Ending our third week

The Summer Institute has created fast friends. The intense, yet open-minded learning environment has allowed most of us to come out of our shells (some sooner, some later) and speak more freely about our beliefs, to share a more intimate self. I believe a tight-knit group is valuable to exploring environmental education because we feel comfortable asking questions, getting ideas from one another, learning from the wide variety of people here.
Personally, because I have primarily worked one-on-one with students, I found it incredibly helpful to see the different ways teachers can present information in the facilitations. The variation in tools used was great-puzzles, discussion, power point, thoughtful questions, defining terms, art, quotations, ecofoot.org, and helping us to become more familiar with the local community. This knowledge was also taught from different perspectives-ecological, historical, social, and cultural, as well as in terms of a broader, global community and smaller, local communities.
In addition, I love that the readings in the packet were in many different writing styles and that additional poetry, short stories, and spiritual writings were woven into the assigned readings. These allowed me to pause and reflect in a different way from the critical "I have a paper to write" assessment I made of the other readings. They allowed my mind to wander.