The Out Of Eden Walk is Paul Salopek’s experiment in slow journalism. He is taking a 24,000-mile trek from Ethiopia to the most southern tip of South America to walk the pathways that follow the migration of humans from Africa in the Stone Age. In this trek, he is interviewing “villagers, nomads, traders, farmers, soldiers, and artists who rarely make the news” and documenting to create a global record of human life. Paul Salopek gives voices to the people who inhabit the locations he travels through by uncovering major stories “from climate change to technological innovation, from mass migration to cultural survival” and brings the world to an age of rediscovering.

Chapter 1: Out of Africa

Chapter 1 starts off the journey in January of 2013. At every hundred miles mark, the landscape is recorded and a person of the land is interviewed.

Milestone 1 is in Herto Bouri. He interviews Idoli Mohamed, a 40 year old pastoralist. He asks them three questions: Who are you, where do you come from, and where are you going.

He laments on his life as a pastoralist, and tells that is not a good life to live. He wishes his sons to go to school and study and not become a pastoralist like him. When asked where he comes from, he says he doesn’t know. it is said his people come from Tadjoura, in Dijibouti in the north, but it’s hearsay. He more confidently says that “if Adam and Eve were human, then I don’t believe any other story. All people, black or white, we all come from them.”

Chapter 4: The Silk Roads

Milestone 34 is in Aktau, Kazakhstan in May 2016. here he asks the same questions to Abad Urisbayev – a 34 year old member of regional parliament. He also includes Abad’s 16 year old sister, Kamila Zhangirkhan, and Abad’s 18 month old son, Abzal.

Abad gives his full name to Salopek when asked who he is. He tells that he is from here and that he is going to serve his nation. And that later that day he would go cycling.

Kamila is asked who she is, and responds by saying she is a human being and a student. She tells that she was born here and is going to study in Almaty as she wants to work in finance.

Chapter 6: Middle Kingdom

Salopek had to pause the walk due to COVID-19 restrictions. The walk was paused in Mandalay, Myanmar as Asian borders closed. The walk became impossible due to a coup that helped Myanmar’s army seize power. The trek restarted as close to the Myanmar border as legally possible, but this left a gap of 251 miles.

The most recent Milestone is Milestone 74. This is in Yusan, Yunnan, China in October 2021. He interviewed Jiang Ji Bing – a 39 year old part-time flower farmer. He explains he is from Tengchong. When asked who he is, he explains that he plants flowers for medicinal purposes, mostly Chrysanthemums of longevity as well as for fertilizer. But he explains business isn’t doing too well due to COVID and closed borders. His part time job is done on the side because of the effects of COVID but it doesn’t pay much anymore. When asked where he is going, he explains that once the flowers are picked, he goes home.

by Cristell Ramirez

Technology has become such a big part of education. In the time we live in today, it has become the biggest part of our world of education. In school, we use it every single day, whether it is to watch videos or write our papers virtually it has become one of the biggest tools we use.

Online learning has become the most important parts of our world since 2020. For months students all around the world were practically forced to work from home online. All our work was being done from home and behind a screen. Technology basically surrounded our entire world and it currently is. It is not going anywhere.

Educational technology is a tool where you use any type of technology to help with the process of learning. In this time, there are thousands of tools that can be used to help students with their learning and make it easier for them to understand the subject easily. There are different methods of teaching and each week, teachers share their tools that have made their students more comfortable in their learning environment.

by Cristell Ramirez

For this blog post, I went on the website, www.we.org to learn about some practices I am able to adapt into my future classroom. WE charity is an internationally known charity/educational partner in which it allows students to have the tools in order to create transformative social changes. This organization works with communities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to implement WE villages where the 5 pillar international development model in order to achieve sustainable change. If we are going by numbers, one million people have been empowered to lift themselves out of poverty, two hundred thousand children have access to education, over forty million hours of volunteer has been logged in WE schools and so much more. A little more about the WE movement from the creators themselves.

Information from www.we.org

I decided to look at the WE teachers diversity and inclusion module to use in the future for my classroom. I learned different ways of making kids feel included in my classroom. Making sure I follow the different practices for the kids to feel safe and in a place where they can express themselves whether it be gender, race, ethnicity, or sexuality. School should be a safe place for kids to express themselves freely without judgement.

Being able to include every single one of students no matter what they identify as is a big deal to me. I am excited to be a teacher where I can talk about different cultures and their practices. Growing up, I never really had these things and I would feel left out and I don’t want one of my students to feel like that.

I want to know and be in the know of everything going on in my classroom. I want to make the kids feel like they can trust me enough to have conversations about these different topics. And with this I have to understand my own background to understand theirs.

There are so many more modules to look at but this is the one I found the most interesting. There is so much more to learn in this specific module and it even comes with different resources and activities to be incorporated into lesson plans. I will be trying my best to follow through with what I have learned in these modules.

Today in my research of we-virtual learning I stumbled across something that peculiarly caught my attention. It was a program that Introduces students to the concept of mental health literacy explored how mental health literacy plays a role in our well-being. We can share knowledge and curiosity through discussion and collaboration with others to understand the daily struggles that most go through without ever understanding colleagues or students’ lived events.

How do we investigate to learn? the study I’m going to share was a lesson that targets a high school classroom with students in grades from 9-12. the program starts by letting the class know that they’ll be talking about mental health and the concept of mental health. An overall understanding of mental health, why it’s important, factors that can promote mental health,
and factors that can lead to mental health problems or social disorders.

Why do you personally think mental health literacy is important? Collectively, this research study has come up with a few ways to practice mental health literacy. the one that stuck out was based on students’ responses. this will be a yearly progress chart to Keep the chart paper in plain view to reference as a class throughout the year and remind students of the ways they have identified to practice mental health literacy throughout the year.

Over the years I have grown close with many teachers and professors that had made a major impact on my life and my character as an adult. The majority of skills a student will learn will be in high school. After spending years of our lives in a classroom I believe that mental health literacy should be a social experiment introduced in a classroom setting. I believe that this could make a difference as a whole if teachers and students both collectively practice well-being for a greater understanding. Thank you, I hope you enjoyed the read.

In the information that was informed of the website www.we.org in the WE-teachers section, I was thoroughly surprised at what was available to help my future classroom.  The information that I found most interesting and useful for my future classroom would be the module on Youth Violence Module. I found this information to stand out more than the rest due to its in-depth situations and how to handle them. The module went through how to handle situations, what to look out for, how to justify what you are doing and what courses of action should be taken. Such as how to make the student feel, what sources to reach out to in order to get the student adequately handled. The facts and statistics of the Youth violence situation are truly remarkable and quite honestly saddening. It would be useful to me in my future classroom because Youth Violence is something that truly bothers me within and  I do not stand for it, I do not want that brought into my teaching environment. 

This week we went over how changemakers are all around when it comes to making a change in this world especially for things that go in hand with Sustainable Development Goals. People are coming up with ways to constantly aid and make our communities better by coming together to make it. On WE.org shares multiple incites on how to make teaching more hands on in my opinion. On of the resources I found related to mental health, mental health is an very important topic to reach on because everyone deserves the help that they need when it comes to certain circumstances. For example this module on mental help further speaks on understanding the issue and different ways to address mental-well beings to students. I loved this module and the information that is very beneficial to those who may be in need of it.

Thanks for reading ! 🙂

Social-emotional learning has been proven to increase academic achievement a student can make and allow for positive social interactions. This also works outside of the schools. Social-Emotional Learning is self-awareness of oneself and skills used for school, work, or any success they may have in life. They help us to resolve conflicts, manage stress, make and keep friendships. You would serve as an example of healthy behavior. All young people have this. When people have this, they can think logically and understand each other’s boundaries. When asked How are you today, we cannot answer OK; we should express how we feel in the expression we think. But first, before answering, let’s use the word STOP.

We need to get in tune with our emotions, even if they are sad, angry, depressed, or anxious. It is OK to have negative feelings. The negative emotions are just as good as the positive emotions. When you can stop that emotion, you will better understand how to handle that feeling next time.

We generate different values throughout our life. Think about what you value and write that down. Rank them in their importance to you. Own your strengths; no one can take that away from you. Find your inspiration. Practice self-care. Play a game that works on communication skills; examples would be showing compassion, introducing mindful listening, and healthy communications.

This is helpful in a classroom setting because one’s behavior or emotion can affect another student. Students need a support team.

My future classroom should be a place where every student feels comfortable to speak out to their teachers and classmates. More students from different areas of culture have difficulty communicating and following the understanding of class lectures. Many teachers also may start their career from outside the US and then later in time they go to the US and they have much difficulty communicating with their students. Through the many programs provided to the teachers, they have the chance to make amazing changes to any student that may come their way.