Quote: Some years ago my friend Bob Jickling set up a conference on “Environment, Ethics, and Education” at Yukon College in Whitehorse, Yukon. In the lovely Canadian spirit of acknowledgment of indigenous First Nations, the event opened with a morning-long visit by a number of local tribal elders, speaking of how they teach their own young. In discussion a member of the audience asked about the possibility of elders coming into the schools to speak of these things. The general response was that it did not and would not work. The setting was too artifi cial—neither elders nor students felt (or were!) at home; the students “asked too many questions,” they didn’t know how to listen (to their elders, to each other, to themselves, to the birds . . .); and, most crucially, students could not join any ongoing work (the hunt, food preparation, celebration) in the context of which real learning could take place. Everything was reduced to an episodic encounter or “presentation,” and to words. And none of this is surprising. School is an artifi cial setting; talking and presenting and questioning are its favorite methods; ongoing work has no place there. The elders, in their typically understated way, were therefore telling us that our schools cannot teach love for the Earth. Not because we cannot make the words part of the curriculum, but because precisely by doing so we obscure and undercut what the words actually mean. The worry (to put it generally) is that importing the usual modes of teaching into environmental education risks reproducing the very disconnection from the larger world that was the problem in the first place. by Morgan Tate

Quote: Some years ago my friend Bob Jickling set up a conference on “Environment, Ethics, and Education” at Yukon College in Whitehorse, Yukon. In the lovely Canadian spirit of acknowledgment of indigenous First Nations, the event opened with a morning-long visit by a number of local tribal elders, speaking of how they teach their own young. In discussion a member of the audience asked about the possibility of elders coming into the schools to speak of these things. The general response was that it did not and would not work. The setting was too artifi cial—neither elders nor students felt (or were!) at home; the students “asked too many questions,” they didn’t know how to listen (to their elders, to each other, to themselves, to the birds . . .); and, most crucially, students could not join any ongoing work (the hunt, food preparation, celebration) in the context of which real learning could take place. Everything was reduced to an episodic encounter or “presentation,” and to words. And none of this is surprising. School is an artifi cial setting; talking and presenting and questioning are its favorite methods; ongoing work has no place there. The elders, in their typically understated way, were therefore telling us that our schools cannot teach love for the Earth. Not because we cannot make the words part of the curriculum, but because precisely by doing so we obscure and undercut what the words actually mean. The worry (to put it generally) is that importing the usual modes of teaching into environmental education risks reproducing the very disconnection from the larger world that was the problem in the first place. by Morgan Tate https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston Press the + sign, and then add your response in the body. en-us 2019-02-26 12:43:06 UTC 2020-04-02 17:38:38 UTC hello@padlet.com Morgan morganptate https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/458523977 In reading this, I thought about STEAM and STEM... I thought about ways of knowing and being... I thought about the Waadookodaading school... I thought about seeing the world as closed versus open... ]]> 2020-03-11 16:45:53 UTC https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/458523977 Megan https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/489534911 This makes me think of my brother's mother-in-law, who teaches at a Montessori school. She also works at a wild animal rehabilitation center and so they team up and bring in live animals all the time for the kids to learn with! They are far more interested and engaged this way than if she simply stood up front and talked to them about animals or even showed pictures/videos.]]> 2020-04-02 17:22:26 UTC https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/489534911 MC https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/489537717 This makes me think of Avatar when they tell the sky people that their heads are "too full" to learn, that they are too disconnected from the world as a culture and because they were brought up this way they will never be able to truly "see" ]]> 2020-04-02 17:23:39 UTC https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/489537717 Alex https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/489540691 I will have to chew on this, only because it assumes the attitude (sp?) of the student. Having had religious experiences in religious education...where my fellow classmates were bored out of their brains, I wonder if it is such an exercise in futility as the Elders and others think. Forget the religious aspect, I have had the same experience in an art history course...so idk, maybe I am missing the level of connection (or depth) to the Earth the Elders are speaking about [insert shoulder shrug emoji].]]> 2020-04-02 17:25:01 UTC https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/489540691 I would like to know what Weston would have suggested to make this opportunity of having elders "teach" students more effective. Could the elders have taken the students outside and offered observations? Could they have taught them a song? I remember when some Lakota elders came to the Farm School and they danced, we held a sweat lodge, and shared food...but there was still a traditional exchange of question and answers. https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/489541533 2020-04-02 17:25:23 UTC https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/489541533 Zach https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/489545338 The students not knowing how to listen really resonates with me. The skill and virtue of listening is one that is vastly underemphasized in both our education and our culture. In this context, the students, beyond lacking the skill to listen, also lack a frame of reference. How are they to understand what these elders would be trying to communicate? They haven't had the experiential reference of understanding their place among the community of Earth. ]]> 2020-04-02 17:27:07 UTC https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/489545338 Victoria https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/489545954 I agree with this and have felt the same in any institutional learning setting. I feel that the cinder block walls and lack of hands on, kinesthetic approach during my education was more of a sterile environment; it was a hindrance and made things seem more abstracted until actually encountering them in life.... That is, aside from abstract concepts to grasp or activities that cannot necessarily be grasped via observation (formal logic equations...however, those do have some basis in reality, as well as mathematics.... I'll also need to chew on this a bit more.) At any rate, I think the hands-on style in the environment would be more helpful. ]]> 2020-04-02 17:27:25 UTC https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/489545954 TYPE AWAY https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/489546933 Everything was reduced to an episodic encounter of "presentation";
"our schools cannot teach love";
"we obscure and undercut what the words actually mean.";
"environmental education risk reproducing the very disconnection from the larger world that was the problem in the first place."
My first experience with this idea was the first "critical" concept I ever read, or was able to compute as such, as it were: "We are taught to know about trees, but not to care about them." Maybe in middle school.]]> 2020-04-02 17:27:52 UTC https://padlet.com/morganptate/weston/wish/489546933