Growing to Love Learning

hello

my name is beatrice bohoja i’m

originally from kenya

and today my topic will be to spark

having to come from a

background of a science university like

youth sciences

so for me this park i decided

to give it my own meaning so

s is for science

p is for

progress e is for academic

r is for their results

when you get your grades and k is for

knowledge

i pick those things because they are

relevant to

what i’ll be speaking on but not to go

so far

i will introduce myself and say where i

come from

originally i come from kenya born and

raised

i am from a small village in

kakamega i come from the buniore

tribe and i

love being me

so i’ll start when i was a kid

i come from a family of eight

i had um four brothers

and three sisters plus me i was a middle

child and as

i found out later on medium children

have middle child syndrome

of which i didn’t know but i embraced it

when i was young my life was the best

i cannot complain and lie and say that i

came from

poverty just like how it’s reflected

everywhere

no i wasn’t i went to beautiful schools

i went to kilimani primary i went to

highrid primary i even went to school in

my chat cause i went to my tacos primary

and finally i had

to go to pangani girls and then sent

mary’s

later on i ended up in kenya polytechnic

and that’s where i’ll start my story

from when i was young

when i was young life was sweet life was

beautiful

everything was just dilly dally we were

allowed to

go out and play after we finished chose

in the house

my mom was very particular but

surprisingly

we always had house help and my mom used

to say that even if there is house help

in the house

we should learn how to do certain things

as a little girl it was so

frustrating to wash my little socks and

just to make myself neat and do things

that i need to do as a child

um in those days we made our own dull

dolls like you all have barbie dolls we

made our own

original dolls and the dolls were so

funny looking but to us we thought they

were dolls

after that when we grew a little bigger

we started making our

life more interesting we used to go and

play

you know games that all children play

we played many games that were so

fantastic

and we were so creative in our days

we were so creative in such a way that

we would make a game last

forever we knew how to use

stones and a one ball and we had two

teams team

a and team b so what we did

is we played the game and we tried to

put stunts that cannot be put together

until they caught we called the game

seven stones

we would play with the seven stones and

every time we ran around we played the

game the whole day

i had talked earlier about my love for

languages

so this one is the one that i’m going to

entertain you all so that you can laugh

your heads off

i had gone to the market with my

girlfriend i had a beautiful girlfriend

of mine her name is betty

and uh when we went to the market

uh she used to speak very nice a law

law is president obama’s father’s

language

and um i i was wondering you know what

maybe i should try to speak this

language because how come

every time i go they’re talking the

language

and making you know me feel a kind of a

way so i started

picking up on the language very well uh

there was another time i was just here

in the united states

and i had a friend of mine the sister

had brought like artifacts from

tanzania and they wanted to sell it to

us so i just went to her place

but i think she didn’t know that i know

lua language

and she starts saying ah um

i this one we are going to charge her a

little higher

than what the actual price is and i

looked at her and i replied in the

dialect i said i am not going to buy if

you’re not going to sell for me

in the original price that it’s

originally sold

i don’t think i am going to buy it and

she was so shocked because

maybe because she knew that yes i come

from kenya

and yes i speak kinore she thought i

could not speak kelowo

but people get a surprised when

i can switch from one language to

another

to be patient to persevere

to endure and just to look forward

to do anything is something that is

inbuilt

and something that you grow with

i started going to uh read and study in

the library when i was 13 years old

my dad was sick and tired of me going

out and playing

and just fighting around and just not

acting like a girl and coming in the

house i’m not

looking like a beauty i’m just looking

like a ruff ruff

i would climb the trees out go and try

to fight where necessary

and that was life then so my dad

he just thought that i was a brilliant

little girl but i just

used to like to play a lot so one time

he decided to

make sure that i’m paying attention on

my

education and so he said my young lady

dress up for i will drive with you and

then we can go to the library

and i know you like the annie blydon

book so you can be able to read them

so i went and um took

a couple of chances with daddy and i

just loved it

and he told me to you know my beautiful

daughter

when you go to the library maybe you

will not be

liking just put on you know shorts and

and and you don’t want to dress like a

girl maybe you will pick up something

from the ladies because the librarians

are usually dressed well so at age 13

i started knowing how important it is

for people to study

and then i was curious i wondered how

they put the books back on the

shelves and i would go and ask the

ladies at the desk and say can i know

how to place back their books and

they’ll say okay we’re gonna show you

and then i started just being good with

this

but i didn’t know when i had just

finished my

high school an opportunity came by and

an opportunity opened for me to go to

kenya polytechnic

at work in the kenner polytechnic

library it was very fun to work there

the people they were very nice and you

know i was around college students for a

while

and also got an opportunity to go to

london

i studied uh you know attempts

polytechnic

what i just found out is i’m usually

surrounded with students

and students are just the best people

you could have around you

when i was working at the jw england

library

i have seen the way

the students here they come i’m an

evening supervisor

before and then i become an evening

coordinator

and we would stay with the students then

they would study until

12 sometimes we had extended hours until

two o’clock in the morning

and sometimes over finals we would of

help

in just opening the library until uh

morning but that was just a courtesy

being

given for us to do but that didn’t mean

that

um the way the students here

they pay attention on their majors the

majors are very complicated

and what i like about them they’re just

like me

they work so hard and the

curriculums are very vigorous and what i

do with them when they are working

because they’ve given their title

uh library student workers but it’s

called work study

so i’m always uh an annoying mommy

and i tell them haha you’re not going to

study i want you to study i want you to

make the grades you know

make us proud because your parents are

not here now i’m gonna be your parent

here

make sure that your homework is done and

they’ve been doing a good job

and in any case if you find the student

workers work in the library or anybody

who has been connected to me

either they have one two or three jobs

there they volunteer and they do i tell

them to

stretch themselves and not to be whiners

and i also

encourage them to look out for the

school i always tell them that when you

graduate and you make the big money

please don’t forget to donate to the

university and then what

claim it as a tax at the beginning of

the year and

i always emphasize and tell them

take your studies very serious as uh

i’m their library mother and also their

counselor i have so many hearts to deal

with this

my lovely students i also tell them now

after you have donated and taken it as a

tax whatever

next year bring money and add on campus

and also i told them not to be whining

and complaining and saying oh my

professor is not good no

let me tell you i tell them the

professor is not someone that you can

say is supposed to be good

the professor is your teacher they have

already given you and blessed you

with the syllabus they have given you

the title of the books that you’re going

to use in class

and even they bless you with lecture

caption

something that we never even had in our

life they’ve given you all those things

your work is to find a solution

to study and make the grade and so what

even if you get a c

on one exam go and talk to your teacher

make the study group

make sure you have friends who take

academic

a serious issue

i have been privileged

to not only work in the library

but also to be a professor and

that is one thing that uh makes me

unique

um i have been a professor at university

of pennsylvania a professor at community

college of philadelphia

and also a professor at university of

miami online

i also did a middle school i would and

everybody else

i am an advisor of international society

and an advisor of

um culture shock my dance group

and os so those groups they come

together with different perspective

the girls in the dance group they go and

showcase

different cultures using music from

africa

caribbean and if they can embrace they

also embrace

other cultures of the world if you come

in but now

for international society we had decided

that

everybody has to stop the ignorance

of not knowing where everybody is coming

from

just because i come from kenya i will

not be able to answer questions about

nigeria

or even south africa because that is

where i was not ethnically

raised that way so the international

society just brings back

cultures from all over the world plus

even you can be born in

new jersey and you have your own type of

thing that you embrace in new jersey

like i know they have beautiful apples

in new jersey they have their beautiful

shows

if you go to new york they have their

pizza and then they have all the malls

and everything so everybody comes in

with a different culture

but from different ways so my students

have formed different groups on campus

and also collaborated with everybody

this i would like to say because

we have done collaborations with uh

community college of philadelphia and

penn and uh our own students

from youth sciences who go to study

abroad

and that brought just a different thing

that we

could not even believe that students can

put things together and make it

successful

to me diversity is very important

and you know cultural awareness

in terms of learning other people’s

culture

and background to me has always

led me to be who i am

remember i was this young

um light-skinned child

and sometimes you know going to

different schools

my father just realized that he cannot

put me

in just regular schools at the beginning

because uh

the kids would want

to bully me but that did not even work

but he decided to take me to schools

that

were accommodating

to all cultures instead of just like

regular public schools and that is what

made me realize that it’s really

important

to have culture awareness

the where i was brought up

we use um color when we are going to the

market to buy like you know

yellow bananas green vegetables

that’s when we use the color but

anybody can choose what color they want

to be i have

my friends who if you ask them

they don’t know whether they are white

green

yellow or blue and which is a good thing

to know but also for me

i like when everybody just agrees

with each other and there’s no tension

because of racial

biases and that’s why most of the time

i would advise my nice students

and this is coming straight from my

heart so that they

instead of losing good friends that they

would have made for life

they start having barriers because of

background

or religion or where they come from

i have really made important friends

that come from various backgrounds i

don’t choose where you come from

you can be white you can be black you

can be yellow red whatever color you

choose

sometimes i think my color is blue

students have learned how to diversify

and be together and study together

because at in the library when i see

them

they’re just like a big family and that

is one thing that has made me

happy as one of the

workers at the university