Any way there are so many things that I start to think of when I list what I took from our trip, what I have been thinking about since then and what I have shared with my friends and family.
But here's a few;
Part I
- I have known that things in the world are not looking so good fro quite some time now. I have discussed thistopic with Karl in other classes and we did a great deal of readingh and discussion in this course about the looming disaster of a 'perfect storm' with the culmination of peak-oil, climate change, economic, social, political distaers at home and abroad costing trillions...But what learned this time around is that we can make things better. It is posible to keep a place wild just s couple hours from Manhattan. The new technologies, and not-so-new, being sold in hardware stores now is very encouraging. People are getting excited about going 'green' and so am I
- Jon Dewey was right! The hands-on-method of learning by experience as well as reading and discussion was a wonderful thing to experience in this course. All classes should be more like this, if not just like it. Not for teachers, but for school-age kids ( and teachers). The kids could run the camp with a facilitator; cook, clean, garden, farm, build etc. and take content courses in the classroom in betwen. Then go out in the feild and experience the content they just duscussed. So simple.
- I also learned a lot about how 'good' most people are. I met a lot of really, really good folk on this trip and made some great connections. It is nice to see the trust, confidence, and personal experiences being shared and discussed with this group and those that helped us along the way. Kevin and Annie in the ropes, Ed Kanze out in the 'feild', Karl and Beth coordinating/teaching etc. and Jack and his family and crew taking care of things and of course the students that really helped each other out in many ways and showed a lot of courage and good faith in people...at least for me! Thanks!
- I also realized that I can challenge myself a lot more than I ever thougt I could. It was hard to go back to school at 30 but here I am almost done with my masters. It was hard to have two kids and get married while going to school as well but here I am with a greqat wife and two awesome kids. But I swear none of it was as hard as climbing that 60ft pine tree to that wobbly 3x3 platform that was waiting fro you at the top. But again, I had the encouragement and trust of people that just days before were total starngers (some of them) and I climed that damn tree!
- Possibly the most important thing I learned on a safety basis is that black bears can; SWIM, climb trees, run very fast and have no problem, eating dead meat. So when you see one you cannot jump in the lake, climb a tree, run, or play dead. I guess youo are supposed to try to scare them away! :(
I also learned alot of theings that I plan to use in my everyday life as well as the classroom and in other professional aspects of teaching. Hopefully curriculum development!
- I thought that it was interesting that there was very little contact with Native Americans within the ADK mtns. There was of course lots of contact in the Mowhawk Valley and everywhere else, but very little in the big mtns. Mostly it seems that the natives humted in the sumer/fall and went doen for the winter. Never establishing a colony. So when WW Durant came up to start the 'Great Camps' there was very little direct negative contact on the sites.
- I learned from our capable ADK guide Ed Kanze that the ADK's are NOT and old mountain range that has been eroded down. bUt rather a pretty new range that has ancient rock that was compressed by glaciers and now is beeing pushed up and rising, exposing some of the oldest rock in the world. It is also not being pused up by 'regular techtonic activity' but seems to be beeing raised becuase of a 'hot spot' that underneath that part of NY state. There are alos many differen 'sparatics' (rocks dumped randomly by moving glaciers) that are even older and are just laying about...very cool.
- Again, I was encouraged to see such beauty so close to ugly. True, it will be difficult to keep the beuty around, but people are doing it. The forests are coming back, the APA does somes thiongs wrong, but they have kept the ADK's pretty 'wild'. The economics are a tough factor to deal with in depressed communities like those in the ADK's, but there will be a balance met. If they can keep it claen and green, people will keep coming. It is so important to do our part everywhere, considering most of the damage being done to the ADK's that is , in part, destroying the local economies comes from coal burning power plants all the way out in freakin' Ohio...and farther. We can change this, get people involved by making them aware of the beauty that could be lost. Therefore, party in the ADK's so that all these 'corporate cronies' of 'those in charge' they can see what they are screwing up. Or we could tell them to just play dead when a black bear comes ; )
Karl and Beth, thank you so much for getting this class together. I have never learned so much from such a broad range of topics from such knowledgable people in such an incredible setting in my life. Thanks again to everyone else I hope you all have nice summers and growing careers!
Thanks,
-Josh
p.s.-If you have trouble getting Cortland to do it again maybe you could pitch it for teachers only, maybe all from one district to come together like we did. Then change the districts otr groups around (?)
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