Wachstumshormone

Jun

3

Sustainability and Schools: Educating for Interconnection, Adaptability, and Resilience

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By Greg Smith

In my home state of Oregon it’s impossible to pick up the daily paper and not encounter some article that deals with concerns about environmental or social sustainability.  With climate change, dramatically increasing energy costs, economic instability, and growing worries about the availability and cost of food, journalists and the public are at last paying attention to issues that for decades were pushed to the margins of the nation’s collective consciousness.

This shift in public awareness has yet to have much impact on American schools where a preoccupation with testing remains the central concern of the day.  This should not surprise us.  Education tends to follow social trends rather than initiate them.  Given the rapidity with which changes are occurring in the environment and the economy, however, schools may need to take a more active role in preparing young people to address challenges posed by a warmer and oil-strapped world.  All of our futures could well depend on their capacity to respond to these new conditions with intelligence and a spirit of generosity and compassion.

Fortunately, some educators are now adopting teaching approaches that promise to help young people grapple with the dilemmas of civic involvement and problem solving.  Few teachers explicitly address climate change, rising fuel prices, or food shortages head-on; what they do instead is create learning experiences that engage students in community issues while preparing them to become actors more than consumers or victims.  I believe that these educators are laying the foundations of an education for sustainability and equity.

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This article was reprinted in its entirety from the website of the Journal of Sustainability Education http://www.journalofsustainabilityeducation.org/

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