Read it with your CHEST

Ok last one

When the jazz hours start to hit

If a cat went on a roller coaster

Also those snow prints are from the two raccoons who were fighting in our tulip poplar early this morning

I don’t actually cry down there but I think about it often after classes. Teaching is full of so many ups and downs.

#teaching #teacherwin #adjunct #liberalarts #socialchange #theory

The metaphor isn’t perfect, and here I embellished a little from what the original said. I do think it’s an impactful way for thinking about how 1) individuals problems are connected to structural issues and 2) we all have roles to fill to make small steps towards larger transformation.

You & the network of resources that grew out of consciousness raising about the problem now can work to address some of the root of the structural issues in the town that caused the problem of the babies floating down the river.

After awareness of the issue grows, more people offer new forms of help. You make it up river to find there is a town where they have been experiencing extreme food insecurity & poverty & they decided that the babies in town would have a better life down river where there was more food.

As the babies continue to float down the river, the passerby jumps in the river to help. You decide someone must go UP RIVER to discover the source of the babies.
You get out of the river and start walking, telling every person you come pass about the problem you’re trying to solve.

The metaphor comes from social change theory and leadership theory (I forget where I read it many years ago now).

You’re walking along a river & you see a baby floating down the river. You stop to rescue it, but promptly see another baby floating down, & another.
You call to a passerby for help…