For the Jfs: http://africansignals.com/
And now for the not-JF folk:
Firstly, sorry for not updating more regularly; school and what-not.
Secondly, I thought I'd do a quick run-down of what exactly it is I'm and with whom for those who don't quite know.
Engineers Without Borders is a charity organization that, while originally very engineering oriented, is now a very soft-skill based organization. I mean this in that it utilizes sociological practices and organizational skills over technical expertise of any engineering background. Granted, I have the urge to try and build a windmill in my spare time overseas. But that's probably something unique to me.
My placement is with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. Actually, today we did a training on impact which definitely helped me get a clearer picture of what I'm doing. Previously the only picture I had was that I was training government workers to train farmers in a curriculum entitled “Agriculture as a Business.” The impact lesson put the final goal of this placement into focus for me though. I'd thought of what the final goal would be, namely that farmers would be taught to utilize their farm as a means of generating profit and improve their livelihoods, but I hadn't really identified this as a distinct point in space or time. Thus I was left trying to draw a line from my placement activities to an effected change that I hadn't really pinned down as my end goal because I was considering it too far away from my placement. I.E. I wasn't imaginging my placement being part of acheiving this, but rather part of starting this. Instead I'm very much feeling that I'm an integral part of this process now, and my placement will be drawing a clear line from point A (my feet hitting the ground) to point B (improved rural livelihoods).
There were quite a few other learnings today, but I'm a wee bit tight for time sadly. I will give a fuller update later this week!
-W
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Reflections and Practical Planning
I know of some folk who've been to Africa, but I doubt that part of their objective whilst there was to become as much like the people they were there to aid. It's going to be an odd feeling. My basic goal at that level is to become Warwick if Warwick were born in Ghana. What is that Warwick like? This seems intrinsically related to culture and the environmental pressures on personal growth. Clearly I can't overcome the biological ones though. It's interesting to think about how that might work out in the long run. My brain is predisposed to think in certain patterns by genome type, yet heavily modified by environment and experience. The cells work in a particular way because of my diet, because of the level of exercise I get, etc. If I change both of these drastically, not to mention put a much greater workload on parts of the brain that normally don't have much to do (for instance, the part of my brain that considers essential needs and the part concerned with emergency situations or handeling difficult issues are not fast-linked. I cannot make connections and plans concerning these issues as quickly as someone who faces famine on a regular day, or who has to plan a 45 minute walk to get water into their day). How will this affect my work capacity in other areas? Will it be a temporary drain on mental resources for short periods or fundamentally change my brain structure as it reorganizes itself to deal with a new reality? If so, how will this affect my work capability and effectiveness? How can I maintain quality and efficiency? Should I be altering my standards of what quality and efficiency even mean?
Complicated questions with no simple answer! Likely, as usual, a little bit of yes and no to all. I am certain this experience is going to dramatically and permanently affect my cognitive processes in particular ways. How I perceive and articulate intellectual theories and issues concerning poverty, development, politics, etc. will be fundamentally affected I'm sure. But what about simple things, like how I perceive and articulate hunger? It's easy to say things like "There won't be grocery stores, you will not be in a consumer society any longer and thus you must prepare for a greater level of scarcity and fewer choices." But this has real repercussions for you actual cognitive capacities beyond having to just think about food more. Firstly I am putting resources towards planning on food that previously would've been expended on other issues. Maybe this won't matter so much, since I will be cutting out a lot of downtime for my brain in the western context (no TV, less internet, etc etc.). But then theres the bigger picture: Thinking like this will mean I am literally re-wiring my brain over the long term. Your brain adapts to circumstances by developing new neural connections. Thus if I make it a habit of thinking about food over Stephen Colbert/Jon Stewart every day, the neurons responsible for processing that information efficiently will alter their patterns to process the newer information efficiently instead. And this does not affect just those single issues! Firstly theres the obvious statement that I do not have Stephen Colbert neurons, but rather a matrix of neurons dealing with information input, parsing, memory storage, comprehension, and linking to other issues. So any alteration to individual inputs in fact affects an entire cognitive system. Secondly, these systems are not discrete - memory is linked to hearing, which is linked to linking, etc. They all form a unitary web. Thus changing a particular system means the overall input into this web will vary. All of this is to say that my neural connections are going to be doing some very interesting things, all of which will be directly related to my overall feelings. I'll be rather displeased during those processes where neurons are disconnecting and re-associating, and happy when my neural web has maintained phases of stability. On top of this it will be fundamentally changing me as an individual. This will of course have direct affects on my ability to function. How that will play out, I haven't a clue though. Hopefully well! /rant.
Another major issue is my actual placement. The placement lists my location as blank. This is somewhat disconcerting. I take it to mean I will be traveling. From what I gather my objective whilst over there is to teach people how to teach, and to some extent influence what they teach. So I'm going to be taught how to teach people how to teach. My gray matter rebels against that kind of sentance structure, but its what's going down. It's surprising what skill sets related to this someone from our society already possesses though. I've a feeling the training will be more about realizing things we already know. Simple things like the distinctions between learning styles (auditory, visual, etc.). I'm tempted to save some PDF's on learning style studies to my laptop as a resource, it might come in handy. I'm also considering putting together my conception of how a learning plan designed to attune people to how other people function in a learning environment, while simultaneously attempting to alter that learning environment to bridge the gap between gender inequalities, socio-economic inequalities, etc. So much to think about! But it will be worth the effort to do.
Complicated questions with no simple answer! Likely, as usual, a little bit of yes and no to all. I am certain this experience is going to dramatically and permanently affect my cognitive processes in particular ways. How I perceive and articulate intellectual theories and issues concerning poverty, development, politics, etc. will be fundamentally affected I'm sure. But what about simple things, like how I perceive and articulate hunger? It's easy to say things like "There won't be grocery stores, you will not be in a consumer society any longer and thus you must prepare for a greater level of scarcity and fewer choices." But this has real repercussions for you actual cognitive capacities beyond having to just think about food more. Firstly I am putting resources towards planning on food that previously would've been expended on other issues. Maybe this won't matter so much, since I will be cutting out a lot of downtime for my brain in the western context (no TV, less internet, etc etc.). But then theres the bigger picture: Thinking like this will mean I am literally re-wiring my brain over the long term. Your brain adapts to circumstances by developing new neural connections. Thus if I make it a habit of thinking about food over Stephen Colbert/Jon Stewart every day, the neurons responsible for processing that information efficiently will alter their patterns to process the newer information efficiently instead. And this does not affect just those single issues! Firstly theres the obvious statement that I do not have Stephen Colbert neurons, but rather a matrix of neurons dealing with information input, parsing, memory storage, comprehension, and linking to other issues. So any alteration to individual inputs in fact affects an entire cognitive system. Secondly, these systems are not discrete - memory is linked to hearing, which is linked to linking, etc. They all form a unitary web. Thus changing a particular system means the overall input into this web will vary. All of this is to say that my neural connections are going to be doing some very interesting things, all of which will be directly related to my overall feelings. I'll be rather displeased during those processes where neurons are disconnecting and re-associating, and happy when my neural web has maintained phases of stability. On top of this it will be fundamentally changing me as an individual. This will of course have direct affects on my ability to function. How that will play out, I haven't a clue though. Hopefully well! /rant.
Another major issue is my actual placement. The placement lists my location as blank. This is somewhat disconcerting. I take it to mean I will be traveling. From what I gather my objective whilst over there is to teach people how to teach, and to some extent influence what they teach. So I'm going to be taught how to teach people how to teach. My gray matter rebels against that kind of sentance structure, but its what's going down. It's surprising what skill sets related to this someone from our society already possesses though. I've a feeling the training will be more about realizing things we already know. Simple things like the distinctions between learning styles (auditory, visual, etc.). I'm tempted to save some PDF's on learning style studies to my laptop as a resource, it might come in handy. I'm also considering putting together my conception of how a learning plan designed to attune people to how other people function in a learning environment, while simultaneously attempting to alter that learning environment to bridge the gap between gender inequalities, socio-economic inequalities, etc. So much to think about! But it will be worth the effort to do.
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