We recently connected with Tom Keefe and have shared our conversation below.

Tom, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Joseph Campbell, a former professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College, once said, “Follow your bliss.” That message was shared with me by one of the biggest influences in my life. James Poisson was a foundational part of my life, first as a high school teacher and now as a friend for decades. I suppose that’s part of the story behind your mission as an educator. Through my many bumps and bruises, I have also been called to teach. When you tell someone that you’re a teacher, the next question is inevitably, “What do you teach?” My response is that I teach passion. As Campbell said, I have followed my bliss; my bliss is nurturing a passion for learning. I am the embodiment of all those who have influenced my life and,, specifically as an educator, I’m the combination of Jim Poisson, Mike Quigley, and Dennis Mullen. I learned much of my craft from them as well as my mom. I teach passion. I teach passion by following my bliss, which is my passion for history, theology, international relations, and the struggle between the basic human right to dignity and the painful actions of dehumanization.

The hard part for me as a student and now as a teacher is that our educational system doesn’t seem set up to teach passion. As Sir Ken Robinson has said, we seem fixated on metrics and systems from the Industrial Revolution, not the world we live in (or rather the world we could live in). We know that dialectical learning is more potent and transformative, but we continue to use didactic forms of education. Educators who push the envelope, teach passion, and employ dialectics are often misunderstood and marginalized by administrators. Innovative is not often a word used to describe educational administrators; administrators are often hired because they are safe and predictable bureaucrats. I have had a phenomenal career. I have taught almost every age of students; I have taught Sunday School, parochial schools, public schools, an Orthodox Jewish school, and college. I am often invited to weddings and I am the godfather of several former students’ children. I have received teacher recognition awards at almost every institution where I have worked, yet I am equally as often challenged by administrators for my style of teaching and the classroom dynamics I foster.

Besides my own personal experiences, the educational systems in our country are also an obstacle to true learning and transformational education. I’m not even sure we as a society want education; at times it seems stakeholders want control, which I would argue is the exact opposite of learning.

In education, people often talk about equality, but equity is far more important. Equality, again to nod my head to Sir Ken Robinson, ignores the uniqueness of the individual learner. It ignores humanity and replaces the human experience with meaningless metrics. We measure learning through rote memorization and time-limited constraints, and ignore wonder, passion, and those “ah-ha!” moments that make us come alive.

We say education is important, and then underfund it. A budget is a moral document. How can education be important if we compensate teachers as we do? In almost every profession outside of teaching and nursing, if you want a better product or service, you pay more money. Instead, in education and nursing, we make more rules and requirements.

We get what we pay for and we get what we teach. We don’t seem to teach passion, and as a result, we numb our children into boredom and disengagement. If we wanted to truly prepare students to have fulfilling lives and careers, we would teach passion.

I suppose that’s what I hope my legacy is; I want to be James Poisson to the next generation. He saved me in high school, showing me dialectical wonder and validated both my passion for learning and my frustration with didactic structures of education. He helped me be comfortable being me and I hope I can do that for my students as well.

Tom, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I hold an Ed.D. in Organizational Leadership, an M.A. in International Relations, and a M.A.T. in Social Studies Education, and a B.A. in History from Saint Joseph’s University.

I taught English, Religion, and History at a variety of 6-12 schools in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Colorado. I am currently an Associate Professor of Humanities at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design.

My current research is on pedagogy and leadership, genocide education, and identity construction. My recent publications include “Race, Identity, and Choice: Black Voices on Liberia and the American Colonization Society” in The African American Experience: From Slavery to Liberation, “‘I want to touch the world’: Responsive Curricular Reform in Post-Secondary Humanities,” “Using Art to Trigger Memory, Intergenerational Learning, and Community” in the International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education, and Fake News in The Liminal: Interdisciplinary Journal of Technology in Education, and the paper “Genocide and the Native American Experience” presented at the University of North Carolina – Charlottesville conference Denial: The Final Stage of Genocide Colorado and will be presenting “Colorado as the World’s Sanatorium: Consumption, Convalescence, and Creativity in Fall 2022 at the University of Vienna’s “From the Black Death to COVID-19: Airborne Diseases in History, Literature, and Culture” conference.

I am also the inaugural recipient of the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design Philip J. Steele Distinguished Faculty Award.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I failed Chemistry in high school. In my second semester of college in my sophomore year, I failed three classes and withdrew from a fourth. The first time I went to grad school, I spent three years in limbo before leaving without a degree. It took me nine years to finish my doctorate.

And, while all of that is true, it is also true that I am now an Associate Professor of Humanities. I am the recipient of the college’s highest faculty award. I have been asked by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to be a consultant on land acknowledgments, and I am cited in California’s Tribal Land Acknowledgment Act of 2021.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Be authentic and “follow your bliss.”

Contact Info:

• Website: tkeefe.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ourjeffcocolorado/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Leading4CO/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-thomas-e-keefe-a0a12a5/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProfessorTKeefe
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj-iWnzzSCKOVNO_ryc3sdQ