Fencing, Crochet, and Drumsets, Oh My: Paideia 2025

Paideia 2024 was a lot of things, but “mostly canceled” probably sums it up best. The unexpectedly severe ice storm resulted in major logistical difficulties, with presenters running into travel difficulties, heating systems breaking down, and class materials being delayed by the weather and not arriving in time. Alas!

But this year, Paideia was back in action at full speed, and the disappointments of last year gave way to a wild and weird smorgasbord of fun offerings ranging from zines and earthquakes to Minecraft and bracelet making. When and where were flags invented? What’s a serif? How do you start your own anarchist commune? And who designed the architectural abominations known only by the cursed names of Foster-Scholz and MacNaughton? Paideia 2025 gave us the opportunity to dip our toes into those topics and far beyond!

Returning classes from last year included “Gays Existed Before 1969 and Other Things Your History Teacher Didn't Tell You,” taught by Liz Organ '24, and “So You Want to be a Librarian?,” a panel of Reed alumni whose careers took them back into the stacks. Paul Edison-Lahm '83, who presented “Earthquakes, Volcanos, and Catastrophic Floods: The Geology of Reed and Eastside Portland” both this year and last, noted with satisfaction that the class had a packed classroom this year, compared to only a couple of attendees in 2024. Other classes whose classrooms were packed to bursting included keychain crafting in Eliano Urena’s “Bead Animals” class on January 22, and a screening of the documentary Spaceship Earth (2020) on January 20 as part of the Institutional Review Board’s recurring class “Unethical Research In The 20th Century,” which also held movie nights on January 22 and 23.

In addition to a multitude of fascinating topics, this year also had a diverse group of presenters. In "‘Who Are You?’ Commercial DNA Testing,” faculty member Janis Shampay shared the health and genealogy surprises revealed by DNA testing companies, and discussed the science – and ethics – behind them. Calligraphy Initiative Coordinator Gregory MacNaughton ‘89 partnered with outside artist SORA to present a live performance of Japanese calligraphy that danced across the floor of the Student Union, and alumni-led classes fittingly included “World Domination 110: the Reed Alumni Agenda”, a collaboration between three alumni who presented on the enduring community that extends far beyond one’s fleeting years at college. Perhaps the most eclectic collaboration was the aforementioned “Unethical Research In The 20th Century” movie night series, which was led by a staff member, a student, and a faculty member and presented in association with the IRB. 

Tucker R. Twomey ‘25, who co-taught both “Swipe Card To Enter: An Introduction to Access Control” and “An Introduction to Amateur Radio” along with Connor Gilligan ‘25, shared some thoughts with the Quest on being a Paideia teacher. “For as invested as I tend to be in the actual outcome of a Paideia class, it’s a very low-stakes environment for teaching. To me, it’s a very enjoyable coming-together. It provides an easy and very practical way for people who are interested in a subject, no matter how niche, to connect with people who want to teach that subject.” Twomey emphasized the unique opportunity that Paideia provides for hobbyists of a particular niche activity to meet up in a smaller, informal environment that might not be easily encountered elsewhere.

Contributing to the success of Paideia’s diverse and quirky offerings this year were funds from the Paideia Committee. Among other things, they paid for tangerines that got used in demonstrations of the Monty Hall problem and the Prisoner’s Dilemma in “Stoned Mathematics: Absurd BS and Surprises,” as well as turnips that participants got to carve after learning about their role as the predecessor to jack-o’-lanterns in “Halloween Traditions: Pumpkin? Carving.” Ella Crotty ‘25, teacher of “Boba Nation Presents: You Can Make Boba At Home!,” succinctly summed up their gratitude at receiving funds: “It was cool. They gave me money. I appreciate it.”

The generous possibilities enabled by Paideia funding notwithstanding, Twomey advised would-be teachers of Paideia classes to design something that they could realistically put together with a limited amount of time, recommending that “if your class involves physical demonstrations, you should be frank with yourself on how wide the scope of your class is going to be and avoid overextending yourself.” Twomey also suggested that if students didn’t want to fully lead their own class, they could get involved by helping out with a friend’s Paideia class, “Even if you don’t know what’s being taught, you can provide some much-needed logistical help,” which could include “compiling instructional material and corralling students, running around if people needed help with anything, [and] sometimes providing color commentary.”

Twomey summed up the Paideia teacher experience, “It very rarely turns out how you plan it, but it turns out well regardless.” Case in point: before launching into their presentation on character building in their class “Writing Character Backstories!,” presenter Melanie LeDrew ‘26 asked attendees to go around and share their favorite letter of the alphabet and favorite type of soup as an icebreaker. Things quickly went off-track into a heated debate on what counts as soup (Curry? Oatmeal?? Perhaps even pudding???). Similar icebreaker fun was had in staff member Marissa Seiler’s class “Britney: Oops, She's a Genius” when people shared the first word that came to their mind when they thought of Britney Spears: icon, star, and, perhaps most pun-derfully of all, toxic and circus, titles of Britney Spears songs as well as apt descriptions of the chaos she endured through her rocky career. In Nomi Solwren ‘25’s class “Halloween Traditions: Pumpkin? Carving,” which they had written about in their application to Reed, participants started out by sharing what hypothetical Paideia class they each wrote about. Out of the ten participants, there were two people who both wrote about the same topic: kung fu. 

Not including my own class, “How To Fly A Plane (And Other Aviation Fun Facts),” I attended 17 Paideia classes, none of which had fewer than five attendees. On average, the classes I attended had roughly 15 attendees each. The 17 classes I attended were only about 6% of what Paideia had to offer this year! There were approximately 268 class sessions listed on the events calendar this year, and only four were canceled. To compare, last year’s Paideia offered 211 class sessions as listed on the calendar, with 41 cancellations and two postponements. Suffice to say, Paideia this year was a roaring success. Any event that crams that many sessions into such a short, concentrated period with nearly all of them working out is a triumph already, and that’s not yet counting the incredible experiences this Paideia was filled to the brim with. These wonders included fry bread, turnip carving, and the magic of slide rules – and such abominations as Magic: The Gathering cards with My Little Pony characters, dice with a negative number of sides, ill-designed electronic door lock systems that can be easily bypassed with $5 equipment bought off eBay, and Steve Bannon briefly running the ill-fated science (?) experiment Biosphere 2. I’d like to give a big thank you to the teachers, attendees, and organizers that made this year’s Paideia come together! “I really appreciate the amount of logistical work that the Paideia team did to put it all together,” Crotty shared. As a Paideia teacher myself, I wholeheartedly agree. May Paideia 2026 be just as successful!