Michelle Saperstein

Where are you living?
I am currently living in the Walla Walla valley of south-eastern Washington.

What have you been doing since graduating/leaving KVA?
I am attending a private liberal-arts college, Whitman College. I will graduate in May 2010 with a Bachelors of Arts in History with a minor in Education. In my major coursework, I am focusing on Medieval and Early-Modern European gender constructions. I am currently in the process of applying for Honours Candidacy which entails writing a lengthy thesis.

What plans do you have for the near future? Distant future?
After graduating from Whitman next year, I am planning on attending university in Boston, Massachusetts. I am applying to several programs and fellowships which focus on Educational Policy and Administration. I hope to someday work for a government or non-profit organization, researching funding inequalities in public education.

Have you received any awards?
I am a recipient of the Gates Millennium Scholarship.

Any interesting experiences/vacations?
I am currently working in liaison with the State Department of Developmental Disabilities as a care provider in a foster home. For over a year now, my main charges have been a pair of three-year old autistic twins; I aid in helping them develop appropriate response signals to external stimuli. I also provide care for the other children in the home, and help the parents with various domestic projects.

What is your current or inspiring thought?
A life question I keep running up against in my academic courses is the nature of reality. This question is quite broad, but I have been pondering it in the context of historical narratives. Where is the meeting place between what actually happened in the past (positivist history) versus what we say happened (constructivist history)? What do multiple narratives about a single event say about the creation of history, and even, the creation of personal and collective identity? A great book I just read about the topic in an anthropology course is by Michel-Rolph Trouillot, called, Silencing the Past. This question not only finds me because I am history major studying competing narratives, but it enters my life when I am forced to deal with the chaos of the world, sorting out competing interests, and attempting to construct, for myself, what is truth.

Did your experience of KVA have any particular effect regarding your attitude or life? Was there any lesson that was learned that you found helpful?
KVA was the beginning of an epistemic shift in the way I think about learning. Before I entered KVA, I felt like teachers treated students like empty vessels to be filled up with facts and figures. That dynamic is fairly dangerous I think, because it puts emphasis on knowledge as something to be absorbed through passivity because teachers are often distant, mere lecturers and curriculum is removed from the complexities of the real world. This kind of “traditional” learning is demeaning to the creative faculties of students and teachers.

KVA demands a different kind of dynamic, one which taught me about the nature of learning itself. Learning at KVA is experiential, and teachers are active guides that inspire student-driven inquiry. Curriculum emphasizes communal interaction. Knowledge at KVA is not about facts and figures-these kinds of stagnant “truths” are amorphous concepts which will likely expire within the next generation. Knowledge which is truly lasting involves analytical and communicatory skills, the ability to deconstruct ideas and interpret myriad perspectives. And perhaps even more importantly, KVA demands not only self-improvement through academic rigor and extra-curricular involvement, but the ability to participate in a community of teachers, peers, and often, the community at large. These sorts of skills are what I have brought to my college community, and what I will continue to carry into the environments and situations of which I become a member.