Connecting the Dots

Tromping through the woods at the Cornell Copperative Extension Maple Tour

For the past year, these posts have mapped the gap — or the absence of one — between our national crisis and my daily life with kids in a self-directed learning environment. That work continues, because nothing has stopped: not the incompetence, not the propaganda, not the lawlessness, not the grifters. Just when the absurdities seemed impossible to top, this past week found new depths. A president clutching a miniature bomber like a favorite toy, celebrating killing in a war he engineered, lying about the economy, about immigrants, about voter fraud — treating the whole catastrophe as a game his handlers cobbled together to keep him entertained and from wandering off. Meanwhile the people his agencies cage and deport, and the children powerful men have violated, are still waiting for anything resembling justice.

For fourteen months, I've returned to the same insistence: this isn't about politics. It's about who gets to control the story — and through the story, the country itself. Authoritarianism isn't just the enemy of democracy. It's the enemy of curiosity, of autonomy, of the belief that human beings are capable of directing their own lives and their own learning. Which is to say, it's the enemy of everything this work is built on. As mentioned last week, I'm currently reviewing and revising over twelve years of essays, posting one here each week with an eye toward a book. The connections between this nightmare and our commitment to that mission will run through all of it. 

This piece, like last week's, is from our first month of operations, January 2014.

Our Philosophy in Action
1/30/14

Did you know a Lamborghini can travel 65 miles in 15 minutes? (Yes, we did the math.) Do you know what drifting is? (Nothing to do with last week's snow.) What about 4K? A thermostat called Nest that can run nearly your entire house? A wheelie bar — what it is, what it does? Did you know drag racing cars have rear-wheel drive and sticky tires? Have you ever heard a ten-year-old say, "I'd like to make a movie from a first-person perspective"?

These are a few things I've learned from the two kids I have the privilege of spending my days with. Are the facts themselves important? Not if you're not into cars or technology. But the facts were never the point. The point is the why and the how. 

Our conversations have covered a lot of ground, but the essential thing — the thing underneath all of it — has been the listening. I'm not just collecting interesting facts. I'm beginning to know these two young men. I'm learning why these subjects grip them, how they think, what lights them up, and what makes them genuinely happy and engaged. That's the job: know them well enough to ask the right questions, open the right doors, and then get out of the way and cheer.

I lost count of the mental yes-es and imaginary arm pumps this week. There were a lot.

DRC News

Weekly Wrap-up

It has been a strange week with two inclement weather related days off and a field trip on Thursday. Monday passed in a blur with no photos taken. Therefore, all of the photos this week are from our field trip to the Cooperative Extension Farm Maple Tour. Thank you to the folks at the farm for showing us the entire process from tapping to boiling and for letting us play with the baby kids and lambs. 

​*The DRC Explore the NoCo Field Trip Project is supported by a Badenhausen Grant through the Northern New York Commercial Foundation.

Congratulations to Leslie Carlin, the winner of our raffle of $100 of NYS Lotto Scratch-off Tickets. Thank you to everyone who participated.  We raised about $500, that goes directly toward supporting our student members. 

TS drew the winning name. He insisted on wearing his hoodie backward to keep it completely fair.