Edging Ahead…

Assignment: “…. find an appropriate image to use in at least one of the classes you teach.  How can visual imagery support your curricular content?”

I’m not teaching as many direct classes these days as technology and available time conspire to draw students into their own worlds and teacher into their own classrooms,  but I interact constantly with students, teachers, parents and vendors, and so these are truly “the classes I teach”.  Regardless of the topic, I often lately find myself coming around to the elephant in the room; the environment , or more succinctly, our blatant and growing disregard for the environment in our pursuit of Consumerism’s Holy Grail.  Recently, it seems like the elephant is becoming a herd, as we crowd in increasing environmental degradation (blogged about last post with a positive-spin response by Doug Johnson in the Blue Skunk Blog),  potential global warming tipping points,  growing disease vectors,  and possible environmental collapse.

Yesterday, Stuart H. Scott, in an address to HS students at International School Bangkok, added another “mother of all elephants in the room” – the spectre of actual human extinction if we continue the “BAU” course. For the first time since Al Gore raised the red flag for many of us,  I watched an adult literally choke up talking to kids about Catastrophic Failure Modes and the real possibility of a future United States unable to feed its citizens.  It’s looking increasing likely, from where I stand, that the elephants are truly about to run amok…

I wrote a book about my emerging convictions around this topic, and when I stalled out at getting a publisher, I decided to go it alone.  I was able to meet the design requirements for the Interior file of a POD book (great for the environment), but when I came to the cover image, I was stuck. I wanted an image that would convey a sense of the impending catastrophe  the book explores while hinting at the wonder that still exists in nature and the the tentative promise of redemption through a higher power, be that divine, or human-inspired.

In the end, I chose an image of my own, grabbed quickly around the helpful assistance from my 18 month-old son. For me, this image will always represent the sense of chaotic purpose driven by a growing sense of impending doom I was feeling as I tried to breath life into my initial literary “creation”. Although the meaning may be a large part of only my own internal “soul-map”, the image neatly encapsulates one of the core messages I had spent 190,000 words trying to articulate. Does it work for anyone else? I guess that’s a question that only someone who has read the book might answer…