DavidEduc450

Through these videos and articles, I realized the importance of shifting away from passive consumerism toward localized, community-based production. Plenty of the productions of daliy goods and in our lives had been "outsourced" to factories and developing nations. As resources like cheap fossil fuels and other consumer items become scarce, communities must learn how to provide for their primary needs.  We must relearn how to make everything by hands rather than buying things from the stores in an increasingly consumeristic world. Moreover, making things by hand provides more emotional fulfillment, self-esteem, and satisfaction than shopping.  It was quite interesting and fruitful to learn how to make multi-strand braid, Turkish lace/ netting/ string bag, common threads, and ropes by hands. 

Today, we learned how to measure different things in our world using our body parts. It was really interesting to learn how ancient people measure things using just their body parts. We record the measurements of our finger length, arm length, and foot length, then use these to measure the fields. I think this is how ancient civilizations measure the world.

When reading the article, I was first surprised by UBC's neo-liberal models which views campus land strictly in terms of real estate development and profit making tools instead of lands. Thus establishing a learning garden on campus is difficult and face immense pressures. Learning how the UBC Orchard Garden thrive in the environment of UBC is also interesting. In addition to being a learning garden, the UBC Orchard Garden also serves for numerous Master’s and PhD research projects. It also grows food for UBC's foodbanks.  How outdoor classroom should operates also interests me. It mentions how the soil, plants, and weather, and the living ecosystem should be an active co-teacher. Outdoor classroom shouldn't just replicate indoor classroom. For Mathematics teaching, it may be a bit difficult to conduct in a garden because secondary school Math contents is difficult to be integrated and connected to nature-based learning. Mathematics is a highly rigorous subjects which requi...

Through watching the video about Frank McCourt, I realize the importance of constant learning and studying in our world to eliminate bias. I didn’t necessarily learn it through his teaching, but at his depictions of the “Korean War”. In his depiction of the “Korean War”, he framed the conflict as “Chinese attacked Korea”. Although this statement is historically accurate, it is a heavily political code language, reflecting the political indoctrination in the West that frame China as the “aggressor”. From the Chinese perspectives, the US and South Korean troops were approaching their borders and threatening their national security. Hence, they sent in their troops to Korea. Both perspectives have their own reasons to exist.  Despite being an educator who “advocates for unbiased perspectives and learnings”, he unwilling made a “politically-coded statement” despite not realizing about it. This idea can be extended to other aspects of the world and society. For instances, in North Ameri...

The statement that struck me the most is that “education is not neutral” and that whatever you are being taught is a selection of values. These statements had been repeated over and over again but it was very hard for people to truly recognize all of the bias they have. For instance, if somebody was born in a marginalized community, he would understand the struggles and hurdles his own community had. Nonetheless, it was hard for him to understand and realize the bias he had on other marginalized community. It was likely that this individual would have the traditional bias view on other marginalized community. Even if somebody tried his best at understanding bias, he would always have bias towards other elements of the world. Hence, what I find the most important thing in the world is to always keep an open mind towards everything in the world. It resonated to what was discussed in the book To Kill a Mockingbird, the importance of constant learning and studying is important.