Jessie Bader

A friend once told me that in Spanish when you ask someone what they do you are really saying "to what do you dedicate your life?" Here are some of the things I dedicate my life to.

Teacher: I dedicate my life to teaching.

At the moment I'm in graduate school at Lewis and Clark College earning my Masters in Teaching for middle school and high school integrated science. It is exhilarating and exhausting all at once. I am student teaching at Jackson Middle School in SW Portland in an 8th grade physical science class. It’s an absolute blast!

Becoming a teacher comes from my heart and my dedication to community, the environment, and hope for tomorrow. I have struggled to find my niche in the world and figuring out how I could best plant those seeds for the future. I've looked at both our deteriorating social-political environment and the seemingly inevitable destruction of our physical and natural environment and decided that those two things are deeply interrelated. I believe that the only way we can heal our physical and natural environment is to heal our communities, and that we can only truly heal our communities by focusing on the physical places that we live in. Our relationships to each other and to our sense of place in the world are vitally important. Schools are intertwined in these communities and environments and they are responsible for educating the next generation of environmental and social stewards who will be handed the responsibility for caring for each other and the places they live in. Adolescents are full of enthusiasm, energy, hope and idealism if only adults are there and ready to facilitate this energy and help kids realize that they can and are making a meaningful difference. I dedicate my life to kids, and to being one of those adults they can look up to, befriend, respect, and learn from.

Learner: I dedicate my life to learning.

I am a voracious learner, always excited about finding out something new and interesting and intriguing. I hope to someday pass that onto my students. My mother once described the learning styles of my brother and me. She described Joel as her 'deep' learner; taking one thing and learning every detail about it. She described me as her 'wide' learner. I am so fascinated by virtually everything. I am a science teacher with a degree in computer science and mathematics. I have a large collection of books and I love to read. I have books on poetry, spiritual teachings, science, sustainability, art and design, conservation, literature, urban planning, history, science fiction, fantasy, communication, and the list goes on. I am currently just beginning to learn to play the fiddle. What excites me most about being a teacher is that I am eternally in an environment of learning.

Dreamer: I dedicate my life to a dream.

I'm still figuring out what that dream is, but the act of dreaming it is what is most important to me. I'm an idealist and unquenchably optimistic. Even when I think I'm down I get comments on how positively I view the world. I've been reading poetry by Wendell Berry. He uses the metaphor of a house to describe a life. Here are two excerpts from his poem 'The Design of a House.' "Except in idea, perfection is as wild/ as light; there is no hand laid on it./ But the house is shambles/ unless the vision of its perfection/ upholds it like stone." "Love has conceived a house,/ and out of its labor/ brought forth its likeness/ - the emblem of desire, continuing/ though the flesh falls away."

Lover: I dedicate my life to love.

That one's simple. I know love; it is joyous, consuming, brutal, enlightening, passionate, fierce, and ever changing. I love loving the world, and that's exactly what I'm here to do. Even though it can be one of the most challenging things I can do every day.

Warrior: I dedicate my life to living.

Being a warrior to me is about commitment. It's about doing the best I can possibly do and being the best person I know how to be. I recently recieved a story from artist/poet Brian Andreas that goes like this: "This is a giant block of whatever is most difficult for you to carry & trust me on this, you'll carry it more times than you can count until you decide that's exactly what you want to do most & then it won't weigh a thing anymore." So I'm doing my best every day...