#LearnAndUnlearn

[connectedmindssocial]

Growth is about learning and unlearning. Embrace the journey towards a healthier mindset.

[persimmonsrain]

Before the first bell: A note from the house of persimmons

I’ve walked into many classrooms over the years—some borrowed, some barely lit, some full of eager eyes, others half-asleep from a double shift. I never know what I’m entering exactly, but I always show up. And showing up, I’ve found, is a form of trust. Not just in my students, but in the process of becoming. Theirs. And mine.

This blog is a continuation of that quiet showing-up.

🌼

About persimmons rain

My name is Elly. I'm an educator, a learner, and someone who believes that the classroom is more than a room—it’s a mirror, a garden, sometimes a rainstorm. This blog isn’t a lecture hall. It’s more like a kitchen table near a window, where stories and reflections are passed around like fruit—imperfect, thoughtful, full of flavor.

Here, I write about:

What I’ve learned (and unlearned) as a teacher

The invisible moments that shape education

Reflections on language, philosophy, and identity

The slow blooming of ideas, both in students and in myself

I won’t be writing formal lessons or polished advice—others do that beautifully. Instead, I’ll leave notes here: a fruit dropped from a tree, a moment from my week, a question I’m still carrying. Sometimes it will be about language, or philosophy, or the sound of learning when no one is speaking.

The House of Persimmons is the spirit behind this blog—a home for musings, gentle dialogues, and perhaps even a few unanswered questions. This isn’t a space for expert declarations, but for thoughtful pause.

If you’re here reading this, thank you. I don’t know what kind of day you’re having, but I hope you find something here that reminds you: even in uncertainty, there is meaning. Even before the classroom is ready, we can arrive. Whether you’re an educator, a student of life, or just someone drawn to soft thoughts and slow rain, I hope something here speaks to you.

Welcome to Persimmons Rain.

[niteclubgirl]

Boom‼️ ☄️☄️☄️☄️☄️☄️☄️ 📸: @holistic_holly #beginagain #freshstart #learnandunlearn #nevertoolate #changeit #commandit #stepoutofthematrix #learnsomethingnew #takeclasses #sharpenyourskills #judge_less #getoutofyourownway #youvealwayswantedto #yougotthis #move❣️ #respond❣️ #ShineYoLight ❣️#beam #align #share #grow #expand #lawofattraction #journeyon #Be🥰🤸🏾‍♂️ https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw57_GBl0rL/?igshid=12g20l5eoznbw

[yocar601]

Learning to program in visual basic 2019. Preparing the class. #programming #learnandunlearning #caughtup https://www.instagram.com/p/CBo92a6Adqs/?igshid=1tpj7fj3p56vm

[ecstaticinnocence]

Nature vs The Nature I'm Trying to Nurture.

Though I am tired, weak and spent, I hear God say to me : 'FALL!! Fall down on your face and pray. FALL!! Fall into depths of peace and strength. Child of unbelief FALL!!! Fall into love and grace. Fall into these arms that spread wide for your sake. FALL!!' Falling in my dictionary is a negative action. Something to stay away from and pray against. I was taught that falling was a sign of physical weakness and to be down a sign of emotional ailment. Even when the fall of leaves during fall leave a bitter taste and serve as a reminder that life will end when things fall. So I believed as I was taught. I am trying to unlearn so I may fall. There is beauty in the fall. When the leaves litter the streets, it signifies an end yes but a new beginning also. The story begins when you fall so on Your altar I must fall Lord.

[chardiorandmore]

Late nights/early mornings Monday thoughts. ...🙇💆💨 . . . #StatEwide #LiveFree #LearnAndUnlearn #NoChurchForThewild #MindBodySpirit #SelfAwereness #Mindfulness

[interpretationsofculture]

Super Moist Capitalism Cremé. 10 Jan 2013, Cervera de los Montes. Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art, Turku. 

1. 

“As sugar became cheaper and more plentiful, its potency as a symbol of power declined while its potency as a source of profit gradually increased…Without projecting symbols against differentiated class structures of the societies within which they are being manipulated, we cannot illuminate the link between sweetness and power” (Mintz 95). 

“Plantations were capitalist enterprises, all right---linked to European centers, fueled by European wealth, returning some portion of that wealth to metropolitan investors in various forms, and functioning as the centers of ‘commercial speculation’ in Marx’s words” (Mintz 60).

Mintz, Sidney W. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York, N.Y: Viking, 1985.

#ioc2020 #ioc2020gjs2149 #learnandunlearn  #decolonizehistory #sugar #tea #capitalismcreme

[eskayar]

Just sayin' #studyup #knowledgeispower #hiddencolors #learnandunlearn

[connectedmindssocial]

True healing is about embracing new habits while letting go of old patterns that no longer serve you. Your mental health deserves both.

[interpretationsofculture]

* Decades of bought-and-paid for dietary research and colonization, continued oppression of many populations and communities, food deserts, among other contributing factors

Image adapted from: Nolan, Mary. “A Public Health Crisis Is No Time for a Vacation.” Statesman Journal, Salem, 3 Aug. 2016, www.statesmanjournal.com/story/opinion/readers/2016/08/02/public-health-crisis-time-vacation/87972058/.

2. 

“If we choose not to eat sugar, it takes both vigilance and effort, for modern societies are overflowing with it” (Mintz 74).

“By 1880-84, the United States was consuming thirty-eight pounds of sucrose per person per year---already well ahead of all other major world consumers” (Mintz 188).

Mintz, Sidney W. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York, N.Y: Viking, 1985.

#ioc2020 #ioc2020gjs2149 #learnandunlearn  #decolonizehistory #sugar #tea #justaspoonful

[interpretationsofculture]

Image adapted from: “Sugar Masters in a New World.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 12 Jan. 2010, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/sugar-masters-in-a-new-world-5212993/.

3. 

“Industrial processing of the cane was also carried out on the plantations, it makes good sense to view the plantations as a synthesis of field and factory. Thus approached, they were really quite unlike anything known in mainland Europe at the time” (Mintz 47). 

“Neither mill nor field could be separately (independently) productive. Second was the organization of the labor force itself, part skilled, part unskilled, and organized in terms of the plantation’s overall productive goals...This time-consciousness was dictated by the nature of the sugarcane and its processing requirements” (Mintz 51). 

  4. Here is “The Illustrated History of How Sugar Conquered the World” https://www.saveur.com/sugar-history-of-the-world/

I do not know the complete accuracy of everything the author writes, but Mucci creates a concise timeline (which supplements the Sweetness and Power reading)! 

5. I did not know about the process of abstracting sugar cane. More about Saccharum Officinarum, which Mintz primarily notes as the plant that produces cane sugar: https://hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Saccharum_officinarum.html

It produces “cane sugar, cane syrup, molasses, wax, and rum are products of sugarcane” and its “culms 3–5 m tall, 2–3 cm thick, solid juicy, the lower internodes short, swollen; sheaths greatly overlapping, the lower usually falling from the culms; blades elongate, mostly 4–6 cm wide, with a very thick midrib” (Purdue)

“Saccharum Officinarum L.” Saccharum Officinarum, hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Saccharum_officinarum.html.

6. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903454504576486082626600622

I did not include the cartoon here (Content Warning: death, murder, abuse, slavery), but “James Gillray based his 1791 anti-slavery cartoon on the report of an overseer who had thrown a slave into a boiling vat of sugar."

“Sugar was thus indirectly protected, even if working people were not” (Mintz 70).

Mintz, Sidney W. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York, N.Y: Viking, 1985.

#ioc2020 #ioc2020gjs2149 #learnandunlearn #decolonizehistory #sugar #tea