Albuquerque's
Environmental StoryAlbuquerque's
Environmental StoryUse the preceding Eye Opener to role play. Complete the worksheet again, this time pretending to be any other person: a star; the President of the United States; a classmate; a teacher; or, an Albuquerquean from a different part of town, a different time, a different country or a different cultural background. Share and discuss the answers.
What factors make the imaginary Me, the kind of person he or she is?
Which of the imaginary persons feel good about themselves? Why?
When people feel good about themselves, how are they apt to treat the things and people in their environment?
Teachers and students can become better acquainted with themselves and each other by making Me Charts.* Use large pieces of newspaper or poster board for each person. In the center of each chart, place a picture or symbol to represent the Me. Add pictures, symbols, or real objects to the chart. Display the completed charts, and talk with each other about them.
Does anyone add or take away from his chart as the term progresses?
What changes, if any, do people notice in themselves? In each other?
What changes would students, classmates want to make?
Explore ways of increasing your awareness of how your body and your environment interact.
How many different ways are there of getting from one part of the room to another (walking, crawling, skipping, meandering, others)? Does the size of the room influence the way you feel like moving? If so, how?
How do you feel when you pass one person as you move across the room? Two people? Many people? Does it matter how close you are to the person (people) when you pass?
Does the amount of territory you want and need differ depending on how you feel? If so, how do you feel when the territory you want is small? Big? How much territory do you want now? Use a piece of chalk to mark it on the floor.
Can you feel your space bubble , an imaginary spatial projection of where you are at emotionally at any given time?
Let your body move in that space bubble. Can you remember what your space bubble feels like when you feel differently bout yourself?
How would you walk if the ground were icy? If it were cold outside? If it were a beautiful day outside and you didn't feel like going inside? If you were angry? If you were happy?
FREEZE! How do you feel when another person walks past you while you are frozen? Walks around you? When everyone else walks around or past you? When you walk past other people who are frozen?
How do other people you know walk? Does the way they walk reflect their personality? Does the way they walk change depending on their mood? On where they are going? Does yours? What can you learn about strangers by watching how they walk?
How can you use body movement to show how you feel? Make up a dance (body movement improvisation) in your classroom, in a gym or cafeteria of the school. Pretend you are on the escarpment of the volcanoes, and make up a dance.
Make up a dance in a small room with no windows. Are there differences in the dances in each of these places? If so, what kind of differences? What different feelings do you have in each place?
Police artists draw composite pictures of unknown offenders based on verbal descriptions of their physical appearance by eyewitnesses.
Draw a word picture of the inner appearance of people who vandalize or deface property or people who litter.
What understandings do you get about these people? from the pictures?
What are the main differences in the factors which might cause people to vandalize or deface property, and those which might be associated with littering?
Which of the two types of behavior problems might respond more readily to re-education and rehabilitation? Why?
Devise games to explore different methods and levels of communication within a class.
How skilled are the members of the class at reading each others, body language?
What happens if everyone in the class is seated back to back for a few days?
How successfully could class be conducted without any use of the spoken or written word for a day?
How adept are you at explaining each others behavior?
Display color cards (red, green, yellow, blue, etc.) in different parts of the room. Go to the color with which you identify.
How many think you would usually select the same color? How many think you selected it because of your preset mood? What other colors might you choose at different times? What would be the different in your moods?
Can you color your energy, and move in accordance with the color you select?
How does your energy flow if you color it yellow? Green? Red?
How do the different colors associated with Albuquerque's natural environment affect the students' moods?
Paint outside with watercolors or colored paints.
How do you feel about the green of neighborhood parks? The brown of the mesas? The watermelon color of the Sandias at sunset?
Select personal spots—privacy areas—in the schoolyard or in a nearby park.
Sit quietly and alone in this spot after lunch. Look at the sky, the ground,
the mountains, the volcanoes, or the trees. Or, just close your eyes and meditate.
If you feel like it, make a drawing to express your thoughts and feelings, or
write an entry into a real or imaginary diary. 
How would you feel about sharing your spot with one other person?
Two people?
Many people?
Prepare two signs like those below, and display them in the room. Discuss them, create role playing situations, or make up a puppet show to help discover their full meaning.
To the other guy, you 're the other guy
Cada cabeza es an Undo.
How do these signs help us understand why we sometimes have trouble making other people understand us?
How do these signs help us understand why there are so many different opinions about the way a community functions, and why it takes so long for decisions to be made?
After some unusual happening in the school, ask several people to tell in detail what occurred and to interpret it.
Are there discrepancies in the facts as presented?
Is there a right and a wrong to the factual reporting? To the interpretations? To the explanations? Why? What influences how people interpret what they have observed?
What influences how they explain the reason for an occurrence?
Can these differences among people help us understand why people act differently from each other? Why they make different decisions?
Write a brief autobiography.
(Up to Section IV, Back to Eye Opener Worksheet 10, On to Eye Opener Worksheet 11)