My Attempt at Living a Life

THE START: I’m a teacher and when I sit down to plan my year I always start with the curriculum and ask how I can engage students – through those outcomes -   to do meaningful work, creating meaningful products, or to solve real problems.   If we want to engage our students and grow their understanding. We need to be rooted in the curriculum and have an understanding of why it matters to our students and to the world at large. That set of skills and that content need to be framed in a way that is engaging, and meaningful. It must exist outside the wall of the school.   We need to create connections with students, working and learning alongside them. (Fullan & Langworthy, n.d.) We need to have the skills, the deep roots to help them grow. This will help us to develop deep learning in our clases. To extend this metaphor, we need to have deep roots. Peter Wohllenben’s book, The Hidden Life of Trees gives us an understanding of how these deep roots make connections between

Mr. Jones is on the left In my teaching practice, I always look for ways that will engage students in meaningful work. Creating things that matter in the world is an important part of what I do. Yong Zhao discusses this meaningful work in his talk, "World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students" at the Debate on Education, and event organized by Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia) in 2013.  Zhao says that schools have been "sausage makers" in the past. Getting kids to do well on standardized tests, and trying to make them all into one thing, isn't working. And in that statement we can all find great truth. We know that our system is not working optimally.  Zhao says that we need to hyperspecialize. Testing a fish on how well it can climb a tree is wrong. And we can all agree with that statement too. But, there is a flaw in the logic. We aren't fish, and monkeys, and birds. We are humans. All of us. And we ha

  Inspiration Through Social Media  I first encountered ACAP Saint John through Facebook . A friend of mine, who enjoys volunteer work, posted about the Marsh Creek Cleanup , in 2018. I saw it as an opportunity to get out of the how and make a meaningful impact. It was low-risk and high impact. I could get garbage out of an important waterway, and it took such a small time commitment.  Things like that clean-up make it easy for people to get involved and feel like they are having an impact and that is what drew me to the organization in 2018.  It's what draws me to them as a source of vigor again today. Overview According to the ACAP SJ website, they seek to create change by providing environmental solutions: "Since 1992, ACAP Saint John has become known for partnering and working with the community to help provide solutions to existing and pending environmental problems." (ACAPSJ, 2022) Programs ACAP Saint John engages in a variety of projects Saint John Harbour Cleanup

 The Consuming Hope and Sadness of Consuming I have kept a journal of my consumption habits for a week. The feeling I get is a mixture of hope and despair. At one point this week, I was sitting at my dining room table, with my head in my hands, wondering if it was possible to make all of the changes I would need to make, in order to live as sustainably as I wanted.  The amount of product knowledge I need to accumulate is staggering. It is helpful to know what I do not know. But it is also scary. With that in mind, what follows is a week in my life as a consumer – the ads I see and how they influence me, the way I use water, how I travel, the products I use, how I spend money - everything I could account for. A Note About Reading This Sustainability Reflective Journal I will make general statements about daily habits and products I use here, to avoid repetition. That way I don’t have to write about brushing my teeth each day with the same toothpaste, or about travelling to work each day