Author: AyNiah Rochester (Page 3 of 8)

Education must not simply teach work – it must teach Life.“  Quoted by W.E.B. Du Bois.  When I read this quote I think about how traditional school only taught me about traditional things. Now that I am older and out in the world I with public school would have taught me about public assistance, banking information,  breaking  generational curses , and that I will always be ten steps behind someone else because of the color of my skin, my knowledge and because I don’t meet the traditional criteria. Growing up in public schools was hard because I felt as if I wasn’t capable or smart enough. To me some of my teachers where just there to get a pay check. I didn’t feel important at all. I feel like at some schools you are just a number and either your high and smart or low an capable. This why I think my education experience has driven me to take charge of my like , believe in my self and also be the teacher I wish I had.

  Being the only Black girl out in the wild made me find my place.  I was misunderstood. My actions, my energy, my personality made me stand out. I was constantly aware that the color of my skin was a threat to others. At the Bluff Film Festival, I was standing in line trying to ask Chip, a black man, a question, a bunch of white people kept cutting in front of me. Then a white man asked me, “Who are you to him? Are you his wife?”. When I told him “no, I just want to talk to him”. Then he asked me “what I want to talk to him about”. I told him, “I want to ask him where we got the 100% negro shirt he was wearing in the video”. The white man said he wanted one too! I told him “I don’t think you should wear that shirt because you’re not black”. Carter told him there are other ways to support black people…I told him he could get a shirt that says what he is. That he should be a good ally. He wouldn’t listen to me, he had to hear Carter, another white person, tell him. He couldn’t leave without saying “we’re all human, we all bleed the same way”. Knowing that there are people living their lives without having any context for what is going on. We live in a time when our president degrades black people and we still don’t get treated like humans. A lot of black people don’t go out into the wild. The history of lynching in this country and other things gives me a reason not to. However, our roots have us going outside. We knew how to use the things around us to create a home. The big dipper led many slaves to freedom. For me, seeing the big dipper in the Escalante, made me realize I can read this language. I look at hiking, climbing and rafting as a white person’s language. On this trip, I realized that it is my language too. I learned a lot about myself and who I was. I learned that I am capable of doing anything I put my mind to. I learned to take risks, such as reading the maps for the group. My last wilderness course I ran from the maps because I didn’t think I was capable of leading people to their destination. I just wanted to follow the leader. On this trip, I went head-on with the maps. I told myself I needed to learn this. By the end of the course, I was able to pick a feature then find it. I was able to count the contour lines. I was able to orient it, I know the sunrises in the east and it sets in the west. At the end of the course, watching myself push other people to understand the maps. I pushed Nia and Xay. I made sure they knew they were capable of leading the group. Hiking through the Escalante canyon walls brought up a lot of thoughts and wondering about life, people and me. I thought a lot about why I don’t see the native american community in the canyons. The place isn’t even named for them. Being honest, I just want white people to go away. I wonder what the people who used to live here would call this land. Escalante is a Spanish explorer. I want more recognition of tribes and different groups of people.  Academically it pushed me because I had no internet to help me spell and research things. Not having that help made me want to give up so many times but having a strong I team that pushed me and believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. Writing my personal essay made me realize that when something is hard or makes me think critically, I beat myself up. I set the bar way too high for myself. My work is really good based on the feedback I get. The geology made me more engaged when I was able to connect it to my life. I realized I have symbiotic relationships. I can work with people to give them what they want and I can get what I want from them. The nature nuggets made me think more about how human’s impact can really mess a whole environment up. Humans are only happy when things are beneficial to them, we have a parasitic relationship. After taking this class, I personally know that I am going to be doing more outdoor things, especially in the water. I want to help open it to the POC community and welcome them back to the land that was taken away. This class also taught me the importance of using my voice and trying new things. That moment was one of many that I will have to face as time goes on.

Not all schools were like Eagle Rock. Everyday we had different house teams that did kp. You might be wondering what is kp well I am going to tell you. Kp is kitchen patrol so what our duties were to work in the kitchen helping the chiefs out for all 3 meals and during that time there are different jobs to be done. Each trimester there would be two kp leaders and our job was to make sure everyone was doing their job and make sure all the jobs got done so we could leave. Each kp team had a goal and it was to get everything done for the next shift and get out early.  My house team had Kp the run in day and everyone tried to get cover because they wanted to watch the run in and there were a lot of people on campus that day. The new students’ family members come to welcome them back. I was the type of person that wouldn’t mind doing kp that now other members in my house had got covers and as a house team we all agreed that we would only get covers who will do the job and actually show up. Well like I said most people hated doing kp that. As Halie and I walked in the kitchen to get ready to tell everyone there job and the plan for the night we noticed it was only 3 other people in the kitchen getting ready and my house team had 8 people so there were people missing. “Today is a heavy day but we can get out on time if we work together to make sure you do most of the work in the first half so that the second half is smooth.” John said. John was one of our chefs. He always tried to make sure we got out on time and he always does most of the work before we get in the kitchen. Halie noticed that people covered didn’t show because they wanted to hang out or called in sick so that left us with a lot of work to do. Being that her and I was the team leaders we had to make sure it all got done. At the moment I wanted to walk away and just leave but I knew I had to be a team player. So we divided the jobs up and started off with the jobs that  we knew  took a very long time. With those jobs we put two people on them so it can save a little time. Watching the people who were supposed to be in the kitchen covering my house team members hang out and run around made me really mad and made me want to say something but I knew as a leader that wasn’t the way to handle the situation. While cleaning the kitchen and preparing the food we listened to music. I know when I am cleaning I love to listen to music because you go to another place and the cleaning is so much better. Halie came up to me and said “ We have to have a house meeting about this because this isn’t acceptable at all.” She was really mad and I can talk because usually she would just let stuff like that go. After doing the first half we all clocked out and took our 20 minute break to eat. When entering the lodge you felt the joy and high energy which felt amazing after being mad about what happened. Moe yelled “ 8:20pm make sure you’re back in the kitchen please don’t be late.” We all went and sat with our friends for dinner laughing and joking and enjoying the moment. After our break we went back in and broke the jobs up. Some people went in the front to clean up tables and take salad bar down and some stayed in the back to wash dishes and put away the food. Being that one kp leader has to be in the back and one in the front I took the front while I was going around cleaning the tables and floor I noticed there were alot of people sitting around with the plates empty knowing they were supposed to be taking the racks when they were done. So my house brother and I made an announcement “ If you are done eating we would like some help on kp.” That’s when staff and students started to help out with  cleaning up. People were helping out in the lodge and the kitchen which was amazing to see  they were mopping , sweeping, putting dishes away, putting chairs up and more. I am glad I didn’t give up on my house team because even though people cover is the last show up we were able to get out on time and get support from the community. This moment taught me what kind of leader and how to shop up not only in kp but in class also. That experience also taught me things about the world and how I can show up and be a better person and how teaching and learning can be shown in many different ways. 

 Coming from a place where people didn’t think I was capable of reading writing and math or any education to a place where people believe in me and push me to be my best self and pushed me to be the driver of my education taught me a lot. “ You’re not smart enough for that.” “ I don’t care if you learn or not I still payed”  “ Your stupid” as those voices played in my head I thought smaller and smaller . Those were the voices that stopped me from competing in spelling bees,  that stopped me from reading books in school, not doing none of my English homework. Those voices were the ones that made me keep my hand down in class when I knew the answer or made me feel like I had to wait for the smartest people in class to give me the answers. Those voices came from home and school. Those were the voices that became who I was for a very long time till I went away to a school called Eagle Rock. Eagle Rock is a place where you are the driver to your education which have its positives and negatives. I had an amazing team there who pushed me to be the best. It was final project week and so things were due soon and I had a few papers that needed to be done. Jocelyn and Tommy told the class to ask for an extension before Tuesday so I had decided that I would ask for one not because I did not know if I was going to finish my final project and time. At the start of class Joc said “ Told is work time, spend these two hours doing the final project and I will not be watching over yall like a hawk so ask for help if you need and use this time wisely.” As class began I asked for an extension and  Joc looked at me and said “ No I know you can do this go sit down and start working.” I was really mad at her because she had given people extensions and they missed class alot or spent their time on their phone.  Joc and I were really close. She looked at me like her little sister. She was one of my people who helped me when I needed it. During the whole class period I focused and asked a lot of questions so I can at less be half way done.  45 minutes into the class there I saw Tommy walking so I stopped him and said “ can I get an extension on my project please.” Knowing I was told No already by Joc I still asked and he said “Yes.” As class continued and I continued my project, Joc supported me with it. Before class ended Tommy made an announcement “ if you need an extension now is the time to ask. There are already a few people who asked.” After he we was done Joc said “Niah isn’t allow to get an extension and a few others y’all need to be in the LRC tonight doing work I will be over there” Tommy came over to me while Joc was helping me and said sorry but Joc said “ you cant have an extension so you have to finish it before Thursday .” When he walked away Joc laughed at me and said, “ You tried to take the easy way out , they allow you to do that and that’s not good. You are smart as hell and capable of finishing tonight if you stay focused and believe in yourself so I better see you here tonight doing that work. This is that tough love.” After dinner I got on duty and went to LRC to finish that which was 2  papers typed with 1,000 words each, 2 interviews from people on campus and a poster board about the person we picked. I had already done the poster and the 2 interviews and one of the papers so all I had to do was get edits on my paper and poster board and type the other paper. To me that sounded like a lot and I told myself I was not capable of doing that work. We sat down and can come up with a plane on how I can get this all down by tonight.  As I worked to complete all my assignments  and the wild thoughts that was going threw my head. “Time to wrap up all everyone and start night clean” staff said.