Recorded in front of a live audience at Fitchburg State University on April 6th, 2023, Fitchburg Speaks: Stories about What Made Us Who We Are showcases stories from members of the greater Fitchburg community.
If you haven't checked out the first five storytellers from this episode, go back to your feed and listen (Perspectives, Ep 7, released June 26)!
Today, we hear four stories from Fitchburg State students, including a junior who tells us how his outlook on life changed profoundly thanks to the unexpected wisdom of a video game; the story of a 30-year veteran television and podcast producer whose try everything ethos and desire to teach prompted a return to school as a first year undergraduate; a second year education major whose life goal as a teacher is to create safe spaces for students who look like they do; and, the story of an English studies major who shares how learning to read was the greatest accomplishment of his life.
Fitchburg Speaks was the culminating event from a year of programming inspired by the 2022-23 Fitchburg Community Read book, Trevor Noah's memoir Born a Crime. This event was organized and sponsored by the Fitchburg Community Read Committee and its members.
Host: Elliot Zopatti
Recording engineers: Matt Baier and Adam Fournier
Episode transcript available here.
***
Perspectives is an ongoing series of Perseverantia -- featuring the voices and stories of the campus community, including alumni interviews; conversations with students, faculty, and staff; and features events. The goal of Perspectives is to allow for in-depth exploration of the experiences and issues on the minds of those teaching, learning, and working at Fitchburg State University.
Click here to learn more about Perseverantia . Join us for programming updates on Instagram. Or reach out with ideas or suggestions at podcasts@fitchburgstate.edu.
Recorded in front of a live audience at Fitchburg State University on April 6th, 2023, Fitchburg Speaks: Stories about What Made Us Who We Are showcases stories from members of the greater Fitchburg community.
If you haven't checked out the first five storytellers from this episode, go back to your feed and listen (Perspectives, Ep 7, released June 26)!
Today, we hear four stories from Fitchburg State students, including a junior who tells us how his outlook on life changed profoundly thanks to the unexpected wisdom of a video game; the story of a 30-year veteran television and podcast producer whose try everything ethos and desire to teach prompted a return to school as a first year undergraduate; a second year education major whose life goal as a teacher is to create safe spaces for students who look like they do; and, the story of an English studies major who shares how learning to read was the greatest accomplishment of his life.
Fitchburg Speaks was the culminating event from a year of programming inspired by the 2022-23 Fitchburg Community Read book, Trevor Noah's memoir Born a Crime. This event was organized and sponsored by the Fitchburg Community Read Committee and its members.
Host: Elliot Zopatti
Recording engineers: Matt Baier and Adam Fournier
Episode transcript available here.
***
Perspectives is an ongoing series of Perseverantia -- featuring the voices and stories of the campus community, including alumni interviews; conversations with students, faculty, and staff; and features events. The goal of Perspectives is to allow for in-depth exploration of the experiences and issues on the minds of those teaching, learning, and working at Fitchburg State University.
Click here to learn more about Perseverantia . Join us for programming updates on Instagram. Or reach out with ideas or suggestions at podcasts@fitchburgstate.edu.
[Reggae music starts]
HOST: Thank you for joining us for the second episode of a special two-part presentation of Fitchburg Speaks stories about what made us who we are. Fitchburg Speaks showcases stories from members of the greater Fitchburg community. If you're just joining us for the first time, I recommend you go back to listen to the five awesome stories from last week.
Fitchburg Speaks was the culminating event from a year of programming inspired by the 2022 Fitchburg Community Read book, Trevor Noah's fantastic memoir, Born a Crime.
This live storytelling event was held at Fitchburg State University on April 6th, 2023, in the Falcon Hub in the Hammond Campus Center.
Today, we'll hear four stories from Fitchburg State students, including a junior who tells us how his outlook on life changed profoundly thanks to the unexpected wisdom of a video game; the story of a 30-year veteran television and podcast producer whose try everything ethos prompted the return to school as a first year undergraduate; an education major whose life goal is to create safe spaces for students who look like they do; and, the story of an English studies major who shares how learning to read was the greatest accomplishment of his life.
Elliot Zopatti, a rising senior communications media major, hosted the event.
[Sounds of live Falcon Hub audience starts]
And today we start off with this story from Nick Castillo, a Communications Media major who participated in the open mic portion of the event. Thanks for listening.
[Reggae music ends]
[ 1min 48sec ]
NICK CASTILLO: Hello. Hi. So, my name's Nick. I am a sophomore film major here. However, I'm going to actually be talking about a video game. Kind of juxtaposed there. Sorry. [laughs]
So, I always thought it was weird to say that a video game changed my life. But the summer of 2018 to the summer of 2019 kind of proved that differently to me.
Throughout my time in middle school, I was a target of bullying. Not to say that my story's any better or worse than the next person over, but obviously it affected me and it caused me to go into high school not trusting very much anybody.
I would not make an effort to make friends. I had my small little group, but they all kind of kept to themselves. I never made an effort to hang out with them. I was involved in Drama Club, but I was, you know, more acquaintances than anything else.
And so as I continued on my time in high school, I kept myself kind of in my own being. I put on a different persona that was equal to my own brother's because everybody loved him. Why shouldn't I be the same?
Then people talked shit about that and I was like, “Well, I have to rethink, don't I?”
When I ended my freshman year of high school, my brother was just graduating high school and his graduation gift was tickets to go see a Broadway show. Anastasia, if anyone cares. But while we were in New York, my brother found this video game – retro video game – store, and half the family being gamers, we kind of were like, “Okay, I guess we have to go there now.”
And so we walk in there. There is so much being sold. It's like things are being sold for 1,000 dollars because it was so old and retro and like hasn't been on shelves in forever. And I'm walking through this shelf that's probably twice the size of this room. And you had to get the elbow ladder to go grab it out of the case of PlayStation games, PlayStation two, and alphabetize and I’m going through the entire damn thing and I see this one game sitting there.
The cover looks really cool and it's called Persona 4. I had heard a little bit about the series. I knew that, you know, each game was its own story, so I wasn't missing out on anything for not playing the first three. I've heard – I saw a YouTube video of somebody who absolutely loved the game, so I was like, “Sure, you know what? It's 20 bucks. Imma get it.”
It was probably one of the cheaper things in that store. So I grabbed it and I'm looking at the cover. I'm looking at the little booklet inside – when games used to have that and I was very excited. That excitement lasted for hours because that was how long the drive was back home.
And all I had was the case in this booklet when I finally got home, pulled out the box TV in the PS2 to pop the game in, a song started playing as the opening for it. And I was like, “Wow, if the music for the game is that good, then the rest of the game better be.” And it was!
I’m going through – the game was one of the most interactive things ever. You can do something. Your day is up to you – it’s a slice of life style. So you can do you can go to a shrine to go pray. You can watch a movie with your friends. All the way to like choosing whether or not to eat a bowl of rice that was left in the fridge. There is so much that is just there for like shits and giggles really.
And it's something that I was very in tune with. Part way through the game, you start developing something that the game called Social Links – your relationships with other people. And as you go through, you realize how different each story is from each person. Everybody had a different piece of hardship that you helped them with, and I found myself starting to become jealous of that.
Because I didn't have that. I didn't have people in my life to be able to look at them and relate to them. I felt like I was becoming a sociopath because if somebody gave me bad news, I wouldn't react. And I didn't have a tie with somebody hard enough that I felt like I – you know – loved that person, you know, even platonically.
And so, as I continue on – not to spoil the end of the game, but I kind of have to in order to tell the story. The end of it is you revisiting each relationship with people. Why is this? I told this already and it already is. Whoa.
But yeah, having the ability to kind of relive this moment, everybody telling you how you helped them, it made me realize that I wanted to change myself and that I wasn't going to continue to be what the world made me become.
And I went into the last three years of high school. I said, “I'm going to get to know as many people as I can.” I hosted parties like in my house. So my mother is – I don't know, she probably wasn't cool with it, but we had it anyway.
You know, it was the first game that I openly laughed at that I openly cried til I beat the game. And I was like, “Well, I guess I'm never coming back to this again because I'm never going to get the same reaction.”
But it set me on a path that – I have 45 seconds left – it set me on a path [laughs] that I really wanted to continue to follow, and I still follow to this day. I wanted to kind of create my own form of a social link bond with people.
That didn't happen. Originally, I was going to have a notebook, with tallies every time had a cool conversation with somebody. We missed that. But it was something that I really wanted to look forward to in the rest of my life. I continued playing the other games, each one continuing to make me cry. But there's nothing like that game that gave me the opportunity to break out of a shell that I never even realized I was in until it told me I was.
And so – I get it: not everybody in this room is a fan of video games. If you are, I recommend it. It's great. And you know, I realized after I finished that – oops [ laughs ]. I realized after I finished that, you know, I really I didn't listen to that opening song when I started the game.
But the lyrics of it part way through are the fact that we're all trapped in a wave of relationships. But life goes on with or without you. You swim in the sea of unknown unconscious. I search for your heart pursuing my true self.
Walk tall, my friends. Thank you.
[audience applause]
[ 8min 35sec ]
ELLIOTT: Next up is Toni Magras. Toni is a film video major who has returned to school to become a professor, and she's having the time of her life. Please welcome Tony to the stage.
[audience applause]
TONI MAGRAS: Hi. My parents are here, guys – I'm so excited. [ applause ]
Okay. On my tombstone, I want the following words: “Tonia Magras, daughter, mother, wife, creator. She tried everything.”
For decades, I hid behind my successes as a producer, director and content creator. Three Emmy Awards. A Communicator Award, one Webby honorable mention, an Edward R. Murrow Award, an Anthem Award.
I convinced myself that my accolades spoke for themselves. And why wouldn't they? I've had a pretty awesome career. In my 33 years in broadcast, print, radio, and streaming media. I traveled all over the world and shared stories of pain, triumphs, change, and struggles in our society. I interviewed heads of state and the everyday person to capture the essence of who we are as a people and what are the stories that make up the fabric of our collective narratives.
Among many of my amazing encounters, I was called “Sweet Dear” by Desmond Tutu and danced at the Hatch Shell Memorial while celebrating Nelson Mandela up close and personal. I also watched the second plane hit the South Tower and then watched the Twin Towers fall. And sheltered in place while two marathon bombers terrorized our city.
I had the unique opportunity to sit front row to the things that were happening in our world and in our lives and convinced myself I was okay with being who I was: an award-winning producer, director and content creator who has accomplished all I wanted to.
And then I got very bored.
When Hull Bay Productions opened in 2015 with my husband Greg – and after 25 years of telling other people's stories – we started telling the stories that we wanted to.
We launched our award winning podcast, The Power Play Show, in January 2020. And when the pandemic shut almost everything down, Hull Bay went into overdrive, streaming church sermons, funerals and virtual conferences. I wrote a children's book, got it published, and decided to create a series. My husband wants to turn it into an animated series for television and streaming, so all you FSU animators, if you go see this guy over here he'll give you a job and we'll pay you.
We started production on our second feature film documentary chronicling the lives of five women living with the autoimmune disease, vitiligo. And most recently, Hull Bay partnered with our church and launched the ALC Hull Bay Film Institute for students ages 12 to 17, hoping it would spark a new desire for me to create in a different way.
The Institute provided an opportunity for Young Minds to create a documentary about anything – anything in the world. So what did they come up with? A documentary on Iceland and Elon Musk. [ laughter ]
I did learn something about Iceland and Elon, but what I quickly realized was that I had caught the bug. I wanted to teach – not 12 and 17 year olds because they drove me absolutely nuts with the incessant bathroom breaks, texting and rudeness. Peggy remembers this.
But I still wanted to teach nonetheless. What I was able to witness were the spark, were the sparks of imagination between the incessant bathroom breaks, texting and outright rudeness. And that grew something in me.
However, there was something missing. It was a void on my résumé beneath the countless projects, awards, achievements and opportunities. And that was a college degree.
I had to humble myself and finish something I had started more than 37 years ago. In 1986, I entered the University of Miami as a freshman at 17 years old. By the spring, I was on my way home. I was raped by four University of Miami football players. I left Miami and never returned. I also never returned to any school to complete my degree.
I tried many times filling out applications, but either never sending them or never following up. Then last year, around this time, I sat praying about what I wanted to do next and made sure I wasn't finished with my film or my work with the church. But I knew I didn't want months to go by and I hadn't figured it out yet.
I once again looked at a school near my home, Fitchburg State University. I applied and waited patiently to see what would happen next. Maybe my application would be lost among the hundreds of other applicants. Or maybe they would look at my date of birth and assume it was just all a joke. I was accepted and are now on the path to fulfilling an important piece of my life, a Bachelor of Science degree in film and video.
I mentioned at the beginning of my reflection that I wanted the words on my tombstone to read “She tried everything.” And well because I did and I will continue to do so.
Nothing is gained sitting on the sideline watching others fulfill their dreams. I'm often asked on different occasions if I'm living out my true purpose, and I honestly can't answer that.
My purpose has already been decided before I was even here. But I will say this: If I want it, I will go after it. And succeed or not, at least I tried.
Because in the end it's not about where you end up – 3 Emmy Awards and Communicator Awards, one Webby Honoree, one Edward Murrow Award, and an Anthem Award – but having the absolute best time on the journey there. Thank you.
[audience applause]
[ 15min 12sec ]
ELLIOTT: Next up is Caitlin Moriarty. Caitlin is a second-year English Secondary Education Major from Methuen, Mass. They once received an award for being intimidating. They won't tell you this themselves, but they are currently housing and residential services students staff member for the month. And also one of my very good friends, whether they like it or not. Please welcome Caitlin to the stage.
[audience applause]
CAITLIN MORIARTY: Hello. So growing up, I was surrounded by people who looked like me. But they didn't really understand me. And I didn't really understand myself. I didn't have the vocabulary for that at the time. But around 12 years old, I came out as gay. And you'll be surprised to learn that that's not really something you inherit from your parents.
[laughter]
Like, statistically, like, it's not like a genetic thing. So I kind of had to find that community for myself. And there's a certain privilege to having an invisible identity.
I choose when I trust people to tell them, and I keep it to myself when I feel unsafe. But sometimes that's not an easy choice. I inherited a certain stubbornness from my mother.
She'll do almost anything to prove a point to prove someone wrong. So, growing up, I was surrounded by adults who would tell me, you know, make fun of me. “Someday you'll have a boyfriend. Someday you'll be boy crazy.”
And like any other kid, I would go ill. GROSS. No, never. And they would knowingly go “Someday you'll change your mind.”
So like my mother, I proved them wrong.
[ laughter ]
Sometimes it's hard to kind of unlearn these systems of heteronormativity, of knowing that there is a nuclear family, that there will be a husband and children at home. It's hard for other people to unlearn, but it's harder for me to unlearn.
Sometimes I forget that I'm gay and I will romanticize. Like in the future. Someday, I'll take walks at night with my husband who will protect me and -- No, wait, never mind.
[ laughter ]
I came out to my parents as bisexual when I was 12, but I didn't admit out loud that I was a lesbian until I was around 17. All my life, I'd heard these narratives of predatory, masculine women who called themselves lesbians.
There was a gym teacher in my middle school who had a wife. And when all the middle school girls found out, they spread rumors. And they were like, “Oh, she just got this job so she can look at little girls in the in the locker rooms, so that she can touch us during scoliosis exams.” People told me that I was lucky that I have scoliosis so I could escape.
[ laughs ]
So I pretended to be boy crazy for a while. I pretended not to be that gym teacher because I couldn't be like that. But that didn't work out for me. I wasn't like everyone else, and I had figured that out before. So instead I threw myself into school, into my work.
And those people who told me that someday I would be boy crazy changed their minds. And they said, “Oh, she's just too busy. She's just focused on her career. She doesn't need a man.”
It was a feminist symbol. And my life revolves so much around that that I decided to become a teacher. If I didn't have a family of my own, I could teach the next generation. I could still influence lives. That is what made me important.
So I threw myself into my work. I made that the goal of my life to create safe spaces for students and teachers who looked like me.
But I might have to give up who I am to do that. I might have to hide the the part of me that got me here. And that's really scary.
There's people who might push back and say that if I try and teach pronouns to the children, that I'm pushing my agenda, that I shouldn't be around children.
And that's really hard. And I don't know how to how to combat that because I don't want to be a symbol. I just want to be a teacher. I just want kids to read. I just want them to be safe.
So I want to say that I will do something important, that I will stand up and I will be proud and I’ll be myself. And I will make a safe space. And I will be that symbol.
But really, I can't do that unless I have a community behind me. And I'm so glad that at Fitchburg, that I didn't make that choice to be quiet. That I can be at events like this. That I can go to the Drag Shows, I can have friends and loved ones who support me.
And I have that community behind me – and I need that community behind me.
If I'm going to make that choice to be loud, to protect people, to make my community seen – I need all of you with me. Thank you.
[ applause ]
[ 20min 22sec]
ELLIOT: Thank you, Katie. I love you so much.
So our next storyteller is Stephen Wells. Stephen Wells has lived in Ayer for the last 43 years and will complete a goal he had when he started college 51 years ago by receiving his B.S. in English Studies and Professional Writing in December of 2023.
Please welcome Stephen to the stage.
[ applause ]
STEPHEN WELLS: I’ll try to get through this. Every time I've read it, I cry. So bear with me. It's learning to read: the greatest accomplishment of my life.
“Why are you so dumb? How can you be that stupid? Your mother and sisters. Your brother and sisters never make grades like this. Why do you embarrass me so? Yes. You know how this makes me look around – You know how this makes me look around my friends. You make grades when you make grades like this. Are you really that ignorant?”
My mother ranted this way every time I brought home my report card from school. I remember it well. All these years I still have the words memorized. Yet, even today, I shudder at the thought of grades and report cards.
I had heard this same set of questions since I was in the first grade. I had tried to tell her, but she could only send me to my room to think about how terrible I was. Then, after an hour or so, she would come and tell me dinner was ready and the routine would start again. Yet, this time, she would do it around the table with my stepfather and sisters listening, snickering and sometimes adding to my misery by taunting me.
They learned to participate in this ritual because they would be next. Yes, my mother was what you could call a bully in 2023.
I was now in the third grade and was still bringing home D’s and F's in almost every subject. The only grades I did get good grades in was the pluses you got for citizenship and penmanship. That was a long time ago for you guys who don't know that.
[ laughter ]
However, the teachers just kept passing me on to the next grade. I know the problem, but I did not know how to ask for help as a young boy.
Truthfully, my mother always told me that when you asked for help, you showed weakness. I did not want to be weak, so I kept silent and struggled daily.
The problem was not that I was stupid, ignorant or dumb, but I could not read. I could not even write my name. I would hand them my papers with a letter “S.” I had a beautiful penmanship, but I could not put words together to write a word. Letters together to write a word. Almost anyone could trace letters on a piece of paper.
But putting those letters together to make a word or sentence was impossible for me.
Being unable to read affected my grades, my life and my life outside of school. A good example was going to church on Sunday. When I would go to church, they would – the teacher would ask a student to read and then another one and another one. And every time it got around to me, I would shake my head,“No.” And the kids would start to teasing.
Or I would get up and walk out and the snickering would start because, see, they knew how it was. I would do the same thing if something happened to them. So it was just part of the culture that we grew up in.
I could not understand why it was a big deal to be to be unable to read. I could run, play, speak, scream and do anything any other child could do. I just could not read.
I thought it was okay until one day in the third grade I had a teacher that paid attention.
On that Monday morning, she called me to the desk and motioned for me to go out into the hallway. As soon as she did that, well, you all know what happens. All the kids start going, “Oh, he's in trouble.” But I had done the same thing. So I knew what would take place.
So I went out in the hallway and she came out. She didn't say anything. She just tapped me on the shoulder and motioned that we go outside. We walked through the school to the back. When we got to the backyard, that back playground of the school. We walked up to a place where there was a sign and a rope surrounding an area.
She asked me, “Can you read that?”
I said, “Yes.”
She says, “What does it say?”
I counted the letters and I said, “Closed.”
It did not say that. It said “Danger. Rattlesnakes.”
She knew that I could not read. At that time the principal came up and she says “Just what I thought. He's been passed on by other teachers. He can't read. I guess it stops with me.”
Principal asked me that day, “Stephen, do you want to read?”
Nobody had ever asked me. Nobody had ever cared. That day, I said “Yes.”
And he told me this: “It will take a lot of work. It will take a lot of time. But you can learn to read if you're willing to do it.”
From that day on, I stayed in during recess. I came early for school. I stayed late and soon I was able to read.
And the first book that I ever read was “Fun with Dick and Jane.”
[ laughter ]
So from there, I started to read all the time because I became an avid reader. I've read every book in the Hardy Boys series. I was slow and still am a slow reader. But I am I am so thankful for a teacher and a principal that realized that I needed help.
During this time, I also learned to write my name. I also learned to put words together on paper and make sentences. I love it. It was the best thing that could have happened to me, to a young boy in Oklahoma.
To be fair, my family did not have books in the house. The only book was the Bible and it was the King James version. And my father read the paper every day every night. As a family, we were not encouraged to read. My parents believed that the things – that learning started in school and that's where you should learn.
“This is where you learn everything,” my mother would say. So if you want to learn to read, you do it in school. As a result, we never went to a library. I didn't even step foot into a library until the seventh grade.
Ever since I learned to read, I have read everything I can. With reading, came writing and I found myself spending hours writing. Just like reading, writing is an art that must be practiced and improved. You cannot do one without the other.
When I married my wife, we promised to read to our children daily. We would make time to teach them how to read for themselves. Teach them how to write. It is essential for us and we want to make it necessary for our children.
I believe we have excelled through the schools since both my children – both my boys – have their master's degrees.
Now, every family was not like mine. I cannot explain why my brother and sisters learned to read, and I did not.
However, I thank God for a teacher who did not say it was not her job, but took a young boy and taught him how to read and write.
I only want to repay what she did.
[ Applause ]
[ Reggae music starts ]
HOST: Thank you for listening to Fitchburg Speaks. This production is a collaboration between the Fitchburg Community Read, Fitchburg State University, and Perseverantia, the Fitchburg State Podcast Network.
For more information about the Fitchburg Community Read and the programming around the 2023 selection, Keith Gentili’s White Mountains State, visit www.fitchburgcommunityread.com.
Matt Baier and Adam Fournier, students in the Communications Media Department, recorded this event. Thanks again for listening.
[ Reggae music swells then reverberates out ]
[Sounds of live Falcon Hub audience linger]
[Perseverantia theme fades in]
DR. EMMA DOWNS: This is Professor Emma Downs in Chemistry. You're listening to Perseverantia, the Fitchburg State Podcast Network.
[Perseverantia theme fades out]
[Sounds of live Falcon Hub audience fade out]
[END: 30min 26sec]