Tag: 2020

On the Friday before fall classes start at Foothill College faculty and staff come together for “Opening Day” to prepare for the new academic year. This year a panel of student leaders became our teachers and offered us a two-hour training on equity, focusing on implicit bias, privilege, and racism in higher education, including at Foothill. For our last activity at the end of the session we were invited to write a poem in which each line begins with the words “I am” to help us see our diversity and our unity.

I was almost too heartbroken by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to share this poem, but the students who asked us to “Listen, Learn, and Level Up” inspire me to live up to RBG’s legacy and work for a just and democratic society. Please take ten minutes to write your own I Am poem and share it in the comments.

I Am

I am a woman with no children

   learning to mother others.

I am a librarian

   learning to read

   myself and the world

   in a new way.

I am a seeker

   learning how to listen.

I am a human

   learning how to be a better creature

   on this planet.

I am grateful to be

   on this clear and sunny morning

part of the Foothill family.