Reflections

When I began this class, I wasn’t quite sure where it was headed or where I was headed. I’m still not quite sure, but as someone aims to be a life-long learner and a responsible citizen, and who sees very shortly the day when she’ll have to start figuring out her own career and professional goals, this class has offered a lot of tools to approach that future. Some aspects gave me words to describe something that I already had a sense of, like the interconnectedness of everything. In other ways, this class definitely pushed me--for example, just looking at environment, and what that word means. Before, I had only really used it to refer to the ‘natural’ environment, locations away from urban and suburban areas. Now, I think that I have a more complex view of environment, and it referring to all sorts of physical, social, political, economic, etc. aspects of a place, and that these are often inextricable from each other. I definitely can’t use the words natural or unnatural without really thinking about what I’m saying or trying to communicate, although I am still at a loss for words to replace them, and I get the feeling that maybe the point is that they don’t need replacing. This class has caused a lot of tension and discomfort in some areas, because it asked us to (as per the course title) imagine ways of looking at the world that are not the ways the world is structured. In trying to examine our lives and the world in addition to texts and language, we attempted a lot that was outside the scope of an English or even environmental studies class, and sometimes it could (and should) strike close to the way we conduct our own lives. That said, I feel like the journey is just beginning. These are definitely ideas, possibilities and imaginings that I personally have not quite sorted out, fully understood or know entirely how to apply to my life. I feel like this is one of those classes where some things struck me now, and some things will strike me in a few years or more.

In terms of my role as a student and a member of this class, I felt like I fell somewhere in the middle in terms of contributing to class and online discussions. I tried say what I had to say while not overspeaking and while still adding to the discussion in a constructive manner (ie trying to not repeat others and not looping back if we’d already changed the conversation). I started figuring out in this class that for me there’s a balance between what I have happening internally during a discussion—thoughts that pop into my head whether related or not—and the larger conversation occurring. Looking back over my in-class notes most of them are my own side thoughts or reactions to what the class on a whole was discussing; I was definitely still listening and engaging even when I was not speaking. Perhaps this is where I should bring up another resource that I felt I could have utilized more—Serendip. Several days I left class still processing many of the ideas and theories we looked at and some days even did write a little bit on my thoughts and feelings. Perhaps should have taken a page out of Caleb’s book and actually posted some of my own internal struggle online afterwards.  I think that this would have been more helpful to my classmates (and certainly more ecological) to have not kept those thoughts private. The times that I felt that I contributed most to the learning of others was through the collaborative projects and the teach-in; in day-to-day classroom interactions I think I was more reserved. I did attempt to pose questions to think about or that the group may have be interested in exploring, so perhaps that was helpful to others in trying to think about the material. I know that all of my classmates helped my learning in simply creating and being open to create a class as friendly and connected as this one was, a rare event in an academic classroom setting.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the web events. My own writing in that arena was a mixed bag. None of it was traditional, but all of it I think was helpful to my growth as a writer. There were some days (many days actually) where I wished that I could pace through some of these ideas in the form of a more straightforward, analytical English essay, and I knew that was always an option. My second web event attempted something of the sort, except presented in a different and more ecological format. That and many other of my events failed, I think, because I simply attempted too much. I was too ambitious in the material I wanted to cover in such a short space—perhaps not unlike this class on a whole. To me though, the ecological thought is a bit ambitious. The most significant part of the web events in my opinion was the ability to bring in whatever I was passionate about outside of class into class. The freedom was daunting and sometimes we ran away with it a bit, but I think that it let us actually engage with ideas and possibilities outside the classroom that we were excited about. I know that none of my web events were perfect, but the ideas that I generated in writing them, and the process of stepping outside my comfort zone as a writer ultimately meant more to me as a student than an focusing solely on the product.  

My final piece of writing for this class fell along the same lines as the others. In looking back, I was a bit ambitious. Still, I think even from my first plan for a class that was my first web event, this plan is even more solid (if still imperfect), and most importantly might even reflect something that I might want to attempt at some point in my life. For me that relevance, even though sometimes I struggled to fully comprehend everything, was what made this class one that will stick with me for a while.  Thank you all for an challenging and unique semester!