MA in Individualized Studies Program
Before I became a teacher, I wandered the world in search of adventure and enlightenment. I found a measure of both in the career I had with various international organizations in New York, London, Addis Ababa, Honolulu, Tokyo, Bangkok, Pondicherry; but I found all this experience needed supplementing and contextualizing- hence my return to academe.
Many of the little tidbits that tantalized me in my travels, or that catch my eye now, find their way into my research or teaching, so there is a multicultural and feminist perspective to my work (along with a lot of experience in field research techniques), plus a strong interest in transformation both social and personal, power, new forms of community, and, the integration of spirit in everyday life.
My own personal/scholarly pursuits continue to lead me in the direction of understanding major life forces, seeming opposites: violence and nurturance, love and power, faith and deception, despair and transcendence. I tend to ask of myself and my students at each moment, of each idea/feeling/behavior: What could be lighter and freer? This has to do with learning acceptance and courage while always asking for just a bit more inner freedom intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Ultimately, this has to do with the integration of body, mind, psyche, and soul. I assume this to be a fundamentally social task. I assume it to be fundamentally joyful, no matter how dark the individual moments may be. It is a lifelong pursuit.
I have worked with students as they pursued a wide range of studies: African American women and empowerment; Japanese history; multicultural studies for junior high-schoolers (India and Mexico); collaborative learning; body/mind integration in East and West; weaving and transpersonal psychology; foster care and attachment; martial arts for teenage girls; social welfare reform; development of honey production in Central America; women and spirituality; to name a few.
Over the last years I have attempted to learn all sorts of things that I never had exposure to before: fly fishing, marble sculpting, and sketching; all of which have a rhythm and flow that I find delightful even when I don't catch fish, produce sculptures, or make recognizable drawings. . . . Besides, being a beginning learner reminds me of the frustrations and demands of that state, not a bad reminder for anyone with aspirations to being an educator. I am also pecking away at dissolving and remerging my own inner landscape of understanding the workings of the cosmos: neuroscience (for dummies), quantum physics (for poets), the history of god, the qualities of creativity, the aspirations of mystics, the deep nature of progressive education and learning, all figure into the equation somehow or other.
Educational Background: Ph.D. Sociology, Yale University; M.A., Communications, University of Hawaii; B.A., International Relations/Political Science, Wheaton College (Norton, MA).
|
Margo MacLeod, MA, Ph.D