End of Semester Self Evaluation: growth, learning, and challenges

Overall this semester, I feel so much growth within my self and how I perceive the world, how I think about environment and ecology, and particularly how I think about home. Home seems to have been the center point of my exploration, a lens from which to view other ideas/concepts—I realized as I was writing Anne’s most recent paper (“from hypothesis to home”) that I seem to have come full-circle here at the end—I started on “home” for all of Anne, Jody, and David’s first papers, then explored the larger ideas of eco-literacy, investigated how we conceptualize science (my main field), and in the end, wrote a paper focusing on how science and self create home. (Side note: Anne/Jody/David, will we be getting feedback on our final essays? I’d love to hear your thoughts, especially since these assignments felt like such culminations of my learning experiences in your classes!) So, overall, I am very proud of how far I have come, and I hope I can continue to push these ideas further as I transition away from Bryn Mawr (I’d love book/article suggestions to read!). The following is organized by certain aspects of class, and then by learning goals in each individual class.

Class Participation

Another proud aspect of this 360 cluster was how engaged I was in class. I feel quite comfortable participating within my science classrooms, and did in my high school science classes too, but ever since high school and even through E-Sem here and other non-science classes at BMC/Haverford, I have never quite felt smart enough or safe enough to participate in class discussions. Looking back now, I’m quite shocked to remember how little I ever said in my various environmental studies classes. Coming into the 360, I immediately noticed how much of a safe space this felt like, and how everyone seemed open to hearing other ideas. So, I think one of my first slightly subconscious but also slightly intentional goals was simply to speak up. And I did, and it felt safe and meaningful, but also felt challenging sometimes. Our reflective conversation last week did feel true—I could have pushed myself to say more controversial things, or to voice disagreement more often, but also when my primary goal was to say anything at all, saying something that felt less safe may have not actually achievable. Also, I don’t remember any times when there were things I disagreed with and I didn’t at least say “I’m not sure I agree” in some form. I especially put myself out there and disagreed with many people when having our conversations about science and communication and expression. But mid-way though the semester, I remember noticing how easy participating became. Interestingly, I don’t think I ever hit a spot where speaking in Econ became safe to me, it was always a challenge and I often felt very inarticulate and nervous, particularly when I posited that we might be overvaluing life and death. However, when I recognized how I felt safe enough to speak in Ed/English, I made a conscious effort to be more articulate and meaningful with what I said—to still speak genuinely, but to put more deliberate thought into it.  I wonder if we had more time, if I would have become better at that, and if I would have eventually achieved a more challenging/less going-in-circles way of talking about the material. 

Reading

I also am quite proud of my reading improvement over the 360—I came in not having read much and especially not being used to a heavy reading load. For the first month or so I was pretty on top of it because I was so excited about the material, and it felt good coming to class prepared to speak. But, there was a point mid-semester around the end of February/early March when I think I fell off the reading train—I’d mainly say this was because of my struggles in chemistry and not having enough time, so I got behind, and then once I was behind I didn’t feel like I knew where to begin to catch up. I also was very intimidated by reading a whole book, All Over Creation, for Anne—I tried, I read sections and skimmed, but it wasn’t really sufficient to understand the characters or to engage deeply with the text, and I felt a bit paralyzed coming to class and not knowing exactly what to say. So, this was a lower point for me. But, I did soon get back into the readings, and it was a particularly proud/joyful moment when in Anne’s class I read (not skimmed or read sections of, I read) The Hungry Tide, and I loved it. I think at first being intimidated by reading a whole book and then failing made me want to read this book all the more, and I felt really proud when I did it. So, I do actually plan on going back and reading what I didn’t have time for mid-semester, but overall I’m proud of my progression and learning. Additionally, I think some readings were definitely more challenging than others—I’m thinking particularly of “Vaster Than Empires and More Slow” which was a different genre for me, and it took me a while to work through the poetic interpretive ideas in it because I’m so used to reading more literal texts, but I really loved the challenge since it was so relevant to porosity and eco-literacy. I’m so excited to continue my reading-journey as I soon will (hopefully) have more time to read. 

Writing

In terms of my writing, going back and reading through it all in chronologic order was eye-opening in a less tangible way. I could tell I have really grown as a writer, but it was hard to put my finger on how. One thing Anne and I talked about in conference was that perhaps I had gone from trying to answer/prove a question/idea, towards exploring/critiquing tensions and questions. I don’t think I ever exactly began a paper with clear intentions to prove something (which is good, in this case), but I do think I became more open to exploring contradictions and tensions and questions. However, the Children’s Lit paper I wrote about Narnia for Jody was not a high point in this—looking back, I could tell how much I struggled with it, and could see how I was trying really hard to make old readings fit. I think this connects with the mid-semester reading issue—it was right in the heart of that, and I think if I had been on top of my readings I would have more successfully approached the essay with a less-forced lens. Also, I find it interesting and relevant that I was attempting to write about a book (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), considering that was when I was really struggling with the idea of reading and writing about books and how to approach/use longer texts. This being said, I think I pushed through, learned a lot from this challenge, and my writing continued to get much better. I certainly learned how to more successfully use texts (including long ones/books) with practice. I do hope my last paper for Anne (hypothesis/home) was successful—I’m honestly having trouble gauging how well I did on it because it’s so recent (I wrote it over the past couple days)—I just don’t have enough space/time yet to be able to reflect (or diffract) on it. I would say it was my most challenging paper to write—it really pushed me to challenge some close to home ideas/preconceptions I have, and it was also tough to just work through the novel and make sense of the character development. Unlike the Narnia essay, I felt less like I was trying to force it into a mold, and more like I was exploring some key questions I have about home and science and who I am. In this way, it was the most meaningful paper to write. I’m excited to look back on it in a few weeks/months or even years maybe and see where I am with finding home in science, and where I am with expressing that whether via writing, talking, or visual interpretations.

A note on reading and writing on Serendip, I think I could have used the resource/tool better, I wish I had taken the time to read other people’s work more often (I did occasionally) or to post my thoughts more often (I also did occasionally). I could have used it as an art form like Sara mentioned in one of our classes with Ava.

Creative Component

On the topic of art forms and Ava, I feel like I did well but could have pushed my creative projects more. I came in with a background in visual arts, and it felt wonderful to once again be creating visual pieces like photography in Tinicum and my collage representing porosity when I missed the field trip. I could have delved a little more into the unknown, but I also didn’t especially feel like I had enough time to do so, and I felt like the emphasis was more on creating refined tight work, as opposed to exploring things I’m not “good at” or I am unsure of. This being said, I did love that we had a creative section to the course, and it helped me perhaps subconsciously think about our overarching theme of “home” since art is such an integral part of my home (my dad is an artist). So, I could have pushed myself more, and I have in the past been pushed much more artistically, but it felt connected and important.

Learning goals

Jody: re-imagining ecological literacy and environmental education more deeply and fruitfully with and for diverse students and communities
I feel very much like I grew in respect to the learning goals of Jody’s course. I came in having taken no education classes, but having experience with “interpretation” (a form of education)—and I feel like I have grown in many ways that I’m having trouble pinpointing now while still fresh out of the experience. That being said, I feel like I learned how to think differently. Throughout the semester, I began to critically look at myself/identity, my home, my past experiences, and really consider what type of relationship I have with the environment, and how and why I have it. And, building on that, I began to place my reflections of self within the context of my education, then placing all of this within the context of much larger educational and environmental frameworks. Going deep within myself, then stepping way out, facilitated a lot of realizations and growth around eco-literacy and education, and how I fit in to all this as a Bryn Mawr student, and as I go on in education-related park service work.

David: mastering analytical tools, using them for effective communication, understanding environmental challenges

Overall, I’m having trouble seeing as much growth in David’s class—perhaps because I came in with a very strong grasp on analytical tools, communicating with analytical tools, and using them to understand the environment—all through the lens of geology. I feel like I was quite able to build on my science/math background to help me understand the economic principles David taught. Yet, I also did struggle with some concepts, and there were points at which I could have come to David for help but instead opted to ask friends (both 360 friends and econ-major friends). If I were to redo the semester, I would have put more time into meeting independently with David, and then I might have seen more self-growth.

Perhaps another factor that impacted my growth was how we had significantly less time for discussion and the curriculum was less student-driven than in Anne/Jody’s classes. These factors didn’t allow me to gain quite as much in the realm of thinking differently and growth, but they did successfully teach me some new types of econ-specific analytical tools—so perhaps what I’m realizing is that I gained specific skills while in David’s class, and gained new ways of thinking/reframing/reinterpreting ideas in the other classes, neither of which is “better” and both of which are important. I wish I had pushed more to investigate capitalism as a system, breaking down the system and considering other options, instead of going about David’s coursework as one fellow 360 student put it, “assume capitalism, go.” I do recognize that I asked about this once or twice in class, but there didn’t seem to be time/space built in to class for these discussions, so I dropped it—I could have investigated in my own time, or discussed with David in office hours, and that could have helped me grow more. But, overall, I am walking away with a slightly better understanding of excel, a sense of how economists think and interpret data, and (probably unintended by David) more resistance to capitalist systems in general, which I can use to further investigate these systems in my own time after graduation.

Anne: increasing awareness of the limits and possibilities of all forms of representation, 
as well as the opposite: considering what might be imagined that has not yet been experienced!

I think most notably I learned to think differently in Anne’s class, just as in Jody’s class. I came in not having much experience with writing/reading (well, within the context of literary texts and English classes), and am leaving with so many burning questions around expression, representation, translation/interpretation/communication. So much of what I do in life centers on representation, just as a human being, but also as a budding science/environmental communicator. So, rethinking these ideas was mind-blowing many times, especially when we got really close to my home of science and subjectivity and communication/translation. I grew a lot, but I know I still have a lot of thinking/growing to do on these topics and in terms of representing my own self/ideas too. I’m glad I pushed myself to rethink, and now I have a base from which to continue pushing/learning/growing.