Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Gwendolyn Mcphail. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Gwendolyn, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career.

I believe that we are steering children into specific careers too early in their lives. We also tend to tell students that if they find the “right job” they’ll find happiness rather than helping them understand that all jobs may have “good days and bad days.” As a former teacher, I can’t tell you how many middle-school aged girls I taught early in my career wanted to be marine biologists when they were in the 7th grade. By the time they reached high school, their career choices were as varied as the stars. It so happened that the seventh grade science curriculum included a very exciting section on marine biology that showed “scientists” swimming with whales and sharks. Years later, when a certain television series became popular, the number of students who selected medical/forensic lab technology as their career interest was startling. If those same students tended to score well on science tests, they were steered into careers in the medical field, frequently loading their schedules so heavily in the science areas that electives such as art or music could not be fit into their course load. I believe schools should focus more on teaching students to interpret information, look for details, question current work and explore a variety of fields before getting locked into a “career path” at an early age.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was a teacher for 31 years, teaching a variety of subjects ranging from physics and chemistry to food science and livestock production, with a number of years in the middle of my career spent teaching middle school life science. When I retired, I dedicated three years to write an historic novel based on my great-grandfather’s experience in the US Government’s Indian Education Program at the turn of the twentieth century. The story of how our government set out to eliminate entire cultures by removing children from their homes and forcing their acceptance of different clothing, a new language, completely different cultural practices, even cutting traditional hair styles in order to force the young people to assimilate into white culture further reinforced my belief that indoctrination at an early age can be used as the greatest single threat to any culture. Educational programs that begin at an early age to change the way children think and believe are more powerful than most people understand, and may be at the foundation of the current trend away from public education to home-schooling for those who can make use of the practice.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The most important goal of my writing at this point is to educate as many people as possible about historical events and practices and how those events and practices impacted individuals over time.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

When I began this work, I was skeptical about terms like “generational trauma” and “systemic racism”. Despite hearing them, I believed the American dream was equally accessible to all. The more I read government documents and the more individuals I spoke with in my research, the more I came to understand these and several other terms regarding how the emotions that these terms represent can impact individual people’s opportunities or lack thereof to be “successful” in life in America.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jstanion.com
• Instagram: jstanion1890
• Facebook: jstanion1890
• Linkedin: Gwendolyn C McPhail
• Twitter: @jstanion1890

Image Credits

All photos belong to me. The one with the cows in the dust was taken by our daughter Meghan Ketterman for use in advertising our farm.