Project Reflections
| Date | Place | Reflections |
| 1/17/06 | Orca Books | I so enjoyed looking at books on education. The one I am most interested in is called The Geography of Childhood: Why children need wild places. I also got a book called Methods that Matter which is about best practices classrooms and how to teach to many learning styles. |
| 1/18/06 | Longhouse and AEC classroom | I appreciated seeing so many people at the first LNY meeting. I was challenged by my need to see the big picture in order to understand what our goals are. I asked some questions and also asked for people to commit to certain tasks. I was suprised at how vocal I was and found myself worrying that I was too pushy. I am starting to feel called to leadership, yet still have a lot of fear around being a leader. |
| 1/20/06 | @ home | I was shocked at how much time I spent trying to send an email to everyone interested in the Goddess Circle. I am really,really excited about this group and am starting to see a possible form for our meetings. I hope that we can wait until after LNY is complete, so that I can really focus on this group. |
| 1/21/06 | The Greenery | There are a lot of us interested in the Education Seminar Group. We had a lot of interesting conversation about what we think is needed in education and also shared some of our personal interest in being in this group. Our plan is to each bring 2 or 3 book ideas to class Wed. We talked about maybe reading one book as a group and also reading others independently. There is a lot of interest in developing curriculum which is great!!!! |
| 1/25/06 | Sem II | We met for about a half an hour to talk about our plans for the Education Seminar group: we have decided to break into two groups one for theory and one for curriculum. I am torn, because I am interested in the theory of education, but I want to stay focused on things I can do with my kids, so curriculum seems to be the most effective way to do that. I am also wanting to have enough time to work on the goddess circle, so I really need to stay realistic about what I can do. |
| 1/28/06 | Home | I spent several hours reading in preparation for our first curriculum meeting. I am reading a book called To Listen To A Child which is about child development, and another called Celebrating the Great Mother which is about earth based sprituality for children and may be the best book of it's kind I have ever read. The other book I am reading is called The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places which is also really interesting. I am interested to see what we dicide as a group to work toward, and how all of this amazing information will come together. |
| 1/29/06 | My house | We had the first Curriculum Group meeting today. Nikki and Stephanie came over. Nikki brought some fabulous books on projects to do with kids. I am inspired by how much is out there. We have decided to compile activities for kids focusing on Seasons, Elements and Celebrations. We are also going to learn about Multiple Intelligences and see if we can apply what we learn to our curriculum work. Our goal is to have a book of project plans to present at the end of the quarter. I am also planning to do many of these projects with my kids, so that they can benefit from the project work I am doing |
| 2/03/06 | TaiJi workshop@ Longhouse | I have been looking forward to this workshop for months and it was better than I expected. ChuenLiang was so inspiring... I really got a sense of how we can move Chi around and within us. I also feel deeply connected to everything around me. I have always really enjoyed our TaiJi practice in class and was grateful to already be familiar with the form he taught us. I think I was able to let my whole self have the experience in part because I wasn't struggling to remember the motions. I was most impacted by the visualization we did about pulling in gold and crystals(metal) into our belly: as a metaphor for everything good or bad that we experience: and then remembering to release it back to the earth: Letting Go...Wow....I so enjoyed being part of a group of varied people and seeing how we were all the same within this workshop...I also danced like I haven't danced in a long time. After the workshop, Abby, Victoria, Natalie and I went to the sauna in the rec center...My first time there... again...Wow...I feel really connected to many of the people in this class and am learning as much from them as anything else we are doing...Wow... |
| 2/04/06 | LNY Longhouse | What a joyous celebration!!! I was really worried about leading our liberal arts seminar, and spent some time with Victoria seminaring about our roles as leaders, but when the time came to do it, I felt calm and relaxed. I think I did a pretty good job of offering input when it seemed called for and it seemed to help the conversation continue. I still am exhilarated by singing with Hannah and Victoria. When it was suggested, I was really thinking of our TaiJi workshop and the encouragment to try to move out of our comfort zone. Although I don't think I stayed on key at all, it was hopefully not too painful for the audience,and it was such a joyous risk for me! I was blown away by all of the talent gathered together... I especially enjoyed the Lion Dance and Stewart Dempsters performance. One of the topics that keeps coming up for me is my fear of showing my whole self (shadow included) in public...I call it my fear of being burned at the stake.... when we all danced and howled at the very end I felt some of that fear loosening it's grip...Wow... |
| 2/08/06 | Batdorf@Bronson | I made a list of the main deities we are working with for the Goddess Circle and emailed it to the group... I was challenged by the number of ways to interpret any one of thier stories. There seem to be many interpretations of each goddess. I am excited to see what we generate together and how rich and complex our image of these deities will be. |
| 2/9/06 | L.P.Brown Elementary | I volunteered in Dylan's class today for Abby. I really enjoyed it. My role was to sit and listen to about 8-10 kids take turns reading out loud. I was suprised by the range of experience in each group. I saw varying degrees of frustration and boredom. In the second group the kids were bored with the story the first time around (there was time to read it twice) and so I read it aloud to them, feeling a bit guilty to be changing the rules, but also frustrated that they were expected to read the same boring story twice. There was one little boy in the second group that sat down right next to me and told me that he wasn't going to read out loud. I let him know that was fine; all I could think about was how developmentally unprepared this kid was for reading at 6 years old... and how he was being trained to fail at such a young age... After that I had luch with Dylan and then helped put some copy paper away in the office and then went to have lunch with Aila. All in all it was a good day. |
| 2/10/06 | Writing Center Goddess Circle | The first Goddess Circle rocked my world... We looked at the way our current hierarchy leaves us with so few options that are socially accepted,and talked about how to create and even just personally value a wider range of behaviors. We also saw how Zeus, in trying to prevent Athena from being born (because she was prophesied to be more intelligent than he was) swallowed her mother (tried to take power over women's wisdom) and ended up having vicious headaches until he had his head split open by another god to let Athena out. She was massively intelligent, but much of her work was in support of the hierarchy (Go Zeus)... Much of our time was spent looking at Artemis who seemed to capture all of our imaginations...Who here doesn't love the idea of frolicking in the woods with Nymphs and dogs and helping disimpowered folk? |
| 2/16/06 | L.P.Brown | I volunteered in Dylan's Classroom for Abby again. Today we read out loud for a few minutes and then went to see the 5th grade science fair, which was really cool...Lots of mold, growing things and even a girl who looked at how our heart rate differs when we hear different types of music...Cool... When we got back to class I practiced some subversive unschooling- The kids in my group were done reading the story we had been assigned and found a map of the US elsewhere in the book: They were all really engaged and so I had them go around the circle and read a state out loud and tell us what color it was. This went over really well, so then we started looking for different states together and talking about directions and how to find North, South, East and West... They loved it and they were reading!!! |
| 2/19/06 | Writing Center Goddess Circle |
Victoria and I went to see the Vagina Monologues, and then we had the 2nd Goddess Circle... Wow... I got a bit het up about the way we hold Mothers accountable for all aspects of their child's behavior...We were talking about kids and education and our personal experiences and over and over (myself included) our judgement on kids' problems went back to how they were mothered... Where was she, how was her mental health, what was she doing for her kids? As I realized this I was struck by the huge lack of accountability of fathers and of society as a whole for our childrens well being. I was struck by the way that Mothers are screwed no matter how they choose to parent... Staying at home with your kids? You have no value, no drive, no future and what will you do when the kids grow up? What happens if your partner leaves you for someone with a life? How will you support these kids? If you're working then the kids' being raised by someone else and that is not how kids are meant to be raised...Watch out, that kid won't be securely attached, well behaved or something and it's all because that bad mother wasn't at home where she belonged... It seems very convenient to me that we keep the focus on mothers and away from our culture which doesn't have our childrens' welfare as a priority, and still limits how economically independent women can be, especially if they want to be a mama. Seems like blaming the victim to me... But looking at it from another angle I see that I personally don't have to buy into these very narrow and limited beliefs...and in acknowledging this, perhaps I can allow myself the freedom to grow beyond them.... |
| 2/26/06 | CAB | The Curriculum Group met and we came up with a pretty creative presentation outline. We are going to teach a very abreviated Multiple Intelligence Curriculum about Garbage... |
| 2/26/06 | Writing Center | This goddess circle we talked about Hera and Persephone. Hera is one abused chick... sometimes I get frustrated because we are looking at patriarchal goddesses and I want to look at the overall institution that they represent such as Marriage... But we did have some insightful chat about the nature of abuse and power... Something that interested me about Persephone was her choice to eat the pomegrante seeds (and so stay in the underworld for 1/3 of the year) after she was free to leave... We talked about escaping obsessed mothers, but I think it has more to do with a desire to explore and know both the light and the dark/ conscious and subconscious. We also made a plan for our presentation (It's gonna rock!!) |
| 2/28/06 | L.P.Brown | I helped Aila's class with a ceramics project today...They are making a huge ceramic mosaic: They designed a poster of Washington's symbols/nature images then broke it into a grid and each kid had a small piece of the larger picture to recreate on a clay slab: this is difficult to describe, I guess it was like puzzle pieces, when they were done the whole thing was put together and it looks really amazing (there is still glazing, firing and grouting to be done). This piece of art will be part of a big auction which will help fund future activities for the students (Go PTA!). I was so impressed with the many ways the kids chose to recreate their piece of the puzzle: some "drew" the picture with a paperclip and left it at that, others made complex textures, still others added raised elements out of clay. It was a great example of how we each have a unique gift or perspective which can be joined together to create something greater than the sum of its parts: Synergy |
| 3/4/06 | Synergy Conference | Wow! Synergy was really inspiring... I went to the Gypsy Nation event, which I didn't know was a silent community until right before I went in... I found it to be a powerful and challenging experience: I love to dance, and often dance alone, but to do so in a community was very new. I found it challenging to stay aware of the people around me without becoming self conscious, and I wished for some ideas in the opening circle of ways to communicate non-verbally... I had a rather sweet experience dancing where I became very aware of my fear of others' judgement, and through dance saw that it had me confined in a narrow way of being in the community, I was able to move the energy around me in a way that expanded the container around me. I do feel a sense of wonder and courage and realness that is fresh and new...wow, the power of movement for healing ourselves... I also went to the human flowering costuming workshop with my 2 year old, we made a yellow and orange petal skirt: It is hard to sew with a toddler on your lap!! I was inspired by the use of recycled materials and the passion that Shari has for her work...Rowan and I spent most of the day wandering around, exploring and meeting folks: she has so much curiosity and no self consciousness, I found myself having many, many more conversations than I would have if I was on my own... Thank Goddess for two year olds! I went to the Ceili dance event with Victoria on Friday night: Wow what a difference from the Gypsy dance... Bright lights, live music and so,so,so much laughing!!! A totally different way of building community: outside in, rather than the inside out focus of Gypsy Nation. On Saturday I brought my 3 girls and my 15 year old nephew to see the music and play in the twig forts... they had a great time. I then took them home and attended the Friends of the Trees lecture. Skeeter built on what Marja has taught us this quarter. He talked about land management, and his belief that humans will be an integral part of restoring our native lands... lots of info on the ways that Native Americans used advanced techniques to maintain the forests, water and fields. I think it makes a lot of sense that we are slowly learning that we have to be interactive, humble participants of our environment if we want to create a healthy ecosystem. We are neither dominant nor unneccisary. It will require all of our creative thinking, hard work and cooperation skills to create a biodiverse, ALIVE planet that can sustain life for many future generations. |
| 3/05/06 | Victoria's house | Last Goddess Circle: APHRODITE!!! This goddess can be summed up for me in a sentence: She is all about an unattached fascination with the world around her!!!! |
| 2/22/06 | Home | This happened awhile ago, but I wanted to add it now: Playing a game with Dylan (my 7 year old daughter) Dylan: Mom, to play this game you have to put your feet here. Me: At the edge of the rug? D: Yes, and then we jump M: onto the rug? D: yes M: OK I think I've got it D: Wait! Wait. hold my hand and we'll jump together. On the count of three... One...Two... M: Wait! slow down, I want to count too... D&M: One...Two...Three... (JUMP) D&M: we did it! D: now come over here and we'll do it together again. When Dylan found me writing down what we had done together , and I explained that I was learning about kids from her, she was so inspired! She checked my work for accuracy and insisted that I correct a few things, then she drew a picture of what we had done. I so appreciate her!! |
