Hello again, everyone.
This week brings the start of the blog that will be the context for our regular exchange of reflections and, in many ways, the motor of our class. You’ve already seen my general description of the weekly posts. I hope that if you have questions you’ll feel free either to email me at <elder2348@gmail.com> or to check in with Heather, Mae, or Ariel or with the other Fellows at your site. In a recent PolyCom chat with Ariel she made a couple of suggestions I want to let you know about. One is to assign midnight on Mondays and Thursdays as the time by which those posts should be entered; the other is to push the Thursday post for this week off to Friday, since we’ll all be involved in a videoconference on Thursday evening. As my role-model Homer would say, “Done and done!”
Take whatever approach to the readings lends your post energy and a manageable focus. Here are couple of broad prompts you could use if you liked, though, just to break into this exploratory mode of writing. 1: Berry, Pollan, and Petrini all offer a rationale for the local food movement (or in Petrini’s case for the closely affiliated Slow Food approach). Does one of them formulate this in a way you particularly like, or dislike for that matter? Do you feel a strong contrast between some pair of these readings? 2: Ladonna Redmond, in the YouTube of her talk, brings the topic of local food into an urban world and relates it to issues of social equity. Does that seem to you a critique of the others’ approach? an extension of it? some combination of the two? I look forward very much to reading these responses, and from time to time entering into dialogue with folks in the class.
One other point to make about the blog, here at the outset. The voice can be personal, the approach exploratory. Have fun with them. But you should know that, though only members of the Food Works program can enter posts or comments, it is like most other blogs a public forum. So please bear in mind that strangers may be reading your entries as you choose your words. I actually think this is a crucial skill for us all to hone in the age of email and Face Book: an authentic combination of candor and carefulness.
In Thursday’s videoconference we’ll each introduce ourselves to the whole group. I’ll ask everyone simply to go around and say their names, where they go to school and where they live, what their majors are, and what their summer’s internship is. There’ll be two main topics for this session. The first is to talk a little more about the week’s readings, as a way of building upon, and also enriching, the blog. Ariel will frame and facilitate the next part of the videoconference, which will focus on the themes of urban sustainability and resilient cities. Here are some readings she suggests as relevant to those topics. Like all our readings, they’re pretty brief. You might like to take a look at them in the run-up to Thursday.
Could Washington DC Become the American Capital of Urban Farming?
Behind the Success of DC’s Unstoppable Food Incubator, Union Kitchen
You certainly do not need to post about these, but you could if you wished. Similarly, if you ever wanted to post about one of your Fifth Days rather than about a reading that would be fine. The whole point of the blog is deepen and sharpen our conversation as the summer progresses.
I wish you a pleasant weekend after the intensity of getting your internships up and rolling!
Sincerely,
John