Final Post

It is Sunday now and I am able to reflect upon my experience in the Adironacks. I have been going through alittle shell shock since I have been home but my wife is tolerating me.
It was amazing the enormous amount of information that I took in and have taken away from the experience.
I will share here what I have gained (I am probably missing something):
1. Collaboration: The trip allowed us as collegues wether it be experienced, young, old, different opinions, etc to live together, to work together (KP, activities, and projects), and to figure out how to appreciate each other and respect one another. I am certain we all walked away from this gaining something from each other.
2. History: The history of the the Adirondacks is very interesting due to architecture, natural beauty as well as tattered by anti-semitism and human destruction. History needs to be learned and not forgotten as well as appreciated so we can learn. I must say that the boat house was probably the coolest piece of history that I saw first hand. Thankyou Tim for being such a great story teller and also an interesting person to discuss the Bueracracy of education with. I will surely check in with your blog. I do not neccessarly agree with all of your ideology but I share your views that CHANGES ARE NEEDED so our children's future can be Bright and the system we have is to antiquated to make this happen.
3. Enviornment and Sustainability: It was very cool to hear from Beth and Karl about the oppertunities for new Green Energy Employment and Hubberts Peak. It is great that you two have taken upon yourself to be the guinea pigs to create a more sustainable life. We can learn first hand from your experiences and make that treck following in your foootsteps realizing that it is not as scary as one would think. Karl, after our discussions I hope you are still my fellow "Collapse Anxiety" person, but you do believe as I do that we as a human race will overcome when the time comes and it is coming! We need to keep preaching and educating and the world will succeed.
Beth thanks for talking me through my thesis idea. If I hadn't come to the Adirondack classroom course I still would be pondering the idea.
Meeting John Slade and hearing his story was also very uplifting. He is definitely a keeper for next year.
4. Challenges: What can I say... we hiked a HUGE mountain, one that I didn't realize would be so much of a challenge but we did it. I overcame my fear of heights and walked across a rope up high and then a log and then another rope. For the culminating activity I climbed up 70 feet and then did a zip swing across... one of the 10 coolest experiences of my life. I also swam (and got a tow) across to the other island, and used a kayak for the first time.
5. Nature: 3 out of the 5 mornings I woke up and went for a hike, and saw the sunrise. Camp Huntington is really a very beautiful place. It was also interesting to learn from ED and hear him say the bird sounds (thanks Tracy for recording them) and also learning about what a bog is and eating winter tic tacs. I really love being in nature and experiencing the peace. I am hopeful that next year my wife and I can do this experience together as professional development.
6: Professional Development: After all that we did, Tracy and I were fortunate enough to finish a great lesson using VTS strategies titled Symmetry and Patterns in Nature and Architecture from the Adirondacks. I will use this lesson in my 6th grade classroom next year. I will also integrate it into a Math walk around my school for a project that the students will put together. I will forward you the additional lesson plan after I write it.
Conclusion: What can I say, great scenery, great food, great experiences and most of all it was nice making so many new friends.

Day 4

Today I woke up and went for a hike as usual. The fog was right off the water again which was really nice to see. At 6:30 I went to go get my coffee and I passed Dave and Mike going for a Kayak ride. I decided not to join them as I wanted that cup of coffee and wanted to read my book the The Paradox of Progress. The one main thing I picked up from my reading was the idea of "Collapse Anxiety". Collapse Anxiety is the belief that everything is so good in our lives that we believe that it will have to end tomorrow. This is an ok thought process as it makes the human race evolve and do better.

After breakfast we took the boat to shore and first went to the Naturalist Museum. I was lucky to find a close parking spot as the Museum gives cart blanche to people who have. It was neat to see an otter swimming in the tank and running around. At the museum I also enjoyed seeing the fish sitting in the big aquariums. While at the museum Judith Schillo gave a lecture on Visual Thinking Strategies. This was my second time seeing it done and I learned from the experience that VTS is useful as a tool to keep everyone engaged, their ideas affirmed, and their behavior managed.

After we left the Museum we drove to the Adirondack Museum and here we saw much of the history of people from the Adirondacks. Some things that stick out to me where the amazing quilts, the rustic furniture, the hermit’s language which was recoded and translated into our alphabet and the HUGE chainsaw.

It was a long day today and we returned to Camp Huntington at 5:25. Tonight I will be working more on our project and implementing VTS into it.

DAY 3

I woke up again today at about 5:30 and went on another hike. This time I followed the trail that Tim took us on yesterday. On the hike I was able to see the fog lift off the lake, which made for a very beautiful scene. On my walk back to camp I ran into Dave and we decided to go to the dock and play a game of checkers. The game was very interesting as there were very few pieces so we used sticks and bark as pieces. The game was a stalemate.

After breakfast we had a very informative lecture by Beth and Karl about Hubbert’s Peak Oil concept, and the consequences of when our oil spigot gets turned off. I disagree that it will be an instantaneous thing that happens, understanding that there will be pockets were it is hard to come by stuff at times. I do believe in Supply and Demand Economics and believe as Supply starts going down and demand rises the elasticity will not change and the price will go up thus reducing demand as people will not be able to consume as much. This will then create more lucrative opportunities for alternative fuel ideas and ingenuity will be our salvation that gets us off the fossil fuel addiction.

Following the lecture / discussion we took a boat back to Antlers and drove our cars to Black Mountain for a hike. The hike took a great deal of effort climbing up rocks and steep inclines but it was well worth it when we reached the top. The view was magnificent and we enjoyed out lunch sitting atop on the rocks.

When we got down the mountain we walked over to the Bog and met Ed our licensed tour guide who took us on our walk. A bog is a bunch of moss sitting on top of water that you can walk on. Underneath the bog are preserved "things" that fell into the bog and never were able to get out. While in the bog we ate wild white berries nicknamed forest tic tacs, and blueberries. We also made bird sounds and heard a thrush and other birds but were unable to see any birds.

We drove home and we were all tired and took the boat back to Huntington Camp. On the boat ride we were lucky enough to see a Loon with her baby swimming in the water.

Today while talking to Beth I figured out something I might want to do my thesis on, Why schools should have solar panels on all there roofs. Pretty catchy....

That is all for now as I am pooped from all the walking and hiking today.

Day 2

I woke up this morning at 5 AM and went down to the boat dock to see the sun rise. For those of you who do not know yes it is just starting to get a little light at 5AM. I sat at the boat dock and realized that the sun was going to be blocked by the mountains so I decided to move to another point on the peninsula and go for a hike. While moving away I turned around and noticed the full moon getting ready to set which was a very beautiful sight as it was over the water while day break broke. I hiked till 6:45 and then I went over to the Dining pavilion to get a cup of coffee. While hiking I heard many birds and saw a very interesting "biggish" bird that ran away when it saw me.

Next we had breakfast which was an egg, cheese and croissant. Afterwards we had a discussion about why we were all here taking the course and afterwards we went on a hike. The hike was productive as I took many pictures of symmetrical items in nature and found many patterns. I will upload these prints for my project on Symmetry and Patterns in Nature.

After we had lunch we had our book talk on Adirondack Green. During this book talk we discussed two open ended items that stick with me: 1 how do we get our students to care for something (anything)? and 2 how do we make our students aware about what is going on in the world and not make them cynical? These are things I will ponder over.

After the book talk we all went canoeing or kayaking. I chose to kayak and found it to be a very peaceful and easy experience. We went around the peninsula and I decided to float and relax for a period of time while the others went farther (this was the most relaxing being on the lake and just watching the wind blow through the leaves). When we returned to dock I decided to jump in the lake and take a nice refreshing swim.

That is all for now as it is almost diner time.

Day 1

I am tired tonight; it was along drive up here through the rain and the clouds. But when I arrived it was like magic but the clouds went away and the sun came out. The one thing that sticks out to me that I learned today is the history of William Durant. He was a rather fascinating person who loved to create things and would keep going until he got it perfect. I think Durant was trying to create the perfect architecture; it is like an artist creating his masterpiece. He was not concerned about money and probably had no care that he died with any money. All the rich families bought all his estates and kept them going but his name will be remembered as the creator of the Adirondack Raquette Lake camps.

So far I have enjoyed relaxing hearing birds in nature, the lovely sound of a thrush and seeing deer eating in the pasture, seeing the sunset, and just feeling the wind.

I am thinking of creating a project about patterns and symmetry in nature. I will walk around tomorrow and write in my journal all my observations for this project. Then I will take pictures to show them as examples and put them all together in a PowerPoint.

That is all for tonight...

My initial reflection:

Tomorrow I will be in my car off to the Adirondack State Park for a 5-day exploration of the region. This is a new experience for me as I haven’t been without my family for an extended period of time since I got married 7 years ago. I love nature and being outdoors and look forward to a peaceful exploration of nature. One of my most enjoyable pastimes is photographing nature and I am looking forward to some new beautiful shots (like Carl Heilman has done).

Before I became a teacher I was a trader on Wall Street. The last product that I was working with was real estate. I have always had a fascination with architecture and will enjoy seeing first hand the structures of the Adirondack habitats. In the early 20^th century the richest Americans went to the Adirondacks for summer and built great camps. The architecture they chose was unique in the region, drawing from the Japanese covered walkways and Swiss chalets. Many of these enclaves are still around today and I am hopeful we will be able to see many of them while we are at Raquette Lake. I hope to learn more of the history of the region when we go to the museum on Thursday.

For many years I have pondered about “climate change” or “global warming”. Although I am not a scientist, I know how to read data and know that scientific data can be interpreted many different ways. I have not come to a definite conclusion that man causes global warming. The data that points to us coming out of an ice age and being in the heating up phase makes logical sense. I do believe that man is expediting this process, and more importantly depleting our resources due to population growth and wasting resources. We will have to do something or else life will starve itself and disappear. We are destroying our Earth as we continue to utilize “stuff” that is not biodegradable, and do not always consider how we pollute our land and water, creating acid rain and depleting our soil. This is something that needs to stop and the main way to do this is teaching awareness and caring.

In my classroom I constantly question students to think. I always state I will not give answers; my job is to ask questions. In the beginning of the year when I am discussing why we compost with students I ask the students if they have ever seen a landfill, then I show them pictures of a landfill, and then more landfills and finally I ask them what will happen if we keep throwing EVERYTHING away in the garbage. They realize that there will be nowhere for us all to live. They realize that it is up to them to make it so their future doesn’t require them to live on a landfill. It is up to them to compost and recycle and try to conserve as much as possible and not be wasteful. They need to learn to care about where they live.

Last year I did a period of Internal Suspension everyday. On most days as long as the 1 to 4 students didn’t have an assignment due that was imminent, I would take the students out to perform community service in school. Some acts we would do were cleaning up the cafeteria so the custodial staff wouldn’t have to, working with the community-based classroom (Special ED Inclusion Class) in the nursery, or my favorite act which was walking around school grounds and picking up garbage. For the most part the students took this job seriously and were very productive. These activities taught them to care for their school environment.

At present I am almost ¾ of the way through the book and will have it finished by the book talk. I really enjoyed seeing how the windmill changed the “doom and gloom” of Balsam Corners and brought the community together. I also appreciated how the community service changed the mindsets of the high school seniors and feel that community service should be a part of everyone’s high school requirement. It creates a feeling of caring and selflessness that is needed so that our human race doesn’t kill ourselves off.

My initial blog