed this about myself when I went up to Wyoming to teach
Vacation Bible School. It did not seem like work for me to tell the kids
stories from the Bible and make real life applications through funny stories. I
felt as if I was genuinely myself and completely natural with the kids. All my
energy and goofiness and creativity finally had a productive outlet in relating
seemingly academic and philosophical biblical stories to their lives. I also
saw this quality in myself in Mexico where our church did vacation Bible
school. Once again I felt a powerful pull to tell those children stories. It
felt incredibly good to have found my niche there in Mexico, helping translate
for the pastors, singing songs, and just having fun playing childrenÕs games
like Duck Duck Goose and Red Rover. Even right here, at home, I have tons of
opportunities to tell stories: as a babysitter telling scary stories late at
night, regaling my buddies with good books I have read, or just helping
children with their homework. Examination of my past made me recognize that I
am naturally gifted with a passion for stories. Whatever my future may be, in
order to be happy I need to funnel that passion into my life.
Also, I do not
think anyone could understand what I want to do with my life and how I want to
do it, if they did not know about the people that have profoundly impacted me
by what they have taught me. I will begin with my grandmother, my Meme. She is
the first person that taught me to love the written word and that passion has
definitely stayed with me through the thick and thin. I remember the countless
days we have spent together, lazily devouring hundreds of pages with a true
spirit of book lust. She was a teacher for well over thirty years and it is
from her I first came to have a high opinion of the teaching profession.
Additionally, my youth minister, Paul, is the one that opened my eyes to how
important a part of my life my faith should play. He was and is a living
example of everything he preaches and I respect him immensely. It is because of
his widening effect on my heart that I opened myself up to the unglamorous
profession of teaching and came to respect servant hood. If I do indeed become
a teacher, I will strive to follow his loving and just example. I learned from
him how much respect has to do with learning and that living by example is the
strongest teaching tool. Finally, I will report on who helped me make sense of
the connection between my passion for stories and my faith. It was Christ. I
realized that he is pretty much the ultimate story teller; he constantly used
parables to teach. He did this because he knew several things: stories can be
made to apply to relevant situations even as times, situations, and problems
change, stories plant a seed in the listener that can be realized far in the
future, stories allow a
person to make progressive statements that would otherwise get them into
trouble, and stories also make teachings easier to remember and apply. As a
result of these fine people, I now am on the path to achieving my dreams.
Here at the
University of Texas there are several activities I can do right now in order to
help me accomplish my goal. I have become involved with Phi Lamb, a Christian
sorority, which helps underprivileged children with their homework. This
program is called Smart Start, and even though I just started to volunteer I
can already see that this activity will be a real character builder. Another
way for me to serve is through the Hispanic sister church of my church, Hyde
Park Baptist Church. I plan to help take care of the children there during
their Sunday school. Thus, I would simultaneously be improving my language
skills, telling stories, and growing in my faith. In addition, this summer
there is also an opportunity for Spanish students to go to Spain and teach
students there. I also have the option of becoming involved with the Peace Corp
immediately after college, which is very interesting to me. These activities
would give me a through background and base of knowledge as an international
teacher later on.
I want to travel
far, geographically and intellectually, so I will be able to lead others to
follow my example. I want to always keep on learning because as John Maxwell
wrote ÒWe cannot lead anyone else further than we have been ourselves.Ó[3]
I plan to do this by getting a degree in English, learning foreign languages,
and traveling the world as a teacher to help others gain a wider view on life.
I am already on my way to sharing my passion with the world as a student at the
University of Texas. The university has an impressive English department as
well as stellar foreign language departments and teaching sections. I want to
learn as much as I can about each of these fields so that I can go abroad and
teach. I want to go all over the world: Europe, Africa, South America,
everywhere. My aim is to see all that I possibly can and meaningfully touch the
lives of people in these diverse regions with my love of stories. I want to
share with them the knowledge of other cultures through education. Because learning
helps lower the level of hatred internationally by increasing knowledge about
different cultures one person at a time. Simply put, people arenÕt as afraid of
what they are familiar with.
Teacher teaching
Currently, I am in English and Spanish
classes and am on my way to developing my skills in those areas. However, I am very
reluctant to begin taking education classes because I am afraid of becoming
trapped behind a desk in the school of some suburban classroom right after
college. I hope I can overcome my fear because I can see myself loving working
with children or young adults overseas. ItÕs been really hard coming to peace
with being a Òteacher.Ó IÕm smart, IÕm ambitious, and I was brought up with a
certain lifestyle. I often battle with myself because it seems like IÕm
underselling myself in a mediocre profession because as the culture perpetuates
Òthose who canÕt do teach.Ó However, I am smarter than that stereotype and can
think for myself just as a want to help other people think for themselves. IÕm
not some rigid self-righteous teacher or a na•ve, ignorant idealist. IÕm a
college student at a large, liberal university who is struggling with a calling
to a vocation that isnÕt glamorous or potentially financially rewarding. But I
know, deep down in my heart, that I am meant to do things differently than
everybody else. I am supposed to go to different places and learn different
things. It is like Charles Kingsley wisely said ÒWe act as though comfort and
luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us
happy is something to be enthusiastic about.Ó[4]
I am enthusiastic about stories and teaching and know if I remain in the
business school and become a CPA I will suffocate under my own dreams.
As far as the market goes for my future profession, there is a great demand in other countries for good English teachers. It would also be wonderful to be able to teach at a Christian school because I would be able teach stories hand in hand with my faith. I hope through stories I could teach my students more than just a language but also dignity and respect. I hope I could teach my students the important concept Atticus taught Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." [5] Stories have certainly helped me to learn how to empathize like this. In fact, my own personality has been deeply shaped by my love of stories; it has given me the strength to rise above whatever situations I have found myself in. Stories have made me realize that there is a big, big world out there and other people have faced struggles just as heartbreaking as any of mine, have survived, and have been all the better for it. I want to give others that same strength. The attached video link shows an example of this. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5677289125499842069&q=teach+reading&hl=en
In the
conclusion of my paper and my life, I can see myself as an old lady. IÕll be
cheerful and outspoken and wonderfully eccentric. I will have traveled the
world. IÕll have a library and a garden. IÕll have great stories for my little
grandchildren. Maybe I will even have written a book. Thus, after I make my
travels, I would be able to record them and share my experiences with the
world. I will be unabashedly myself and satisfied with life. I hope I will be like Baroness Karen Blixon, a great
storyteller, who wondered as she left her home in Africa, "If I know a
song of Africa, of the Giraffe, and the African new moon lying on her back, of
the ploughs in the fields, and the sweaty faces of the coffee-pickers, does
Africa know a song of me?"[6]
I do not necessarily need to intimately know Africa, but I do want to leave my
mark on the word through teaching children with stories and learning about
foreign cultures. I believe God can show His love through the love of other
people; I want to be one of those people in the life of my students.
Word Count:1850
New: 2329
Added: 479
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