During my master’s program, our professor Dr. Kris Ewing invited us to read This I Believe, a collection of short essays about core values that guide daily life, and then write one of our own. That assignment stayed with me. It reminded me that some of the most powerful stories we can tell are the ones shaped by lived experience.

As I thought about this week’s theme of counterstories, I kept coming back to that essay. In the spirit of challenging assumptions about who belongs in higher education, who carries wisdom, and what “success” looks like, I’m sharing both the video and written version of my original piece.

I believe in the little words. The little words can be all it takes to make a difference in the life of a student. Programs, money, services, and material things can facilitate a change, but sometimes all it takes is the little words to validate a student in order for them to take the next step in the right direction. 

I trudged along high school unsure of myself. My place in this world, and not knowing what direction my life was going to take. I was in a pretty deep state of depression. My oldest sister no longer wanted me to hang around her. My brother and I were no longer close. My younger sisters could care less about me and I truly believed my mother hated me. I felt unloved and unwanted. I didn’t think highly of myself or that I was worth much. I pretended everything was alright. I’d smile, laugh, crack jokes, and create an image of being the perfect person, but when I got home I’d locked myself in my room let all the feelings fill my heart and soul and cry myself to sleep. I was not OK and was borderline suicidal. 

I was in my senior year and all of my classmates were talking about graduation, scholarships, and college applications. I still didn’t know what I was going to do after high school but in order to fit in with my friends, I wrote down scholarship names, downloaded college applications, and worked on a personal essay. One morning, the school counselor came over to me and said, “Mr. McClure wants to work with you on the Gates scholarship.” I had previously looked up the scholarship and knew that you needed an individual to be a nominator and recommender and I had already considered who I might ask to help me. Yet, here was the counselor giving me the name of the teacher who wanted to work with me although I had never had a class with him. 

I was skeptical about working with Mr. McClure. I had only seen him a few times in the halls and I heard he was a hard teacher and pretty unconventional. But in previous years he helped two students get the scholarship so I decided to give it a try. McClure turned out to be everything that everyone had said. He was a hard teacher and definitely unconventional. After school and at lunch, we would meet and discuss how we were going to work on the scholarship. The application consisted of me writing eight essays and him writing some essays as well. He would task me to write drafts, set deadlines, and then meet to discuss where I was at. Through our interactions he picked up on the fact that something was not right with me. He never directly asked me what was wrong but somehow just seemed to know. One afternoon, after talking about the scholarship he asked me, “Do you think you’re beautiful?” I’m naturally a pretty shy person and this question didn’t help my shyness. Meekly, darting my eyes and trying to avoid eye contact I said, “I don’t know…not really I guess.” He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “From today on, every morning and every night you go to bed or wake up. I want you to look in the mirror and say out loud, “I am beautiful.” I don’t care if it seems funny or others hear you. You need to say it every day, and I’m going to ask you about it because you are beautiful and you need to start believing it.

Mr. McClure never knew me personally. We had never met and I had never sat in his class. Yet he took the time to point me out and say, “I want to work with her.” He could’ve stopped there and just helped me fill out the scholarship application, but took it a step further and addressed the deep issues I was dealing with. He didn’t do this with things but by validating the person I was. He truly cared about me, my well-being, and my future. 

Today, I am a mother of a beautiful two year-old boy. A woman pursuing her masters degree, and a partner to a loving man. I am where I am today not because of a full ride scholarship but because someone showed me the power of the little words. The power of words like, “You are doing excellent work.” “I am glad you’re in my class.” “You’re intelligent,” or a reminder that I am beautiful. The little words that changed my outlook on my life.  

When I first started using AI tools like ChatGPT, I thought I’d primarily use it to help me with quick drafting, synthesizing information, or generating ideas. However, I started to notice how AI was responding to me.

The AI would either begin or end the response by consistently offering encouragement, recognizing effort, and affirming emotion. As I reflected on these words, I started to draw parallels to Validation Theory.

Laura Rendón’s Validation Theory describes validation as “an enabling, confirming and supportive process initiated by in- and out-of-class agents that fosters academic and interpersonal development” (Rendón, 1994; see also laurarendon.net). Some of its core principles include:

• Validation is proactive: faculty and staff initiate support, rather than waiting for students to ask.
• Validation is ongoing: it happens early on and often.
• Validation is both academic and interpersonal: students must hear both “You can do college-level work” and “You belong here.”
• Validation builds confidence and agency: affirming students helps them believe they can succeed and that they deserve to be here.

Drawing on Rendón’s work, my dissertation explored how proactive encouragement and affirmation could influence the persistence of women and minoritized students in STEM. I couldn’t help but notice how the words the AI was sharing with me were validating. The encouraging words happened right after I entered a prompt, and it wasn’t a one-time thing, but it occurred with almost every prompt. The words weren’t just validating my ideas, but me as a person. While I believe I am very capable, the validating words made me feel even more capable.

In exploring a bit on how AI models are trained, I learned they are designed to be helpful, polite and understanding, and as a result tend to offer a more supportive role. In a 2023 study, they compared responses to patient questions written by human doctors versus those generated by ChatGPT. A panel of licensed healthcare professionals preferred the answers of ChatGPT, stating they were higher quality and more empathetic. The solution wasn’t to get rid of physicians, rather that a physician using AI as an assistant could provide better and more empathetic care (US San Diego Today, 2023).

While I have to remind myself that AI cannot truly understand or feel. It is mimicking emotions. However, it is a reminder of how powerful validating language can be. The AI’s encouraging words remind me to bring more validation into my own work.

Rendón, L. I. (1994). Validating culturally diverse students: Toward a new model of learning and student development. Innovative Higher Education, 19(1), 33–51.

University of California San Diego. (2023, April 28). ChatGPT preferred over doctors by patients. UC San Diego Today. https://today.ucsd.edu/story/chatgpt-preferred-over-doctors-by-patients