Bullets in the Garden, Part II (unfortunately) the backlash
Some months ago, I posted about a student who thought the world was flat. It was an annoyance, and since, with some thought and some work, we convinced him that the world is actually globular. In the end, I think it was just the word "globular" (it's fun to say) that got him. When I posted about it, response was lukewarm. A lot of people said he would grow out of it or that it was no big deal because he was in the minority. Our current push has been to launch a weather balloon in the spring with a camera attached, so he can see first hand.
I talked a lot in that post about what our students were up against and how it is easy to be disconnected from information and education if you are disconnected from the world; from your world.
Yesterday, I posted about finding bullets in the garden (here). It was a tough thing to see. A year or so ago,
one of our students found three rounds in the place where we were going to put a garden that was near a school. That made me think. The difference there was that it was an abandoned space. It was close to a school, though.
The place where I found the full MAGAZINE of .45 ammo is an established garden, though. We are revitalizing it and building it up after being fallow for some time. The difference between this garden and the previous one is that there was something there and someone willingly brought ammunition into an area that had a garden in it; where they knew people would be.
The thing to keep in mind is that if there is ammunition, chances are, the weapon used to fire it is not/ was not far behind or is that something that people do, walk around with ammunition?
When I posted yesterday, I did not expect anything like the response I got. Not only the sheer volume of responses, but the nature of the comments.
The post was not about the evils of guns. I am an Army veteran from a large military family and a gun owner myself. It was about the evils of guns in school gardens; in places where children should be able to feel safe and do kids stuff. Still, the vast majority of the responses were about my masculinity and fear of the world or whether or not I would be able to fend for myself in the wild.
The main takeaway is how differently we think about things. This had been one of my most read posts. Even though it was the most read, it got very little outright responses. The outright responses were negative, but the response to those negative responses were positive and in most cases, like me, they were exhausted.
There could be a number of reasons for this. This is, after all, the internet. First, people just don't care. They were intrigued by the picture and clicked on the article, but were likely lukewarm or weren't interested. The holidays may be taking a lot out of them, or who knows. Maybe they just didn't care.
Second, and I think this is most likely, the article is common sense. I want to rest on this one because I want to be a glass half full person. I want to believe that all the people who read this article and didn't comment, etc. said, "bullets should not be in a school garden? Duh!" and that those who did respond negatively were so few as to be insignificant and of those who did respond they were trying to start a fight.
That being said, this was only a brief interlude. I stick by my radical statements in yesterday's post and I will say it again, bullets in a school garden is bad.
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life@thelifecooperative.org
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I talked a lot in that post about what our students were up against and how it is easy to be disconnected from information and education if you are disconnected from the world; from your world.
Yesterday, I posted about finding bullets in the garden (here). It was a tough thing to see. A year or so ago, one of our students found three rounds in the place where we were going to put a garden that was near a school. That made me think. The difference there was that it was an abandoned space. It was close to a school, though.
The place where I found the full MAGAZINE of .45 ammo is an established garden, though. We are revitalizing it and building it up after being fallow for some time. The difference between this garden and the previous one is that there was something there and someone willingly brought ammunition into an area that had a garden in it; where they knew people would be.
The thing to keep in mind is that if there is ammunition, chances are, the weapon used to fire it is not/ was not far behind or is that something that people do, walk around with ammunition?
When I posted yesterday, I did not expect anything like the response I got. Not only the sheer volume of responses, but the nature of the comments.
The post was not about the evils of guns. I am an Army veteran from a large military family and a gun owner myself. It was about the evils of guns in school gardens; in places where children should be able to feel safe and do kids stuff. Still, the vast majority of the responses were about my masculinity and fear of the world or whether or not I would be able to fend for myself in the wild.The main takeaway is how differently we think about things. This had been one of my most read posts. Even though it was the most read, it got very little outright responses. The outright responses were negative, but the response to those negative responses were positive and in most cases, like me, they were exhausted.
There could be a number of reasons for this. This is, after all, the internet. First, people just don't care. They were intrigued by the picture and clicked on the article, but were likely lukewarm or weren't interested. The holidays may be taking a lot out of them, or who knows. Maybe they just didn't care.
Second, and I think this is most likely, the article is common sense. I want to rest on this one because I want to be a glass half full person. I want to believe that all the people who read this article and didn't comment, etc. said, "bullets should not be in a school garden? Duh!" and that those who did respond negatively were so few as to be insignificant and of those who did respond they were trying to start a fight.
That being said, this was only a brief interlude. I stick by my radical statements in yesterday's post and I will say it again, bullets in a school garden is bad.
www.thelifecooperative.org
life@thelifecooperative.org
The day I start normalizing bullet casings/bullets/magazines that are found lying around is the day I need you to find me and smack me upside the head.
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