- I never thought I would be a teacher.
And this new learning style, it can be a challenge for them.
We can ease that by just saying, hey,
let's talk a little Star Wars.
WOMAN: Every day was Star Wars.
MAN 1: --was really little--
"Empire Strikes Back."
MAN 2: I will say that Star Wars--
--saw the X-Wing--
- Everyone has a Star Wars story.
I'm Jordan Hembrough and I'm meeting Star Wars fans,
virtually, who have been inspired and changed
by the galaxy far, far away.
Today, I'm meeting Amiyrah of Columbus, Ohio.
After starting a family, Star Wars
changed for Amiyrah into a lifestyle she
could share in meaningful ways.
This is Amiyrah's Star Wars story.
Thanks for doing this for us.
I really appreciate it.
- Absolutely.
I'm so excited.
- All right, we're going to dive right in.
Tell me about how your Star Wars story began.
- Oh, I love this story.
So my Star Wars story began with my dad.
At the ripe old age of eight, my dad decided
that I was ready for Star Wars.
Once he let me watch that film, I said, Dad, this is it.
I'm a Star Wars fan.
That's always been our thing, our daddy daughter thing,
is going to see sci-fi movies together.
And I've passed that on to my children,
and we have those traditions as well now, because my dad
started it with me.
- What was it like sort of growing up around Star Wars?
- It was an interesting way to grow up, knowing so much
and being a woman who knew that, or being a girl who knew that,
and having to battle other people who really just thought,
oh, you just love Princess Leia.
And it's actually how I created a lot of my
longstanding friendships, too.
And growing into the '90s with that
and then finally getting prequels,
it was just like, oh, my gosh.
I feel like I've waited so long, and I've
been so dedicated as a fan, and it kind of felt like a reward.
- This is the end for you, my master.
- You're a huge Star Wars fan.
You meet the man you're eventually going to marry.
Did you guys connect over Star Wars, too?
Did that play into the courtship?
- [LAUGHS] Technically, yes.
[LAUGHS] It did.
This is his blankie.
And it gets passed down to each kid now,
but I use it when I get cold.
But this is-- he told me about this blanket,
and I said, I am in love with you,
and we're going to get married.
[LAUGHS]
- This gentleman, who sounds perfect,
he became your husband, and you have
this incredible family now.
Tell me about your family.
- Yes, we have three children.
My oldest is now 15.
My daughter is 10, and then our little son is 6.
So big age gap, but they are all legitimate Star
Wars fans in their own right.
So they each love different things about it.
As parents, we weren't going to force them to love it,
but they could see how passionate we were about it.
So we just opened it up to them.
They've always had the movies to watch at home.
I always had the books out.
And it's not something where it's like, oh,
I guess we're the Star Wars fan.
It's, Mom, I really love this.
Can I learn more about it?
And I have always honored that with them, which is great.
- You know, what really I'm excited about
is you have incorporated Star Wars into the daily lives
of your children in rather a unique way, something
I've never heard before.
So tell me about that.
- So we've been homeschooling for six years,
and whenever I realized that, oh, I could create lesson plans
around Star Wars, I took over.
I took over with that whole thing.
There's a lot of aspects to our fandom
that fits into schooling.
There's a lot of math involved.
- Sir, the possibility of successfully
navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1.
- Never tell me the odds.
- A lot of science that we can connect, obviously.
And we can build on that and have them really get
really excited about things.
- Where were you when I was growing up?
I wanted teachers like you.
- I never thought I would be a teacher.
When you love something and you're so passionate about it,
it pours out of you, the different ways
you can help other people learn about it and even your kids.
- So do you remember like, some of their favorite lessons
that you taught them in school?
- One of my favorite ones--
I'm sure they loved it, too--
was when we talked about kyber crystals.
So they learned about different properties of crystals,
which types of crystals are grown in which
types of areas of the world.
That's a good way to incorporate earth
science into anything that you love to do Star Wars-wise.
But kyber crystal is awesome, because we
learn about it pretty much in every single part of Star Wars.
- The heart of the lightsaber the crystal is.
Focuses the force from the Jedi it does.
- The one thing I love about Star Wars
is it teaches us these very, very deep personal lessons,
like the value friendship and how to be selfless.
You sort of bring those lessons to your family as well?
- Absolutely.
One of our family mottos is to be of service.
So we have lovely characters in this franchise,
this saga who are out to do good and be good to others.
I think that they are able to connect
the dots there when they watch these stories over
and over again.
And we want our children to go out in the world
and be those people that change the world in that way.
So I love that we constantly see that connection
in Star Wars, the selflessness, standing up for what's right,
and knowing that you are all connected in some way.
And because of that, you need to make sure that you are
paying attention to your actions and the things
that you're doing.
- You talk a lot about service to yourself
and service to others.
You were actually in the service, weren't you?
You were in the military.
- Yes.
I was in the New Jersey Air National Guard for 18 years.
Interestingly enough, I know I probably don't look it,
but I was a munitions specialist.
- Yes.
- So-- [LAUGHS]
- I love it.
- For that first deployment, I wasn't even married yet,
but that second deployment was tougher.
I had two kids by then.
My daughter was 18 months.
So that was really tough, and I had to depend on my friends.
It definitely taught me how to be of service.
That's one of the biggest aspects
of being in the Air Force is that you must be of service.
Service before self is what we say.
So I know that that was a big factor in raising my kids.
- In the end, what would you say Star Wars has actually
brought to your family?
- I feel like it's brought so many things to our family,
but the underlying thing that I think
we've all learned as our family of five is work ethic.
Things take work.
And especially those things that you love and you're
passionate about, there's still a lot of work behind it,
and there's a lot of work that needs to be done.
Especially being a homeschool mom, I tell them, listen,
you can get all your work done for the week if you want.
And that hard work will yield you two whole days of doing
whatever you want to do.
So they're learning that.
They're learning it in real time,
and they get to see that in the stories that they love,
which is great.
- So at a time when many parents are homeschooling and home
with their kids anyway, would you recommend
Star Wars as a way to teach?
- I would.
I would recommend using Star Wars as kind of the parallel
to them learning at home.
I know a lot of things are so different,
and we are already seeing that our kids
are having difficulties with a lot of the change.
And if your family is a Star Wars family,
use it to your advantage, slowly incorporating some
of the things that you know they're learning in distance
learning, or maybe if you are homeschooling,
the things that you've planned for them to learn.
And use those storylines and those characters
and that connection that they have to them
to get them to open up, and they will learn
as they're talking to you.
This will be a great comfort to them
in a time where everything is just
so up in the air and unknown.
And this new learning style, it can be a challenge for them.
We can ease that by just saying, hey, let's talk a little Star
Wars, and see what comes out of their mouths
when it comes to learning something new.
- Amiyrah, thank you so, so much for doing this with me.
Thank you for sitting down with me.
Thank you for 18 years of incredible service.
Thank you for teaching the new generation of Star Wars fans
how to love fandom the way you do.
I really appreciate it.
Thanks so much.
- Thank you, Jordan.
[MUSIC PLAYING]