You Are More Than Anyone’s Experience of You..

barishkumar samantaroy

Feb 5, 20242 min read

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🌅 India Rising

His friends and teachers saw him as an incorrigible pain in the kazoo. And for good reason. Kevin was different, very different.

I was Kevin’s teacher during his junior year in high school. A tall, burly kid, he was a student in my Advanced Placement Psychology class. He always looked a little disheveled, with curly hair that sprung from his head like tightly coiled Slinkys.

Psychology: The art and science of what it means to be human

At the beginning of every school year, I congratulated all my students on choosing to study a subject squarely focused on what it meant to be fully human. It was the one subject, I told them, that they were unlikely ever to say, “When will I ever use this?”

“Along the way, we are going to visit intimate and highly sensitive topics, such as sexual orientation, child abuse, addictions, mental illnesses, trauma, death, and discrimination. I guarantee that every time we encounter one of these topics someone in this class will have either personal experience with it or knows of someone who has. That fact requires a reverent frame of mind. It requires an uncommon level of maturity.”

Treat each other with kindness and reverence

“There is only one requirement to remain a student in this class, and it is not academic: You must always treat others respectfully. That is not negotiable. I expect you to treat me with respect, and I, in turn, will do the same for you and everyone in this class. I care about you and want you to leave this class in June a better person.”“You are likely to discover that some of the ideas we will discuss openly trigger unpleasant memories or feelings in you. That’s normal and healthy. When those moments arise, and you find yourself being self-critical or worse, there are two things I want you to remember.”