Lynne DeSilva-Johnson

As an educator/mentor, a poet/artist/creator, a mindful intermediary, a social/new media advocate, a publisher/blogger/journalist, a mother, an urbanist/urban designer and an all around public intellectual I seek to engage in every possible way with the networks that feed us locally and globally. Ideally I'd like to live surrounded by like minds, promoting sustainability both materially and energetically - but I'm working on helping others open themselves to that like/open- hopeful mindfulness here (in New York City), anywhere I land, and via my virtual networks, rather than eschewing this space for another. 

I have been working to change the higher education system from within (as a teacher of critical writing, mostly, but also anthropology and architecture) for about a decade now, largely via the creation and application of a writing curriculum loosely based around an understanding of the linguistically observed phenomenon of "codeswitching," here applied as a functional, operative heuristic model from which to begin discerning how/when to communicate on a variety of levels. 

As I move about, work in, and observe the social entrepreneurship environment, I realise how much utility these strategies have for everyone involved as we evolve ourself through this shift into a time of potential organic, cooperative system functionality in a way we've never before experienced.

This  approach is also linked to game theory, and provides practitioners with a playful understanding of the constant dynamism/flexibility, and indeed absurdism that surrounds "language" in our hybrid, hyperreal culture -- as well as working against the false foundation set forth by our current educational system, that teaches humans to ignore and un-learn many of their native communicative instincts.

My methodology is predicated on the belief that teaching writing/thinking in a vacuum, without the curricular transparency that provides a native intelligence with its own clear agenda -- an understanding of the role and use of academic or standard languages within a system within a larger system -- is at the root of the "poor writing" epidemic we are experiencing institution-wide.

It is essential that we approach and teach communication as an extension of a dynamic system of critical analysis, perception, and rational intention -- as something native to each and every one of us. It is our intelligence that rails against the institutional suggestion that this is the "right" way to communicate. Instead of fighting and demeriting our children/students, it is time our systems came to encourage and provide tools for the real, complex environment in which they live. So, I'm working towards that.

(more here)http:/lunaparker.blogspot.com/2012/02/whole-language-education-codeswitching.html"> http://lunaparker.blogspot.com/2012/02/whole-language-education-codeswitching.html

Hmm, that got long. Well, let's see. I'm also at the helm of the Creative Community / Magazine Exit Strata, and am in the process of building a Publishing Cooperative [Heroes and Hobos]. I have worked for many years as a consultant/freelance manager on the business end of the arts and nonprofits in New York City, have been consistently involved in urban agriculture and composting initiatives/advocacy, and have also spent over a decade dedicated to educating myself in various healing methodologies, wisdom traditions, and creating a disciplined, if amalgamated, spiritual practice (without with none of the rest would be possible, mind you.)

 

I am here to help.

ONWARD!