For Blessed Unrest book group: enter your reading homework for the first three questions here (and enter the last response on your topic page).
| 3/2 | 3/9 | 3/16 | 3/23 | 3/30 |
| Ch 1, 2 & 3 (p. 48) | Ch 4 & 5 (p. 86) | Ch 6 & 7 (p. 138) | Ch 8 & 9 (p. 190) | Appendix sections appropriate to your presentation topic |
- Explain how one idea in the reading relates to other topics already covered in class or something you learned elsewhere (another class or life experience).
- List what you think are the three to five most important points made in the reading.
- Write a question to provoke discussion among others who read the same passage.
April 14, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Week Five:
1. My topic was education and in the Appendix there was a section on Art Education. This is what I do at work. I am a nanny and I get so much joy from teaching the children about art, not only from this culture, but from other cultures. I think that it is an important step for children to make the connection between their own culture and other cultures around the world. Art is a perfect method for this connection to happen in small children.
2. Main Points:
*Creating and enhancing access to education.
*Education helps bridge the gap between what people know and what they need to know in order to make well-informed decisions.
*The goal of environmental education is to create a world population that is aware of, and concerned about, the environment and human impacts on the environment.
*Green schools – to teach and foster environmental awareness and sustainability.
*Sustainable education importance.
3. Why aren’t more students my age (early 20’s) looking for organizations to get involved with? Many people are… but I know SO MANY students here in Santa Cruz who claim to have the knowledge and claim to walk the walk when they are so uninvolved. Why is this? Are we all just too wrapped up in our own lives to care?
April 14, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Week Four:
1. This passage really speaks to me in the way that Hawken describes the movement as “Immunity”. It is beautiful, the connections that he makes. He states, “…the movement is that part of humanity which has assumed the task of protecting and saving itself.”
2. Main Points:
* That this movement works similarly to a living organism.
* “No culture has ever honored its environment but disgraced its people, and conversely, no government can say it cares for its citizens while allowing the environment to be trashed.”
* How the movement is building and moving
* Critics of the movement and their agendas
* The Slow Food movement
* A widespread spiritual and religious awakening
3. There is a part in this passage where he is using Helen Keller as an example. She said, “I rejoice to live in such a splendidly disturbing time!” I have thought a similar idea to myself from time to time. I feel like things are so messed up right now. Do you feel that this is a time of disturbing happenings that is greater than past times? I mean, every century is filled with disturbing times and times of awakening and rejoice. How is this time any different? Is it different?
April 14, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Week Three:
1. A large portion of what was talked about in this passage is the vanishing diversity of the world today. Not only in nature, but also in human nature. Something that humans in power seem to strive towards is pushing their ideas and cultural systems on others. They want others to conform to what they believe is truth. It has taken me a long time to realize why diversity is not only important, but why it is essential. Who would ever want to live in a world where everyone believed the same thing and lived the same way?
2. Main Points:
* Languages are vanishing faster than species can go extinct.
* The suppressing of local languages.
* Western society does not value indigenous cultures, nor does it value the knowledge that they possess.
* WTO and how they are affecting world affairs.
* Globalization and how we need to slow the pace of things.
3.”Areas of the world that are the most biologically diverse are also the most diverse in language, yet the rate of language decline is greater even than that of species loss.” Since everything is connected, it seems quite frightening to me that we are losing this type of diversity. Will we eventually all conform to the same language? Would this create more of an understanding between humans? Or would this create a situation in which diversity is frowned upon? A situation in which language becomes less unique and interesting?
April 14, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Week Two:
1. On page 73, Hawken tells about how Ralph Waldo Emerson had his, “…first encounter with the web of life,” through studying Antoine Laurent de Jussieu’s natural system of botanical classification. Hawken states, “Mental curtains fell, the division between human and other life forms vanished, and the interdependence of all life was realized.” I, personally, have just recently come to a similar realization about the world that I live in. I feel that if everyone could have this awakening in their own lives, this world would be such a better place.
2. Some main points from this passage:
* Rachel Carson’s war against DDT
* How Carson’s Silent Spring transformed a few hundred quiet conservation groups into “a much larger and more vocal movement.”
* Man is part of nature, and a war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”
* Everything is connected.
3. Don’t you feel like this world would run a lot more smoothly if we taught about the interconnectedness of life in schools worldwide? Shouldn’t that be a major part of the curriculum?
April 14, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Week One:
1. There is one part from this section of the reading (Pg.18) in which Hawken talks about the current movement and how one of its key contributions is, “…the rejection of one big idea in order to offer in its place thousands of practical and useful ones. Instead of isms it offers processes, concerns, and compassion.” This is pretty much exactly what we had discussed in class. We were talking about how everything is not just black and white and that these problems that we face are circumstantial. There is not just one solution, there are many. There are processes that we can use to address a variety of problems, but these processes will be slightly altered depending on the specific situation. We cannot fix the current situation without considering the human factor. Compassion must be a main ingredient for the solution.
2. This section talked about the “three basic roots” of the movement. These are: environmental activism, social justice initiatives, and indigenous cultures’ resistance to globalization. The majority of what was discussed here was why this movement is happening, what the movement is, and where it is heading. Also, he discussed who is involved with this movement. He also talked about how this is the largest social movement in history and how he came to that conclusion.
3. Hawken stated, “…we can be grateful that humanity is a learning organism.” I have thought about this and I am not so sure whether this is a good thing or not. We are always learning, but with society the way it is nowadays in the United States, I worry about how we are learning and what we are learning. It scares me when I look at what the media is feeding the general public and where the general public’s interests lie. Do you think that we are heading towards an awakening, heading towards better habits and lifestyles, or do you think that we are downward spiraling into destructive habits and lifestyles? Are we learning the right things?
March 28, 2009 at 9:03 pm
The last reading of the book is an appendix of actual movements in motion today. Organized by Hawken, it is a great resource to network, reach out, and inform the world of what is going on.
1. The fact that we live in an age of technology we can utilize this to be of great benefit. The act of creating WiserEarth website goes to show what great change we can begin to instigate, how we can reach out and find others for support, inspiration, and information. I found this extremely connected to the lecture last week, about how systems self organize, and create their own waves and patterns in the whole. Systems are unpredictable….I mean, who would have thought that the people who are coming together in this network would come to be??? Why do some people “hear the call” while others go on unknowing, unfeeling? This phenomenon makes one wonder the vastness of it all, and to reiterate last weeks blog of a possible spiritual awakening in the midst….it’s all very truly profond….
2. Since the last reading was an appendix, I am choosing to write the three to five most important points that caught my attention in the reading.
1. Yes, things are crazy…but look deeper…there is something stirring below the surface.
2. Awareness is key, using the means of today can help us solve the problems of tomorrow…all exists for a reason.
3. Attention to what is really valuable, preserving the cultures that bring us the richness of human diversity is crucial to our species.
4. The planet may be sick, in fact, many people are sick, but the immune system comes in, just when we think that it is too late, and can make miraculous precedence in the face of defeat.
5. Joining together in a conscious, committed way is the next step to joining together to restore our world and give future generations a place to walk, live, breathe.
3. What can we do here and now to make a difference? How can we take what we’ve learned and educate our community to benefit in the most open and receptive way?