wishing i had kept recording my thoughts

I am looking back on all that has happened and now really wish I had continued to keep a record of what I have been thinking and feeling all along.

Well, the truth is, I have, but much of it felt too private to reveal. It may be that this is the way I participate in keeping the present dynamics in place.

I feel like I have been through a profound change.  This year, with the possible dissolution of my department, helped to dissolve the biggest chunks of my ego that remained.

What I see in myself now is that my destiny is to be a healer...or maybe to liberate people to their own whole state. I feel that I am to serve others in this way.

My greatest challenge in this life is simply to be present.

The unintended consequences of success

I don't know if I ever really considered what "success" would look like beyond "glorious." I find that I now understand that transforming STEM education system means that I will experience a transformation, as the system is IN me.

Turning the mind away from war...what it takes

Roger came back from his time in Washington D.C. and offered this observation: The mind of engineering and higher education is turned toward war and the consolidation of profit (or that unholy alliance of the two).  In essence, the dynamic is "domination for personal gratification."

Some more data...

I asked the SUSTAIN students a few simple questions in order to undated some of the financial analysis. I am still working on the financial analysis, but here are a few tidbits of information. 

• When asked if they are leaving Cal Poly next year 2 of the 37 answered "yes." This is a 94% retention rate approximately equal to Cal Poly's one-year retention rate of 93% in 2010.
• When asked if they are considering a major change, 13 (48%) said they are.  Of the 13,  9 indicated they were considering a change before entering SUSTAIN. For comparison purposes each year 6% of Cal Poly students change major.
• When asked if SUSTAIN had helped them to determine there "life's work," 15 (67%) answered in the affirmative. 
• Finally, 30 out of 37 students indicated they wanted to help next year in SUSTAIN. 

What are the differences?

Of course, there are no perfect measures of anything.  We used an instrument called the Course Valuing Inventory. It has four scales within it: Course Valuing, Course Learning, Personal Learning, Behavioral Learning.

So, I like you, just not when you're visiting my class

Like Ginger, Monday's check-in conversation struck me in a few different ways. During my conversation with Bill on Tuesday, we discussed it and explored ideas around its emergence. For me, the hypothetical notion of faculty visiting my classes sounded wonderful. "Please, come in, sit down, and enjoy the wonders of my rich learning environment." said to me, in my head with some sense of delusion. When reality arrived and I received my first faculty email requesting a visit, that ball of acid exploded in my stomach before I finished reading the one sentence request. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN? How did I go from some degree of excitement and interest to fear and dread?

What if they left hungry?

I had a really great time teaching Project Management last quarter. Roger and I collaborated on the content and delivery. I must say when I was teaching, or preparing, I felt very much like Roger was "slowing me down." I could have covered so much more, I asserted. If you know Roger, you will know why this happened. His "ignorance," that Linda spoke of, causes so many questions. It was actually very life giving for me. I struggled with my felt "obligation" to deliver content, but I sat with it. Experimented.

I am certain that another reason for the student's engagement was the strong connection of the course with their community project. They care about their partners and their project's success.

What happened is that the students left hungry for more content. Most of them asked if they could attend the course again this quarter, without receiving credit, just because they wanted to learn more.

What if at the end of every course the students want more? What if they didn't see the class as a box to be checked, but as something interesting? What if we stopped cramming stuff down their throat in order for them to regurgitate the content on an exam, and gave them tasty morsels that they will seek out in the future? This is my yardstick now: When the course is over, are the students hungry for more?

our successes...don't forget them!

One of the things that we noticed during our last faculty collaboration meeting of the quarter was that we are intolerant of talking about our successes. We will spend hours on "problem solving" but after 10 minutes of reviewing what "went right," we were saying, "Okay, what is the point of this meeting?  Why are we talking about this?"


I also noticed my tendency to document my complaints, and not the celebrations. 


Here is a record of some of both. 


SUSTAIN Winter 2012 After Action Review

The good news/success of what we captured this quarter

it's all too much

miraculously, we have made it through the first quarter. to hear me talk, you'd think that we were in some sort of collective "donner pass"-hell scenario, when in fact we are simply learning together.

SUSTAINing each other

Our colleague and friend (and vilified teacher of Physics) had a terrible life threatening health crisis on Thursday. It was horrific and wonderful all in the same moment. It looks like he will be fine, but is in the ICU about an hour away.