I Received My Ph.D. from the University of Texas in 2003.

My dissertation, Living Wide-Awakeness: High School Drama Teachers Creating Opportunities For Powerful Encounters With The Arts, examined the work of two high school drama teachers. I came to my research as someone who cares deeply about the work of arts educators. It is not an overstatement to say that the arts are a critical part of who I am today. I became a high school drama teacher because my life was better because of the arts and I wanted to provide that opportunity to others. I briefly taught high school drama then went to graduate school to study arts education. I wanted to understand why someone who had dreamed about being a high school drama teacher from a young age could not survive as a drama teacher within the system.

My dissertation focused on the philosophical concept of wide-awakeness. Wide-awakeness is the state of doing and becoming. It is wonder. It is noticing. It is defining one’s purpose. It is being in the flow. My dissertation addressed the way in which high school drama teachers create the capacity for wide-awakeness in students. My dissertation was a conversation I wanted to have with the former basketball coach principal for whom I had worked as a drama teacher. I failed in that environment to be the kind of teacher I wanted to be. I was crushed under the weight of a system that does not view arts education essential for all young people. I wanted to explain that the arts save lives. My message got lost amidst fire drill signs pointing the wrong direction, Coke machine proceeds not being enough to mount musicals, and facilities management responsibilities on top of my teaching load.

My dissertation was a philosophical statement on the arts education within an assessment-crazed educational world. I wanted my dissertation to contribute to the conversation that seeks to secure the arts in the lives of all children. My dissertation was an act of solidarity with all arts educators who work tirelessly, artistically, and joyfully within a system that I found impossible to navigate. My dissertation was also a thank you note to all the arts educators who had changed my life along the way. My hope was that in describing what wide-awakeness looks like, and why it matters, the world would move — student by student, teacher by teacher, class by classroom, school by school, community by community — toward imagination, compassion, and love.

You can’t just study wide-awakeness. 

I used to think my wide-awakeness journey began in graduate school when I started reading and researching the concept. But really, it could have started when I was in third grade and got cast in my first Actor’s Equity dinner theatre production. Or maybe, it was when I was in the Cherub choir at church at the age of 6. Or maybe, it was when I learned to play the fiddle, or wrote my first poem, or danced in my first recital. Regardless of when it started, I knew wide-awakeness in my bones from an early age.

My head caught up with my bones while my heart took a bit of a detour when I became an adult. My professional career has been more about cubicles and outcome measures, than about creating and dancing with the parts of myself that desperately want to create and move. I have written curricula, white papers, program evaluation reports, peer-reviewed articles, and textbook chapters. I have believed in everything I have written, much of which has been peripherally related to wide-awakeness. I have struggled to connect my body, mind, and soul. I have completed half marathons. I have practiced yoga. I participated in a study at the NIH. I have prayed. I have traveled. I have married. I have arrived at a place where I breathe into the challenge of living wide-awakeness.

Live life full on.

I learned that phrase trekking on the South Island of New Zealand. As I toured on the big orange Stray bus, I experienced the mist of fjords, the roar of jet boat engines, the splash of penguins, the song of whales, and the crisp sweetness of Sauvignon Blanc. I experienced Maori dance, the Southern Cross, and Franz Josef Glacier. I got to stand on top of a glacier with my hands raised in victory looking at the sky feeling more alive and whole than I had ever felt. (Thinking back, I am not sure exactly over what I was proclaiming victory. Perhaps victory over asleepness?) There is a sculpture in front of the Christchurch art museum entitled, Reasons for Voyaging. I was not truly sure about my reason for voyaging. What had I been seeking? What had I found in that moment? My eyes saw things differently from that vantage point so close to heaven. That is full on. That is living wide-awakeness.

Make peace with ourselves.

On a personal note, Living Wide-Awakeness is framed by my experience as a woman living with Turner syndrome. Turner syndrome results when a female has only one complete X chromosome (rather then two X chromosomes) in each cell. Ninety eight percent of the time when conception occurs with one X gene missing a miscarriage will happen early in the pregnancy. About 1 in 10 of all miscarriages in the first trimester are due to Turner syndrome. My birth was improbable.

Wide-awakeness takes on a particular significance under the weight of living with Turner syndrome. I understand that making peace with Turner syndrome is part of my journey toward wide-awakeness. I believe we all have aspects of ourselves, parts of our world, corners of our hearts with which we need to make peace. Turner syndrome is one of mine. As a woman living with Turner syndrome, wide-awakeness has included confronting difficult medical facts such as infertility, becoming comfortable with my body that has always been shorter and rounder than most women’s bodies, and being profoundly grateful for a healthy life.

“I am who I am not yet.”

In the introduction to a collection of essays written to honor education philosopher and scholar Maxine Greene, William Pinar recalls her words. Reflecting on her work, Greene said, “I am who I am not yet.” She spoke those words at the end of her career, when she was in her early nineties. She was still becoming. In that way, life is a process of doing and becoming. Of learning and change. Of success and failure. Of falling apart and coming back together. There is inspiration there. There is possibility there. There is hope there. Wide-awakeness is a conversation we have with ourselves, and our world, as we seek to become who we are not yet.

The world needs wide-awakeness.

A Chinese curse declares, “May you live in interesting times.” These are interesting times. To list the pains of our world could go on and on. Fundamentally, wide-awake people make wide awake choices. Wide-awake people live safe, smart, and healthy lives, and work to make all lives safer, smarter, and healthier. Wide-awake people know interdependence and compassion in their bones. Wide-awake people know no one is free unless we all are free. Ultimately, whether it be through the arts or other paths, we must create a wide-awake world.