Читать книгу The Failure of Environmental Education (And How We Can Fix It) - Charles Saylan - Страница 8

CHAPTER TWO

Foundations

Environmentalism is not an option like choosing one's religion or political affiliation. It is a responsibility and fundamental aspect of cohesive society, like respect for the law. It isn't something we should debate teaching. If we breathe, if we consume anything, then we are each responsible for our part in that consumption, like it or not. That society has failed to accept this responsibility is a result of placing ourselves at the center of our universe and believing we are here to dominate our surroundings. Unfortunately for where we find ourselves today, the concept that “man is the master of all he surveys” is at the root of most of what is taught in our schools. It is an idea that permeates our approach to education, and the authors believe it represents a flawed logic that has outlived its utility.

We are always ready to applaud human ingenuity as the means by which our societies have grown and flourished, and we are mostly right in that celebration. We are, after all, remarkable creatures in our ability to reason and choose, to create art and literature, and to hone our minds to perform critical scientific analysis. We have mastered agriculture, literally moved mountains, and made habitable space where before there was only sea. No other species on earth shares our incredible potential to change our surroundings to suit our needs. The industrialization of our societies is what we consider the crown jewel in the story of our development.

Who can blame the founders of our industrial society for their aspirations for its growth? More of any good thing always seems like a great idea. As the Industrial Revolution progressed, life generally got easier for large segments of our population, especially for the newly formed middle class. Motorized transport replaced horse and cart, more goods were available in more places, and for perhaps the first time in our history common folk found themselves with leisure time on their hands. In times of plenty like those at the dawn of industrialization, it would have been difficult to imagine any negative consequences. In fact, it's taken more than two hundred years for us to begin to recognize the detrimental effects of our unbridled industrial expansion.

We cannot dismiss the benefits of that innovation in the form of increased comforts and quality of life, which seem to go hand in hand with development. Advances in the fields of medicine and technology have led to increased longevity and a more active populace, at least in more affluent countries. At the outset of the industrial revolution, when world population was still well under the two-billion mark, who could have known our resources were finite, or that industrial development would have a species-threatening dark side?

Yet, even at the turn of the last century, in response to a rapidly urbanizing America and the loss of individuality through the industrial revolution, the “nature study movement” was born.¹ Its advocates were the first to include environmental education as part of school curricula, and it became mandated in a few states. Learning about nature was an essential part of a progressive education. John Dewey, the great progressive educator and one of America's most notable philosophers, believed that, by studying nature, students would develop not only an aesthetic sense but an ethical sensitivity as well. The movement's goal was to take students outside and allow them to imagine a natural world, a world without people, a world before industrialization. By doing so, students would become more grounded and respectful of nature. The nature study movement encouraged students to plant school gardens in order to grow closer to nature and to ward off what the movement perceived as the isolation caused by urbanization and industrialization.

As the nature study movement grew, adults became interested in studying and reading about nature. Authors like Henry David Thoreau and John Muir wrote books that were devoured by the public, perhaps much as nature documentaries are today.²

In many respects, the nature study movement was antiscientific in that it focused on developing a moral link to nature, the consequences of which would, its proponents hoped, result in nature's preservation.

The nature study movement died when many Progressive Era reforms died. It failed in the trenches of World War I, as conservation was redefined to reflect the valuation of efficiency over natural diversity. Using natural resources to support the war effort was more important than saving natural resources. Yet its failure was not complete: it inspired midcentury conservationists, who have had a much more direct impact on our current thoughts on nature conservation, biodiversity, and environmental education.

By the mid 1930s, Aldo Leopold was expressing ideas that would later be published in A Sand County Almanac. In this book, Leopold shared his observations of nature—to which he was deeply and poetically connected—under the threat of overuse, mismanagement, and pollution. He witnessed the disappearance of wilderness and mourned the loss of the harmony he believed must exist between man and land. He saw this harmony as based on acceptance and appreciation of an interrelationship he believed existed between living things and their environment. He gained his perspective from contemplative interaction with his surroundings, understanding nature as admirer, hunter, farmer, and protector, rather than as an impartial and disconnected observer. Aldo Leopold is considered by many to be the father of land conservation and management movements. He remains a major influence in the field, although at the time he lived, his efforts toward local conservation were not particularly lasting or widespread.

In 1962, Rachel Carson, a fisheries biologist turned nature writer published Silent Spring, based on her research into the ill effects and overuse of pesticides. Although the book has become one of the cornerstone publications of environmental awareness, it was strongly contested at the time of its publication. Carson was publicly attacked both personally and professionally, primarily by chemical industry representatives, in an attempt to discredit her findings and keep them from public view.³ In the final analysis, however, Carson's work was reviewed by President John F. Kennedy's Science Advisory Committee and found to be both credible and timely. The subsequent publicity surrounding the publication of Silent Spring, along with the recommendations spurred by Carson's claims, eventually led to a nationwide ban on DDT and a new public awareness of the dangers of pesticide overuse. The controversy over the book marked the dawn of industry's fight against the dissemination of scientific discoveries critical of industrial practices, especially when those practices were proved to cause adverse environmental impacts. This was the beginning of the politicization of environmentalism.

Being an “environmentalist” increasingly became associated with liberalism, perhaps partly because slogans like “Ecology Now” were a familiar rallying cry of the counterculture of the 1960s, which was also characterized by its strong antiwar and antiestablishment sentiments. The potential negative economic impacts that environmental protective legislation stood to make on conservative stronghold professions like logging and industrialized agriculture and fishing may have also spurred something of a backlash, further adding to the characterization of environmentalists as liberals. This was a windfall to those who would benefit from the imposition of lesser or no regulations on industry, because it meant that the general public was less likely to take the issues seriously if they could be framed as the collective ravings of a bunch of “tree-huggers.”

As ideological divisions between liberals and conservatives widened, environmentalists were increasingly marginalized, until the word environmentalist became synonymous with a fringe element. This effectively meant that many underlying environmental issues, being easier to discount, were marginalized along with the environmental movement.

It is already difficult in our world to understand where the truth of any given situation lies. We are pulled in many directions by governments, media, and religious leaders, to name but a few of the factors in play. Even if we are willing to invest the time to understand an issue, we often encounter views diametrically opposed to each other from seemingly legitimate sources, making it even harder to know what is true and what is not. As a result, news regarding adverse anthropogenic impacts on the environment, along with the long-term ramifications, has been largely discredited or ignored altogether by the general public until quite recently. Even now, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, there are many who still believe global warming either doesn't exist or poses no threat and isn't worth worrying about. And without pressure from their constituents, politicians are unlikely to focus their attention or legislative efforts on environmental issues.

In 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was signed into law. The law represented a sweeping federal attempt at educational reform through implementation of standardized achievement testing in public schools, which was designed to compel schools to reach standards set by the individual states. The intent was to raise student performance in subjects like math, English, and science, as well as to increase institutional accountability. This was to be accomplished by the annual yearly progress requirement, which mandates that test scores must continue to increase over those of preceding periods, promoting and assuring better institutional performance. In theory, schools that failed to make annual yearly progress would be placed on a “failing schools” list and eventually would either improve or close. In practice this has not been the case.

While there is much ongoing debate on whether the NCLB Act is worthwhile, its negative impact on environmental education has been substantial. Teachers, under the NCLB Act, have been constrained to “teach to the tests,” which means there is increased emphasis in the classroom on making sure students prepare primarily for the subjects on which they will be tested. This has led to an effective decrease in environmental education because it is not a subject that the architects of the NCLB Act care much about. As a result, environmental literacy has suffered at the precise moment when society stands to benefit most from increased awareness of environmental issues and causes.⁴

For the coming environmental challenges to our ways of life, we need to abandon the current definition of environmentalism with all its connotations. We must realize we all breathe the same air, drink the same water, need to eat, and need shelter from the elements. We must accept that we are each individually responsible for making sure we do no irrevocable harm to the natural systems that support us.

This collective responsibility has nothing to do with liberal or conservative values. In no way does it conflict with religious or lifestyle choices. It is not a political issue and should not be treated as such. Without a habitable planet, political inclination won't matter much anyway. In fact, one could go so far as to say protecting the ecosystem, and our place in it, is the necessary first step for promoting any given political or religious beliefs to future generations.

It is critical that environmental education teach the concept of individual responsibility, just as traditional education teaches respect for law and order or as religious education teaches its respective version of morality. This must become a fundamental aspect of the environmental educational approach if we are to fix the environment we teach about. Educators will need to overcome the idea one can simply opt out if one chooses not to acknowledge that environmental problems exist.

Some may see this approach as one that incorporates activism in the educational agenda and, thus, oversteps the traditional boundaries of public education. We have been told education must provide the evaluative tools necessary for students to make informed decisions and become productive members of our society—impartial tools that students can use to find their own way in the world. But strict adherence to an impartial approach to public education design does not consider the peril that an increasing rate of environmental degradation creates. This fundamental educational principle is urgently in need of modification.

It is also a common opinion among educators and policy makers that education should not include any attempt to change or influence behavior, because doing so might constitute some form of political advocacy. But there is really no difference between the widespread practice of teaching people to follow the laws of our societies (an action or behavior generally accepted as cultural knowledge) and teaching respect and responsibility for the finite resources of earth on which our lives collectively depend. Learning about our life support system is a civic responsibility.

In California, we take pride in being at the forefront of the country in environmental awareness. The current Science Content Standards for California Public Schools, written in 1998,⁵ does not, however, specifically mention important environmental issues like pollution, CO₂ and methane emissions, energy consumption, oil dependency, or loss of biodiversity. There is almost no mention of the linkages between anthropogenic impacts and environmental change.

The content standards are divided into several broad categories, including physical science, life science, and earth science, each of which is further divided into subcategories to accommodate additional information as students progress through the educational process. Environmental science is mentioned only in general terms and is certainly not emphasized or integrated in a meaningful way. The standards do not provide enough of the tools necessary for students to practically understand the environmental processes that will likely change their world and their lives.

This does not mean that environmental education is not taught to California students. It is, but selectively, where individual teachers or charter school boards have recognized the need, allocated the time, and provided the money. Where environmental education resources exist, they tend to exist outside the system, either as elective teacher-enrichment opportunities or curricula sources, or in the form of student outdoor education programs. These, however, often require that teachers dedicate time for which they are not compensated, and many of the programs are not readily available to all students. The point here is that environmental education is not yet a significant part of the public education system, but it should be.

The No Child Left Inside Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives in September of 2008 by a margin of almost two to one.⁶ This legislation sought to integrate environmental education into the federal guidelines established by the NCLB Act, create incentives at state level for development of environmental literacy plans, and provide funding for teacher training in environmental education that would be conducted primarily outside the classroom in natural surroundings. The bill was the result of a grassroots coalition of conservation and education groups. Its passage sent a strong message to government that any educational reform must include a substantial environmental component. The 2008 version of the bill never became law, but the bill was reintroduced in 2009 in the hope that meaningful legislation will follow. As of the writing of this book, no such legislation has made it through either the House or Senate committees to which it has been referred.

In California, the Education and the Environment Initiative (EEI) was mandated by two assembly bills, passed in 2003 and 2005.⁷ The initiative's backers hope the EEI will lead the nation in providing environmental curricula to primary and secondary public schools in the state, with an overall goal of creating a high level of environmental literacy in students. The curriculum is based on a set of environmental principles and concepts that reflects causes and effects, which is missing from the current state science standards and even from in-depth presentations of current environmental issues. The EEI is expected to be integrated into the state science content standards sometime in the near future, although it is doubtful this will happen before 2011 or 2012, given the slow nature of the bureaucratic process. This effectively means the first students to benefit from a full EEI-integrated curriculum will graduate from public school sometime around 2022. Better late than never, but hardly in time for effective mitigation of the compelling environmental crises we are facing today.

What the EEI aims to accomplish is unquestionably worthy of support. It is the first legislation of its kind, and was conceived of and brought to fruition through the work of many dedicated and conscientious people over years of effort. The persistent delays and setbacks they encountered were a result of a systemic flaw of modern public institutions: institutions are unable to respond expediently because they are subject to the politics of special interests.

We must now ask ourselves what environmental education ought to accomplish and in what time frame? Say we exclude changing student behavior as a goal of environmental education, because we deem it to be a form of advocacy, even though existing behavior leads us closer to adverse alterations to our environment—as consumption rates and climate studies indicate will happen. Then we should ask ourselves why we are spending money and time on environmental education at all if it's not expected to change our behavior in a way that directly impacts looming problems? It is not a reasonable use of public money to simply inform students about nature without teaching them ways they can act to protect it.

Environmental deterioration does not respect the time frame of public institutions, nor does it wait for assessment reports or pilot program evaluations. It is critically important for us to recognize that the next decades are strategically significant, especially with regard to potential tipping points (which we'll discuss in more detail in a later chapter), and that changes we effect sooner will have greater impacts than changes that come later. We must jump-start institutional processes, not only within state boundaries, but at national and international levels as well.

This can be accomplished only if we acknowledge our individual responsibility and, as noted earlier, abandon the idea that environmentalism is a political choice. To be practical, we need to ask ourselves: how likely is this to happen? Even if we are at the outset of a global environmental catharsis, are the institutions of government and enforcement even capable of moving fast enough to make a significant difference in the short-term effects of global warming? Given the bureaucratic process and the array of special interests at work, it is unlikely we will see effective legislation or policy in the near future.

Our educational institutions are often large and unwieldy, and the task of educational reform is, without question, a daunting one. But institutions are composed of individuals, and individuals can initiate grassroots efforts with great effectiveness, even from within unwieldy institutions. From an educational perspective, the best hope for positive feedback in the short-term probably lies with efforts moving from the ground up rather than from the top down.

A review of environmental education must take the overall structure of public education into account. Simply shoving some environmental curricula into existing school programs probably won't help much. Environmental education must motivate individuals to act on environmental problems, and it cannot accomplish this without an integrated approach.

Our educational process trends toward specialized, compartmentalized vocational training, and programs developed in response to the No Child Left Behind Act tend to exacerbate this by emphasizing some areas of study over others. Little thought is given to teaching logic, which one can argue is the basis for common sense. History, as well, has fallen by the wayside, as has literature, through which students can learn the morality of our societies. Civics, by which we may understand how to live and participate in a democratic process, is not well incorporated into the current overall educational curriculum. How, then, can we expect our children to grow into involved, concerned, and productive citizens capable of supporting the democratic ideals we supposedly live by if we fail to provide them with the experience to do so?

The democratic system in the United States depends on an informed citizenry. The founders of the American republic believed this and viewed an educated populace as both a critically important defense against the rise of tyranny and a fundamental necessity for self-government. Thomas Jefferson was a strong proponent of national public education.⁸ He advocated providing a formal education as a basis for lifelong learning, a pursuit he believed represented humanity's purest endeavor. Success, in Jefferson's opinion, was not monetary but rested on contribution to and participation in the collective society.

But success in today's societies is generally measured in monetary terms. For example, when we talk about the status of nations, we rank them by economic progress as developed, developing, or underdeveloped nations. We would not apply the term developed to a society that had learned to care physically and culturally for its people if it lacked economic or industrial infrastructure. In providing students with tools for leading productive, successful lives, we may need to reevaluate our definitions of success to accommodate our changing world of diminishing resources and increasing population.

John Dewey believed schools are social institutions where students learn from experience within a community rather than through abstract lesson plans that have little bearing on the students' individual realities. Educative activity, reconstructed or transformed, reveals the value or meaning of the experience, thereby increasing the ability to direct subsequent experience.

Dewey saw teachers as members of an organic community rather than as those whose job it is to “impose certain ideas or form certain habits.”⁹ He envisioned the teacher as a sort of guide who provided influences appropriate to the community and then helped students to respond to these influences. Dewey believed careful and sympathetic observation of the student's emerging interests, which he saw as signs of their growing power, would reveal developmental stages reached and offer a preview of what influences to apply in later stages.

Dewey also believed political responsibility rests not only on government but also on the individuals living in a given social system, and this capacity for political responsibility would emerge through the public education experience. Current public education, especially since the passage of the NCLB Act, misses these important concepts by instead emphasizing standardized achievements and short-term assessment, an emphasis that tends to further separate the goals of public education from that of fostering good citizens.

The rate of adult illiteracy in America around the time Dewey was writing My Pedagogic Creed was high, with 20 percent of the population unable to read or write in any language. As the twentieth century progressed, the nation's illiteracy rate underwent a prolonged and dramatic decrease, and in 1979 it dropped to just under 1 percent of the population.¹⁰ It is important to remember, however, that these statistics reflect a strict definition of literacy as the ability to read and write simple sentences, and literacy tended to increase as public schools became more accessible to the general population.

Functional literacy, on the other hand, attempts to quantify the ability to function in everyday society and is measured by a variety of things, including the ability to read and comprehend job postings, past-due notices, and instruction manuals and to solve simple arithmetic problems. The degree of functional literacy in society is hard to calculate, considering the broad scope the term encompasses. There is strong speculation that the percentage of functionally illiterate adults in Western society has increased in the last fifty years. If true, this would help explain a decline in civic concern and an increase in political apathy. Environmental education must foster functional literacy if it is to accomplish any measurable impact on environmental problems.

The barrage of information confronting us today is unparalleled in human history. We surf the Internet, watch record amounts of television, check e-mail, monitor an ever-expanding array of social networks, endlessly text-message each other, and chat on cellular phones, all the while plugged into our iPods. All this input ought to enrich us, but instead of being better informed, we are becoming more frustrated and confused by the sheer quantity of information there is to digest. This invokes Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and what Neil Postman summarized when he wrote, “The truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.”¹¹

As a result of information overload, we increasingly turn to blogs or television for synopses of current events and issues. On the surface, this seems like an efficient choice for a busy populace, but the media tends to play to an identified audience, and objective journalism tends to drop by the wayside. As Matthew Kerbel writes, “If it bleeds, it leads,” referring to the media's focus on stories that attract consumers.¹² As a result, the gap between liberal and conservative widens, and our ability as citizens to reason and compromise diminishes. Meanwhile, we tend to abbreviate communication and summarize knowledge. These are trends that do not foster working together to solve environmental or any other problems.

The environmental problems we face have been exacerbated by the lack of definitive action on almost everyone's part. Where several decades ago one might have argued we didn't know any better, that argument simply doesn't hold much water anymore. There has been much disinformation and foot-dragging on the part of our industrial and government leaders, who have taken advantage of our shortened attention spans to prolong profiting from old technologies and squeezing the last drops out of diminishing resources. An educated and motivated citizenry would not have allowed this to happen so easily, if at all. Public education must accept some of the responsibility for failing to keep pace with the needs of an increasingly complex society.

Notwithstanding, much has been accomplished through the efforts of environmental educators, most of them working via self-organized, independent channels. The strides made in environmental education have had a massive impact on public awareness in a relatively short time frame and are an excellent example of grassroots success in the face of numerous obstacles, including sluggish institutions and political attacks. Without environmental education, we likely would not now have widespread recycling, environmental impact assessments, cleaner air and water in many communities, local decreases in pollution and urban runoff, and increased industrial accountability, to give just a few examples. But this is not enough. The successes of twenty years ago are not the successes needed today. As environmental education meets a social climate that is perhaps more open to its message, it must take healthy doses of self-evaluation and develop flexibility, as well as return to the grassroots mentality present at its birth and rebirth.