Jonathan Wade

Many years ago, I decided that one place where I could make a difference was in the classroom. Before I ever knew what I would teach, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. My parents were both educators, but I cannot recall them ever encouraging me to follow the same path. What I do remember, however, was interacting with their students throughout my early life and observing the lasting influence of caring and capable teachers. The meaning and fulfillment I saw in their lives planted the seeds of what would become my own calling. By early adulthood, it was clear that languages and cultures would never cease to excite me. Years of studying Spanish and living in Argentina led me to pursue Portuguese and spend a semester in Brazil, followed by a six-week fellowship in Florence to study Italian. Languages connected me to people and to cultures that would otherwise be foreign and distant. The study of literature in particular, challenged me both intellectually and creatively, sending me on a journey that would see me develop critical reading, writing, and thinking skills that would connect me to humanity at the same time that it expanded my own. At the core of my teaching and scholarship is an idea: that comfort and familiarity should be risked in pursuit of something better; something more than what we presently know, something more than we presently are.