I entered the teacher preparation program thinking that I was one of the few people on this earth who possessed a critical consciousness á la Paulo Freire, a leading advocate of critical teaching. This was a result of my work with Karen teenagers in Ithaca, NY, the Karen being an ethnic group persecuted in Burma, of which many resettled in the United States.
Over the course of two years, I worked with them in brainstorming, designing and finally painting a mural that represented their community. The lessons I learned from this grassroots work were invaluable. I will use an oft-quoted phrase to sum up what I took away from the experience: “nothing about us without us.” The teenagers were front and center in the project, and as an employee of the 4H Urban Outreach Program, my job was to be a facilitator.