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Educational
Reform in an Era of Ecological Crisis
C. A. Bowers
University of Oregon
(Note: For the latest essays in "eco-pedagogy", please visit: http://www.cabowers.net/)
What is ironic, even tragic for
future generations, is that the various approaches
to educational
reform advocated by politicians,
parents, and professional educators in this country do not take account of the
rapid changes occurring in the Earth’s ecosystems. The scientific consensus
that global warming is occurring and that is it being caused by human activity,
the decline of key fisheries such as those of the Grand Banks and the North Sea,
and the impact of more than 80,000 synthetic chemicals introduced into
the environment on the viability of natural systems ranging from marine ecosystems
to human health, have not influenced the different agendas for educational reform.
Indeed, the shared characteristic of current educational reform proposals,
that are also being adopted in other countries that have also come under the
influence of Western values, is that they are all based on a common set of cultural
assumptions formed before there was an awareness of ecological limits.
This indifference toward considering the educational implications of the ecological
crisis will lead to a further expansion in economic activity and technological
dependence that, in turn, will continue the pattern of undermining the sustaining
capacity of natural systems. That globalization is also being understood in terms
of expanding markets in ways that will introduce more of the world’s population
to the North American lifestyle of consumerism makes the prospects of future
generations even more problematic.
Current proposals for educational reform can
be grouped into three categories:
- The promotion
of school accountability, voucher systems, and charter schools.
- The
across the political spectrum support for making
computers the central feature of the educational
process.
- The continuing efforts of professors of education
who carry on the Dewey/Freire tradition of thinking
of the classroom as preparing students
to develop
the critical capacity to construct their own knowledge and values.
The suggestion
that these
approaches to educational reform are based on a common set of ecologically
problematic cultural assumptions may appear as naïve and thus
ill founded. However, closer consideration of the conceptual basis
of these approaches to educational
reform brings the problems into proper perspective. The drive to hold
teachers accountable for student achievement, as well as the efforts
of parents to exert
more control over the education of their children (home schooling,
vouchers, charter schools) are largely driven by a concern with ensuring
that students
are better prepared to enter a rapidly changing work environment—and
thus to enjoy the benefits of a consumer dependent lifestyle.
Before explaining the nature of the deep cultural assumptions that underlie
these three often overlapping approaches to educational reform it needs to
be pointed
out that the liberal and radical approaches to educational reform, where
the emancipation of the student from the influence of intergenerational traditions
is the main goal, are also complicit in contributing to a lifestyle that
is ecologically
unsustainable. That is, emancipatory approaches to education undermine different
ethnic approaches to passing on intergenerational knowledge, including patterns
of moral reciprocity, essential to less consumer dependent lives. Contrary
to conventional thinking, emancipatory approaches to education do not represent
an alternative to the approaches to education that further technological
development
and economic growth. What is seldom recognized is that the goal of educational
emancipation is based on the same cultural assumptions that were the basis
of the Industrial Revolution. These shared assumptions include the following:
- That
change is constant, linear in nature, and the expression of progress
- That
the autonomous individual is the basic social unit
and that attaining even
greater
autonomy is a constant goal
- That critical inquiry is the only
valid approach to knowledge
- That anthropocentrism
is
the most efficacious way of relating
to Nature
- That differences in cultural knowledge systems
will disappear as a natural
result of modernization.
The connection between the ideal of the emancipated,
self-directing individual and the form of subjectivity required by
the Industrial Revolution can be seen in the way the
individual
who has been liberated from
intergenerationally acquired knowledge, skills, and patterns of mutual
aid is more dependent upon consumerism to meet daily
needs.
These same cultural assumptions underlie what is mistakenly
called the “conservative” educational
reform agenda. With the exception of some approaches to home schooling
and charter schools, the conservative reforms are also
based on thinking of change as the
expression of progress, the individual as self-directing and as a competitor
in the market place, and having an anthropocentric
way of relating to Nature—and
that these assumptions should be adopted by other cultures as the basis
of their future development. The more ideologically
driven approaches to educational reform
are also based on the assumption that the “invisible hand” that
supposedly governs market activities will also ensure that the best will
emerge from the
competition between approaches to educational reform. While the label
of conservatism goes unquestioned by the general public, the underlying
assumptions upon which
their educational proposals are based gave conceptual direction and moral
legitimacy to the Industrial Revolution and were more fully articulated
by classical liberal
thinkers—neither of which contributed to conserving self-reliant
communities, different cultural ways of knowing, and biodiversity.
Instead of basing educational reform on the environmentally destructive assumptions
that that have guided the process of modernization over the last 300 or so
years, we (and the world) need to adopt approaches to education that are
genuinely conservative
in orientation. This will require basing educational reform on the following
assumptions:
- That humans are not separate and thus not in
control of nature, but are integral and thus dependent
upon
Nature’s self-renewing capacities.
- That conserving
cultural/linguistic diversity is essential to
conserving biological diversity.
- That intergenerational
knowledge that strengthens the ability to live
less consumer dependent lives must be given a more
central
place in the
curricula of public schools and universities
- That curriculum reforms
should contribute to democratizing decisions about
the development and use of technology, and the
priorities that guide scientific
research. This last assumption is especially important in this
era of hyper-technological innovation.
What is seldom understood is that people must be knowledgeable about
the traditions essential to morally coherent communities and to living
less consumer
driven
lives if they are to participate in a democratic process whereby technological
innovations are assessed in terms of their contribution to living by
more sustainable lives.
Eco-justice is the phrase that best takes these assumptions
into account, as it represents a fundamental shift
in how to understand the connections
between
education and the renewing of communities in ways that lead to a
smaller adverse impact on ecosystems. The aspects of
eco-justice that can be
addressed most directly
by reforming our educational institutions include: the problem of
environmental racism, the disparity of wealth and political
power between North and
South caused, in large part, by the hyper-consumerism required by
the economies
of the North;
the need to renew the intergenerational knowledge still retained
by different cultural groups that represent alternatives
to consumer and technology
dependent lifestyles; and right of future generations to live in
environments that
have not been degraded. Addressing these eco-justice issues will
require educational
reforms that enable students to understand how language carries forward
earlier ways of thinking that did not take account of how cultural
ecologies are
dependent upon natural ecologies. Curricular reforms also need to
enable students to understand
the ecological implications of print-based knowledge that creates
new forms of economic and technological dependencies,
and the forms of face-to-face
intergenerational
knowledge that contribute to greater self-sufficiency and mutual
aid within
families and communities.
Specifically, this means helping students
become more fully aware of the many aspects of daily
life that have become commodified, and
that
contribute
to
the cycle of turning Nature into products that, after a short use,
are returned to
the environment in the form of toxic waste and ever expanding landfills.
In addition to surveying how dependent the average person has become
on monetized relationships
and activities, it is important for students to learn about the non-monetized
aspects of community life. These will vary widely, depending upon
cultural group. This requires learning about the forms of intergenerational
knowledge, skills,
and activities that are passed on in face-to-face relationships.
Who
are the
elders of the community? How are they different from older people
still committed to the materialistic promise of success and happiness
that has
contributed to
trashing the environment? Who are the mentors that can introduce
the students to the arts, gardening, healing, craft knowledge—and
can model how to live more self-sufficient lives? What ceremonies,
forms
of entertainment,
and
nature-centered
activities are still carried on within different cultural groups?
Who are the story tellers that can help students obtain a more long-term
understanding
of the bioregion that sustains them. Stories of human hubris that
have
led
to degrading
the environment, as well as accounts of how others have lived by
an environmental ethic, will help students understand how they are
connected
both to the
folly and wisdom of previous generations and to the land.
Learning
about the face-to-face traditions still carried on within the different
cultural groups that make up the student’s neighborhood,
as well as how to participate in activities that strengthen the
bonds
of community, is essentially
a conserving activity. It contributes to the renewal of intergenerational
knowledge, the nurturing of student talent, and the broadening
of the student’s awareness
of alternatives to being dependent upon shopping malls and the
media. By reducing the dependence upon a consumer, technology dependent
lifestyle, it changes the
cycle that leads to dumping toxic waste in the backyards of the
most
vulnerable groups. It also reduces the need to exploit the environments
of non-western cultures.
In slowing the transformation of the environment into products
that fill the shelves of shopping malls, it helps to ensure that
future generations will
find an environment that has not been devastated by the greed and
folly of previous generations. Eco-justice oriented educational
reforms will contribute to reducing
economic growth, which is now being forced upon us by global warming
and other changes in natural systems. This should not be viewed
as lowering people’s
quality of life. Indeed, as more emphasis is put on participatory
relationships and activities that expand personal talents and mutual
interests, the
quality of life will be improved. As a writer from the Third World
put it, we need
to understand wealth in a new way. That is, wealth should be understood
in terms
of the quality of relationships and community-centered lives and
not in terms of economic gains that degrade personal lives and
the diversity
of
the environment.
While the educational reforms suggested here go against
the grain of current thinking, they are based on the
realities of the present—and not on the
myths about progress and individualism that co-evolved with the
Industrial Revolution. Most educational reforms, including
those advocated by the techno-optimists and
the emancipatory educators, continue to be based on a set of myths
that represent progress as a human project that is
independent of what happens to the environment.
To reiterate a key point, the emphasis on the individual as a worker
and consumer, as a participant in cyberspace, and as
engaged in the unending quest of self-realization
and emancipation, will not be easy to change—or even for
many people to recognize as contributing to the ecological crisis.
We
are now faced
with a scale
of environmental change that has led to the demise of previous
cultures that failed to change their belief system and technological
practices.
We now need
to engage in a serious discussion of the educational implications
of global warming, which should focus on the cultural assumptions
that
have led to
the double bind
where our material form of progress now undermines the viability
of many natural systems. That is, educational reform must go beyond
technological
fixes and
the current expressions of mythic thinking. We need to learn
from other cultures,
particularly those that have not taken the Western path of economic
development,
about how it is possible to live without economic activities becoming
the dominant aspect of our lives.
Copyright © 2000 C.A. Bowers
Reprinted with permission.
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