For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Lianna. I’m currently a first-year engineering student, but I am in the process of transferring to Landscape Architecture. If you’re interested in learning more about me and my first semester here at Penn State, I encourage you to check out my last post “On the Interim” or read back through some of my earlier posts.

As for my passion blog theme, I have chosen to continue with the same thread as last semester: advice, stories, or experiences that open my eyes to the world around me. Looking back at previous posts, you’ll find that the topics I choose each week don’t generally have much in common with each other: snow-caterpillars, forest therapy walks, poems, art museums, dining halls, etc…. However, what these topics do all share is that they have taught me a lesson, challenged me to change my perspective on a situation, or simply provided me with “food for thought”, if you will. And the mere act of reflecting on my week to select my topic for that particular blog post has actually been far more impactful than I first expected; it’s left me with a breadcrumb trail of lessons I’ve learned and changes in perspective that I’ve encountered during my time here at PSU so far, and it continues to help me focus my mindset on self-growth and personal reflection each week. And if you ask me, those outcomes aren’t too bad for a required English assignment.

So, in spirit of continuing this theme, I’ve chosen to start this semester off by sharing a story that I found particularly impactful from a podcast I listened to over winter break. If you are new to my blog, you’ll soon learn that Brené Brown is one of my role models when it comes to life advice. As such, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the podcast I was listening to was hers. In a recent episode of her podcast “Unlocking Us”, Brené interviews Jason Reynolds, award-winning author of his latest book “Ain’t Burned All the Bright“. In their discussions over the course of an hour or so, Brené and Jason touch on a variety of topics, including Jason’s unique upbringing and his incredible mother, his experiences as a writer and as a black author, conformity, backtalk, courage, self-expression, and more. It’s truly an eye-opening discussion, and I highly recommend taking the time to check it out, if you get the chance. (Or you could read the transcript at Brené’s website here: “Masterpieces and Messes with Jason Reynolds”. )

However, the most impactful part of this podcast, for me, was a story Jason told about a high school teacher of his.

One day during his senior year of high school, one of Jason’s teachers brought a fish to class. He informed the students that this fish was to be their class pet, and that they would take care of it accordingly. His only rule about the fish was that under no circumstances was any student allowed to touch it…ever; the result of violating this one strict rule would be immediate suspension with no questions asked.

A few weeks after the class had been introduced to the fish and had been caring for it routinely, Jason’s teacher gathered his students in a circle and slowly walked over to the tank. He removed the fish and laid it on the tile floor in the middle of the classroom, wordlessly. As the fish began to choke and thrash violently around on the ground, spluttering for lack of water, the students were torn between knowing that the right thing to do was to put the fish back in the tank but having a keen awareness that to do so would mean breaking the rules and being suspended. Finally, when they could bear it no longer, two girls from the class scooped up the floundering creature and dropped him back in the water. Calmly, their teacher informed them to gather their belongings and head to the principal’s office; they were being suspended. However, on their way out, he stopped the girls and commended them for doing the right thing even when they knew they would face consequences for breaking the rules. And as those two girls left for the main office, the teacher silently waited for the end of the period with the rest of his class, as they were made to contemplate their cowardice in not taking action even when they knew it was the right thing to do. Even now, years later, as he explains to Brené, Jason still remembers the lesson that teacher taught him about courage.

And after listening to this story, I can’t say that I’ll ever forget it either. Although the teacher discontinued his demonstration in later years of his career due to animal cruelty concerns, the lesson he taught the students who got to experience that day will continue to proliferate anywhere they choose to share it. And more than that, this story serves as a reminder to us all that sometimes, even if we know there will be unfair or unjust consequences to our actions, it is our courage to save the fish that will define who we are and what we value, and that is more important than anything else.