*What does the word "place" mean to you? What does the phrase "place conscious education" mean to you? How have the readings of this week expanded, informed, or changed your thinking about place and place conscious work?
When I began this class, I only had place conscious writing on my mind. I had not had time to really think through what place conscious education or teaching meant. These first readings have helped me to start to make connections with some of my previous work to place conscious education. David Sobel’s article, “Building a Three-Legged Stool of Academic Achievement, Social Capital, and Environmental Quality”, explained how place conscious work can help students connect with their community. As I read this article, I thought about my work when I first began teaching to begin a high ability learner program that included schoolwide enrichment. For about 5-6 weeks 4th-6th grade students were put in “Enrichment Clusters” on Fridays for an 1-1/2. They were put in clusters based on their interests like The Young Author’s Guild, The Technology Cluster, and The Environmental Studies Group just to name a few. The point was that students investigate an interest or a problem in order to create a “product” out of it. Not all clusters connected with the community, but some did through bringing in community speakers like the detective cluster had a police officer come talk to them and the archeology one had a person from Ashfall’s come speak to them. I remember the cluster that studied Laura Ingalls Wilder had an older woman in the community come teach them how to make butter and soaps. That cluster ended with a trip to South Dakota to see where Ingalls Homestead. Another cluster that studied the environment planted trees around the courthouse in O’Neill. The Author’s Guild wrote stories that were bound and distributed to local businesses. I think of some of the social capital that took place during cluster time was just the tip of the place conscious education David Sobel describes, but nonetheless, there were some place conscious things going on for those students. If you want to read more about enrichment clusters, click on the link and go to the Spring 2007 publication.
http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=1498
Sobel states that when doing place conscious education projects should be pursued within “four domains of work: curriculum integration, schoolyard enhancement, community-based education, and school sustainability” (p. 61). I can relate best to the community-based education piece. When I first began teaching, I earned an Americorp Teacher Grant. This money helped me go to school for my masters in gifted education, but in order to get the cash, I did service-learning projects with my students. I also helped the Americorp office at UNL put together a book with service-learning projects done by teachers in Nebraska. One of the coolest examples of things have done was from in Columbus, Nebraska.
http://www.higginsmemorial.com/Default.asp
Look at the credits and you can read a little about the teacher that made this happen. It’s incredible!
A final experience I want to share is a project my friend and colleague, Katie, and I did with our daughters and some of their friends. The girls started a group called the “Digital Divas” in order to enter a contest called Digies held by Apple. The girls wanted to do an original project that would help their community. Katie and I used what Apple calls Challenge Based Learning. http://ali.apple.com/cbl/
The girls decided that not enough people recycle in their hometown, so they came up with solutions for how to get others to become aware of how to recycle here in O’Neill. They created this website http://web.me.com/mrsmorrow/Digital_Divas_Go_Green/Welcome.html We decided to walk in the St. Patrick’s parade and pass out seed packets with a label on them with the web address. It was neat to see these girls in action as they called the local nursery to explain their project to donate the seed packets, they went to interview the people at the recycling center, and they did things on the computer that even I don’t know how to do! The girls won at the Digies AND they got the word out about the importance of recycling.
I suppose thus far, this is what place conscious education means to me because these are some of my experiences with it. Sobel’s article helped me make these connections.
After all this connecting, I started to think about what I can do NOW in my own classroom to spread place conscious education. I was inspired by Sharon’s work that she explained in the article “The Power of Place”. I like how she uses Nebraska authors and the land to inspire students’ reading and writing. I have found myself buying several books by Nebraska authors and about Nebraska over the summer. I really want to work with our science teacher to incorporate some of Loren Eiseley’s writing. I also want to use some of other stories about Nebraska and by Nebraska authors into my curriculum. I think the idea of gathering local histories sounds like something I may want to do, as well. We have a wonderful local historian in O’Neill that I am thinking of calling to see what she thinks we could do to help out the historical society. These are all the ideas floating around inside my head. This article helped me expand my thinking about place conscious education and where I want to take it.
Robert’s article helped me think more about what ‘place’ means. I grew up in O’Neill and went away for college, but came back to teach for seven years. Then I moved to Omaha for a couple of years, then back to O’Neill. I remember when I lived in Omaha, I was in an apartment and was at a new school. My daughter went to the same school I taught at, but I remember telling people I missed that sense of community I felt in O’Neill. My first year in Omaha was difficult because of this. The second year got better because Julia played soccer so I got to know those parents, but there was still something missing when we got home because we didn’t have a neighborhood and that same group of people that Julia went to school with and so on.
When Aaron and I started dating we were both living in Omaha, but both originally from O’Neill. We discussed ‘place’ a lot as we made decisions about our life together. Aaron was debating between med school and going ‘home’ to farm with his dad. I won’t go into the details (my post is already getting far too long!), but we both wanted to have a place where we could raise Julia and hopefully more kids. I guess the only way I can formulate into words what O’Neill is like for me is a hug. I have a community surrounding me and my family that is cozy and I like that. When I was in Omaha, I felt like I had no place. I was disjointed and didn’t know where Julia and I belonged. The question posed is: What does the word ‘place’ mean to you? I suppose I started to define it on my blog where I wrote about my places: Nebraska, O’Neill, & Home. I think the word place to me means ‘where you belong’.
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