I am a lifelong learner and incorporate my life experiences into new knowledge. I have my own beliefs, values and opinions based on my personal experiences. One reason that I am a highly motivated person is due to my mother. As a child she instilled how important education was and I followed her advice. I watched and learned as I witnessed a single mother struggling, who worked and eventually graduated from Empire with her BS in Social Work. She never lost sight of her goals. Unfortunately, she passed over before I received my first Bachelor’s degree.

The connection between my interests, experiential learning and my goals related to this master’s program is based on one word “gender.” I have been labeled many things by society, straight, lesbian, then straight again because I married/divorced legally a female to male transgender and now called a pansexual as I follow my heart and not gender. I have been part of the LGBTQQ community for most of my life based on my choices. I have done an MSNBC documentary on transgenders legally marrying with my ex-husband. I wanted to teach the world about transgenders. Maybe teach others to face their fears and begin learning acceptance.

I would like to interact with adult learners and open their minds to a new and different world. To critically think about how and why these people are in need of their voices being heard. I have come to realize that our world in not as binary as we were taught but, a multi-gendered world.  I can think of different cultures that accept the third, fourth or fifth genders, for example  the hijra’s in Pakistan and India who are neither male nor female, the berdache’s Native American two-spirit transgender or intersexed.

I am the eternal student, a life-long learner and an adult learner.

Image: http://www.connect-community.org/blogpost/550209/147466/Lifelong-Learning