I was tagged by Cindy Martin (and Errin Gregory too) with the 7 Things Meme. I was quite pleasantly surprised to be tagged as I think it means that at least one person is reading my blog and is interested in learning a little more about the person behind the often wandering thoughts. On the other hand I now find myself agonising over what kinds of personal information I want to make public. There is also a small part of me that wonders who started this meme and for what purpose. Anyway, here goes:
- My undergraduate degree is in Biology and at one point I was as passionate about understanding evolution as I am now about understanding the impact technology is having on our schools. As such I have read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins twice and as far as I know this is where the term meme was first used as a way to describe a self replicating idea. Dawkins wondered if a meme might evolve in a fashion similar to genes.
- I once met a man with a sailboat on the coast of Kenya and as I had always wanted to learn to sail I changed my plans to travel overland to South Africa and instead sailed with him up the Red Sea and through the Mediterranean to Gibraltar. I then got off the boat and went to Morocco to climb Mount Toubkal, the highest mountain in the Atlas Mountain range (because it was there).
- Prior to becoming a classroom teacher I worked as an Outdoor Educator. My job was to get kids to try new things in a wilderness setting and then facilitate discussions on topics ranging from group dynamics to environmental ethics. Now my job seems to be to get kids to stay inside on sunny days and stare at a computer screen. Sometimes this makes me wonder.
- I have been hunting with the Inuit and have eaten both raw caribou and seal skin (which has the consistency of tire rubber).
- I lived in Indonesia for 5 years and was a member of the Hash House Harriers. This meant that every Tuesday I would go running around in the countryside with other pasty white expats endeavouring to follow a trail of little bits of paper through rice paddies and villages while shouting Òn,On!! It was great fun.
- I once considered going on the dole in England so that I could rock climb full time.
- The first dog I ever owned was a deaf albino Great Dane. We rescued him from a family in Jakarta that had tied him up in their driveway for a year.
Now I think I am supposed to tag other edubloggers and I find that I can’t. There are lots of great educators in my very nacent personal learning network that I would be interested in learning more about but I guess I will have to wait for other opportunities.
Thank you, Phil, for sharing a part of yourself. I love reading your blog and you are on my Google reader. Wandering thoughts are the very best. I have to go on the “rodent wheel” (cardio machine) at the gym just to get rid of them. Funny how they go faster than the fat!
#2. Sailing, Kenya, Morocco (did you have cool food?) mtn climbing! How fantastic!
#4. Seems to me I told you about that at Knowschools on the Google Docs – I sent you the extra seal skin from my mukaluks and said “feet” not “eat”. Stick Moroccan cuisine – tastier! I’ll send you some recipes! 🙂
#7. We all love a hero! Lucky dog. Did he have a great personality?
Thoroughly enjoyed reading the post!
Phil, I really enjoyed reading your 7 Things–you’ve done some amazing stuff! I studied evolutionary biology too, though I’ve not read Dawkin’s ‘The Selfish Gene’ (but I really should); I wonder what he thinks of these blog memes. They can be fun, but I often think that ‘chain letter’ comes closer than ‘meme’ does to describing them. What do you think?