Education

Environmentalists. According to merriam webster dictionary, it's a person who to protects the natural world from pollution and other threats. One who is concerned with the environment quality. The term environment seems to have no connection to something else like society, the human interaction or behavior. It leaves no space for different environmentalists, for those who emcompass different qualities different opinions to grow from. 

To be an environmentalist...what doesn that even mean? White priviledge? Am I, a latina, low income individual not allowed or better yet said not qualified to be known as an environmentalist? 

Based on our readings I feel that allowing student input in what they learn is really important. “Dropping” or placing kids into an environment and see what they do and see what they pick up from the environment. If we drop the kids into Harriton house will they focus on the animals? The sounds of the machines? The smell of burning metal? Or if you take a group of fifth graders to the Shonibare exhibit, what connections will they make? If you have a strict curriculum for students, at some point they will want to break free and explore their own interests. I think it’s important to allow kids to explore on their own and then start asking questions in the classroom. Teaching shouldn't follow a strict schedule, teachers should be open to having a fluid classrooms.

Camp Galil (my sleepaway camp where I went 7 summers, and am returning to work this summer) is what I immediately think of when I think of outdoor spaces as sites for learning and education. Our camp is part of a Jewish Labor Zionist Youth Movement called Habonim Dror ("The Builders-Freedom") that has roots in over a dozen countries. At camp, I was taught many ideals of social justice and activism in a very laid-back outdoorsy environment. Every day, we would have 'peulot' (activities) that our counselors planned for us, where we would sit together outside in the grass in a circle having a group discussion. It was a very different kind of classroom. There are so many things to be said about convening with nature together in this way, but I think the 'boundaries' that it gave (or did not give) were very powerful.

The traditional classroom - indoors, white walls, square, windows that you should not be staring out from - give a very particular message as to how to learn, and what to be learning about. To be thinking outside the white square box is to not be present in your learning, and to be disrespectful of your education. It artificially cuts off your mind and body from the outside world.

Last week it hit me that all these discussions about ecological education and literacy and curriculum design are missing (at least) one thing. What happened to Sex. Ed.? Health class? Family Life talks? Self-Care lessons? Sexual education, in my opinion, is one of the most important parts of growing up, learning about your place in the grand natural scheme of things, and creating awareness of choices and decisions about your own physical, social, emotional and spiritual body.

When it comes to outdoor spaces as places of learning and education, I immediately think of birds and bees. I never personally encountered this 'talk' as a child, only having heard it referenced in movies, but out of curiosity I researched a bit about the lessons that are teaching sexual reproduction through natural, outdoors creatures and their actions. The fertilization of flowers bees carrying pollen represents males' ability to "pollenate" females, and egg-laying birds represent female's fertility and eggs. Another way to represent the action is that the bee stings the bird and as a result, the bird lays the eggs from which babies hatch (Yikes! Connotations of aggression, much?). 

The Ecoliterate readings for this week were incredibly interesting and enlightening, especially when thinking in terms of outdoor spaces are used in this 360 and how they may be used in other schools. Learning about the Gwich'in people and their evolving role and way of life that is at odds with oil drilling practices in Alaska was so fascinating. James's statement was especially striking: "to protect the earth is our way of life. It makes us who we are." The authors then posed the questions: How might you integrate some of these attitudes and behaviors into your own life? How can you nurture them into your own students? We then read about the experiences of students in New Orleans who came together to rethink the schools and to provide recommendations for improving schools. While there was no outdoor classroom space persay, when the oil spill occurred, the students did gain greater awareness of the interconnectedness of oil production and use and reliance, as well as how it affected them. One final part of the reading I enjoyed was the Professor who dealt with water conflicts. "What is useful? What can we apply to the conflict-resolution world? What can we learn from mystical experiene that we can bring into a room of angry people?"

Throughout most of my educational experience, going outside has been seen as a luxury, a reward or fun place to hold class but one that is rarely used, because it's thought of as distracting.  On the few occasions that I have had class outside, we were supposed to act exactly as we did inside, not engaging with the environment around us and forced to ignore all "distractions" from that environment.  We never truly engaged with the place in which we were learning, because learning was seen as only the content of the class itself, not the place in which we were having it.

Unfortuanately, I was unable to physically be in my classes yesterday, but I found the Judson reading to be very englightening and interesting. I was especially drawn to the way she found imaginative education and ecological education to be somewhat in tension, and felt like in some ways the reading raised more questions than answers for me. Judson asks: Is it possible for students to develop ecological understanding when the teachers may lack this ecological understanding? And I wonder: Is there a standardized type of curriculum that allows teachers with or without the ecological understanding to develop their students' understanding?   How can we balance imaginative education and ecological education in fostering students' emotional connection to nature? These are all difficult questions to address given budget constraints, teaching preparation programs, and other logistics, and are even more difficult in some cases, where the outdoors are not an accessible place to create a "classroom." To end on a lighter and more postive note, though, I think Judson expressed the importance of conveying the interdependency between humans and the environment in schools. It won't be easy, but I do think this can be done in a variety of settings, and teachers can foster their students' emotional and personal connection to nature.

Response to Chapter Four: "What is imaginative ecological education?" (having missed class)

I was pleasantly surprised at the turn of every page how most of the questions I'd asked in response to one part of the reading would be discussed in the following paragraphs, which reassured me when I'd doubt some of the claims of the reading.

That being said, I'd still like to discuss some of these things myself, or simply point out things that caught my attention.

abstract binary oppositions, metaphor

Over this past summer, I read President Obama’s memoir, Dreams from My Father, and along with some other books I read, a few specific passages prompted me to rethink the education I had had so far, my academic and educational settings, and my ability to receive such education in the first place. I cannot remember or directly quote the exact passages, and perhaps what I remember is slightly altered due to how I interpreted it, but there are two main things I remember. Obama worked as a social worker and community developer in a neighbourhood in Chicago for some time, and he comments on the schools and school systems he observed. The first thing he observes is that schools function as prisons for children, keeping them off the streets and away from criminal or dangerous activities, rather than spaces of fostering growth and curiosity in learning. The second, as I remember, is that the institution of a school is meant to be where children can learn about their cultural history, to learn how they as members of their community fit into their society. In an impoverished and predominantly black neighbourhood, children are taught a curriculum that reveals a violent and oppressive history working against their cultural community. Coupling that education with the deteriorating condition of their immediate neighbourhood and surroundings, there doesn’t seem to be message of welcoming and encouragement coming from society to these children.

When I was in sixth grade, the summer camp I attended annually stopped letting us climb the rocks.  I had always loved clambering up the boulders, feeling carefully for stable hand and foot holds; slower than many of my peers, who scrambled up without worry of falling, but always victorious when I finally stood twenty feet above the ground and gazed out over the nearby world.  But for reasons I don’t remember—perhaps a camper hurt themself, perhaps there was just concern that a camper would—one summer the counselors told us that we couldn’t climb the boulders anymore, at least not without strict adult supervision.  We still climbed occasionally after that, always with several adults stationed nearby, but it never felt the same to me.  Perhaps we were safer then, but we were also less free.