I tried to stay at my site. It was slightly less than warm. Half of the flowers behind the arbor were blooming purple, half still little green shots. I sat huddled on the bench—the trees, the grass, the road, all felt worn. Maybe it was the influence of class, of the questions we’d begun to ponder—questions we had been pondering. Should I stay and know that shortly, I would lose focus and turn within? Or should I give into the urge to move, to wander?

I forced myself to stay a few moments more. I found an earthworm, heard a woodpecker, waved at friends. And then I stood, bounded down the stone steps, across the brown green yellow grass, and out into the world.

I found the three articles to be very interesting and informative. I have never associated climate change with capitalism before.  I am now looking at climate change with a new light. I have always thought climate change was due to global warming caused by greenhouse gases  but never really considered the source (capitalism) of these gases. There seems to be a correlation between emissions and the economy. There is a war between our economic system and our planetary system. I'm curious as to how we can change our economic model to cure climate change without causing more catastrophes in the market logic of competition and domination among other economies. 

I would like to focus on classroom instruction in my placement, and learn more about how much direct and/or interactive instruction takes place in my placement classroom when I’m not there, and if this amount and type of instruction is beneficial to the students. I have not seen much instruction in my placement when I visit on Fridays, which isn’t a bad thing because it is important to have time in the classroom to review and do independent work, and to have a space to ask questions about the material. Still, I would like to learn if there is more instruction that goes on on other days of the week, and to investigate how this instruction specifically helps the students at the school and in the classroom that I’m placed in.

The meeting notes for TIDES and SIGCSE 2015 have been updated:

http://people.westminstercollege.edu/faculty/hhu/tides/sigcse2015.html

You might be especially interested in the workshop feedback:

http://people.westminstercollege.edu/faculty/hhu/tides/WorkshopFeedback.pdf

-Doug

I am placed with a teacher I believe to be quite remarkable in the way she relates and engages with students. However, despite the many positive attributes to her teaching style, there are also aspects that are outdated. She has been teaching for thirty years and has not recieved adequate support to improve her teaching strategies even though she has actively sought out workshops and other ways to improve herself as a teacher. I would like to focus on what it means for teachers to be penalized for faulty classroom practices and not encouraged to change or revise their ways. Districts need to provide support to teachers regardless of whether it is their first year or their 30th year in the classroom and I would like to explore ways to make this possible.

My initial reaction to Terry Tempest Williams’ collection of stories in An Unspoken Hunger was to reflect on how we have not only lost a connection to our world but also a profound connection within ourselves. I’ve never thought about these two losses in relation to one another. Since I’ve become interested in environmental studies, I’ve always thought about how humans remove themselves from the earth. We have lost a connection with the natural world by building up cities and staring at laptops. But I haven’t thought how this has contributed to a disconnect in ourselves. There is an unspoken hunger in how we go through life--this restless unfulfillment, a misplaced dissatisfaction.

Williams writes, “There is no defense against an open heart …in dialogue with wildness…I believe that out of an erotics of place, a politics of place is emerging…rooted in empathy.”

For my final field paper I’d like to focus on respect and how that is conveyed and not conveyed in the classroom. This includes the way the teacher shows respect for the kids, how the kids respect the teacher, and how these factors vary in relation to one another. In my fieldwork I have observed three different teachers in the classroom with the same group of kids and there were noticeable differences in how each teacher interacted with the kids and how the kids behaved with each teacher. I think this might be tricky because respect is subjective and this would be entirely based on my interpretations of respect in the classroom. I could also draw from the weeks 5 and 6 readings on pedagogy and curriculum. 

I’ve been putting off my site sit for this past week, mainly because I didn’t know what to do…I didn’t know what to write about. Should I keep writing with an unspoken hunger? An unspoken longing for connection and love? An unspoken fear of intimacy? Or should I completely remove my emotions from this final posting? For inspiration, I printed out all of my past site sits (like we did in class) and decided to read them at these four stepping-stones by the Duck Pond.

Here is the highlights reel…that kind of demonstrates how I have changed with semester.

“slowly close my lips around the filter and pull at the deep orange embers”

“ I actually felt pleasantly empty…Maybe the snow just mutes emotions”

I created a podcast using stories of women studying science and mathematics as an inquiry into how to be a better educator to encourage equal gender participation in science and mathematics:

https://soundcloud.com/musings-1/multicultural-education-project

-Damon

Sources:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1964782