Autobiographical Statement

It was the late 1900s. A time when a student’s report card was the primary method used to check a student’s progress. It was a time when a concerned teacher might leave a voicemail on the answering machine. It was a time when physical documents – progress reports or failing assignments – were sent home to be signed by the student’s parents. It was a time when educational accountability was present, but my father wasn’t.

I grew up in a single-parent household. My father drove a dump truck for a living so in the warm months, he worked from sunup to sundown. When he got done with work, he went to the bar and drank his worries – and his money – away. My father tried his best, but the demons consumed him. And that meant that the last thing he wanted to hear about was my schoolwork. He assumed I was moving on to the next grade each year so I must be doing fine…but I wasn’t fine. Each year of high school, my grades and academic attitude got worse. I never showed my dad a report card, deleted messages from the school, and signed his name on my progress reports. If Dad didn’t care, why should I?

It’s also hard to learn on an empty stomach. Money was scarce, so I would sometimes walk to the church to get donations from the church food pantry. The hunger extended to lunch. I could have been on the free lunch program, but I was too embarrassed to be seen as “poor,” so I started skipping lunch. Instead, I went to the library.

The library had two things that had a major impact on my future. The first being cookbooks and the other being student computers. I used the cookbooks to teach myself how to cook so I didn’t go hungry. When Dad got his paycheck, I would have him take me to the grocery store, and I would do the shopping. Now I had lunch and the library!

Eventually, I found that I liked online research just as much as cooking. I learned how to use different search engines, practiced typing, and learned how to take boring school reports and turn them into something more visually appealing – even if it just meant adding clip art, like Screen Beans. I also signed up for an email account and joined chat rooms about cooking. I felt like I could actually be me in those chat rooms. A girl genuinely curious about regional cuisines, cooking tips, etc., and I didn’t have to hide behind a curtain of shame or embarrassment.

I graduated high school and planned to go to culinary school to become a pastry chef, but I couldn’t afford it, so I signed up for community college. I used the savings bonds my grandparents had bought for me to pay for my first semester, and finally, I loved learning! I was on the Dean’s List and had my sights on an English degree with the goal of becoming a college professor. As the savings bonds ran out, I had to get a second job. I still excelled, but I was tired. After a while, it was too much, and I left school. A few months later, I joined the military. The military was a family tradition, so I was proud to serve, but I was also proud to have independence, stability, and money for an education.

I enrolled at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) since they offered online courses to military overseas. This was my first experience with online learning, and it was not great. We used WebCT, and because this technology was still new, it was rarely used to its full potential, let alone to benefit student learning. The classroom chats were enabled but only to ask questions, not to engage in discussions. We still had physical textbooks, we took quizzes on the computer. Tests were proctored, so we had to go to the education center, and there were witnesses. It was rough.