For my field vignette, I wrote about a conversation I had with my field placement teacher about a “yes, and” approach for talking about charter schools. The “yes, and” approach challenges “either, or” binaries, and opens us up to the possibility of resolving two seemingly opposing situations, like public “versus” private schools. I’d like my final field paper to consider the question, how is this approach reflected, or not, in the curriculum and pedagogy enacted in my field placement classroom? I’ll be thinking about certain “spectrums” of curriculum and pedagogy that apply to this classroom, such as skill building vs. critical thinking, learning about ancient civilizations vs.

...are not just my wierd thing (just sayin'). See this recent call for papers for Disability Studies:

Disability Studies…fosters subversive communities that supplant neoliberal and meritocratic ideals of productivity, efficiency, and individualism with radical and collective forms of interaction and communication. Why, then, does this crip politic so often stop at the page? Why is disability largely represented, composed, and reified within disability studies through normative forms such as essays and monographs? 

Here, as promised, are a couple of leads for anyone who wants to learn more about eco-feminism.

You'll find an introductory bibliography to the field,
created by the Gender and Women's Studies Librarian @ UWisconsin, @
http://womenst.library.wisc.edu/bibliogs/ecofem.html

There's an interesting webevent on Serendip on eco-feminism and its effect on women of color @

Gwendolyn Vary

Multicultural Education

Professor Jody Cohen

4.19.2015

Teaching a Unit on Second Wave Feminism to a Senior Seminar in a High School

For my Final Field Paper, I'd like to propose that my focus be on the salient impact of community centers/ teachers(mentors) to students and families whom are a part of urban school communities. My praxis is unlike many in our class and at times it can be challenging, because what happens in an urban classroom is not exactly the same thing that happens in my praxis, Discovery.  But I've learned to be more observant and connect with not only my students, but the individuals behind the scenes, working to make this after-school program possible as well as the parents who encourage their childrem to be a part of Discovery's program.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bckk3z66f04i1xw/Snapchat--3790231277930578164.mp4?dl=0

 https://youtu.be/yleuZDXMr2Q

(belated site sit from last week)

The coal and shale from anthracite Pennsylvania speaks through ages as layers of sediment and plant matter fold on top of one another, pressing leaves together into tight embrace over millions of years until they can no longer define themselves separated; once buried, twice dug up and “liberated” back to atmosphere. Trying to comprehend that, understand it, wrap my head around it until I get distracted and

brace myself against your body,
face sunlight, fall into your limbs;
carbon-carbon collision.
Drifting stillness,
slumped slumber.

It's only a matter of time.

Our last class out in the cloisters caused an earthquake in my heart/mind/being and I feel moved to add a bit more to the conversation we were/are having related to environmental education, place, connection, and humanity. These words are still clunky and awkward, but I hope they can stir up some conversation or controversy or clarification or contradiction. This is the earthquake's initial aftermath.

1) Many of us are fundamentally (though not irrevocably) disconnected from place.

can you see it?

the trees and sky melt into one,

robbing us of the colors of the day.

can you see it?