Josh Pinto Taylor
“We have to explore who we are and where our purpose lies. And you know in reality, right, we are all multi-dimensional in our identity.”
School of Education
Education, EdD 2020
Executive Director at The Anchor School
Josh‘s Podcast Episode
In this episode, we discuss what made Josh pivot from his plan to become an architect to pursuing a career in education, the different ways he has applied the skills he honed during his doctoral training to his teaching and to his founding of a new charter school, and his advice for being a scholar practitioner and finding inspiration in inevitable change.
Learn More About Josh‘s Story
I became a father during my doctoral studies at JHU. My children (Zeke and Trinity) and wife (Emily) offered support, encouragement, inspiration, and perspective in this season of my life. In my experience, maintaining a perspective beyond the scope of my research was essential for my quality of life. This photo is meaningful to me because it is a reflection of how I changed as a person during my time at Hopkins. It is also an image of the kind of integrated and intersectional life that I hope to experience moving forward. I hope to maintain these roles (husband, father, student, educator) and to integrate them meaningfully into a lifetime of experiences that allow me to continue to expand my definition of who I am, who I am connected to, and where I belong in the world.
As a former student of city planning, I consider myself an explorer and loving critic of the built environment (disclaimer: I am not a city planner). I love cities – and I believe they need to be improved – particularly for the wellbeing of children, who are among our most vulnerable people. As I travel through cities, one way I experience them is by looking for spaces that allow children to explore who they are, who they are connected to, and how they can participate in the development of their community. In recent years, I have developed a bank of photos that reflect spaces which, in my view, create safe conditions for childhood development experiences. I’m not sure I would have travelled through cities this way, or merged my seemingly disparate interests in cities and human development, without graduate studies. This photo shows a safe pedestrian corridor in Reykjavik.
