Raise Your Hands!

OK, raise your hands if you are currently numbed to the following terms: sustainability,  local produce,  greenhouse gas.  How about: carbon footprint,  wind farms,  peak oil?  Try these: Kyoto Protocol,  clean coal,  climate change.  Yeah, me, too.               

Seriously. I hear these and others through media and learned friends. The terms are casually thrown around so much that their significance seems gutted or condensed. (...polar bear...) They get swept under the rug. (...rain barrel...)  Why is that?  

We, as teachers, do need to be very alert to the whole global health thing.  As I dig into the issues at hand for the near future I find the whole concept intimidating and overwhelming. I do keep up on current events.  Educators do that. But current events that affect the future...well...that’s sometimes a different story. Many issues require a deep breath and some fortitude to read and digest.

Yet we are the facilitators for the school kids who will be front and center in twenty years, as mega-world decisions have to be made. What are our obligations in this department?  

I believe it's clear teachers ought to be involved, and now. What we internalize ourselves and how we pass it along to kids is up for discussion. Lot’s of it.  I’m sure topics like ethics and politics and geography and wealth will come up. Light themes, heavier themes, themes from daily living. Lot's of stuff for reflection. 

Thanks for listening.

(...Prius...)  

Do You Scratch and Claw to Stay Tuned to the World?

Busy lives. The world turns. Staying up to date on a daily basis is a chore, even with the newly anointed Scott Pelley on CBS. A full dose of Wolf still takes some screen time.


Are we really, though, getting the stories that matter to the future of 4th graders?? 


We are sort of on the cusp of seeing mainstream media reporting on uncomfortable issues of our future - beyond the economy. (Choose an economy; how about Greece...) In general, the themes of water, peak oil, climate change, cultural conflicts (read wars) and the needs of citizens in coming decades are neglected miserably.

Many blogsites compile pertinent daily articles and send them out as a bundle to subscribers. (Sometimes there is a small subscription fee.) Articles are culled from many sources and cover everything from breaking news to opinion. 


Such as:
Speaking Truth to Power Daily News Digest from Carolyn Baker
Common Dreams
Energy Bulletin


Here are some examples of articles brought to light on subscription bundles in only the past two weeks or so (of many more!). Take a glance at the variety of content, which is generally neglected in reports from other media. I have highlighted key words. Scan the variety of articles. Get a feel for how this may impact your own perceptions.


6/3/11 Wangari Maathai: Spiritual Environmentalism—Healing Ourselves by Replenishing the Earth
6/13/11 Oil company's lawsuit against Greenpeace backfires
6/2/11 Why Our Most Urgent Climate Struggles May Be Winnable by Bill McKibben
6/1/11 Population Footprints: Rights and Responsibilities — Behind the Numbers: The PRB blog on population, health, and the environment
6/1/11 Chris Hedges: The Sky Really Is Falling - Chris Hedges' Columns - Truthdig
6/15/11 Lawn Care Goes to the Sheep in a Pennsylvania School District - Planet Green
5/29/11 The Reality of Global Climate Change is Upon Us - Newsweek
6/3/11 Shortages of Fresh Water Seen as Emerging Threat - ABC News
6/13/11 USGS: Global Warming Drives Rockies Snowpack Loss Unrivaled in 800 Years, Threatens Western Water Supply
6/16/11 Summer Reading Suggestions | Center for Ecoliteracy
6/14/11 The Truth About The Economy In 2 Minutes | MoveOn.Org
6/16/11 Small farms may be better for food security and biodiversity | Science Matters | David Suzuki Foundation
5/2/11 In U.S., Optimism About Future for Youth Reaches All-Time Low
6/17/11 Humane Connection: 7 Resources for Finding Out About the Secret Lives of Your Stuff
6/14/11 Children Pay Ultimate Price of Iraq's Poisonous Wartime Legacy | Common Dreams
6/5/11 Josh Golin: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Commerce... and Other Scholastic Satires
6/1/11 The New Geopolitics of Food - By Lester R. Brown | Foreign Policy
6/10/11 Humanitarian crisis as world's largest refugee camp declared full | World news | guardian.co.uk
6/1/11 An End to Growth: The Environment’s Impact on our Economic Decline | Oil Price.com
2/16/11 Two seminal Nature papers join growing body of evidence that human emissions fuel extreme weather, flooding that harm humans and the environment | ThinkProgress
6/7/11 BBC News - Tropical forests 'better managed'
6/17/11 Will Alternative Energy Save Us From Peak Oil | Oil Price.com
6/13/11 Oil-giant Venezuela tries to limit energy use - Yahoo! News
6/3/11 Video: 15 Years of Saying YES!
5/26/11 The geology of the planet: Welcome to the Anthropocene | The Economist
6/15/11 Ten Charts That Embody Everything That's Wrong With The U.S. Economy
6/12/11 Field Notes from the Future- Children and Nature.Org
6/1/11 The Oil Drum | Oil prices and recession
6/7/11 Yemen Facing Humanitarian Catastrophe: UNICEF | Common Dreams
6/1/11 In The World After Abundance | Energy Bulletin
6/15/11 Sewing and Clothing Repair | Preparedness Advice Blog
6/16/11 Nebraska Nuclear Reactor Flooded

We do sifting and winnowing in class each day. I hope this creates resources for sifting the challenges of resilience to come.

EnvEd Standards Have A Snit-Fit

“Hellooooo?? Anyone in this meetin' hall??  It's dark out there…hello?? 

“Is this on...?”

“...This is a poisonal message from the Wisconsin’s Model Academic Standards For Environmental Education. (We go by EnvStds for short cause our creators were a wordy bunch.)  

“We come from that little brown booklet with the Greater Yellowlegs on the cover? (that’s a bird) Remember? ...I’m getting some glazed looks, here...!

“Anyway, we’re celebrating our 13th birthdays and adolescence this year, and for the most part it’s been a proud if lonely existence. (Except for 

B.4.7Drawasimplehydrologiccycle. She insists that because of something called a FOSS, she gets a lot of requests.) Otherwise, we’re kinda disappointed with our work calendars.

“Ya know?... lots of great people who really valued our collective resumes put us into that booklet back in 1998. I think they were old hippies. Some were from Madison! (...that island of reality down by the Yahara Watershed?) We all had a good conference call that day and rubbed our hands waiting to get to work.

“Well, we hate to complain or nothin', but if education standards represent what is a prioritized list of student skills and proficiencies, then why aren’t we now more front and center, huh? (A.4.2Collect-informationmakepredictionsandofferexplanationsaboutquestionsasked wrote that last sentence…)"

“Frankie, (C.4.2Applyideasofpastpresentandfuturetospecificenvironmental-issues), informed us at last Sunday’s reskilling meeting that we are actually supposed to be what is called interdisciplinary. (He thought that meant we all got yelled at together in the detention room after school.)  But really, it means we have to fit into all classrooms and not just one of our own. Ya know, we’ve always wondered why there’s no EnvStds sign on them doorjams!  Am I right?" 

CROWD: “What the..............?”

“Can you believe it!? Chemistry gets its own sign. So do English and Geography and Art. And we’re just supposed to show up quietly into every room and somehow make a presence?? That’s never played well here at this meeting hall! No wonder our calendars are sparse! And know what else? DPI will be adding a new group of Sustainability Standards to us pretty soon!  Now, exactly where are THEY expected to go??"     

“Lemme have that mic! Gimme the mic! …….That’s it!”

“What’s it, D.4.6Developaplaneitherindividuallyorinagrouptopreserve-thelocalenvironment.?”

“Report cards! I’ve never been on a report card! I thought it was my deoderant..., but we rarely ever get the chance to toot our own horns! Parents must think we’re just weenies who maybe hitch rides onto those Writing and Math snobs! Worse yet, parents may think we just don’t rate!"

CROWD: “Oouuch!!!”

“I yield the floor to the B EnvStds.”

“Peak Oil. Earth Systems. Climate Weirding. Population Overshoot. Clean Water Availability. Coal Pollution. Consumer vulgarities. Political/Social Aggressions. 2020 Foresight. Ethics!”

“Thank you, B’s, for that rousing rendition. We all share your enthusiasm and leadership!  All those in favor of lobbying to get our sign on all classroom doors...?”

“Duh!!”

“Adjoined.”

Teaching 2020 Foresight

There are so many ways to respond to the Deepwater Gulf spill debacle and we still get clogged up with blame #1, #2, and #3.  We (comfortable Americans) still look for linear solutions instead of the bigger picture.  The problem in the Gulf is not that there was drilling at 5,000 ft.  The problem is the complicated and addictive need for oil in our society.  

Zenobia Barlow and the Center for Ecoliteracy are right on target with what I believe to be a decisive pathway through this murky time.  Teachers; education training programs; enlightened children.  


Do we have 20/20 hindsight; or 2020 foresight?

Education System Will Benefit from Nature’s Course

Zenobia Barlow (Ecological Literacy Fellow)

“Aboard a boat in the Gulf of Mexico this week, Vernon Asper, a professor of marine sciences at the University of Southern Mississippi, told NPR: ‘The very best thing probably is to let nature take its course.’

“He was not, of course, alone in his response (in this case, referring to the deep-water microbes that decompose oil.) In the face of the daunting Gulf of Mexico oil spill—still spilling, one month after the explosion—it is tempting to resort, on rational or spiritual grounds, to thoughts about the healing powers of nature. We poor humans, after all, don’t yet even know how much oil has spilled, or how to stop it.

“But how might things have turned out differently if more of us had understood the course of nature—and acted on that understanding—before this crisis hit? Would we have better estimated nature’s capacity to compensate for human mistakes and limited ourselves to actions and technologies whose consequences we could manage? Would we have learned to calculate and live within an energy budget that doesn’t require dangerous extraction practices?

“If there is any good at all to come of the latest Gulf disaster, it is that more people might recognize the very real need for schools to accept responsibility for nurturing a new kind of understanding and caring, which has been variously called ecoliteracy, ecological intelligence, and education for sustainable living.

“We urgently need schools to prepare young people for a world marked by climate change, water shortages, and significant threats to food security—and then share the teaching and learning experiences that inspire them to develop more creative, sustainable ways of living.

“Education for sustainable living recognizes that the skills and wisdom that were once sufficient for our survival as a species are no longer adequate for modern life. It reveals the hidden web of connections between human activities and nature’s systems and our impact on the planet, health, and social systems. And it points young people in the direction of better, more sustainable ways of living.

“Surely, it’s a better than hoping that nature will bail us out of our messes.”

Zenobia Barlow is cofounder and executive director of the Center for Ecoliteracy and a Post Carbon Institute fellow. More at www.ecoliteracy.org