From September 25 to October 13, 2002, and artist named Patrick Dougherty created public art display on the Carleton College campus (Northfield, MN) called “Twigonometry.” Carleton staff and students along with community members helped pull Buckthorn in Carleton’s Cowling Arboretum and McKnight Prairie. Instead of just throwing away the removed plants, Dougherty created sculptures in the shape of “nests” or “huts” using the pulled Buckthorn along with branches of Willow and Dogwood.

Now, in 2007, Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges are collaborating to combine eradicating Buckthorn and creating art with the help of the Northfield community and nature artist Jim Proctor to form the Buckthorn Menace Project.

The Buckthorn Menace began with Suzie Nakasian, co-chair of the Northfield Environmental Quality Commission, when she read an article about the artist Jim Proctor. She loved how he portrayed the Buckthorn through art. After coordinating with Proctor and the colleges, she started to sign up schools and local organizations to help make the project possible. The first to be involved were Carleton and St. Olaf colleges, followed by ARTech, the Northfield Middle School, and many other community members.

Students creating a Buckthorn head

The final products (giant “dandelions” comprised of tall Buckthorn “trunks” with heads of Buckthorn roots) were built by the community in three steps. The first step was for people to sign up for a specific time every week that they could commit to working on the project. The second step was, of course, to pull Buckthorn. You would visit either Carleton or St. Olaf at the time you had previously arranged and pull/trim buckthorn with the help of Jim Proctor and others. The final step was to construct the head. First you would sort the buckthorn roots by size, then you would attach the roots to round balls made of buckthorn. They were randomly spaced around the Carleton Arboretum and St. Olaf as public art for everyone to see and experience, and will be left there for one more year then replaced by native trees and bushes.

Hopefully, this project will enlighten the community about the environmental danger close to home and how we can come together to put it to a stop.

An ideal senior high school is one that embraces individuality, but also challenges students with structure and conformity. A student can only truly achieve success when they do so both individually and under group standards.

Perhaps the most important thing about a school is the building itself. A school can slowly change its educational style and philosophy simply by changing its surroundings; a school that is project-based in an open warehouse facility, for example, might change its curriculum simply by moving to a traditional school building. In an ideal school, there would be four distinct but integral spaces: lecture space, industrial areas, individual and group work areas, and performance space.

I attend a school that began as project-based and I believe strongly in the use of project-based learning. But I also believe it must be integrated with traditional classroom curriculum. That’s my reason for wanting lecture space — not a classroom per se, but an area that would accommodate monological teaching as well as some discussion.

Warehouse room is the ultimate “open door.” In the school I attend, we have a warehouse room of about 2,700 sq. ft. The room has served as an art studio, science lab, gymnasium, auditorium, and cafeteria. This being the ideal, there wouldn’t be the need to use one space for all these purposes, but it shows the flexibility of plain old empty space.

Work areas are the heart of any school. These areas should be open and airy and allow for some level of conversation. Think office building. Such spaces should have individual desks for each student, but as much flexibility as possible — laptop computers instead of desktop machines and large conference tables intermingled with the desks for group activities.

Auditoriums need not be as malleable as the other areas because they serve only two real purposes: performances and speeches. They should be sufficient to seat the entire student population, but little more — it shouldn’t feel like a stadium.

Grounds are the last element of a positive building. I do not approve of the common “do all” approach of school sites — it just isn’t necessary to have football fields, tennis courts, swimming pools, enormous parking lots, etc. all in one place. It would be far more beneficial to find a more modest location, but one that is within walking distance to libraries, stores, homes, and the community in general. A good school is one that integrates with the larger community, not one that creates its own.

The perfect teacher to many would be one who is inspiring, fun, and develops healthy relationships with his students. On a personal level — whom I’d like to teach me — I would agree. But on whole-school level, I wouldn’t; some teachers should absolutely meet this mold, but for a true educational experience, one must encounter a diversity of personalities. If this means that one teacher could care less about a student’s class or project, that’s fine. If this means that the teacher is downright uncivil, that’s fine too. It would be coddling, not nurturing, to surround students only with friendly, knowledgeable educators. Universally, a good teacher is one who challenges her students — it’s important to do that on a curricular level, but it’s also important to do it on a social one. Not everybody in life will be easy to get along with.

The perfect student is one who cares about his school and his life plan. This is a person who knows what she wants to achieve, but perhaps not how exactly to do so. This is a person who is passionate about the community he’s a part of and strives to improve it. This is a person who involves herself socially on a reasonable level, but is productive the majority of the school day.

Defining the perfect parent is all about finding a happy medium. Essentially, he should be involved in his child’s school life, but only to the extent that the child absolutely needs it. She should be in good communication with teachers, but not overeager — no teacher likes a parent who e-mails him every day. I can’t imagine that parent’s child being too excited about it, either. A parent should also be willing to volunteer time: anywhere from 10-50 hours per academic year.

The curriculum should be split between classroom learning and project learning. Classroom learning is shunned by project-based fanatics, but it shouldn’t be. Entirely classroom-oriented learning is restrictive, but entirely project-based is worse: it divides people into two groups — those who don’t work at all and those who become engrossed loners. Classroom learning alleviates both of these problems: those who are generally nonproductive are challenged to meet the standards of a group environment and those who go off on their own must work with others. Project-based also has its role, though — it allows students to purse their own interests and learn at their own pace. A mix of the two provides the ideal educational environment. In both types of learning, grades should be used in conjunction with written evaluations to record the quality of students’ work. Ideally grades wouldn’t be necessary, but an ideal school must also be a realistic school. We need a common basis for evaluating work — nothing does that as well as a cold, hard letter.

The governance of the school should integrate students. “Kiddie pools” — student governments, boards, etc. — are ubiquitous in our schools. These groups are based on the fundamental idea that students can’t possibly participate on the level of adults in school governance. That said, even as a teenager, I can say that I want teens completely running my school — but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be involved in the conversation. Students should be eligible for nonvoting seats on their school board during 9th-11th grade and eligible for a voting seat in 12th grade — this allows for involvement with minimal risk of juvenile decisions. In both voting and nonvoting seats, the students would have to be elected by the community just like any other board member. Staff meetings should also be open to students whenever possible. Students must be involved all decisions that they can be and they must be kept informed of decisions that they can’t.

Challenge is what education is all about. In first grade, challenge might mean considering numbers — realizing that one apple and another apple together can be defined by the number two. In junior high school, it might be provoking opinion for the first real time or understanding grammatical rules. In senior high and college, it might mean sheer workload and higher standards of merit. Whatever point in an educational process, challenge is at the core of learning. The ideal school I’ve outlined celebrates that. Now if only such a school would really happen.

Buggy Apple

When I think of a perfect school, I fundamentally think of a community of self-motivated learners. I think of a stimulating environment. I think of teachers who are excited to help each student. I think of curious and enthusiastic learners who are ready for any challenge and welcomes them with open arms.

A stimulating environment would include all students working passionately. One student might be playing and instrument while another is writing a book in a loft full of coffee house-like furnishings. The building would be close to outside resources like the library, community center, or even a fabric store. Inside, there would be a place for everyone: music rooms, a writing loft filled with books, a video-editing studio. There would be a place for a garden if students felt so inspired. And, of course, it would be full of color.

There wouldn’t be teachers, or at least not traditional teachers. They would be adults that we could look up to. They would be great resources. If they couldn’t help, they would redirect you to someone who could. They would be interested in all students projects and give them full and passionate attention when talking to them. But most importantly, they would treat students equally. They would motivate students in positive ways. They would always keep all of the students’ best interests in mind when making decisions, not just a few of them. They would be mentors and they would love doing it.

Another thing that is really important is how the school is run – how decisions are made and how much involvement the students have. It is important that the students play a major part in the decision-making process. If students are going to love coming to school, they need to make the school their own. Students have their own opinions and, most of the time, those opinions are really good. A student should be on the school board, a student should go to the staff meetings, a student should be on any hiring committee, and a student should be giving tours and informing others about the school. This would make a huge statement to kids who are interested in attending the school. If the school is focused on helping each child, they should have that child be a part of as much of the educational process as possible.

Although the atmosphere, environment, and teachers are important, they still aren’t as important as the students. The students will produce the work, they will be attending the school, they will be the representatives. These students would be here because they want to be here. They would have a positive look on education and wouldn’t need motivation to become inspired. They don’t necessarily need to know what they want to do when they “grow up,” they just need to know their interests. They would have a positive attitude toward people around them and would always chose mature ways of dealing with conflict. They would want to help the students and adults around them. They would just be fun to be around!

I don’t know how possible it is to find a school like this. It sure is fun to dream, though.

What two other student had to say:

Megan McDonald (grade 11): On the trip to New York we had so much fun I had a great time walking all over New York city. We took the subway to some places but for the most part we walked. What I liked most about the trip was that all the people that went with were fun and every one got along with everyone. There was grand central station at was amazing, the hotel sucked bad, central park was good but we weren’t their for a long time. So over all New York was fun but we didn’t spent enough time there.

Mike Mitchell (grade 12): New York was amazing we had so much fun walking the streets and taking the subway to and from places. My favorite place was the art museums were we saw the paintings of one of are teachers Peter Victorine. I also enjoyed our visit to central park were we saw the memorial for John Lennon which was cool because my dad really wanted a pitcher of it. The day that we went to the Brooklyn bridge and it was pouring rain and we got so wet and all of our pitcher looked so bad but it was still fun. I was sad the day that we left because I was hoping we would have more time to walk around and do stuff because it was warm and sunny most of the time.

I.

We’ll get to the bottom of this
on an empty stomach,
on an emptied day

When boredom struck
1200 mils
when boredom
struck gold,
golden fabric curtains

Killing time released
from the twisting of caps
we’ll make a toast
drinks all around–
“to this frightful train
we’re chugging down,”
mouth-bound;
and count
how much of the stuff we’ve downed,
1200 mils
not knowing
we’ve drowned

and as it coats our throats
with the ease
of trapeze strings,
we make pact
with brains intact

everything’s signed,
pupils contract

we await impact

II.

OUR PACT WITH MIRRORS–
stretching new bodies out
on sultry jungle floor

and your body
swung open like a door
i stepped inside
and your head became the floor
so roll out your tongue
as the carpet

JUVENILE CROCODILE
SNIFF THE PAINTS
get high and DIE–

just TWO of us — that’s all there EVER WAS

MINDS YAWNING WIDE
peeling zombie eyes
in the vacancy of GAZE

eyes turn in
to the back of her head.
BUT SHE’S NOT DEAD

is it an escape?
Charged with killing pain–

we’ll never cough again

The internet isn’t all that interesting. At least not visually. This thought strikes me every now and again when I’m flipping through a magazine. Large, gripping pictures; varying font faces and sizes; and intriguing graphics — these are all things you expect to see in print but seldom find online.

Take, for example, this article — How the Brain Rewires Itself — from the January 29 issue of Time Magazine.

Now, look at its online companion:

There’s a lot of information being displayed in the online version, some of it very aesthetically interesting, but most of it of little relation to the article (though I mustn’t speak ill of an article linked on the page, entitled “Is the tide turning in Britney’s favor?” — after 85 years, Time is finally living up to its potential).

The online issue also has the very same graphic seen in the print one. And at a whopping 360×265 pixels. Take technical hangups out of the equation for a second: Why is the image so small? Why isn’t the text integrated with it? Why is the biggest visual point of this page the Time masthead and not the article itself?

Especially that last question. Even as I’m looking at my own blog, the header for the site name stands out significantly more than the title of the entry. I would imagine all this goes back to thinking the basic structure of a web page (esp. XHTML tags [XHTML is the language used to mark up websites] <h1>, <h2>, etc.). And I suppose in 1996, that was a good excuse, but we don’t have that limitation anymore: we can easily manipulate the final seen product without altering the information-providing XHTML.

And don’t be afraid to bend the rules a little bit. Standards advocates are constantly fretting about the 3% (that’s a gross and likely inaccurate estimation) who use text browser or screen readers, that we tend to neglect the vast majority whose browser use CSS and Javascript and other things we can use to enhance our sites. I’m not saying web developers should go Frontpage on their users [”Frontpage” is the name of now-discontinued software from Microsoft, widely criticized for its poor cross-browser compatibility], but let’s not forget the 97%.

Two websites that are the most visually impressive to me: Gucci and FRONTLINE. Gucci deserves applause as well for doing incredible effects without resorting to Flash (yeah, I did just kind of contradict my last paragraph, but I really really hate Flash [Adobe Flash is a browser plugin used by many sites to provide visual effects and audio/video. It’s looked down upon by some web developers because the content is not accessible to those who do not have the correct plugin.]). And FRONTLINE does exactly what I wanted to see from magazines like Time: the graphics are large and eye-catching without distracting from the content. And the features clearly take precedent over the fact that it’s from FRONTLINE or PBS.

I recently completed an extremely simple-looking redesign of Charter Vision — in fact I generally pride myself on my simple designs — I guess I justify it because A. the layout of Charter Vision’s print issue was relatively straight-forward too and B. there would be too much work involved to create a unique design for each story, but then again, B is everyone’s excuse…

There’s no denying she’s cute. I think she’s cute. I’m not sure if anyone else thinks she’s cute. I’m too afraid to show them. I worry what people would think. What they would do. I can’t really decide if I ever really will show people… her. Plus it’s not like she even knows other people exist yet. To her, I am the only person in the world. This is not an egotistical comment. Under the circumstances, it’s one hundred percent truthful. Some people may think the way I keep her in my pocket (quite literally) is cruel. But I made her, therefore, I can do what I please with her.

See, she’s a small thing — about seven inches tall — and she’s completely made out of rope. Normally, she just stays within my sweatshirt pocket while I work. I make toys. Lots of different kinds, but my favorite kinds of toys to make are dolls. Kate (the little rope girl) is the first doll I ever made. After her, I created hundred of different rope dolls, almost all of them identical to Kate. Those have all since been destroyed.

Now, I own a store in which I sell my toys. My best sellers are the dolls. These days, they’re all made out of wood. The one I’m working on now, I’m keeping for myself. It’s a new girl. I haven’t decided on a name yet.

Sometimes it’s difficult to work, Kate climbs up my sweatshirt and hugs my head, she loves to give hugs. She can’t talk. I’m not entirely positive if she can hear either. In fact, I’m not entirely positive why she can move at all. I think it may have to do with the hat. A fedora. I put Kate under the fedora one night, and the next morning she was sitting on my chest, playing with shirt collar. Oddly, this did not frighten me. I simply grabbed her and examined her.

It was Kate. It was a doll. It was made out of rope. And it was moving. Alive in fact. I worried at first. I worried that she would die, I had no idea what to feed a little rope girl. Turns out she doesn’t eat. But she does sleep, heavily. Any given day she sleeps around twenty-one hours. The remaining three she spends hugging.

I have never tried putting another doll under that fedora. But the new girl I’m making… I think I’ll put her under it. And if that works out, I’ll make more. But it’s hard enough having one of these around. I had to quit smoking, Kate burned herself. God knows how many other things I’ll have to quit when I have a house full of living dolls. Hopefully, they’re as well behaved as Kate. Which begs the question, where did her personality come from? But don’t ask yourself that question, I use to drive myself crazy with questions about it. Then I realized it was a living doll.

One time I set the hat on top of a stapler. Complete accident. It went insane. It started jumping all over the room, stapling anything and everything. Got me in the hand three times. I eventually hit it to death with a hammer. And it did die. I killed an animated-inanimate object. I didn’t eat for a week after that. I was too shocked, I really didn’t even move. I took the hat and threw it across the room one day. The next morning I had a little rope girl.

I’m sorry if this little story is boring you. I’m not a writer — I just felt this was the best place to tell the world about my little rope girl, I just can’t keep her a secret anymore. And I put the fedora on top of the new wood girl an hour ago. I named her Mary, by the way. I just heard a noise, I should go.