What do you do at NP?
I assist with the administration of the Oregon IDA participant feedback survey.
What area of expertise and interest do you have?
While I believe that working towards the eradication of inequity for all people should be a top public priority, my primary interest is in affecting change in the field of youth services. Of special concern are youth that are affected by parental incarceration and familial drug addiction as well as youth who are in state custody. [Em disclaims expertise in any subject, however.]
What does opportunity mean to you?
Opportunity is the ability to actualize the life you want for yourself according to your own idea of a life well-lived; it’s a world where access to resources is equitably distributed among all members of society and people have the means to achieve the life they dream for themselves and their loved ones.
Do you have a favorite quote?
“We can best help children learn, not by deciding what we think they should learn and thinking of ingenious ways to teach it to them, but by making the world, as far as we can, accessible to them, paying serious attention to what they do, answering their questions — if they have any — and helping them explore the things they are most interested in.”
― John Holt
Choose one author, living or dead, that you’d like to have dinner with.
Tough call, but I’d have to say the late educator John Holt. He has been my inspiration to think more critically about how we treat young people and the world that we should work toward providing for them. Holt’s writing was the impetus for my eventual dedication to working in the field of youth services and has influenced my worldview in a way that no other writing has. Here’s to dinner with John Holt!