public Education

            Richard Kahn’s article really speaks a lot about the conspiracy of public schools only teaching students to be average, or not giving students the ability to move up in life.  Public schools teach only what the “state” wants them to teach.  What if the state only produces a curriculum that teaches enough for the students to learn new things but does not teach them to be great and to really raise their intellectual level.

            If this is true, which Richard Kahn is pretty well convinced it is, then what can be done to rise up against this problem?  Should the teachers take partial blame for this?  Maybe it is the teacher’s fault.  Nobody really knows what goes on in the classrooms besides the teacher and the students.  If the teacher was actually teaching the “hard stuff” then who would know?        

            If I was in their position I think I would be able to pull off accelerating the students minds instead of keeping them in one place. I would teach the students how to actually think instead of just memorize.  Memorization is vital in the learning process but that’s not all that needs to be taught.  These days and even my own generation, kids are taught to just go through the motions instead of learning how to be independent.  How is our world ever going to get out of an economic or environmental crisis if nobody can develop an innovative mind to think outside the box and come up with solutions to the most disastrous problems?

            This is the problem but what is the solution?  You can easily say just teach the students upper level curriculum but the state issues certain tests to see if the teachers are teaching the right standards, and if they fail the teacher is fired.  This is another major problem.  Whatever the solution is it needs to be done fast.  Maybe it’s actually standing up against the man and taking charge! 

The last time I read out of Turtle Island, which was on the 14th of September 2012, I found it pretty hard to relate to bioregionalism.  Maybe I'm just not getting the concept but from what I read, to me, was not relating to bioregionalism at all.

Turtle island, second reading.

I found all of the poems that i just read to be mostly about mother nature and drugs.  Either way they both directed back to the main point of place, or environmentalism, or bioregionalism.  He really speaks a lot about saving the earth, or what humans can do to prevent/stop the total end to this earth.

Anasazi

This poem is very interesting. The Anasazi poem explains a good bit of the anasazi culture in such a short period of time.  Agricultural themes are mentioned, a sense of their home is mentioned, reproduction, and also religion. This is a great example of our class theme of "place".

What was learned from Bill McKibben

Climate Change is drastically affecting the United States. When this statement is heard by most people, one would most likely just shrug it off.  Bill McKibben is trying to bring this issue to public realization. Evaporation rates change immensely when the temperature rises or lowers just a few notches. This is a big deal because recently in the passed few years there has been noticeable rises in temperature and water resources are running low because of this. Bill McKibben says humans might not have the resources and technology yet, to stop major catastrophes that are heading this way in the near future.

Bill McKibben

It's scary to hear somebody this intelligent say that we are basically doomed.  Bill says that he sees major catastrophic problems in the near future and he says that we probably wont be able to stop them.  Between Bill and Roderick we have two extremes.  Roderick is looking for solutions, he thinks in the future we will make this earth into a better place like it used be.  Roderick doesn't see any major catastrophe's coming along anytime soon that will completely wipe the human race out.  Bill on the other hand talks as if something big, some huge force is going to come along and doom us all and we have no way in stopping it because the damage we have caused upon the Earth is already done and we cannot go back and change anything.

Pollution:civilization

            Pollution in this day and age, as everyone predominately already knows, is a huge environmental factor.  For example, major factories that expert large amounts of pollution deeply affect many living things.  Plants degrade, the air gets harder and harder to breathe in, and it can also destroy your lungs!

            I believe that because of pollution, Island Civilizations would be a terrific idea. Creating these islands, and going green for the earth would cut down the amount of pollution we produce drastically.  Cutting down pollution could possibly increase human’s life span, increase plant life span, and make the overall food we eat a whole lot healthier than it is now.       

            The only downside to eliminating pollution is that it might cut an enormous amount of jobs.  What would people do if a major paper producing company were shut down? How would they obtain money for their families or even themselves? It is extremely hard to find work these days as it is, let alone finding work when all the major companies around the world are shut down! 

            This is such an easy topic to ramble about for myself because this has happened in two towns that I have lived in, in the passed two years.  In one town a major cabinet manufacturing company shut down which forced almost every family in town to leave and find work in a larger city.  The other town has a major paper company, which pollutes everything for miles around.  It was a terrible place to be a runner because it was often hard to breathe and the smell was awful.