Teacher Spotlight: Dr. Hays
Dr. Hays is a favorite in the English department, leading discussions that allow her students to see the fascinating links between literature and life. Gemma Haney learns more about Dr. Hays in the interview below.
PJ: A common theme in your AP English Language and Composition class this year has been "a time I learned a lesson." What was a time that you learned a memorable lesson?
DH: This is a good question, and a fair one, since I’ve posed it to all of my students, too! I could tell you about using a tiny fork meant for clams to eat a salad, I suppose. However, and this will be a surprise to my current and former students, the lesson I’ve learned is: be quiet and listen. I was in a seminar in my senior year of undergrad at UC Santa Cruz (Go Slugs!), and another student had put forth the idea that race is the most important marker of identity. Twenty-year old me countered that gender is a more important index of identity and experience. My professor then introduced us to the idea of intersectionality, and the author Audre Lorde, who writes that “there is no hierarchy of oppressions.” That sounds dark, but it is, in fact, among the most encouraging and empowering lessons I have learned (both from Lorde’s text and the experience in class). It led me to an interdisciplinary and intersectional mode of research and teaching, and way of interacting with the world around me. Things are not this or that. Things are always both, also, more, and AND. I only learned this through an openness to listen rather than to simply win an argument or arrive at the “right “ answer.
PJ: What is your favorite aspect of OHS?
DH: My students. We all joke about the occasional tech glitches and such, but OHS brings us together across time zones and continents in order to talk about texts and ideas. It’s really a privilege to be with my students, and to LISTEN to them every day.
PJ: If you could give OHS students one piece of advice, what would it be?
DH: Go to office hours with your instructors. We are here because we want to see you and work with you. You make this school possible and we want to know you and your ideas as closely as possible.
PJ: What was the most memorable OHS moment that you have had?
DH: That is definitely my first day at OHS! I came onboard during the transition from Saba to Adobe. During my first class at OHS, students were figuring things out with me simultaneously. It was bumpy, to be sure. Yet, we had a great class meeting and I was able to meet each of my students and learn about her/him. We work through this medium to do this special thing that we do and create together -- every class, every time. I’m really proud of our collaborative work as students and instructors, and the school that we create each day.
PJ: Favorite Book? Movie? Reality TV show?
DH: I’m not sure that an English teacher can have a favorite book. I am committed to the works of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf as my mind’s puzzles, though. Movie: Taxi Driver. Reality T.V.: “’Ancient Aliens’ with Action Bronson.”
PJ: What is the most bizarre thing that you have ever experienced?
DH: The election of Donald J. Trump to the Presidency. *
PJ: If you could meet one person, living or dead, who would it be and why? Where would you want to meet with them?
DH: I’d like to meet the philosopher Lao-Tze and have spaghetti at my house. I think he could help me to untangle some things, including his own philosophies, but I suspect he would be very Lao-Tze-like and make me untangle things for myself. That’s the best way (his philosophy is called The Tao or The Way).
PJ: If you had to create a conspiracy theory, what would it be and how would you go about getting people to believe it?
DH: Have you ever seen a baby pigeon? No, you have not, because pigeons are actually surveillance bots. Proof: adult pigeons; they are ubiquitous. I would convince people by using fallacious logic (as I did with the rhetorical question). (Credit where it’s due, I developed this idea in part from Thom Hartmann).
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