wonderstanding

Tag: beautiful-questions

  • fostering intellectual humility: addressing stigma in education

    fostering intellectual humility: addressing stigma in education

    Deeper Questions for Self-Reflection

    Fostering Intellectual Humility and Navigating Stigma in Education
    Reflective Questions for Educators

    This set of questions invites educators to reflect deeply on their teaching practice, embracing complexity and uncertainty while considering how the role of the teacher may be evolving. Encouraging a balance between openness and critical inquiry, these questions invite you to explore how stigma and fear may limit what is explored in the classroom. Perhaps most importantly, they ask how intellectual humility can be modeled without compromising rigor.

    What questions or topics have you hesitated to explore, either for yourself or with your students? How might concerns about stigma or acceptability influence those boundaries?

    In moments of uncertainty or when faced with unknowns, how do you demonstrate intellectual humility? How can you admit what you don’t know while still guiding and supporting your students confidently?

    What might it look like to bring awe, ambiguity, and curiosity about anomalies into your teaching practice? How could embracing these elements shift not only school culture but also broader societal attitudes toward knowledge and learning?

    How do you foster a safe environment for students to share unusual or deeply personal experiences and perspectives without fear of judgment or dismissal?

    In a rapidly changing world, what kind of educator do you aspire to be? Are you preparing students primarily to recall facts, or to engage with uncertainty and complexity using courage, discernment, and empathy?

    How do you balance openness to new ideas with healthy skepticism and critical thinking? What role does intellectual humility play in maintaining this balance?

  • hello, world!

    hello, world!

    I’m a mother, a teacher, a mystic, and a dancer. At my core, I’m someone drawn to life’s big mysteries. Since I was young, I’ve had experiences that don’t fit within our current models of reality, and I believe others when they say they’ve encountered anomalous phenomenon too.

    In my undergraduate studies, I approached cultural anthropology through an interdisciplinary lens, exploring women’s studies and religion with a particular focus on psychological and symbolic frameworks.

    It was there that I experienced a profound ontological shock, the kind that unsettles your foundation and forces you to see the world differently. When I encountered the concept of the ancient goddess, it felt like uncovering a true mystery that had been hidden for centuries. I began to see how history had been rewritten, how vast and vital stories had been erased, and how those erasures continue to shape what we believe to be true.

    It was not just an academic realization. It was personal, emotional, and deeply disorienting. I began to ask questions that shook me at my core: Why was this knowledge hidden? Who benefited from keeping it buried? What has been the impact on individuals and society of living without this information? Who might we be if we knew that an ancient goddess was replaced by a male god? How did that shift affect power structures, cultural values, and the control of gender?

    This awakening sparked a lifelong search for what lies beneath the surface, for the truths that have been silenced, distorted, or forgotten. It taught me to question everything and to hold space for complexity, nuance, and mystery.

    That’s why I teach. Also, because kids are just the best of human beings. I teach not just to share knowledge but to help young people navigate their own questions. I want them to trust their curiosity, ask beautiful questions, and feel comfortable and even inspired with the unknown.

    Now, as we stand on the edge of a paradigm shift with Unidentified Anamolous Phenomena (UAPs), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the possibility of non-human intelligences (NHI) entering the conversation, I feel called and ready to help others navigate this change.

    Truthfully, the kids are already really open; it is the adults I am worried about :)

  • rethinking education: what does It mean to be human?

    rethinking education: what does It mean to be human?

    What Does It Mean to Be Human?

    This is the question I’ve spent my life exploring, with children, educators, and communities. It’s the thread that runs through everything I do: teaching, curriculum design, the humanities, justice work, mindfulness, and now helping others navigate the unfolding reality of UAPs and Non-Human Intelligence (NHI).

    For centuries, we’ve explored this question through history, science, religion, literature, and philosophy. We’ve defined ourselves by our intellect, creativity, compassion, and desire to make meaning. Some of the stories we’ve told about ourselves have been expansive and beautiful. Others have been limiting or exclusionary.

    But today, something is shifting. If we are not alone in the universe, if there are other forms of life, intelligence, or consciousness, what does that mean for how we understand ourselves?

    How do we define what it means to be human if we are not the only ones asking the question?

    Expanding Our Definition

    For too long, education has centered on delivering the “right” answers. But now, more than ever, we need the courage to ask better questions.

    In my teaching, I invite children to wonder freely. Together, we explore:

    • Do you consider humans animals?
    • What makes us similar to other animals? What makes us different?
    • What might explain those differences?
    • How do we treat other species in science and industry? What does that reveal about our values?
    • What if another species treated us the way we treat animals?
    • What if humans are not the pinnacle of creation?
    • What else on this planet might be sentient?
    • How might other animals or beings experience reality in ways we cannot imagine?

    These are no longer just imaginative or philosophical questions. They now live at the edge of science, history, and spirituality. And they are becoming more timely and real.

    Rethinking Education

    As new information emerges and challenges our assumptions, we have an opportunity to rethink the very purpose of education.

    Education should not be a conveyor belt of facts. It should be a space where we learn to hold questions. A space for imagination, empathy, and critical thinking. A place where we unlearn what no longer serves us and begin to see the world, and ourselves, with new eyes.

    This is not about replacing one worldview with another. It’s about learning to live with complexity. To remain curious and open in the face of mystery.

    If the unknown includes forms of intelligence beyond humanity, or beyond Earth, then the classroom becomes more than a site of knowledge. It becomes a space for deep, transformative inquiry.

    Practicing Inquiry Together

    These questions are not abstract. They can be brought into real classrooms with real students, right now, as journaling prompts, circle discussions, art explorations, or collaborative projects.

    Here are a few that can guide inquiry:

    • What makes us human?
    • What assumptions do we hold about our uniqueness or superiority?
    • Are we alone in the universe? What do you believe, and why?
    • How might other forms of life experience reality?
    • What counts as sentience, and who gets to decide?
    • What stories or cultural traditions suggest we’ve been connected to other intelligences?
    • How has knowledge about other beings or deeper human potential been dismissed, hidden, or controlled?
    • Who decides what is real or valid knowledge?

    When we explore these questions together, we practice exactly the kind of thinking and courage this moment asks of us.

    A New Chapter

    As we step into the next chapter of human history, we will need more than just new technologies. We will need new ways of knowing and being. We’ll need empathy, imagination, and a willingness to stretch our understanding beyond old boundaries.

    This is the spirit of education I believe in.

    Not one that prepares students only for college or tests, but for the mystery of existence itself. One that honors our place in a vast, complex universe. One that teaches us how to ask honest questions, and how to live with them.

    So I’ll ask again:

    What do you think it means to be human?

  • Why Epistemology Matters More Than Ever

    Why Epistemology Matters More Than Ever

    Epistemology is about knowledge. It asks how we know what we know, why we believe it, and what counts as truth. It challenges us to look at what we’ve accepted without question and to wonder what might still be missing.

    In schools, what we teach—and just as importantly, what we leave out—shapes how students see the world and their place in it. Science is often taught as a fixed set of answers instead of a way to ask better questions. History is treated like a closed book, not an evolving record shaped by power, perspective, and silence. The humanities get pushed aside, labeled soft or extra, instead of being treated as vital tools for understanding what it means to be human.

    But the world is changing. The questions are getting bigger. And we need thinkers who are ready.

    We need ethicists, mystics, dreamers, artists, and scientists who can hold complexity, sit with the unknown, and imagine new paths forward. Technical skill is important, but it’s not enough. We also need wisdom, discernment, curiosity, and heart.

    That’s why epistemology belongs in our classrooms. It invites students to ask:

    What is real?
    Who decides?
    What happens when our old answers no longer fit the questions?

    Because reality is shifting. New stories are rising. Paradigms are cracking. If we aren’t teaching students how to question, how to stay curious, how to sit with uncertainty and still stay grounded, we aren’t preparing them for the world that’s coming.

    Here are the kinds of questions that matter now:

    • What happens when epistemology becomes part of the curriculum?
    • How do you define what is real? What do you define as not real?
    • Is reality objective, subjective, or something else entirely?
    • How do perception and bias shape what we see and understand?
    • How has knowledge—about other intelligences or even our own human potential—been dismissed, hidden, or tightly controlled?
    • Who gets to decide what counts as science or history?
    • What stories are we handing down, and what truths are we leaving out?
    • Are we teaching students to think critically or just to fit in?

    Let’s raise a generation that questions, imagines, and stays awake. Let’s teach them how to build something new from the ground up.