Transcript links for the Parable of the Sower podcast by Adrienne Maree Brown & Toshi Reagon

I started collecting the transcript links for the first season of the O’Parables podcast in one place for those who need or want to read them.

If you’re unfamiliar with Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (1993), it’s a fictional account of surviving societal breakdown which has uncanny relevance to today. The story spans a journey of three … Read more...

The Next Three Months

We’re in the lead-up to a tumultuous time.

I have been listening to the O’Parables podcast. Octavia E. Butler’s trilogy is prescient. She wrote it in the early’90s, set in the 2020s. She is literally describing conditions so many are already experiencing and most of the rest of us (the non-billionaire class) are heading into. The podcast features Adrienne … Read more...

Introducing “Communication Dynamics”

Like all good students, they have questions about the introductory slide show. How detailed will the quiz be, do they need to learn every detail, how much they should try to memorize, etc. “It’s all over the place!” one of them exclaimed.

Another liked the game-type set up, the mystery of searching for the links and the fun of clicking … Read more...

Over 1000 acres of Massachusetts’ Forest to be cut by DCR in 2020

The Department of Conservation and Recreation for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is once again planning several cutting projects. Although the process allows for “public comment,” this is just going-through-the-motions. Based on past history, DCR has no intention of allowing public or scientific feedback to influence their plan. Take, for instance, the Wendell State Forest, where DCR allowed a private … Read more...

Open Letter on Proforestation, to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs

To:      Secretary Kathleen A. Theoharides, Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs; Claire Miziolek, Decarbonization Roadmap Manager; Hong-Hanh Chu, GWSA Program Manager; Benjamin Miller, Decarbonization Roadmap Technical Lead; and staff of the relevant agencies

CC:      Representative Susannah Whipps; Representative William Pignatelli; Representative Denise Provost; Senator Ann Gobi; Senator Karen Spilka; Senator Jo Comerford; Representative Mindy Domb; Jim Montgomery, Department … Read more...

Practice How You’ll Play: Lessons from the Era of Neil Armstrong

Dad watched the time as we drove some winding high mountain highway in the Colorado Rockies. He had purchased a black-and-white television that could be powered from the cigarette lighter to bring along just for this trip. As the target time approached, he pulled onto the shoulder, and sent my brother and I to wag down passers-by and invite them … Read more...

sharp curves and time-out-of-time (TOOT!)

Sometimes, sharp conversational curves feel like precipitous cliffs. There is what I do, sometimes, which is to say something spontaneously about something that is going on within the context of a group that is within the realm of things most people have been trained not to say. This is more than a sharp curve, and it calls upon whoever is involved to exercise a deeper level of social resilience. Mental agility has to be combined with emotional savvy, too.
Sometimes, sharp conversational curves feel like precipitous cliffs. There is what I do, sometimes, which is to say something spontaneously about something that is going on within the context of a group that is within the realm of things most people have been trained not to say. This is more than a sharp curve, and it calls upon whoever is involved to exercise a deeper level of social resilience. Mental agility has to be combined with emotional savvy, too.

Is Dialogue Possible?

Promises & Perils of Dialogic Pedagogy

Promises and Perils of Dialogic Pedagogy

It certainly wasn’t boring.

At least not after the slow start! But maybe the start wasn’t actually that slow . . . here I am re-thinking the beginning after the end.

We did not rush back from lunch, so the first set of presentations did not begin on time. Actually, time boundary-keeping was broken … Read more...