To begin the story at the beginning, read "Part 1: Post 1: Beginning Again," published in January, 2013. To consult a description of the campus, read "Part 1: Post 14: The Greening of Campus," published in March, 2013.

Monday, April 24, 2017

Mastery Year 1: Part 2: Note

Hi, all.

I just wanted to tell you that, no, I'm not doing a real post today, and yes, everything's fine on my end. A group of us went to the Science March in DC on Saturday, which meant a three day trip--it's a long drive from where we live--so my work week got seriously disrupted. I'll post on Friday, after I've caught up.

"We," incidentally, was June and I and Carly, Allen, Lo, and David, and Breathwalker, whom I haven't told you about. He was a student at the school several years before I arrived and has recently gotten involved with the community again. He was another student of Charlie's. It's a different group than the contingent that came to the climate march a few years ago (and will attend the climate march next week), but it was a different kind of march. It felt different. I've been trying to put my finger on exactly how--here's part of it. The people asked questions. That is, when people at the march chatted with each other, they usually started by asking questions, not by making statements. About what you could expect from scientists, I suppose. What does your sign mean? What does your costume signify? What kind of scientist are you?

We had an answer for that one; David is an ecologist, Allen and Lo are psychologists, June and I are science educators, and Breathwalker and Carly aren't scientists at all, but science is important to them. By the end of the march, Carly was giving that answer herself. It's funny, I never thought of Allen and Lo as scientists, but I guess they are.

We could have gone to one of the satellite marches, several were much more convenient for us, but we figured the bigger the DC march was, the more impact it would have, and anyway we figured it was time for us to show Carly our nation's capital. Any kid her age should get to have astronaut ice cream at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

My favorite part of the whole march experience was probably the sign--and I saw it several times--that said "science is like magic, but real."

That sounds about right to me.

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