Bailey MeCey

As the course is quickly coming to an end, the goal is to keep working on the blogs and get the remaining visuals that will help tell the story. Then, I can go through the editing process and polish the articles for publication.

A major goal of the week was to work on the draft for my Waldorf blog. Luckily I was able to hear back from the teacher I interviewed for the blog, and her answers were really exciting. Her background in teaching and experience in the Waldorf model provided a lot of interesting anecdotes for the blog. Paired with the research blogs and news blogs, it provides a solid foundation for the blog.

One of the quotes that I felt stood out was: “Waldorf schools should be about fostering those relationships, both human and through nature, history, science, music, art, that feed us, and fuel us to go into the world and hear, transform, create in a way that is aware of the interconnectedness of our world.” The Waldorf model emphasizes relationships of all kinds, and I feel it allows a lot of opportunities to explore.

Through writing the draft of the blog, the goal was to weave the notes about the overall Waldorf model with the experiences of my interview subject.

I also had the opportunity to collect some visuals for my Emotionally Responsive Practice blog. The social worker I interviewed hosted an Emotionally Responsive Practice training session in one of the classrooms, and I was able to visit and get some pictures. I also was able to get pictures of the Cozy Corner in the classroom. The Cozy Corner is one of the methods used in Emotionally Responsive Practice classrooms, where students can take a moment if they are feeling overwhelmed to read and refocus. The visuals help connect the Emotionally Responsive Practice work with the blog in an interesting way. Coming up, I have more opportunities to show Emotionally Responsive Practice use specifically with teachers. While that might be more than I need, I’d rather have more visuals to work with than less.

In the next week, I will check back in with the subjects I sent interviews to hopefully get their answers back. Then I can finish off my drafts and start polishing them. I also wanted to check back in with my subjects to see confirm to get photos at each of the remaining schools. The visuals are important to help show the different dynamics at play. Visuals are also an important factor for the social media campaign side of the project, so they are especially needed.

While I don’t see having any issues with my subjects sending in their answers to my questions, I have started to plan some contingency plans just in case. I would rather take the time to plan out other options than get caught flat-footed. The plan I have is to instead use direct quotes from those in the educational models, but I will highlight that they came from a third party. The schools I reached out to feature quotes discussing their education models, so I have a lot to work with if I do not hear back.

The project is moving on in a positive direction, and I can’t wait to see how it comes together.