It takes a lot of courage not only to share this story, but to have actually lived it. It’s something that I’m not sure I’d be able to do, not because it is wrong, but rather that I feel the pressure to conform a bit to the standards of education, particularly in what is “expected” of me.

It seems as though you have done a great job of finding a path that suits you, and that is all that matters. I agree with you that learning needs to be framed as interdisciplinary, and your resistance against the fractured disciplines, I feel it is safe to say, has been a success story.

I was in a community theatre show a while back and one of my fellow actors in the play, had never acted before. In fact, he had never even seen a play before. He was a blue-collar guy (not to draw on generalizations), who had a tough childhood, and concerned himself mostly with cars and work for a good portion of his life. However, he was a perfect choice for the role in the play, because the character had similar traits.

So, anyway, he had trouble coming to evening rehearsals because his boss wouldn’t let him off work in time, despite his numerous explanations that he needed to be somewhere. He said the boss heard he was in a play, and made a comment about how “that sissy stuff ain’t no excuse for missing work.” As the process progressed, he invited his boss to come see the show, to have him see what all the fuss was about.

So the boss shows up, sits right in the front row, so that we can see him throughout the entire performance. About 10 minutes into the show, I notice him. And he was enthralled. He didn’t move once. He was fixated. At one point, he even appeared to be crying.

We finished the run of the show, and a few weeks later I was standing in line at the grocery store when I see the boss. He comes up to me. “Hey, you’re that guy for the play, right?” “Yes,” I said. “Hey, man, that was amazing. I hadn’t seen anything like that before, and I didn’t know what to expect. But you guys were great. I’ll never forget it.” He shook my hand and as he walked away, you couldn’t force the smile from my face.

Sometimes, the arts and humanities aren’t just for the artists. Sometimes, they’re for everyone else.

To be fair, it is only one test. You shouldn’t bog yourself down because there was one instance where your implicit bias happened to show. Human beings are biased creatures. There are things which we wrestle with regularly. I hope that this self reflection ends up being productive rather than disruptive.