Ann Diver-Stamnes
Co-host and Editor
I am very grateful for having had a marvelous career as professor in the School of Education at Humboldt State University from 1990 until my recent retirement. I received my B.A. in English Grammar and Composition from Johnston College of the University of Redlands, and my M.A. and Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Earlier in my career, I taught high school English in rural Oregon, suburban Southern California, and the inner-city in the Watts community in Los Angeles. In Watts, I also ran peer counseling and cross-age tutoring programs. I'm a writer and researcher, and in the last few years of my career at HSU, I enjoyed transforming courses for online delivery.
I love teaching and always expected I'd retire at 70 so it came as a surprise when I realized that I wanted to start a new phase of my life much earlier than my original plans.
I fully retired August, 2013, at 57, and, for the first time since I was 4, I was not in school in the fall as either student or teacher. That was an intriguing transition, a shift of identity, opening the way for new endeavors and new outlets for creativity. I received my professional chocolatier certificate and spend several days a week conjuring up, handpainting, and airbrushing chocolates. I now have time for my own writing again and am working on two nonfiction and three fiction books. I backpack and hike, spend time with friends, exercise, play guitar, muse, study Italian, and most importantly have abundant time with my husband Stephen.
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A popular perception is that wisdom is one of the benefits of growing older. (Of course, that doesn’t necessary hold true.) I see wisdom as an accumulation of lived experiences on which we reflect and from which we extract life lessons that we then can use to guide our lives and life decisions. In conversations with Pam, I've become quite captured by the notion of what we each would say to our younger selves that we know now but didn't know then. What words of wisdom would we whisper in the ears of our younger selves from the vantage point of our lived experiences and reflections? I'm very interested in learning from our guests about how they have lived their lives and what they have learned in the process.
I hope you will join in the conversation with us.