What is Education For

Six myths about the foundation of modern education, and six new principles to replace them. By David Orr re-incarnated by Susan & Nina

Introduction: Who is David Orr?

Currently Professor & Chair of Environmental Studies, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio PhD International Relations , University Pennsylvania 1973 Founded the Meadowcreek Project, an environmental education center in Fox, AR

Orrs Significant Arguments:

Traditional modes of education (teaching & learning) have failed to yield a globally conscious person Education should be holistic, organic, genuine, acknowledging (recognizing as valid) the interconnectedness of the planet Is a progressivist approach (in line with Neatby) Intended Audience: As a commencement speech, it is a call to action to those idealistic, visionary, new global citizens who may be influential to change.

I identify 6 myths which education has bought into & perpetuated perhaps knowingly & perhaps unintentionally. But only perhaps

Myth 1: Ignorance is a solvable problem.

Myth 2: with enough knowledge and technology we can manage planet Earth.

Myth 3: knowledge is increasing and by implication human goodness.

Myth 4: we can adequately restore that which we have dismantled.

By fragmenting the world into disciplines and subdisciplines we have pigeon holed knowledge. Incomplete Education has fooled us into thinking that we are much richer than we are.

Myth 5: the purpose of education is that of giving you the means for upward mobility & success.

Myth 6: our culture represents the pinnacle of human achievement: we alone are modern, technological, and developed.
Our culture does not nourish that which is best or noblest in the human spirit the economic technocratic-statist worldview has become a monstrous destroyer of what is loving and life affirming in the human soul.
Rick Miller editor of Holistic Review

What Education Must be For: Measured against the agenda of human survival, how might we rethink education? To the graduates, I suggested six principles

1. All Education Is Environmental Education.

By what is included or excluded we teach students that they are part of or apart from the natural world

2. The goal of education is not mastery of subject matter, but of ones person.
For the most part we labor under a confusion of ends and means, thinking that the goal of education is to stuff all kinds of facts, techniques, methods, and information into the students mind, regardless of how and with what effect it will be used. The Greeks knew better.

3. Knowledge carries with it the responsibility to see that it is well used in the world.

Whose responsibility is Love Canal? Chernobyl? Ozone depletion? The Valdez oil spill? Each of these tragedies were possible because of knowledge created for which no one was ultimately responsible. This may finally come to be seen for what I think it is: a problem of scale.

We cannot say that we know something until we understand the effects of this knowledge on real people and their communities.

4.

The shift from traditional to progressivist practice would look like this:

FROM: A completely academic curriculum (Knowing).\ TO: One geared to social participation (doing).
Postman et al 1969, Making Contact

5. The Importance of minute particulars and the power of examples over words.

The shift from traditional practices to a progressivist would look like this:

FROM: An institution that is less concerned with survival at any cost TO: One that is ethical

6. The way learning occurs is as important as the content of particular courses.

The shift would look like this:

FROM: A curriculum that is pre packaged, rigidly scheduled, and uniform throughout a school system. TO: One that is flexible and geared to the unique needs of individuals in schools within the system.
Postman et al 1969, Making Contact

An assignment to the institution

1. Engage in a campus-wide dialogue about the way you conduct your business as educators
Do we as educators practice what we preach? I ask of you to be more observant, critical, questioning about why we have come to accept certain norms

2. Examine resource flows on this campus: food, energy, water, materials, waste
What resources do schools use? To what extent? Supplier names? Source ? Country? How are those resources obtained? How often does paper get delivered via truck?

How are those resources consumed? Do they result in additional resources? Are there options to reduce consumption? How much becomes waste & in what form?

3. Re-examine how your endowment works (ethical?)

Is it invested according to the Valdez principles ( now known as the CERES principles)?

Can some part of it be invested locally to help energy efficiency and the evolution of a sustainable economy throughout the region?

4. Set a goal of ecological literacy for all of your students

The laws of thermodynamics Basic principles of ecology Carrying capacity Least-cost, & end-use analysis How to live well in a place Limits of technology Appropriate scale Sustainable agriculture and forestry Steady-state economics Environmental ethics

Aldo Leopold Asked:

If education does not teach us these things, then what is education for?