The Alexander article reminded me a lot of The Atlantic's article "The Case for Reparations" by Ta-Nehisi Coates. If you're interested:

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

• During the last class, my group discussed racial and financial segregation in cities, and wondered why those there was such an overlap between the lower class and minorities. “Racial Bias in Pennsylvania’s Funding of Public Schools” gives evidence that funding of public schools could contribute to class inequalities between white people and racial minorities. “How to destroy a public school system” mentions this inequality and refers to the “white flight” concept, calling it a “white noose”: “Former Philadelphia Mayor Richardson Dilworth... bluntly described Philadelphia as choked by the “white noose” of the suburbs.

I had a conversation with an individual last semester (for their own privacy this individual will remain unnamed and for the most part unknown).  The converstation when he said that he didn't understand why the two individuals from years back who had dressed in black face and as women for Halloween were in the wrong.  Obviously this bothered me, but I really wanted to try and get at why he thought this way.  It took a lot of hashing out, and we talked for quite a bit about this, but eventually we worked out his confussion.  It turned out that he wasn't saying that dressing up in blackface wasn't wrong, or that these individuals weren't in the wrong, it was more a matter of intentions.

I had a conversation with an individual last semester (for their own privacy this individual will remain unnamed and for the most part unknown).  The converstation when he said that he didn't understand why the two individuals from years back who had dressed in black face and as women for Halloween were in the wrong.  Obviously this bothered me, but I really wanted to try and get at why he thought this way.  It took a lot of hashing out, and we talked for quite a bit about this, but eventually we worked out his confussion.  It turned out that he wasn't saying that dressing up in blackface wasn't wrong, or that these individuals weren't in the wrong, it was more a matter of intentions.

I'm always looking for places to walk with people to have important conversations. The last three times I've done this, I've taken three different people to the same place. There's a reason for this: The patio behind Batten is my favorite place on campus. This week when I went on my site sit, I sat and thought about what I wanted to get out of these half hour visits. While I know that part of the exercise is to challenge ourselves to think about the world around us, I would like to use my time to have important converstions with myself, to use the sounds in nature to inspire my own thought. 

As I glanced back through the papers we've read over the past couple weeks, there were a few ideas that really grabbed me: 1) the importance of diversity in ecological thinking and teaching (talked about in many papers, especially The Multicultural Approach to Ecopsychology), 2) the way individual experiences of the environment are influenced by identity, particularly one's race, 3) the idea that mutations and change are natural (The Ecological Thought), 4) the concept of networks and interconnectedness in ecological thought and teaching, 5) thinking about making social and ecological change through creation (as oppose to fear and authoritarianism), and 6) the idea of practicality when talking about the ecological thought and making change.

When thinking about constructing an ecological curriculum, I really had to think about what an ecological curriculum is. I have a lot of ideas about what it isn’t—it isn’t hierarchical, it isn’t human centric, and it isn’t a series of statements accepted as truth. But what is ecological learning? The metaphor that I will explore in this project is how ecological learning (and therefore, an ecological curriculum) is a system. It is the interconnection and intersection of many parts that equally contribute to the “whole”. It is a learning style that promotes symbiosis, interaction, engagement, and willingness to change.

For my first web-event, I want to use Timothy Morton's introduction to The Ecological Thought as the framework for looking at my notes and musings from these past weeks.

I was planning on tracing the history of a plant.

In the first two weeks of class, I've found that I still have to remind myself what "Ecology" means. I understand that it is the ointeraction between humans and the world around us including people, nature, cities,etc, but when it is used in different contexts and variations such as "thinking ecologically" I have to really pause and make sure I have a grasp on what it means at that moment. Also, I get a little turned around when we have readings about education because in my head I'm confused about how education and ecology come together. Especially the reading "Teaching for Turbulence," I agreed with Maniate's points that we have to begin to teach and train students for crises that may arise, but I failed to really see the connection between educating and ecology.