education
Invasive Foliage and Wanderlust
Foliage
‘Foliage’ from Oxford English Dictionary Online
Etymology: The English word foliage is an altered form foillage, which comes from the French words fueillage and foillage which in turn stem from the French feuille leaf. It comes from “foil”, meaning “leaf od a plant” and from the suffix “-age”, which forms “nouns denoting something belonging or functionally related to what is denoted by the first element (and sometimes denoting the whole of a functional apparatus collectively), as leafage n., luggage n., roomage n., signage n., vaultage n., etc.”
It has the following meanings:
Foliage n.
- The leaves (of a plant or tree) collectively; leafage (1601)
1a. In Art: The representation of leaves, etc. used for decoration or ornament (1598)
1b. A representation of a cluster of leaves, sprays, or branches (1699)
It has several compounds:
C1.
A1. Foliage-border n. (1891)
A2. Foliage-stem n. (1884)
A3. Foliage-trimming n. (1818)
B1. foliage-bound adj. (1805)
C2.
The Teaching & Learning Initiative: Nepali Style
Hello beautiful Serendip world!
My name is Briana Bellamy, I'm a BMC alum '11. Recently, I returned from an incredible year of living in Nepal, working on a project funded by the Davis Projects for Peace grant. The project was called Sharing Knowledge for Peace, and its basic structure and philosophy grew from something that may be very familiar to some of you: the Teaching and Learning Initiative (TLI). As a sophomore at Bryn Mawr, I became involved with the staff-student branch of the TLI as a student mentor with a wonderful man from transportation services. It completely transformed my experience at Bryn Mawr, and became a huge part of both my sense of community and personal development. The relationships I built through the reciprocal model of the TLI and the deep learning I experienced both in these relationships and in the reflection meeting had a deep impact on me. I went on to become a coordinator for the program, and even wrote my thesis about it, exploring the inner workings of friendship, community, and shared spaces. I knew there was something powerful about the dynamics at play, and I was curious as to how the model of intentional reciprocal teaching and learning relationships could be valuable in other settings.
Learning and Narrating Childhoods Retrospective: Learning from Our 360 Final Projects (Prezi format)
INTRODUCTION: What does it mean to visit an African country with a class from a US college in order to learn?
Alice Lesnick, Term Professor of Education, Bryn Mawr College
July, 2012
360: Learning and Narrating Childhoods (Spring, 2012) was a cluster of three courses, one in Education, one in Literature, and one in Psychology. 15 Students from a broad range of majors, years, and backgrounds undertook a cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural study of child development, with a particular focus on the role of language and literacy in forming and channeling personal and group identities.
Schooling often rests uneasily on presumed dichotomies between coverage and inquiry, skill development and creativity. By drawing on the often under-recognized parallels between biological evolution and human learning, this essay argues that formal education need and ought not forego the unconscious exploratory processes of informal learning. Rather than posit as natural the cultural story that formal schooling must prepare students to integrate with given cultures and foreknowable futures, the evolutionary perspective shows that education is better thought of as preparing students to create cultures and to change, and foster change, in relation to unknown futures. The properties that distinguish formal from informal learning -- conscious reflection and a degree of collective consensus about what constitutes knowledge at any given time – are, we argue, useful not as ends in themselves, but as tools for maximizing, sharing, and extending unconscious, evolutionary learning. Working with them as such offers a way out of some of education’s persistent problems. Two autobiographical case studies provide grounded examples of these evolutionary changes and indicate pathways of inquiry by which to pursue them.
Q Forum Mark 2: CONTINUING THE CONVERSATION (UNDER CONSTRUCTION)
In tandem with Amophrast, Colleen Ryanne, aybala05, and S. Yaeger
Continuing conversations for the year
-After the revamped Q-Forum during Customs Week we will have continuing conversations periodically through the year. These conversations will be open to the entire school, not just first years. There will be three larger conversations, one in the fall and two in the spring.
FIRST CONVERSATION
Working title not yet here: what it means to be queer here and not there
How do we translate a queer space into spaces that we are less comfortable in/feel less safe in/etc.?
The first post-Customs Week Q Forum discussion, it will cover issues such as coming out, the idea of being out and all that entails, and talking with people from home/family about queer life at Bryn Mawr. This conversation will take place the week before Fall Break by hall, and will be open to anyone. There will most likely be follow up events hosted by Rainbow Alliance during Out Week (week we get back from Fall Break).
Theoretical Hosts: HA's and CDAs
MTV's Missing Piece
To Begin. . .
As an avid TV junkie, I have stayed up many a night to watch re-runs of the shows “Teen Mom” and “16 & Pregnant.” I know you are probably rolling your eyes if you're not a fan of the “reality” TV phenomenon, but these shows have affected me in a way that other “reality” based shows never could. (...So understandable when thinking about their consistent lack of depth: there are not a multitude of thought-provoking conversations that follow the documentation of rainbow Jello shots and women pulling out other’s hair extensions). These shows have affected me partly because I am the product of unplanned pregnancy to a fifteen-year-old girl myself, and a subsequent adoption. I find the show to be a way to help me begin to understand what I meant to my birth mother at age fifteen, the prime time for being a devoted Frito Lay consumer and wearing exactly what the mannequin wears.
