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MICHEL DEGRAFF: So why the
personal in this course?

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Well, at every occasion
when the students present

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their discussions--
because they often

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have a friendly discussion-- or
when they write their essays,

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I do ask them to include
some personal information

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in what they write.

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In fact, one essay was
strictly about that,

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about their linguistic
biographies.

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Because I feel
that often students

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can be overly ambitious.

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Of course, there's this
earnestness that we appreciate,

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but often they want to
go after global changes

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like changing the
environment or changing

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the outcome of elections.

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But those are the kind of
changes that you often cannot

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make, especially not in
a one semester course.

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But if they are able
to understand the way

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those global patterns affect
their own personal lives

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in their own small
social groupings,

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and if they can actually try
to integrate what they learn

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in the course to actions
in these localized spheres,

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then there's a better chance
that they can actually

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make those changes.

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So I like to tell them
that the change that they

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can make in themselves
resolving those issues

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are also affecting
the wider world.

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Because if each person
can affect themselves

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in their small
groups and, in turn,

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if everyone in that small
group can also affect changes

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in their own small groups,
then the effect is exponential.

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You see?

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And I think by the end of
the course they do appreciate

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being able to share their
personal experiences

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through essays, through
their presentations.

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And also they can see
the effect that this

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has on their own
classmates, because some

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of their classmates come from
very different backgrounds.

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So they get to understand
how someone, say,

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from Guatemala
who came to the US

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with parents that
emigrated without papers

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and how that life
experience can be inspiring,

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because if you can make
it to MIT with that kind

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of background and then
you can actually share it

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with others while you are
actually succeeding as an MIT

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student, that can be life
changing for some of us.