loans made good

the new computer arrived and I am typing this on the new keyboard. still on the old computer as the new guy is all pieces and parts laid out like an autopsy on the kitchen table. I just knew that taking all those loans to pay for my school that I don't even attend would pay off.

new house, new garden, and same old 7 day work week has been biting into the time that I need to devote to my own education - I own my own time obviously and so no complaining here about a new house to make my own, but yeah - making time for school hasn't been easy.

the 3 best things about teaching though right? (June, July & August). 6 more days and all I will do is my own schooling . let the kids fend for themselves all season. I actually hope to get ahead in my schedule so as to fit some more classes in before estimated graduation time, we'll just see how much time everything actually takes though before I go counting any hatching chickens.

I think I need a wrist rest for this new keyboard. I'll make one with those bran husks from the co-op. (That's my second job, a cashier at the local food co-op, more about that later though)

I picked up an old unsold copy of "PermaCulture Magazine," so awesome and inspiring - the articles about doing the things that make actual change that actual people around the world can afford to do. Not just installing a $15,ooo PV array on my roof with a $2000 inverter, no, this shows a solar heater using fresnel lenses to heat vegetable oil to a temp twice that of boiling water and then saving the heated oil in insulated tanks for cooking or turning a sterling engine! I could actually build all of that from the local hardware store and scavenging.

Well, off to bake a carrot cake for my girlfriend's month-late-mother's day gift. She's teaching a yoga class me and my mom are in. She'll probably stay here tonight as the babes is at her dad's. Probly gotta clean the bathroom too then...

ciao,
bk

Mid-course Review

I have enrolled at Prescott College - where "education is a journey not a destination,"
well, that's what it says on my sweatshirt anyways. The deal is, I design the classes and so don't have to attend classes! I find mentors here in Boise ID who essentially become an adjunct at Prescott, and I have a prof. there in Prescott who makes sure I am actually working and not dragging their name through the local mud.

SO anyways, I am a bit behind with this first go at a self-guided education. but I have a time line ready to go for my first class of Learning Theories.

I have always closely held a dialectic between Hacker and Slacker; to defeat the latter, I... well, I putter, that is, I hack. I hack away at the problems until they wither away under my relentless puttering over them. todo lists, weird ass solutions only a man would devise usually involving duct-tape. Thus, I will blog my journals - hoping that no one but my professors and the odd random will find them...

AND so, here is my first todo list... It's a doozy

1. read three books:
a. This traditional teacher's education book centering around behaviorism I got from a co-worker at the school I work at.
b. Something about Logotherapy by V. Frankl
c. 50 Strategies for Experiential Learning, edited by Louis Thayer
2. read "Tools for Transformation" - create a Google Calendar
3. A communication blog for Gary et. al. (that's this!)
4. read 5 articles
a. something about Howard Gardner
b.
c.
d.
e.
5. Write an annotated bibliography of above articles
6. Write an assessment rubric
7. Conduct community interviews and a write a community issue outline
8. Mid course Review

So yeah, the last bit on the list is where I an supposed to be at... looks like to the average reader that the Slacker side of the dialectic is winning out... well, I DO have a buttload of excuses, but I 'd really rather not dwell on the problems...

onto solutions, the best thing about todo lists is checking em off

let me know if you know of any great articles.