Above you can see me with my relay team after our race in mid-February.
I realized today how long it has been since I have updated this blog. So much has happened.
One of the baby goats died, but another was born to our other female goat. The names of the two that survived were Gretchen and Coulter, and until we realized that Gretchen is a boy...his name is now Grendel.
We taught our first elective classes last week, and yet again this week. That means we have nearly four hours to teach whatever we'd like. The students decide which class they want to take. I taught animal tracking and had a blast. This past week we found bobcat tracks which was really fun for the kids.
I celebrated my birthday by going out to karaoke with my roommates. It was a lot of fun. We went to a small tourist town called Idyllwild that is about 20 minutes up the mountains from here. There was pizza before we went to the bar.
I am also job hunting for the summer pretty extensively. I have an interview on Tuesday for a job I want in N. Wisconsin.
I will be going paint balling again next Sunday at a course complete with a Jungle section with a river! It should be really fun.
I read the book Water for Elephants this past week and really enjoyed it.
I know this is really disjointed but it's better than nothing right?!
In April there is an AEOE conference where environmental educators from around the state will get together for workshops. I am applying for a scholarship to help pay for it. Below is my essay.
There are many people with stories of knowing what they wanted to be as a child and attaining that goal as an adult. Tales like that may be inspiring, but it would be a lie if I told you my life turned out that way. I was always one to bounce from one dream to another, never settling or standing still for long. I went from dreaming of being a paleontologist to a marine biologist in what must have seemed like a blink of an eye to my parents. Before they knew it I was painting over the whale mural in my bedroom and scrawling words across the ceiling with my dream of being a writer. That one lasted a bit longer—only to be derailed by a desire to be the best marketing person the world had ever seen. I never considered a life as a naturalist. I didn't know that it was an option.
I graduated college with a BA in English Writing, a minor in Philosophy and no idea what it was I would do with my life. I had spent much of college working in Outdoor Education and I loved that, but I viewed it as something to do during college, not after. I had been taught from a young age that I needed a “real job” 401k, insurance, and all after college. So that is what I ended up finding. I suffered for three years in front of a computer in an office writing manuals. I found myself stealing away at lunch to sit in the forest nearby—wishing that there was a way I could be outside for a job, a way to help the planet while I worked.
I started reading more and more environmental literature in my free time, pummeling through book after book and feeling more and more that something was missing in my life. I joined campaigns to remove dams, protect rivers, and clean up the area where I lived. This didn't seem like enough, however. I saw children spending their entire childhoods sitting in desks or staring at screens full of video games. Something needed to change, and I wanted to be a part of that change. Finally, I read Last Child in the Woods and realized what it was I needed to do with my life. I quit my job, sold most of my possessions, and entered a graduate naturalist program in Minnesota. Nearly two years later I am now here in California, teaching and working outside.
Working as a naturalist I combined all of my passions. I could tell stories, share poetry, teach ecology, and be a walking commercial for the planet. When it comes to my view of Environmental Education (EE) the most important thing is the physical environment. One might ask about the education half of EE, but for me it is really education for the environment. Potentially mistaken as advocacy—what I mean is not that—through my teaching I hope to help children to care about an environment they oftentimes do not have a relationship with. My goal is for the planet to be a healthier place because of the connections with the land that I help to foster with my teaching. I hold it to be true that in order to be a truly great educator a teacher must be passionate about the subject matter at hand. With the well defined drive and goal of helping the planet I feel that I fit into the (flexible) mold of an Environmental Educator. I use my knowledge and compassion for living things to help children see the importance of the natural world and keeping it healthy.
One of the things that I do to continue to spread the word about the environment and what I do is to compete in slam poetry competitions and readings. Below and continuing on the following page you will find a poem that I wrote about being an environmental educator. I have plans to develop a slam poetry lesson that I will teach to students. Spoken word seems to speak to them so much more than other literary forms.
Misunderstood
By: AZ
Yeah, I'm a teacher
but not the normal kind
I teach classes, you see
where children go outside.
And I hear day after day
year after year
from teachers whose classrooms have walls...
"Little Timmy isn't the best behaved"
"Suzy cries and lies and probably can't be saved."
These are the children of our future
and hope has already started to wain
but aren't the geniuses
those most often misunderstood?
Isn't Einstein an example
of a child they said couldn't
but could?
Does it really do any good to base anything at all
on a child enslaved by education's walls?
I think the real gems of students
are those who can't pull their eyes off the windows--
the ones who sit, jittery in their seats--
who dispose of their ADHD medication, secretively.
I see more soul in the eyes of the child who
taps incessantly on her desk,
the one with a beat so deep inside her,
it CAN'T be suppressed.
(continued on next page)
This is a poem for the children who despise
single file lines,
the lost boys and girls who just want to be outside.
It's a plea to the teachers who judge them while they're in--
Take them out and watch the children be
as they should have always been.
Teach them to love the land
by pointing to trees, not books
attune that girl's tapping heart
with a babbling brook.
No need out here to worry
of the boy's eyes looking out.
Out is where we are.
...Where children laugh and learn
without walls that are bars.
This is a poem for the misunderstood minds,
screaming to be wild.
It's for the exploring heart
that's in every child.
It's for the drop outs that saw
more life outside than in,
For the counselors, outdoor educators,
the adults that refuse to judge
the wandering children.
It's for waking up to the sunrise
and hiking at night.
The rough bark of ancient trees
and a bird's very first flight.
It's for the child in all of us
that still glances to the window--
For the Einsteins, the Timmys
and the Suzys we all know.
Because like Einstein they're examples
of students they said couldn't, that could.
I think the geniuses are the ones
most often misunderstood.
I miss you all and hopefully I'll be getting you letters soon.
-AZ
