« Jan. 13 Reflection: Academic connections

Anna Amey

Connecting studies with experiences

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Kathryn Smith NS Julie Parker
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Internship: Highlands United Methodist Church

Looking over my time partnering with Highlands so far, I have gotten to connect a lot of dots between what I am experiencing in the internship to what I have learned academically. In my poverty studies courses, Intro to Education and Developing Child in the 21st Century, we studied various cases of minorities in learning situations, how humans are created, and how one's environment alters their life. 

I am seeing a slightly different dynamic from the ones I studied in those courses, simply due to the fact that I am working on LGBTQIAP+ social media representation for a church and not focusing on how children transition from Kindergarten to 1st grade. However, my experience does relate to my time in Intro to Ed when we read novels about students and teachers using code-switching to get through their days appropriately. The novels pointed out the importance of talking to kids differently than your employer. 

That relates to my internship because my adviser has shared that they have felt like they could not comfortably be themselves in a church congregation, as a genderqueer pansexual, before working at the church they are currently located at. All of this is definitely prompting me to study queer theology more thoroughly and to continue taking more Religion classes.

4 replies
  1. Post by Julie Parker
    Re: Connecting studies with experiences
    Over the summer, I had the opportunity to intern for a clinical psychologist who specializes in LGBTQIA+ clients. In just the short time I got to work with her, I learned so much and realized that I knew very little about the LGBTQIA+ community. I love to hear that you are interested in learning more about queer theology in the future. Studying that topic will make you all the more better of an educator as you will be able to better communicate with queer students and understand the obstacles they face. I, too, hope to learn more about this topic so I can be as accommodating of a therapist as possible when one day possibly with queer patients. 
    1 reply
  2. Parent of this post↑ Reply to Julie Parker from Natalie Santiago
    Re: Connecting studies with experiences
    Love that you want to learn more about the topic too, before becoming a therapist! It is important work
  3. Post by Natalie Santiago
    Re: Connecting studies with experiences
    I also took intro to poverty studies and it was a phenomenal course. Overall learned so much and the teacher was great! I love that you are interested in the LGBTQIA+ community as they do not have a lot of representation, especially in the church. I do not like that they can not be themselves in a church congregation because I believe that we all have the right to be who we want. 
  4. Post by Kathryn Smith
    Re: Connecting studies with experiences
    You draw a great connection here, Claire, and it's something many of the other interns may be experiencing as well if they are working with marginalized populations. There are often narrow definitions of what is acceptable behavior, beliefs, choices -- why? Who do those definitions serve, and how do they affect people who don't fit the definition? How does this connect to the idea of empathy that Laura Alice mentioned in her reflection? 

    I'm really excited reading these reflections because I see so many places where your experiences and questions are in dialogue with each other. Keep those conversations going even outside of class! 

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