Connecting the Dots

Eco-Literacy Reflection

I’ve had little experience with art. All through out school, it wasn’t incorporated into my education. I was never taught of its significance in my personal or academic growth. The type of environment that I was raised in had a hostile perspective of art. It was always something for the privileged, for those who had the time to spend “playing” around. And I unfortunately was not “privileged” to spend some time doodling when I could be doing some work around the house or homework.

I really appreciated our fieldtrips, because for me, they did allow me to step out the Bryn Mawr bubble and allow my mind to roam. At Bryn Mawr, everything is moving at the speed of light. I get out of class and off I am to a meeting, work, or other activity never having time to deal with my thoughts or a self-reflection of my until I’m in bed setting my alarm for the next day. Our adventures were each a different location and a different experience for me; I walked out of each one with a new idea, a different song in my mind, and a new dream.

The creative portion of the 360 was more of a mental growth for me than an artistic creative growth. I found myself more engaged into the smaller details of our trips and I was a lot more quiet and less outspoken because the trips were something I wanted for me. I wanted to keep having these conversations in my mind about the people, the noises, and the interactions I was observing. The creative portion of this semester has allowed me to grow as an individual in a group by stepping back from it all at times and taking some time to reflect before speaking. It’s helped me acknowledge my thoughts, dreams, and fears and feel connected with the environment around me, whether at Bryn Mawr, fieldtrip, or simply anywhere.

My perspective on learning, quite frankly my opinions on the education system as a whole have shifted. Throughout this 360, I’ve come face to face with thoughts I’ve always had but could never fully develop because I was afraid of being shut down, of those who I would look up to as “knowing better”. I was afraid of disappointment.

I’m growing, I’m taking risks, and I feel as if for once I have control over my own beliefs, and what I want to pursue academically and personally. If it weren’t for the 360 structure of subjects, I wouldn’t have taken an economics course. Yet, I found myself interested in the subject and learned how much it played a role into our daily life decisions.

Economics was the hardest challenge for me this semester. I’ve never been a math person, regardless of how much effort and dedication I give. Numbers and graphs don’t get along, which doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate its significance. In fact, I’m grateful for of those who find math and graphs pleasurable because without proof, we’d have a hard time advocating for certain issues like in this case, the importance of environmental education and preservation. In class, I occasionally participated, but when I did, it wasn’t because I had an answer to a solution or a question, but because I was mainly the one asking the questions. I didn’t understand and I couldn’t read the graphs like David or most of the individuals in the class did. Not all of it had to do with it not being my forte, but more because I was curious about it and I couldn’t stop asking questions until I really understand how and what it all meant.  I’d stay quite, jotting down what at times seem liked nonsense and then at my chance, I’d blast away the questions. In the beginning, I had an idea of how economics played a factor in environmental education, but it wasn’t until I finished the semester and realized how much more one can do if we branch out a little more out of our comfort zones. Yes, there would be classes I’d walk out and not know what exactly was said in class. I’d feel uncomfortable at times when the other members of the classroom, the non 360’s, understood everything and here I was stretching my brain cells out as much as possible, but economics 136 was a significant part of the Eco-Literacy experience. I entered an environment I wasn’t quite comfortable with and I adapted to it by taking in my surroundings and connecting the pieces.

In Jody’s “Ecologies of Minds and Communities” I felt really connected with my past, my present, and my future and most importantly how each environment in each time zone reflected upon myself. The readings for class made me really dig deeper mentally and emotionally. I felt like I could relate to a lot of the issues we were reading about pushing for others to become environmentally aware, but also having to deal with issues of having privilege and accessibility. We questioned the current education system and other companies/ organizations and their methods of reaching out to a broader audience. We were both environmentalists and critics of the current education system. But at the same time, when dealing with our past and using it to draw connections into the future and what we can do as individuals to persevere for equality and the rights of environmental education, we had to realize that our emotions can’t always lead our decisions. I learned to step back, analyze the situation, and really observe not only the dilemma but also the individuals involved which meant really understanding the communities we were either reading about or working with. I met rationality through this course and how frustrating it can be when all we want to do is go in and solve.

In Anne’s “Recreating our World: Vision, Voice, and Value” I found my self drawing a lot of arrows in my notes. I personally really enjoyed having all of the 360 courses in one day because it allowed for each new set of information learned in each class to be taken into the other. We’d learn a new term in David’s class and try using it into the other classes like doing a puzzle piece. I felt like the information we were learning overflowed into the next stream of classes and I really enjoyed it. I could play in all three streams of water and feel connected. But in this course specifically, I felt like all of what we were reading and experiencing was just a huge van diagram. The course is named, “Recreating our World: Vision, Voice, and Value” and I think it really fulfilled just what it says. I recreated my world around what we observed in the fieldtrips, the voices we heard from the people we’d meet and also from the characters we encountered in the novels, and we reflected on the value each experience played in our fieldtrips and even in the novels. The world I created with Anne’s class is constructed with overlapping experiences, arrows, and interpretations. Each novel we read carried its own set of characters, a new setting, and a new story to be shared. Yet, at the end of reading all the novels in this course, I knew there wasn’t one bit of coincidence, it all had purpose and meaning, it all carried into the next stream of water.

The Eco-Literacy 360 has given me the confidence in allowing myself to enter environments of all kinds, whether I feel in exile or at home in them and really take the time to not only experience it but also understand each component of it. I’ve learned what it means to process my thoughts without fear of failing, because regardless of if I fail or disappoint, I will learn, I will connect the dots of where I went wrong or what I could have done differently, and I will be better prepared to take action and really make a difference without jumping into it all at once.