Description

I have designed this professional development experience to investigate the incorporation of Henry David Thoreau’s intersectional environmentalism into my own and eventually student practices of thinking, writing and art-making. The fellowship will fund my participation in at least 3 workshops: a one-day nature writing workshop with the Thoreau Society in Concord, Massachusetts, a 5 day art-making workshop with found materials with the Truro Center for the Arts in Truro, Massachusetts, and a 5-day Thoreau-based writing and drawing workshop with the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown Massachusetts. Other planned activities include environmental service and learning through The Center for Coastal Studies, and independent reading and research.

 

There are multiple geneses for my interest in this professional development that come out of recent personal and professional experiences: coping with Covid-based social isolation, talking with students about their dreams for the future, and grappling with a new ELA curriculum and instructional focus on more rigorous and challenging work.

 

On a personal level, I found myself connected to my students in a new way during the Covid pandemic, as I struggled with anxiety for the first time in my life. Many of my students struggle with their mental health and it disrupts their abilities to be successful in school. I previously understood this intellectually, and during the height of the social disruptions of the Covid pandemic, came to understand this personally. Along with many other practices, including medical care, I found that communing with nature, and especially woods, beaches and coastal marshes, became a source of solace for me in a way that it had not since I was a teenager. One genesis for this professional development is my desire to share this practice with my Boston Green Academy community of colleagues and students.

 

As we have returned to “normal,” I have found that healing from the social dislocations of the pandemic have only just begun–both for adults and especially for young people. I talk with young people at BGA about their dreams for the future, and in these conversations find that so many are mired in despair, particularly because of the threats posed by climate change, continued environmental degradation, and the nagging worry that life is much likelier to get worse than it is to get better. So many of my students believe in their hearts that the future for them is bleak and that while a change could happen for the better, it won’t. This despair is corrosive, and I feel a sense of urgency in providing my students with practices of mind to combat that despair.

 

A third genesis for this professional development is a new curriculum in English Language Arts across Boston Green Academy and a new instructional focus on increasing the rigor, and particularly the cognitive load that our students carry in their learning in the school day. I am very much committed to these new initiatives at BGA, and interested in ways to connect my 11th grade students, the majority of whom are 4 or more grade levels behind, with highly complex texts. Henry David Thoreau’s work is among my choices of texts to incorporate, but I have shied away for fear that it will be unrelatable for my urban student population.

 

I have decided to propose this professional development to meet these intersecting concerns. To date at BGA in the ELA curriculum, weaving in instruction in sustainability and environmentalism has not been a priority. As I have the opportunity to work on increasing rigor and overhauling the curriculum in my ELA classes, I also have the opportunity to better align my work with our school’s (and the Pat Cooke Fund’s) mission. In this professional development, I am seeking to be inspired by Thoreau to tap into new sources of generativity in thinking, writing, and meaning making.

 

My students on the whole do not commune with nature as a source of inspiration. When we took our 11th graders to the woods on a field trip this Fall, they felt out of place. While these students navigate unsafe urban neighborhoods every day and night, many of them felt scared in the woods. Being in nature was not a source of solace, but an unfamiliar and strange experience.

 

I would like to change this for our students, and connect them with the hope that being in nature can inspire. We do a great job at Boston Green Academy educating our students in the threat posed by climate change and preparing them for possible careers in sustainability and environmental science. However, I believe we are missing an education of hope for the future–an education that combats despair. This cannot be a blind hope, but hope that comes with eyes wide open to the environmental challenges we face. Without that sense of hope, there is no point in action for change. I believe in my heart that connecting students with the beauty of place, and with art-making, thinking, and writing that comes from communing with place can be a piece of the education in hope that we are missing at Boston Green Academy.

 

This fellowship experience will give me the opportunity to deepen my understanding of environmental challenges in Massachusetts (particularly in the coasts), so that this education in hope will not be blind. The experience will allow me to deepen my understanding of Thoreau’s intersectional environmentalism – an environmentalism that I believe can make relevant to my urban students of color if I have the time and resources to spend learning more about his work. Finally, this fellowship experience will give me the opportunity to practice art-making, thinking and writing coming out of communing with place so that I may learn how to incorporate it into my teaching and our practices at BGA.

 

Summary of What I will Bring Back to BGA

Boston Green Academy has a culture of collaboration, particularly in department teams, and a commitment to interdisciplinary project-based learning. I envision bringing my learning back to BGA to share with my English department colleagues, and in particular, to bring ideas for increasing cognitive load through generating ideas, writing, and art inspired by place. Boston Green Academy also hosts “Project Week” every year in which staff design week-long thematic learning experiences outside of the school building. I envision designing a possible Project Week Offering for students in which we explore our coastline environment, write and make art together. Finally, BGA offers student club experiences in the school day, and I envision the possibility of creating a club in which students can spend time in nature.

 

Measurable Goals

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● Create at least 3 pieces of creative work (writing combined with visual art) that explore the motifs of hope in the face of environmental degradation and beauty in communing with place

● Deepen understanding of the current environmental challenges facing our Massachusetts coasts and Thoreau’s intersectional environmentalism

● Synthesize my deepened understanding into a brief 3-6 slide proposal for integrating Thoreau’s intersectional environmentalism into an aspect of Boston Green Academy practice (potential avenues include the ELA curriculum, student clubs, and/or Project Week)