DRAGONS - Part 1: Language and Culture are one.

Snack time Dragon Story time!

A second tongue should never compromise the culture and stories behind one's first language.

Far too often, ESL programs around the globe cash in on the all-pennies-in-one-piggy parents, looking to secure their child's future by guaranteeing a world language. They are not to blame. This is the demand of participation in a global market. The words of Sir Ken Robinson come to mind in his viral talk: "Changing Educational Paradigms":

"People are trying to work out, how do we educate our children to take their place in the economies of the 21st century? How do we do that? Even though we can’t anticipate what the economy will look like at the end of next week."

Dragon Art.

Now, don't get me wrong, as a bilingual native language speaker of English and Spanish (and some introductory work on a few indigenous/ endangered languages), I have traveled half way around the world to immerse myself and family into a 3rd language environment. Clearly, I am an advocate of language acquisition, but, contrary to many of the approaches of educators, not at the expense of all of the other multifaceted learning and stimuli our kids need in their prime time: motor skill development, story, art, music, dialogue, discipline, a connection to nature, science, spirit, mathematics and so much more.

Today, however I will address specifically the great opportunity that is spread out before us for children to grow up with a strong sense of cultural identity using the ESL environment as a tool for recovery rather than butchery. 

Dragon Story.

It should be no surprise that our children are growing up without story. Those days of the family gathered around the fire at the end of a labor intensive day are long since gone. On a good night, we get a 10 minute sprint to a fast-food joint or take-out around the dinner table? No, more likely the couch in front of the TV. All the time interrupted by androids that beg for a 3rd hand. In the monumental exchange between Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell, the idea that our youth are growing up without Myth, and therefore creating their own, is vastly discussed and feared. Since the beginning of time, story has guided our ancestors towards realization and evolution. What light guideth our storyless children? 

At Originateve we believe that STORY should be at the core of all young learner curriculum. ESL environments are a great opportunity to engage in this front for cultural recovery. Vast amounts of time are allocated to the acquisition of English as a second language. Why not at the same time empower the mother tongue’s story? 

This is precisely what unfolded this week at Caillou home where we have started yet a new project: DRAGONS. Granted one can see how easily we could've slipped into the mistake of teaching a unit on the American Buffalo or the Extinct Buffalo, but thankfully we do not work with culturally non-sensitive textbooks designed for the non-thinkative way of the busy, bogged down uninspired ESL instructor. The training Originateve Mentors receive is one that: prepares a facilitator of learning to understand the humans with whom we are working, imparts a desire to resurrect the culture in which they are growing up, and fosters use of creative imagination along side the intuition to carry it out. The Dragon being the unquestioned icon of China seemed like a most fitting Unit to embark on with the little toddlers.

Oh what a week we have had! Stay tuned as the story unfolds!!

Prep work for our 6ft Dragon-

Folding Dragons. 

Messy dragon spinal work. 

     

WORMS - Part 1: The quizzical hunt

After 4 years of creating a Perma-culture environment along side my Amerikanoestudios community in Esparza, Costa Rica, my arrival in Jinan has been an unhealthy stupefying dose of eco-culture shock. It has taken some time to observe and develop a strategy coherent with the area I now reside in and so begin the regenerative process.

My beloved Xibalba garden. Amerikanoestudios
Esparza, Costa

For those unfamiliar with Permaculture, Bill Mollison puts it like this:

"Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system." 

(Wiki Permaculture article)

For me, this philosophy began to click as soon as I understood that the task at hand was much simpler than I thought; I merely needed to slow down my thinking and start observing much more. Time to confront my own part in our species' hubris: believing that our sub-microbic consciousness can resolve what nature's consciousness has been doing marvelously since the dawn of time.

Typical Jinan soil

That approach had worked all nice and dandy back in rural, dry yet lush forest of western Costa Rica. But what about when there is little left of the natural world to observe? Jinan is just another Oriental bustling town, where progress is measured by the height and numbers of the buildings rising and the color green is a legally regulated distraction to grayscaling as far as the eye can see.

Nonetheless, no matter where you live you can always learn a bit of eco-conciousness from what I call the eco-unconscious (not to be confused with the eco-indifferent); those who out of need or practicality have found ways to live more in harmony with the environment than those of us who mostly just get in the way of what is natural. So, following good perma-culture principles and Marco's dad from Mulberry Street I set off "to see what I could see".

Lunch time in Caillou. 

My first snack time in Caillou, was about as shocking as seeing my homeland, Costa Rica, in the quarter finals of this years' soccer World Cup. Watching the kids learn to throw their seeds and organic waste into the trash can was something I did not want to be a part of. The question however was where could we take such sacred decay. Our school is entirely indoors and the surrounding outdoor spaces are either covered in cement or tarpaulined by grass.

Out worm hunting!

Having no yard to call home, composting was out of the question, next in line, an Originateve favorite: WORMS IN THE CLASSROOM, the perfect way to get eco-skeptic anti-kids-having-a-ball teachers off your supervised shoulder and get the kids between your legs and under your nose, all goeeyed up in a mess of beauty. Nonetheless, since I have long since moved away from "eco-friendly" behaviors that seem to tie you up into the "I NEED TO BUY" scheme quicker than a baby boomer in a bull market, I decided to "keep my eyelids up" for a non-consuming solution to a worm bin.

Styrofoam gardens

After about a 20-minute walk towards nowhere-Jinan, I saw her, the answer to all my problems; here in Jinan all home gardening happens in big styro-foam boxes used initially for fruit only then to be discarded, unless saved by the eco-unconscious who based on practicality not awareness (a prime perma-culture principle afterall) use them for their home-gardening projects.

Back in the classroom Monday morning we were ready to go. Styrofoam boxes were poked in order for the "compost juices" to seep through to the box below. Moist newspaper shreds were placed as bedding and some old freezer burnt lettuce was tossed in for when we came back with the worms. Time for the worm hunt!! This is precisely what I love about doing it versus hearing of others that did it. You stumble upon epiphany, after epiphany, revealing how messed up we are. From my 8th floor window my neighborhood is green, but once on ground level, the wormless earth reveals her thirst. I never would have thought it would be so hard to find worms. The soil all around our apartments is landfill, packed down by heavy machinery. After a 2 hour hunt we stumbled upon 4 little earthworms which we took back and gave an official beginning to Caillou's first Vermiculture box.


We will keep you posted of her evolution.

Instructional on where to put fruit seeds when finished!

Making our worm bin.