My name is Daryl Nieto and I am currently living in Albuquerque, NM which is also where I grew up. I served for about 10 years on active duty in the U.S. Navy. While in the Navy, I deployed a number of times to the Middle East, including a tour in Iraq. After I resigned my commission and left active duty, I taught math at a charter high school for high-risk students. Currently, I am a Budget Analyst at the New Mexico state office for the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). With the coming departure of our current State Budget Officer, I have been invited to apply for the position by the chain of command, so I may soon have a different job title (though with similar and overlapping responsibilities to those I currently hold).
One of my expectations for the coming year is that I will pick up the pace on a journey I started last September (or perhaps well before that). I was on a plane coming to Seattle to tour UW and gather information about their MBA programs. Initially, I was looking at an MBA program because I felt like my experience had outpaced my educational attainment - it was a way to help myself compete in an economic climate that is brutally competitive. On my flight up to Seattle, in the airplane's magazine, however, I saw an ad for BGI. I had never heard of a business school that focused on sustainability, so I was intrigued that I might actually be able to get an MBA and have it align with my developing values. Serendipitously, there was an information session for BGI the following day, which I quickly signed up for. After going to the information session, I was hooked. I procrastinated for a while as I internally debated the feasibility of logistics, but I knew it was where I belonged. Now, I am ready to pick up the pace and continue moving forward on what has become a journey instead of just another exercise in pragmatism.
As a corollary to my expectation of picking up the pace on my journey, I expect to discover how to implement the paradigmatic shift necessary to change the direction and impact of the most ubiquitous and influential institution of our current culture - business. In support of that, I expect to deepen my knowledge and understanding of sustainability in general and also come to understand it in the context of business.
One economic issue I am particularly concerned with is the eradication of poverty. One of my experiences teaching was that I felt helpless to convey my love and understanding of mathematics because my students, for the most part, were not high enough on Maslow's hierarchy of needs to appreciate something so abstract. It was a luxury that their lives did not afford them and it made me feel like a (very small) bandaid on a hemorrhage. So I ask the question now, and seek the solution for: how do we make it so that every child is in a place where education can work for them?
One of my expectations for the coming year is that I will pick up the pace on a journey I started last September (or perhaps well before that). I was on a plane coming to Seattle to tour UW and gather information about their MBA programs. Initially, I was looking at an MBA program because I felt like my experience had outpaced my educational attainment - it was a way to help myself compete in an economic climate that is brutally competitive. On my flight up to Seattle, in the airplane's magazine, however, I saw an ad for BGI. I had never heard of a business school that focused on sustainability, so I was intrigued that I might actually be able to get an MBA and have it align with my developing values. Serendipitously, there was an information session for BGI the following day, which I quickly signed up for. After going to the information session, I was hooked. I procrastinated for a while as I internally debated the feasibility of logistics, but I knew it was where I belonged. Now, I am ready to pick up the pace and continue moving forward on what has become a journey instead of just another exercise in pragmatism.
As a corollary to my expectation of picking up the pace on my journey, I expect to discover how to implement the paradigmatic shift necessary to change the direction and impact of the most ubiquitous and influential institution of our current culture - business. In support of that, I expect to deepen my knowledge and understanding of sustainability in general and also come to understand it in the context of business.
One economic issue I am particularly concerned with is the eradication of poverty. One of my experiences teaching was that I felt helpless to convey my love and understanding of mathematics because my students, for the most part, were not high enough on Maslow's hierarchy of needs to appreciate something so abstract. It was a luxury that their lives did not afford them and it made me feel like a (very small) bandaid on a hemorrhage. So I ask the question now, and seek the solution for: how do we make it so that every child is in a place where education can work for them?
Darryl, thanks for this great intro! I really enjoyed what you had to say, and your story of finding BGI is so serendipitous!
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your perspective as a teacher trying to educate kids whose priorities were very different from yours at that moment. I came at that issue from the other end when I worked at Oregon Food Bank, trying to help schools put programs like in-house food pantries into place. No way can a kid think about the quadratic formula if they haven't had a real meal all weekend. It really makes you think about some of the judgments we leap to about kids' behavior - when they're acting out, not participating, getting into trouble. What might be the deeper cause?
Even if all schools and teachers were equally good in this country, the playing field would still not be even - so many kids lack the basic necessities of life, much less the emotional support, to succeed. How do we eradicate poverty, indeed!??