Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Erik: How did your mother help you cultivate a love of the arts and sciences from a very
young age?
Gabrielle: My mom has had a lot of different careers over the course of her life. And she
has always been very, very engaged in education. And when I was young she was a nurse, she
was an ICU nurse. Ummm but she also was very focused on making sure that we got appropriate
science educations when I was a kid to the point where she was even organizing sheep
eye dissections in my sister’s science classes to make sure that we had those kinds of experiences
‘cause a lot of those skills - our teachers were not trained in and kind of intimidated
by. A little of bit older she opened up a couple of pre-schools and she really brought
the elements of sort of holistic learning into those. Rather than see them as day centers,
um, she really focused on having a dramatic play as an important part of the education
and would do like two or three musical productions with pre-school students.
When I was working there I would periodically do science experiments with the kids. And…I’ve
really seen through my mother’s influence on my own decision to continue science in
my career and also be engaged in the performing arts which I’ve done since I was young.