Silvi Shameti

Schools in American Cities

Spring 2015

Systemic Theory of Change

"Contact with the world’s hard matter...is no longer a human right....
But if we are no longer permitted to touch, what chances are there that anything will be felt?...
Too many people today are led to believe that nature happens only in nature reserves,
in special places where we might be shown its specialness....
When signs are needed to explain wonders something has gone wrong....
rewilding involves much human interference....The nonce word should
alert us to the sleight of hand. A sort of nature-facility is being made
and dressed up as a return to a wilder past....'The land has been humanized,
through and through...and we in our own tissued consciousness
bear the results of this humanization.'”

Strong Community, Strong Commitment: Strategies for Change in Urban Schools

Sarah Friesen-Johnson

May 1, 2015

Educ 299, P. Cohen

Strategies for Change

Jody had asked me some follow up questions on my inquiry project, so to put all of it out there, here are the questions she asked and my responses! Hopefully they will help elaborate on more of the thought-process behind making my Junior Ranger Diversity Program!

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When you suggest that learners “find someplace quiet and with some nature around,” what are you thinking of as nature, and do you want them to think about this?  

Something that would represent us as a whole?

Even though Ive had plenty of time to think about somerhing that could potentially represent our class as a whole. I'm still not quite sure. 

I think anything that we have all contributed to, such as a writing on a paper (even with simply our signatures or maybe a one word written by all of us that summarizes our class experience this semester) or maybe somethihg more tangible like rhizome or braid to connect to earlier discussions concerning Harawsy Ghosh and Coetzee. Anything really goes. Even if it has nothing to do with our class, but it was something that the class wanted to be in the box, that woold still be a representation of us..

The moment Tosin said she'd like everyone to put a piece of themselves into the box, I immediately knew what I was going to put in it: a tiny photograph. Miniature. One inch by one inch. Although this is an English class, and the English language (like any other language) is about words and the usage of words, I've found that my photography has grown immensely being in this class. I've learned to take pictures that can be more critically interpreted and also how to analyze a photograph exactly as I would an article or paper.