{"id":32809,"date":"2023-08-31T23:23:44","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T06:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=32809"},"modified":"2023-08-31T23:23:44","modified_gmt":"2023-09-01T06:23:44","slug":"what-comes-first-the-student-or-the-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/what-comes-first-the-student-or-the-school\/","title":{"rendered":"What comes first?…The student or the school?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What did come first?\u00a0 I would love to know!\u00a0 Is it nature, is it nurture, is it have a mentor like an older sibling or is it mirroring our parents?\u00a0 When I read through The Secret History of Oxford <\/em>by Paul Sullivan I was drawn by the people, or as he states the \u201cthe Good, the Bad and the Ugly and most other members of the Hall of Fame\u201d.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Is Oxford Oxford because of the students it produced? The thinkers, the royalty, the inventive, the naughty?\u00a0 Or do we know of these students because they were at prestigious Oxford?\u00a0 How many of you have told people you get to study at Oxford for a week and it instantly brings on the \u201coh! Wow!\u201d factor?\u00a0 I feel instantly elevated in their eyes\u2026I mean, come on it\u2019s OXFORD!<\/p>\n

The first person Sullivan highlights is Roger Bacon and tells of a Legend of how \u201che once dressed himself as a common thatcher to meet a deputation from Cambridge University.\u00a0 The students from the \u201cother place\u201d were so dismayed to find such a formidable intellect amongst the common populace that they ran back home, afraid of being put to shame by Oxford\u2019s genuine academics.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 So here we have a 13th<\/sup> century illustration of imposter syndrome!\u00a0 If Cambridge students worry about being good enough, it should make us feel better that we too, even in year 2, may still be drawn to our own inadequacies.\u00a0 I know the beginning of this semester feels like a slow creaking wheel starting up again and therefore these feelings of being an imposter are \u201cbaaaaccckk\u201d!<\/p>\n

When considering our own journey in this doctoral world I have encountered a major threshold experience recognizing we are stepping into the world of being peers with our teachers and mentors.\u00a0 I honestly struggled (as I made known in some of my blogs) with feeling that I was a misfit for this program.\u00a0 I waited until the end of my first year to voice it to those who needed to hear it and low and behold, they listened.\u00a0 We worked out some of the wording in the syllabus\u00a0 and the grading rubric (and I don\u2019t know if it changed or not for future students, but I felt heard.\u00a0 The saw my struggle and helped me find creative ways to approach my research that honored who I am and what I was studying.\u00a0 As Loren told me \u201cyou are a peer now, you are an expert in your field and it\u2019s expected to speak up for what matters to you\u201d.\u00a0 I have been a \u201cgood\u201d student; give me the syllabus, and the grading rubric and I try to do what I can to meet the teacher or programs expectation.\u00a0 It did not dawn on me that I could challenge the expectations!\u00a0 So am I a product of a great first year of doctorate work from my school, or did my school create a student who changed the way it taught?<\/p>\n

Not every celebrity in Sullivans book got there through high morals and intellect, so a place like Oxford also has to claim those celebrities too.\u00a0 Oxford itself is a celebrity.\u00a0 Julian Treasure states in his book How to be Heard <\/em>\u201cit is<\/em> what you say and <\/em>the way you say it.\u201d[3]<\/a>\u00a0 We seem to have a responsibility as Doctoral students to perhaps leave this program better then how we found it.\u00a0 And we speak up because it made us better then when we started.\u00a0 So what comes first? We as students who encounter a learning environment sharpening iron or the school who allows itself to be changed by the students who arrive through it\u2019s threshold?<\/p>\n

I am looking forward to walking the hallowed halls of Oxford like so many incredible, wild, rebellious, silly, creative students have before me and the gift is knowing I will be changed just by showing up.\u00a0 (I don\u2019t know if one week of me being there will change Oxford, but it is amazing to think that we already have done this for each other in this program).\u00a0 It is not just the topics, the authors, the professors and staff we encounter, it is this cohort, our iron sharpening iron that makes this program priceless!<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Paul Sullivan, The Secret History Of Oxford (New York: The History Press, 2013), 103.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid, 103<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Julian Treasure, How to be Heard (Florida: Mango Publishing Group, 2017), 187.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What did come first?\u00a0 I would love to know!\u00a0 Is it nature, is it nurture, is it have a mentor like an older sibling or is it mirroring our parents?\u00a0 When I read through The Secret History of Oxford by Paul Sullivan I was drawn by the people, or as he states the \u201cthe Good, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2806,2489,1552,1590],"class_list":["post-32809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bacon","tag-dlgp02","tag-oxford","tag-sullivan","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32813,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32809\/revisions\/32813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}