Uffici, Florence

RE-ENTRY

FROM THIS....

TO THIS....

Darting through Quito traffic on my bike, I look left - nervous - attentive - I look right - checking people out - scanning their faces and their eyes - profiling... Is that guy with the hoody drunk?! or is it just a kid begging? or an Argentine hippy counting his daily take from his street show!? or
Is it NO one?
Or is it SOMEone...
who would, who could... just pull a gun or a knife and ask for all the cash in my wallet or my cell phone
PILAS no mas...

Here in Denver, I still can not get over how I can walk into a semi-public Safeway supermarket, take out my cash, make a deposit, and walk away. Feeling safe and unthreatened the whole time.

AFTER over two months the reality of moving back to the states after living in Ecuador for six years is beginning to sink in. People ask me; "Wow, what's that like? Why did you move back? Why did you move there in the first place? Why are you back? Do you miss it? What is the most difficult thing moving back to the states? Do you have culture shock?" It is difficult to answer these questions, especially if the person asking has never lived or traveled extensively abroad.

There is just no way to describe how GOOD WE HAVE it here, how different it really is, stats sometimes help; like the GNI (sort of like the GDP per person) in Ecuador is $5,510 compared to $53,670 in the US, and even though they are on the US dollar (another point of surprise to friends unfamiliar with the region) the inflation is different and obviously so is the cost of living A banana in Ecuador costs five cents instead of 60 cents per pound.

And although in the states, we definitely live cleaner, more homogenized, safer from petty crime, and all the rest, I am not sure that we live better. Health care costs are ridiculous, and although you have to wait for the public hospitals in Ecuador, you can get free care for almost any surgery, or intensive care, or first aid like stitches, or X Rays and diagnostic tests...You just have to wait.

So now I am supposedly completely well adjusted to living in these great big beautiful United States; teaching Spanish to native Spanish speakers - a dream in one sense because I am using my Spanish and teaching skills to work with an organization that truly believes in equality of education. But also fraught with its own set of challenges of which I am overcoming with hard work and a sacrifice of any sort of social life.

But at least there will always be the bici.

sources: http://data.worldbank.org/country/united-states

Boosting our 'efficiency-equilibrium'

YOGA and The Energies of Men, William James, 1907

My Dad, William Dixon, realizing his potential in the Newsweek copy room, leading eventually to his job with TIME magazine in London.

While taking this coursera / Rely KIPP schools class, Teaching Character and Creating Positive Classrooms, I have been briefly sidetracked by the thought of early psychologist and lecturer, William James. He and his brother Henry James (the literary critic) worked in the early 19th century and both have left a substantial influence on modern psychology and literary criticism, respectively.

William James' basic argument, "Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake"

hit me hard recently because a good friend told me the other week to "Wake Up!" and basically live life to its fullest and take advantage of my potential. So as I work unlock hidden reserves of my professional energy, I was drawn to his comments about our need to access our full potential as humans. James says of men and women in general; "He energizes below his maximum, and he behaves below his optimum."

And as working to ones potential is central to education (and human motivation in general) this post aims to use a few quotes from James's essay, The Energies of Men, to discuss some practical ways to apply character development to our classrooms.

James was an early supporter of yoga. In his essay, he introduces one of his friend's experiences of fasting and studying yoga by saying, "But the most venerable ascetic system, and the one whose results have the most voluminous experimental corroboration is undoubtedly the Yoga system..."

Yoga forces us to push through mental boundaries and break limits in order to arrive at new mental and physical places. And this is key. Being able to push through ones mental barriers and limits - physically and mentally. I think in the physical world, we do a pretty good job of studying and understanding this phenomenon. One of the truths that all coaches and trainers share is that working above ones physical limits for at least some percent of a workout or practice session is essential to improve athletically.

But as far as teachers, the same needs to be taught in the academic classroom setting. As James says,  Mental activity shows the phenomenon [of getting a second or third wind) as well as physical, and in exceptional cases we may find, beyond the very extremity of fatigue-distress, amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves to own, sources of strength habitually not taxed at all, because habitually we never push through the obstruction, never pass those early critical points.

So in order to encourage students to reach beyond their comfort zones, and find new ease and power in activities that were once difficult, we need to explicitly teach this skill.

Yoga in the classroom is a tool - incorporating even simple exercises in the end or beginning of class - or doing activities like vocabulary yoga - choosing a pose for each of 8-10 different vocabulary words and practicing those poses and repeating them - certainly helps the kinesthetic learners in the group.

Also, SMART goals, mind maps, all these activities force students to center and concentrate their energies and begin to focus and then "push through the obstruction" and reach new potential. Whichever method you choose to implement this objective of working to one's full potential is sure to be helpful in the classroom and your life.

Authors Note: This post is turned into a post for educators, but it is a work in progress as I am attempting to develop the following structure: marriage of "forgotten" modern thought (20th century) with current (2013/2014) events with useful and helpful connections. In this case I chose to connect to education.

Feb. 2?, revision: 

to increase productivity and remove myself from this desultory haze.

While ignoring the first step of the Getting Things Done protocol which is to BE CLEAR - remove all clutter and file loose papers, I decided that maybe this 'public' blog will help keep me honest about my short term 2-3 month goals:

Make time for freelance writing - 2hrs./ day this has been a goal and NOW I have the time
Coursera - 1 hr./ day
Spanish - 30 min/ day
Tutor - 3 hrs./ day

An opening of the senses

Whenever I have the opportunity to slow down and spend some time focusing on the natural world, I feel like my senses are opened.

In the forest; you have to watch where you walk, listen to every sound, feel the soft forest floor beneath your feet, touch the prickly stud-covered bark of the great sable tree, smell the thick humid air. As I told my group of eager pre-teens before we started our first walk, if you open your senses and pay attention to the forest; you will come to an understanding beyond knowing the difference between an epiphyte and a bromeliad, and begin to appreciate the complex biological rhythms that are constantly going on.

Last week, I joined Eco Sport Adventure Learning on a 4 day trip to study and immerse ourselves in some of the most amazing remnants of tropical forests, dry forests, and mangroves in Ecuador.

Everyday was a lesson in biodiversity, ecology, natural history, and conservation. Our trip leader, Maria Clara, never missed a beat. Right as we left the Quito's limits, she turned around in her seat and asked in a hoarse voice: "OK, look out the windows of the bus, open the curtains, put away the electronic devices, what do you see?"

Day 1: Quito to La Perla reserve (La Concordia)

After meeting the doting parents in the parking lot of Colegio Menor in Cumbaya and packing suitcases larger than the some of the children carrying them into the busses, we were on the road. As we left Quito behind and passed the mitad de mundo (equatorial line, literally middle of the earth) Maria Clara asked, "What do you see?"

"mountains...trees...dust..."

 Ok, but why is it dry? The cold air from snow-covered Cayambe and the other volcanoes and mountains in the region meets here with the warm air from the coast and creates an uplift and in Guayabamba it is extremely dry. As we moved down in elevation, we periodically chatted with the students about their observations. We saw corn being planted to prepare for the coming rainy season in the sierra. And as we dropped in elevation, we started to see the tell tale signs of the cloud forest, such as the epiphytes growing on the roadside trees. 

Later as we passed through the town of Pedro Vicente Maldonado, and that was my cue to discuss the cultural history of the area and the Yumbos. For me, the cultural history is just as interesting as the ecology of an area, so I was happy to engage our bus in a conversation about the Yumbo Indians who started as a tribe on the east side of the Pichincha mountains and then migrated to the west and to the coast. They created a great system of trails for commerce between the mountains and the coast. Their trails became known as culuncos, and the Spanish made use of them as well. Due to the over 400 years of continuous use, these trails have eroded and walking or mountain biking through them is a unique experience because they are more like tunnels in some places, a few meters below ground level, weaving through the dense forest, supporting their own mini-ecosystems. 

Soon we passed through La Concordia and arrived at La Perla Reserve. Less than 100 meters from the highway with sounds of huge trucks screaming by, we walked for 10 minutes and were immediately transported into a tropical forest rich with biodiversity. 

We stepped off of the dirt road into a dry stream bed and Boa, our guide (the lead guide of La Perla and the administrator of the area) enchanted the group with his enthusiasm and depth of knowledge about the place. Along the riverbed we encountered poison frogs, a snake, birds, anteater burrows, too many insects to name, and more.

Later, we walked through the forest on ground level and were introduced to the sable tree, a giant of the area. We ended at the animal rescue center, where Boa has several monkeys, a group of tapir-ish large rodents, and several birds currently being held in captivity until they are ready to be released into the wild. 

After a full evening of a hot dog picnic, a futbol game, an extremely challenging and partly embarrassing fire building experience where our group learned cooperation and patience, a patrol of the tents after 'lights out' time, I crashed in my tent. 

  

Boa introduces La Perla and the tropical forest

Day 2: La Concordia to Reserva Caimito

In the busses by 8:30 and on the road again. The excitement was building as we approached the coast. Passing through Esmeraldas we saw the oil refineries that process the oil coming through the Trans Ecuadorian oil pipeline system. 

Side note: The pipelines stretch from the Amazon basin over the Andes, down to the coast; over 503 kilometers in total. There are two pipelines in operation with one for light crude and one for heavy crude. There were two major spills this year on these lines in April spilling 5,500 near Esmeraldas and in May spilling 11,000 barrels  more into the Coca river and rendering the city of Coca's population of 800,000 without a reliable water supply. It is unconscionable that the Ecuadorian government is pledging to "responsibly" extract more oil from the Yasuni reserve near the Tiputini river after these spills. 

Chaotic arrival at the much smaller campsite than the night before. But of the four unique preserves that we visited, this tropical forest leading right up to the ocean was surely the most spectacular, local guides could have been better, and I am sure they will be after some further training, but the place was unreal. 

Ocean view from our camp in Caimito Reserve

George is the lead native guide here. It is clear that George feels strongly about conservation. He is a member of a group of conservationists that meet weekly to discuss maintenance and expansion of the reserve. Currently, it is owned by a group of concerned citizens, and they want to keep local names on all the deeds and make a real grassroots effort, and although he says he is gaining momentum, there are many forces in the community and outside it that would prefer the immediate economic benefits of logging. Much of the forest is secondary growth and we walked though parts that are scheduled to be logged again in 2014 if George and his group of concerned citizens do not raise enough funds to buy the parcel of forest. 

The beach where we had a nice swim is owned privately by a prickly old man, a life-long resident of the area whom George says is just waiting for the right buyer. Hopefully the buyers will share the community vision of preservation -- can you imagine a huge resort here...

Tropical Forest up to the beach - The entire coast used to be this and mangroves.

After a refreshing afternoon swim, I found myself at the end of the pack with two of my group members on the hike back up. With a bit of encouragement, we made it up to our camp just before dark.

After dinner, the Chocolate Party ensued when George showed the group how to make chocolate from dried cacao beans. First we toasted and pealed the beans buy hand, then toasted them again, then but them through the grinder, twice and then added panela.. natural sugarcane -- it was still pretty bitter, but I thought that these particular beans were sweeter than what I have tasted in Mindo, could be wrong though. 

Chocolate Party

I crashed that night from complete exhaustion and with limited function after the chocolate making party and the 'night hike' which consisted of George heading off solo into the woods and some students fixated in the nights' wonders while others chatted.

Day 3: Caimito through the Mangroves to the Samvara Lodge

Leaving Caimito was tough for me. There are few places like this left on the Ecuadorian coast and on the Pacific coast in general where tropical forest comes right up to the ocean.

I want to keep in touch with George and his project. One of his ideas for the future is to have parts of the forest for sale to outside groups, so a classroom in the US could "sponsor" a small portion of the forest through their fundraising efforts, etc. 

While most of the attention is paid to the tropical rain forests in the amazon basin because of the threat of oil development, the costal tropical forest also needs our attention for many reasons, one of them being that it plays a vital role in the surrounding ecosystem by filtering pesticides and holding fresh water. Also, these forests host one of the highest percents of endemic species in the world.  

Before completely leaving the tropical forest for the coast, we stopped to watch the oropendolas. With bright yellow, black and brown coloring and hard to miss sack-like nests in clear view on the branches of the roadside trees, oropendolas are easy to spot.

But I felt most comfortable entering the mangroves and walking to the beach.

Aside from one student getting stung by a sting ray and having to take her to the local clinic, the rest of the day can be told with images:

Let's go to the Mangroves kids!

Los valientes!

Day 4: Lalo Loor Dry Forest and back to Quito

The main goal for the day was to arrive back at school by 6:30 pm to return the kids to their waiting parents. But first, our last forest: Lalo Loor Dry forest.

This forest is unique because it is the only dry deciduous forest that we visited on our trip. When we were leaving Caimito the change was drastic, and this time, I asked the kids:

"What Do You See?"

The dry forest was starkly different from the lush coastal forests that we had visited on Days 1 &  2. And to understand why, a brief explanation of the Humbolt and El nino currents: The (cool) Humbolt current hits the (warm) Nino current right here on the equator - near the tow of Perdernales and an cooling phenomena takes place, and (thank you wikipedia for your help on this one) the marine air is cooled, and therefore not conducive to generating precipitation although clouds definitely accumulate. So it is dry. There is much less rain and moisture in the air in the southern coast of Ecuador, and hence this last forest is deciduous, or it changes drastically in the wet season, and the plants and animals have adapted to conserve water during the dry season.

6:30 pm. Right on time. After a hearty lunch and a run in with a iguana look-alike lizard, we had a successful finish to an action packed four day immersion into four of Ecuador's costal ecosystems.

The whole group at Lalo Loor Forest

Iguana relative at our lunch spot in Puerto Quito

For me, this trip was an awaking of the senses and the magical symphony of the ecosystems that we experienced. If only one of the students has an experience close to mine, I will feel satisfied.

Time Off

I return to blogging after some time off.

I apologize to my faithful audience, I will be more consistent. I do like the blog as a form and now more than ever I have the time and the motivation to spread my digital footprint and contribute something to the NSA's Utah Data Center, so here goes...

Some people post to facebook or twitter or instagram or whatever every few minutes, I choose to occasionally write a blog. The idea is to be more informative, but I can not help become self-reflective and sometimes personal here as well.

Since last July, I have been without full time work. As I look around to my closest friends, most are married and hold a secure job, many are starting families [anyone else sickened by the barrage of babies on the facebook - I mean I am happy for all of my friends that want to start a family, but I also see my brother's view that what is so great about adding another mouth to feed and another consumer to this world anyway...] and buying (or bought) a house, and there just seems to be a bunch of symbols of stability and certainty around.

Not for me.

I am in another place. Currently without many of these things, but still content. Sometimes I look to other 30 somethings like Paula in Argentina or the minimalists for comfort, and sometimes I just mope. And then there is affluenza -- at least I am not in danger of contracting that!

I am also slowly turning the page to begin again lately as I gain some experience in the adventure travel/ tourism/ outdoor education sector. I have always wanted to guide since my summer with RK and Wigger Mullins' Trails Wilderness School in Kelly, Wyoming.

So in closing, for whatever reason, I feel as though I have to do some listing...over a year since I have really checked in though... so, let's see. I have:  (not in chronological or any particular order)

• finished a masters program - yea grammar in context!
• taught year two of Language and Literature IB diploma program to a group of largely ungrateful privileged teens in a school with an administration more concerned with keeping the status quo and social structure of the school intacted than helping and training international teachers and resolving conflicts with students / parents --- (WOW, over five months ago and I suppose I am still a little bitter)
• tutored some extremely grateful brothers some English and two students the GRE and GMAT exams -- fun to get back into the academic/ lesson planning/ beating the test metality - expecially when the students appreciate what you are doing.. much more rewarding (note about me as a teacher: as I apply to elite international schools: the important thing to do to get the students to appreciate you and to respect you is that YOU - I mean me - have to respect and feel confident in yourself and that the students should appreciate your work because you are doing something meaningful in their lives - I got down on myself as a teacher in the last few years and I am starting to gain my professional confidence again and it feels good)
• split with my girlfriend who continues to work at the school
• studied for and pass the Spanish DELE Exam, level B1 - five years of living in Ecuador and I made it to lower intermediate ... hmmmm
• applied to guide jobs, international teaching jobs, and more
• got PUBLISHED at the matador network.. now ALL I have to do is finish that Ecuador story too!
• had and amazing, rejuvenating, perspective getting, family seeing visit to PA (and the northeast) in the fall

• gone on some trips with pedal for change and rayna
• biked over 720 km down the Ecuadorian coast
• guided a group of eleven middle schoolers to some of the most amazing coastal preserves in Ecuador

the farmhouse

Mi libro favorito

Cada día, los sitios para los amantes de libro están desarrollando. Lo siguiente es mi contribución a una comunidad como goodreads.com, pero de España:

Como yo soy profesor de literatura, es un poco difícil de elegir un libro favorito, pero mas que todo, yo escogería Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Este libro es una colección de poemas sobre la naturaleza y la humanidad de los Estados Unidos del siglo 18. Además, ha influido mucho en literatura americana. Yo lo he leido desde que era un niño de primer curso, pero lo más importante es como este libro me ha influido de maneras distinto durante todo mi vida. Cuando era niño, leía sus poemas porque me gustaban la manera que describían la naturaleza. Después, en cinto y sexto curso de colegio, me di cuenta que Whitman ha influido mucho en la literatura americana como Thoreau y los trancendentalistas y como en cambio inspiro los "beat poets" como Alan Ginsburg y Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ahora mismo, me gusta Whitman porque siempre quiero recordar que el hombre es una parte de la tierra y también por su mensaje de libertad que encara las posibilidades infinitas del alma del individual.