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Program in Religious Studies and Education |
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PRSE Alumna ProfileJocelyn Beh
But by the end of her first semester at the Div School, Jocelyn appreciated "how much there was to engage in and really wrestle with in high school education." Most significant, she found she wanted to teach. Jocelyn student-taught ninth-grade English and eleventh-grade honors American literature at Lexington High School. She loved it—the students, the teachers and teaching community, the challenge of teaching itself. "The students are amazing. They're so thoughtful, so much fun. I think about them now and there's not a single student I do not get excited about." Jocelyn, 26, suspects that her exploration into the role of faith in her life will last her lifetime. She notes that similar questions about belief are on the minds of high school students. But religion is not a subject that can be easily "slipped into" an English lesson plan. "It needs to be done really consciously. It needs to be prepared for and planned for." "We're not likely to get a world religions course in public high schools, but public schools really need to be able to engage with religion—religion is a huge part of learning about the diversity in our culture and world and learning to live in it successfully, and the questions religions address are important questions for students and people in general." Jocelyn sees her role creating "a space where questions about theology are invited into the classroom." In the immediate future, she's headed to the West Coast to teach in that classroom. Posted July 2005
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When Jocelyn Beh started the PRSE, she had no intention of teaching in a high school classroom. Instead, she hoped to combine her interest in folklore/mythology and religion with a career in nonprofit work and teenagers, perhaps involving body
image issues or outdoor education, her extracurricular interests as an
undergraduate at Harvard College.
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