So, was I really going to spend the whole time here talking to you about how I couldn't maintain the plans I made to save the world from climate change? About how I failed my New Year's resolution so we were all going to die?
The other day, I had to correct a student who made fun of a tiny sculpture another student made out of a kneaded eraser I let him use.
The kneaded eraser is like a fidget spinner, allowing a kid to manipulate something with his left hand while he completes his work with his right hand. It's better though, because it actually functions as an eraser and allows for bits of creative endeavor in the form of sculpture. I love handing a kid a kneaded eraser to work with when they can't sit still and focus. It's all about focus.
There was one kid for whom it didn't work because he didn't need a fidget and could focus already and he got distracted from his work by playing with the thing. I'm learning to hand out the kneaded erasers judiciously.
So, back to the student who made fun of the other kid's tiny dinosaur sculpture.
"That's a terrible dinosaur," she said looking over her shoulder, away from her work. "It doesn't even look like a dinosaur."
I think she was aggravated because I'd given her the kneaded eraser that she'd dirtied the time before and she wanted the clean one. I looked at her until she made eye contact with me.
"Please don't make judgments regarding someone else's artwork. People are where they are in there work and moving forward from there, not from where someone else thinks they should be."
"Why not?"
"Because I want you to use compassion?"
"You can't change the world."
"I can work to change my little corner of the world and in it, I want people to express compassion for each other."
And then she went off on a rant about how her life didn't contain any compassion so why should she give any to anyone else? It made me sad. I neglected to point out that she currently held my pastels in her hand and was working on my toned and textured paper even though she was there, ostensibly, to learn her math facts. That was compassion, wasn't it? I had figured that if I could teach her to focus for longer and longer periods at a time, that was as important a lesson as any. But instead of lecturing her, I let her rant while I thought of my own corner of the world and what I needed to do with it.
I did want a freer sense of learning than I had seen in the rest of the world around me, one with less judgment and more encouragement. I wanted an environment in which students found curiosity and the love of learning instead of the drudgery of worksheets and learning to the test.
And I still wanted to do my part to save the world from climate change. But what was that role? Believe it or not, I've been thinking about climate change almost daily since I last wrote to you.
In his book, The Songs of Trees, David George Haskell stated that we do ourselves and nature a disservice by mentally separating ourselves from the natural world. We are not separate. He wrote that where people have integrated themselves into the scenario, the local environment around them had become more beautiful even if it is urban. An urban setting is often thought of as separate from nature. Don't think of cities as apart from nature, he said, but find a way to foster nature within them and they become better habitat for animals and people. At least, I think that's what he meant.
I loved his book.
But I read it two or three pages at a time just before I fell asleep every night. I can't entirely say that he wrote everything I believe he wrote or if my mind just took a line or two and dreamed on it and turned it into something else every night.
Either way, I loved his book. I plan to read it again. I don't do that very often.
This book changed my world view. It really made me think about how I am not just a being, but a colony of beings, including bacteria and mites, that cannot survive without the other beings around me. These include the people I depend upon, Mike, Nick, my friends, my acquaintances, and myriad people who invented the infrastructure I live within every day. I still want to thank the guy who invented guardrails.
It's not just people that I depend on.
Three Western red cedar trees hold my house in place on the steep hillside. I am grateful to these ancient beings. I sit under them and look up into their boughs. I watch how droplets of rain hang from the tips of their needles like jewels. I think of their roots, clinging to rocks and holding the earth underneath me. I foster the seedlings they plant in my flower pots. They have a network of plants and fungus that grows around them.
The greenery around me freshens the air with oxygen and I in turn breathe out carbon dioxide for them. Have you ever wondered the effects of looking at your houseplants when you water them? Do they breathe in the nice CO2 with the same joy with which I breathe in their exhaled oxygen? We are lovely together, the plants and I. We depend on each other.
But we are still exhaling too much carbon dioxide to maintain the nice balance we need. Coral reefs are bleaching. Polar ice is melting. The trees can't keep up and as an integral part of this environment, I want to keep trying to move toward a better balance.
Balance is the key to a fruitful life.
So, did you know that some bright scientist/inventor at a company called Blue Planet has figured out a way to harden concrete building materials with carbon? They're even saying it is more flexible to endure earthquakes.
I really think that Andy Weir said it right, "We need to science the shit out of this problem."
And it may be my job to tell you about these brilliant new ideas and discuss whether or not they're going to work for us.
No, I don't come up with the ideas, but I can definitely spread them and think about their consequences. Maybe that's my role in saving my little corner of the world.
And maybe I should start washing out my Ziploc bags.
Thank you for listening, jules
"
The other day, I had to correct a student who made fun of a tiny sculpture another student made out of a kneaded eraser I let him use.
The kneaded eraser is like a fidget spinner, allowing a kid to manipulate something with his left hand while he completes his work with his right hand. It's better though, because it actually functions as an eraser and allows for bits of creative endeavor in the form of sculpture. I love handing a kid a kneaded eraser to work with when they can't sit still and focus. It's all about focus.
There was one kid for whom it didn't work because he didn't need a fidget and could focus already and he got distracted from his work by playing with the thing. I'm learning to hand out the kneaded erasers judiciously.
So, back to the student who made fun of the other kid's tiny dinosaur sculpture.
"That's a terrible dinosaur," she said looking over her shoulder, away from her work. "It doesn't even look like a dinosaur."
I think she was aggravated because I'd given her the kneaded eraser that she'd dirtied the time before and she wanted the clean one. I looked at her until she made eye contact with me.
"Please don't make judgments regarding someone else's artwork. People are where they are in there work and moving forward from there, not from where someone else thinks they should be."
"Why not?"
"Because I want you to use compassion?"
"You can't change the world."
"I can work to change my little corner of the world and in it, I want people to express compassion for each other."
And then she went off on a rant about how her life didn't contain any compassion so why should she give any to anyone else? It made me sad. I neglected to point out that she currently held my pastels in her hand and was working on my toned and textured paper even though she was there, ostensibly, to learn her math facts. That was compassion, wasn't it? I had figured that if I could teach her to focus for longer and longer periods at a time, that was as important a lesson as any. But instead of lecturing her, I let her rant while I thought of my own corner of the world and what I needed to do with it.
I did want a freer sense of learning than I had seen in the rest of the world around me, one with less judgment and more encouragement. I wanted an environment in which students found curiosity and the love of learning instead of the drudgery of worksheets and learning to the test.
And I still wanted to do my part to save the world from climate change. But what was that role? Believe it or not, I've been thinking about climate change almost daily since I last wrote to you.
In his book, The Songs of Trees, David George Haskell stated that we do ourselves and nature a disservice by mentally separating ourselves from the natural world. We are not separate. He wrote that where people have integrated themselves into the scenario, the local environment around them had become more beautiful even if it is urban. An urban setting is often thought of as separate from nature. Don't think of cities as apart from nature, he said, but find a way to foster nature within them and they become better habitat for animals and people. At least, I think that's what he meant.
I loved his book.
But I read it two or three pages at a time just before I fell asleep every night. I can't entirely say that he wrote everything I believe he wrote or if my mind just took a line or two and dreamed on it and turned it into something else every night.
Either way, I loved his book. I plan to read it again. I don't do that very often.
This book changed my world view. It really made me think about how I am not just a being, but a colony of beings, including bacteria and mites, that cannot survive without the other beings around me. These include the people I depend upon, Mike, Nick, my friends, my acquaintances, and myriad people who invented the infrastructure I live within every day. I still want to thank the guy who invented guardrails.
It's not just people that I depend on.
Three Western red cedar trees hold my house in place on the steep hillside. I am grateful to these ancient beings. I sit under them and look up into their boughs. I watch how droplets of rain hang from the tips of their needles like jewels. I think of their roots, clinging to rocks and holding the earth underneath me. I foster the seedlings they plant in my flower pots. They have a network of plants and fungus that grows around them.
The greenery around me freshens the air with oxygen and I in turn breathe out carbon dioxide for them. Have you ever wondered the effects of looking at your houseplants when you water them? Do they breathe in the nice CO2 with the same joy with which I breathe in their exhaled oxygen? We are lovely together, the plants and I. We depend on each other.
But we are still exhaling too much carbon dioxide to maintain the nice balance we need. Coral reefs are bleaching. Polar ice is melting. The trees can't keep up and as an integral part of this environment, I want to keep trying to move toward a better balance.
Balance is the key to a fruitful life.
So, did you know that some bright scientist/inventor at a company called Blue Planet has figured out a way to harden concrete building materials with carbon? They're even saying it is more flexible to endure earthquakes.
I really think that Andy Weir said it right, "We need to science the shit out of this problem."
And it may be my job to tell you about these brilliant new ideas and discuss whether or not they're going to work for us.
No, I don't come up with the ideas, but I can definitely spread them and think about their consequences. Maybe that's my role in saving my little corner of the world.
And maybe I should start washing out my Ziploc bags.
Thank you for listening, jules
"
