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A lot was going through my head on Friday as we went on our walk. Transitions between seasons have always made me emotional. I get utterly homesick and nostalgic, not towards any one home or time in particular; I get homesick and nostalgic for all the places and times in which I've been homesick and nostalgic during seasonal transitions. Change means something is ending, and the next thing is coming, and I dislike endings. Seasons, though - they seem to be telling me that I haven't changed at all and that everything's still okay because I'm still reacting emotionally to the seasons.

And Friday, I felt Spring.

I also felt Nairobi. This naturally luscious and socially wealthy setting with huge, old trees, rich hedges, and walking on asphalt roads with no sidewalks - this was like Muthaiga, an old and wealthy neighbourhood in Nairobi, where I lived for about two years. Of course it wasn’t identical, but I sensed a similar climate.

When we got to Harriton House, I walked around, looked at the house, at the sheep, the horse, the chickens, and then spent a while watching two adolescent-sized cows. Of course, I know nothing about the maturing process of cows, so I don’t know in which stage of life they were, but they seemed like they still had room to grow. I watched them and thought.

Then I sat on the grass with my little notebook and scribbled thoughts. I lay down and scribbled some more. I wrote some flashy phrases and images, but nothing was hitting me in the throat.

I really enjoyed Karyn Keenan's piece on "The Importance of Student Stories." This piece resonated with me because at my placement, the teacher is supposed to have a morning meeting every day. Though she does not always find the time to do it, when she does, I think it is very beneficial. This seems very similar to when Keenan says that "Carving out the 15 minutes for the Morning Meeting can be a challenge with all the demands facing teachers and their schedules. However, this time to share is crucial for students" (64).

The students at my placement love to share their stories, and the teacher carefully listens to each one, no matter how long-winded or irrelevant it might be. I think that it is very important for these student's voices to be heard, especially since as low-income, minority students, their voice is often muted in several contexts. However one thing that concerns me is that though the teacher listens to each student's story, the students don't listen to each other. They often talk over one another or talk to each other when another student is talking. I think that is is important that the students show respect for each other and learn from each other's experiences, but this is not happening in the classroom. I don't know what can be done about this, but I think peer respect is a crucial element for students to openly share their stories. 

One aspect of the readings that I latched onto was the idea that we need to know our students to create a curriculum that blends their interests, experiences, and backgrounds in order to engage with them in learning. Understanding our view points is critical to creating a course that is successful in not just explaining a particular topic, but also in supporting active and aware individuals.

In “Un-standardized Curriculum”, Sleeter states, “…rather than starting curriculum with the textbook or the standards; she [Kathy] stared by identifying a rich theme that was significant to the lives of the children and their families in which subject matter content could be anchored.” (116). I can’t help but play the cynic, but I wonder how most teachers can do that.

There is the issue of not knowing your students from the beginning of the year as I, to my knowledge, know most schools change teachers every year or two years. Building a curriculum or even a lesson plan should revolve around the students’ background, but logistically, that’s hard to know right off the bat. And even later in the year, the teacher would have to make a very decided effort in knowing the students to find ways of catering to them in teaching.  As I don’t really know the logistics of some types of schools, I’m not sure how much flexibility the teacher has day by day as far as lesson plans.

It seemed as if the weather was beckoning us to ditch the vans and go for a nice walk in the sun. It’s amazing how dependent my mood has become on the weather, but I loved walking off campus with the rest of the group and David to Harriton house. I could feel spring just around the corner, trying to come out. I made a sheep friend, that we named Sheldon! He was very sweet and he loved posing in pictures with us. We even took a selfie with him! Or should I say “shelfie”. His friend was a little sassier, and we named her Petunia. After wandering around for a little and observing. I sat down on the ground and closed my eyes and just listened to the sounds around me. David pointed out the signs of “humans” still in nature, when we would hear the occasional sound of a car, or the sound of machinery.  But there were points where it was quiet enough to hear the trees rustling and the soft sounds of the sheep and the not so soft sounds of the chickens could be heard. I kept thinking about how tall the trees were and how happy they looked. I’m glad they were standing tall and strong, after a tough winter.  I loved this impromptu trip, I loved David’s willingness to take us somewhere locally, and I definitely intend on making a trip back to Harriton house soon!

 I enjoyed Sleeter’s “Students as Curriculum” chapter quite a bit. I hope to teach high school history next year and one of my primary goals is to teach history in a relevant and meaningful way for high school students. Too often, I think, history courses get bogged down in dates, names, and events. I’m much more interested in the broader narratives that connect these events to each other and to our lived experiences. But in order to teach history in this connected, thematic way, I need to first understand my students and the experiences, assumptions, beliefs, etc. that they bring into the classroom and, then, I need to use this information to create my lesson plans and unit plans, etc. Sleeter writes that it is the “teacher’s responsibility to find out, become familiar with, and respect knowledge students bring to school, and to organize curriculum and learning activities in such a way that students are able to activate and use that knowledge” (p. 106). I agree whole-heartedly with this statement. I want my students’ knowledge to be the foundation of our lessons in history, particularly because topics like historical perspective and power are so central to the discipline.

I was sorry not to be able to join y'all in the sunshine @ Harriton on Friday, but today I took my own little eco-trip. It started with the amazed discovery that the Pennsylvania State Constitution has an Environmental Rights Amendment** (who knew?!), and that the  Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently ruled in accord with that amendment, to intervene in the state's legacy of “virtually unrestrained exploitation"-- a potential “game charger,” able to turn state environmental regulation “upside down.”

Feeling happy about this, I wandered over to the Art Alliance, in my neighborhood, to see a few very-related installations of eco-art:  Caroline Lathan-Stiefel's "Frakturing" uses a 1905 stained glass window to invite viewers to think about issues of plant diversity and sustainability in an age of fracking. Another of her installations, called "Greenhouse Mix," is a delightful “jungle in the salon." In a third, called "Noise," my companion, the pomester, made music by changing his grip on a couple of apples.

Well, at least this time we weren't fighting against the weather!

We seem to be challenged constantly and fighting against all these scenarios, yet as the 360 warriors that we are, we flow loosely through possible adventures. I've never been to the Harrington House and I'm kind of thankful our public safety communications skills were lacking because the weather was working in our favor! Our trip was a reflection of how porous we've become and responsive to our environments- flexible to bendable as a group. And if anything our bond with David grew thicker. Not only was it an opportunity for him to spend with us, but also to get to know us as we danced in the sun. 

I used to think a lot about how I would adapt certain books for the screen, so thinking about how I would make a movie based on All Over Creation by Ozeki is pretty fun. I'm pretty sure Yumi would narrate the movie, mostly for herself and her story but sometimes telling the perspectives of others when they needed introduction. I feel strongly that most of the words she narrates should be direct quotes from the text. Similarly, it would be really important to me that certain conversations be entirely preserved, like Geeks descriptions of GMO's to Frankie.

Obviously, since the book is so long, quite a few things would have to be shortened and/or taken out, and the idea of that sounds stressful. Yumi's past could be shown much more quickly and succinctly, and much of the Seed's time in San Fransisco would probably have to be cut. The part I see most clearly is the image of farms in Idaho, of the irrigation birds and the vast, expansive fields. Of country roads and dingy farm houses. I would be excited to represent a (probably romanticized) vision of rural Idaho. I think this could be a really great movie, the type of movie that people really like nowadays.