Antoinette Castillo is always learning. Affectionately called Toni by her students, Castillo is a Professor at Rose State College who teaches Philosophy and English. She holds a M.A. in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy from the University of Oklahoma, a M.Ed. in Multicultural, Bilingual and English as a Second Language from the University of Central Oklahoma, and a B.A. in English from Oklahoma City University. Currently she is an unclassified graduate student at the University of Oklahoma. What that means in plain English is that she is not taking classes at OU for a degree, but rather for the knowledge she gains from them.
Castillo often attends lectures at OU, but the classes she takes there are more sporadic, the ones that catch her eye. She is especially interested in non-western philosophy currently, because it doesn't have such a obsessive focus on reason. She explained “I'm not at a place in my life where I can have discussions about philosophy where I'm not doing the teaching and the lecturing, that is with people who know more than I do, so this gives me an opportunity to be challenged.” Also, the classes help her to continually grow mentally and spiritually, one of her life goals.
In order to offset the cost of taking classes at the University of Oklahoma, Castillo teaches an overload at Rose State, one class more than she usually teaches. Castillo makes around $30,000 a year. The University of Oklahoma charges around $310 per credit hour for graduate students. Two of her children also go to the University of Oklahoma, “So OU is getting a lot of our money right now.” The drive over from Rose State in Midwest City to Norman is not that bad, but the drive back to her house on the opposite side of Oklahoma City when she has a late class can be rather challenging. Investing in an OU class involves giving up some of would normally be preparation for the classes she teaches, and some personal time.
Castillo is part of a group known as non-traditional students. Non-traditional students ages 35 and over students made up 2.1% of the educational system in 2009, or 3,383,000 by number according to a report by The US Census Bureau. For reference, that same year, 56.5% or 73,905,000 of persons 3 to 34 years were enrolled in some kind of school.
Professor Castillo has no idea when she is retiring, but said she thinks it will be when she longer given any value to her students and instead is merely part of the machine.
In this video, we follow Professor Antoinette Castillo through her day, starting at her office, going to teach a class, going to the University of Oklahoma for her class she takes there, and then returning home. Castillo takes classes at OU to increase her knowledge base for herself and her students. Castillo is a professor at Rose State College in Midwest City.
