All posts by dityat

Republished Article

On Popular Education

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This article was originally accesible from this link: http://goo.gl/hYaiA. However, for a reason that I am not aware of, it was taken down and therefore it has been unavailable. This article illustrates very well what and how popular education is playing its role in social change. I happened to make a PDF print out back then, so I am able to put it on a web page format for everyone to read.

John Hurst has been a professor of education at Berkeley since 1961. Besides his work in crafting undergraduate education and in popular education, he has played an important role in the evolution of the use of wilderness as an educational vehicle. He helped found and shape the Outward Bound movement in the United States and the National Outdoor Leadership School.

This article is also available in PDF. link for downloading Adobe Reader

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by John Hurst

Education: A Powerful Tool

Picture of Rosa Parks known of her refusal to give up her bus seat, but less known as a talented community organizer

When Rosa Parks was asked by the eminent talk show host, Studs Terkel, what the Highlander Research and Education Center had to do with the fact that she chose not to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, on that fateful day in early December 1955, she answered quite simply, “Everything.” As a result of its educational efforts on behalf of integration, the state of Tennessee closed Highlander in 1960 on bogus charges and auctioned off all of its property, only to have it reopen shortly thereafter under a new name and charter.

Continue reading On Popular Education →

Popular Article

The Natural Step Monona: What it means to be a grassroots environmental organization

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From The Herald Independent, May 3rd, 2013.  Yes my birthday!!!

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When I joined The Natural Step Monona (TNS Monona) as a volunteer back in the fall of 2008, I was just starting my graduate study: working to understand and document the connections between scientific information, sustainability, and grassroots movements. I wanted to be part of grassroots action to promote sustainable behavior, and saw TNS Monona as an environmental sustainability group with a clearly stated mission to serve the Monona community. Continue reading The Natural Step Monona: What it means to be a grassroots environmental organization →

Partnership

Teaching/facilitating CBR course

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Teaching is not easy, absolutely. But sometimes I feel that putting myself as a facilitator instead of teacher could help lessen the challenges. The challenge is different, but apparently one is not less challenging than the other. BTW, as a Teaching Assistant, I was encouraged to take more responsibilities in leading this course. And I am happy to take the challenge.

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Writing here in the Lakefront cafe Memorial Union, I am trying to reflect on how I probably did not do a good job especially in facilitating the discussion about “knowledge” yesterday. I have a group of smart students and from their reading reflecions, they brought great ideas about local knowledge, urban knowledge, indigenous knowledge, professional knowledge, and knowledge democracy, and how they are relevant to the context of social movement. Continue reading Teaching/facilitating CBR course →

Family

Four months later …

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Yes, indeed, four months after my last post.  It shows my lacking to discipline myself to write.  This blog should have  been a medium for my 15-minute a day writing of anything!

“Celebrating” the four months of inactivity, our family started a new journey with a new Cuisinart GR-4N 5-in-1 Griddler.  We bought it on Saturday during the Thanksgiving holiday.  With a $10 coupon from Amazon plus free 1-day shipping from Discover, it arrived on Monday for a total of $67.99.  Let me continue on this price tag, when I looked for a link to this item in the amazon website, I was shocked that the price went up t0 $92.50, before $10 off from Amazon  That is about $25 increase!  I did not realize that the griddler was among the items on sale during Thanksgiving holiday.  But now I am so happy that I got it at the right time!  :2thumbup.

Continue reading Four months later … →

Family

Hello, again: short updates

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It has been quite a while since the last entry. Life has been both hectic and fun, as a student, as a father of two, and certainly as a husband. My wife is finishing up her thesis, so it has been a real journey in this particular case. Her struggle as a medical doctor taking a complete different turn in her study in Southeast Asian Studies is absolutely something :P.

Generally, her struggle is a typical case of interdisciplinary work. My job has been to stand by her and helped her understand than many other interdisciplinary scholars have had similar experience like hers. It is not an easy job, as some of you would know. I am not perfect. Our frustrations often ended up in many unfinished discussions and even led to other personal issues. But together we have realized that this is just a part of our journey to gain knowledge. Continue reading Hello, again: short updates →

Professional Development

Dissertation Research Abstract [2]

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You might wonder what has happened with the Dissertation Research Abstract [1].  I used to think that I would like to do a community-based research (CBR) on transportation.  What I have learned from my recent CBR project with The Natural Step Monona was that transportation is not on their top priority list.  As a result, there is no strong basis for conducting CBR in transportation because transportation is not a pressing issue for Monona residents and therefore there is no immediate needs in addressing it.

Another learning point from this is that when a researcher wants to conduct a CBR, a topic becomes secondary.  CBR is a methodology that aims to address whatever we learn from the needs assessment process.  Community will identify a set of local community issues and then rank them to see what is the most important for them to asnwer.  This can be anything from a chicken in someone’s backyard to as complex as Wisconsin’s collective bargaining issue. It is imperative that CBR follows community’s interests.

Continue reading Dissertation Research Abstract [2] →

Professional Development

From Transportation to Service Learning

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Starting next week, I am going to take a new position with the Morgridge Center for Public Service.  This is just another graduate assistanship position, nothing fancy.  But it helps me keep my student status and have my qualiying exam and prelim this semester.  I will be a Teaching Assistant (Engaged Scholarship Fellow) for their program to teach/train TAs and junior faculties at the UW-Madison about service learning.

Continue reading From Transportation to Service Learning →