... if administrators exercised leadership, they might motivate otherwise indifferent faculty to reframe the content of their courses and scholarship in ways that clarify the connections between ...cultural and environmental issues that stand in the way of achieving a sustainable future. ... the problem becomes one of identifying the sources of authority that university presidents and administrators will take seriously-even when they personally fail to understand that humankind is at a turning point and that daily life is undergoing fundamental changes that have their roots in the degradation of natural systems.
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12.
Rethinking Freire. Globalization and the Environmental Crisis Bowers, Chet A; Apffel-Marglin, Frédérique; Haluza-DeLay, Randolph
International Review of Education / Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft / Revue Internationale de l'Education,
05/2006, Volume:
52, Issue:
3/4
Book Review
Peer reviewed
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...attention will be given to how curriculum reform can help students recognize the connections between a consumer dependent lifestyle and the deepening ecological crises. ...attention will be given ...to what students need to understand about how computer mediated learning contributes to a smaller ecological footprint within certain contexts as well as how it undermines the local cultural commons. Ch. 10 “Rethinking Social Justice Issues Within an Eco-Justice Conceptual/Moral Framework” Session 6 Curricular implications of understanding how language carries forward the misconceptions of earlier thinkers who were unaware of ecological limits Read: C. Bowers, Online book, Toward a Post-Industrial Consciousness Ch. 3 “The Linguistic Colonization of the Present by the Past” C. Bowers, Online book, Toward a Post-Industrial Consciousness, Ch. 7 “Toward an Ecologically Sustainable Vocabulary” Session 7 Continued discussion of language issues in the curriculum Session 8Language issues that marginalize awareness of the intergenerational knowledge and skills that have a smaller ecological footprint and reduce dependence upon a money economy. Read: E. Shils, Tradition “In the Grip of the Past” pp. 34-67 Gouldner, The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of a New Class, pp. 28-29 (handout) Session 9The nature and educational implications of ecological intelligence Read: G. Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, pp. 316-320 C. Bowers, Online book, Educating for Ecological Intelligence, Ch. 2 “Educational Reforms that Foster Ecological Intelligence” Session 10Continued discussion of how to explain and demonstrate ecological intelligence Session 11Curricular issues related to introducing students to their cultural commons Read: C. Bowers, Online book, Transforming Environmental Education Ch. 4, “The Classroom Practice of Commons Education” Session 12Curricular approaches to introducing students to the different forms of enclosure of the cultural commons Read: W. Ong, Orality and Literacy, pp. 30-77 N. Klein, The Shock Doctrine, pp. 3-22 Session 13Curriculum models that enable students to recognize different forms of enclosure Read: Online readings to be assigned Session 14The issue of language again:the ecological implications of using Orwellian political language Read: D. Brooks, “The Long Voyage Home” (handout) G. Lakoff, Don’t Think of an Elephant, pp. 3-34 C. Bowers, Online book, Transitions….
This article discusses how the cultural commons that exist in every community, both rural and urban, carry forward the intergenerational knowledge and skills that enable people to live more mutually ...supportive lives that are less dependent upon consumerism and that have a smaller ecological footprint. Also discussed is why public schools and universities have relegated the intergenerational and largely non-monetized knowledge and skills to low status, as well as the different ways in which the traditions of community self-sufficiency are being transformed into new markets that lead to greater dependency upon a money economy. The cultural commons began with the first humans, and will become increasingly important as the industrial/consumer culture continues to collapse.
The article is used to develop a theory of metaphor that helps explain how, in many instances, environmental education contributes to the double bind of helping to address environmental problems ...while at the same time reinforcing the use of the language/thought patterns that underlie the digital phase of the Industrial Revolution we are now entering on a global scale. In addition, it is suggested that environmental educators need to help students understand the connections between cultural practices and degraded environments, thus overcoming a widespread tendency to associate the word 'ecology' with natural systems rather than recognizing that the culturally influenced activities of humans are now integral, in largely destructive ways, to the workings of natural systems. The narrow meaning of ecology has led to an ecomanagement approach that has had the effect of limiting the larger public's sense of responsibility to that of recycling. It is further suggested that environmental educators cooperate with teachers in other disciplines in order to assist students in understanding and participating in the non-consumer-oriented activities and relationships within their local communities. Learning about the community-centered alternatives to consumerism is part of the solution to the growing problem of global warming and changes in the chemistry of the world's natural systems. But this will involve greater understanding on the part of environmental educators of how the language of the curriculum marginalizes the importance of face-to-face, intergenerationally connected communities, while reinforcing the assumptions that lead to equating technological innovations with progress, to the sense of being an autonomous individual, to viewing the environment as an exploitable resource, and to the belief that science and technology will rescue humanity from its hubris and environmental miscalculations.
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Environmental education can no longer be limited to learning the intergenerational knowledge of sustainable environmental practices within the local bioregion. Nor can it be limited to learning the ...intergenerational traditions that were the basis of relative self-sufficiency and mutual support. Both are still essential, but environmental education must now adopt a broader understanding that represents the environment as encompassing the global cultural forces that are contributing to a sustainable future, as well as those that are accelerating the destruction of the natural systems leading to the collapse and disappearance of cultures. Globalization of western technologies and values, as well as the spread of consumer lifestyle expectations in a world that now has over 7 billion inhabitants must now be taken into account in thinking about what needs to be addressed as part of environmental education.
Most people, including college students and their professors, continue to be socialized to think within the traditions of inquiry and knowledge accumulation that are based on cultural assumptions ...that do not take account of the ecological crisis. The study of environmental issues, whether from the social sciences and humanities or from the hard sciences, does not provide people with the knowledge and values that enable them to recognize the cultural alternatives to living a less consumer- and technology-dependent lifestyle. People may be aware of the need to recycle some throwaway products of mainstream industry, or of the need to purchase
