Lydia Graecyn
English Instructor

With Cabrillo College since 2003

It is an honor to teach at Cabrillo College where the focus of education is to help students discover their talents, empower them to shape their own lives, and inspire in them the joy of learning. When students can powerfully and persuasively express their diverse views, then positive change, both in their lives and in the larger community, is not only possible, but probable.

The Ten Principles of Burning Man inspire my classroom teaching. particularly the following.

• Radical Inclusion welcomes and respects all members of the community. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play.

• Radical Self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others.

• Communal Effort values creative cooperation and strives to produce, promote, and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.

• Radical Participation commits to a radically participatory ethic believing that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through deeply personal participation. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.

• Radical Self-reliance encourages the individual to discover, exercise, and rely on inner resources.

• Immediacy seeks to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our true selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world.


M.A. English, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo
Teaching Credential: Single Subject English, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo
Technical Writing Certificate, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo
B.A. Literature, University of California, Santa Cruz

Additional interests: Social Justice, Marxist Theory, Nicola Tesla, Hunter S. Thompson, Bessie Smith, The Clash, Industrial Art, Documentaries and Pre-code Movies, Science Fiction and Technopoly, Quantum Mechanics, Sewing, Service/ Therapy Dogs, Habitat for Humanity, and Speaking Spanish.