Meetings


 * Summary of First Meeting **

We began by introducing ourselves to each other, which we will do again at our second meeting, and explaining a bit about who we are and the work that we do. While everyone is an educator of some sort, each participant works in a different context. The commonality that we all share is that we are trying, in varying degrees, to teach adolescents about living more sustainably, and we all want to figure out how to do that better.

We then delved into defining EcoJustice Education, specifically noting how it is similar to and different from other approaches or educational theories. (This is something we will continue to do in future meetings, to revisit and refine what EcoJustice Education is and how it is affecting what we think about the work we do and how we go about doing that work.) We noted that EcoJustice Education is more than just environmental science, and that it involves analyzing cultural values, historical legacies, and language, which all affect how we think and live. We discussed some Western assumptions that we so often take for granted, like that progress and technology are always good.

One participant shared her use of a Venn diagram when teaching about sustainability. The three circles represent the economy, society, and the environment. She asks students to select a consumer good (like an iPod, a football, or a sandwich) and determine the costs and benefits for each of the three areas on the diagram. This helps students see that while there might be “good” that comes from a product there are also drawbacks, too, which often aren’t considered. There is a short online film called The Story of Stuff that is useful for explaining the materials economy. It can be helpful for students to see the life cycle of any consumer good (extraction, production, transportation, consumption, disposal). Facing History has a 10-day curriculum guide that uses The Story of Stuff as the primary text.

This led to a discussion about the importance of asking students good open-ended questions. One participant shared that her colleagues and students aren’t too keen on her teaching about (perceived) controversial topics like environmental racism. This is when it’s really important to not be on a soapbox spouting facts that make people uncomfortable and angry. Sometimes it is more effective to be subtle and let good questions do the work. If students are asked to consider the benefits and drawbacks of something (like computers, busing to end segregation, or strip malls) or asked who benefits and who doesn’t from something (like organic farming or tax cuts) then the students can begin to do the work of seeing more complexly and entertaining multiple perspectives. Getting students to the point where the can have meaningful discussions is a task itself. They need to be taught the skills for how to do so.

One participant had his students write about home. There were several reasons for this writing assignment. After the students had written about home he asked how many wrote about nature. Few, if any, did. Most wrote about a human-made structure. While he moved on after a few minutes, a seed was planted regarding what we think of as home, what is included and what is not.

The topic of race was brought up. One participant works with primarily black and brown students (or students of color). We talked about white privilege and how it can be easy to assume that color doesn’t matter even though it really does. This is a topic we will come to again.

We concluded with a discussion about climate change. Should the authors have used climate change as the backdrop for why we need to teach about sustainability and reform Western culture? Is climate science reliable? Is the debate really settled? This led to some discussion about our personal reasons for doing the work that we do, the reasons we think we should be doing more to teach our students about living more sustainably.


 * Summary of Second Meeting **

The second chapter, which we read for this meeting, was about diversity, community, and democracy. We didn't stick to the text much, nor did we define what EcoJustice is, which I hope to do at the beginning of our next meeting. One participant mentioned that he hadn’t thought about our ecological problems as cultural problems before and that it was good for him to think about it that way. Someone followed with a comment about ecological problems being the symptoms and not the problems themselves. I thought this was a nice way of getting at the point that we have much deeper issues, which we’ll tackle next week in the chapter on cultural and ecological analysis.

A lot of the talk centered on practice: what some of the teachers have done that have worked—from projects to methods—and on what makes for successful conversations and projects. The more I think about the practicality of EcoJustice Education the more I think about what teachers actually need to DO, some of which is not related to the environment per se. Some of what we talked about tonight: you need to establish trust in the classroom, to foster a solid community; you need to give kids some power in the classroom, from agreeing on rules and consequences to having a say in what they learn and how they share what they learn; you need to teach kids the skills needed for democratic, critical conversations; you need to help kids listen to and respect multiple perspectives, especially ones that they might disagree with at first; you need to ask open-ended questions that get kids engaged and thinking and sharing and connecting content to their lives; you need to structure activities that push kids to think differently, to process and evaluate and not just memorize and regurgitate; you need to bring in parents and other community partners to assist and support the work that you do; you need to create experiences for kids that can potentially reshape the way they see or understand something, like nature or bottled water or composting; you need to get kids reflecting and writing and talking about who they are, where they are from, what they love and hate, and why; you need to bring in all kinds of resources that are interesting to the kids; you need to support kids no matter where they are and what they think because they are kids and you need to value them no matter what. ALL this has to be a regular part of the classroom experience, all year. There is no one lesson or unit that can be EcoJustice. EcoJustice, like other frameworks, is more of a stance, a culture in the classroom that reaches so many aspects of what goes on in the classroom. It’s not just curriculum, though that’s important. It’s not just knowledge the teacher possesses. It’s not just growing a garden or writing a paper or bringing in a guest speaker. It’s a holistic way of being and of teaching.

Someone brought up the tenets of Earth Democracy. He wondered how many people believed in them. He asked how we get people to care. We stayed on that for a while, and I think it’s an important point. We can get kids to think about the materials economy and about materialism and consumerism, and we can get them to recycle paper and plastic, but what about the impetus? Why should students care? How does that work get done? How does a teacher stir up in a child a love of nature, a desire to conserve, compassion for other people and all creatures in the natural world?

We ended by talking about “take a stand” activities and how successful they’ve been for some. I agree it’s a very useful method for getting students thinking and talking and writing. I need to consider doing more of them in my own teaching!

Someone mentioned that there might be answers to environmental problems in bio-mimicry. I stated that in some ways ancient cultures lived in harmony with nature (not mimicking per se but living in union with), so perhaps it’s possible to go back to more indigenous knowledge rather than think of cutting edge or “advanced” science and technology as the answer. It might be worth turning to this later as an example of a modern or Western assumption about science and technology.

Some reflective thoughts: I am struck by the focus so far on getting students ready to tackle complex and controversial issues in the classroom. Part of what we are discussing is classroom culture, the role of the teacher, and culturally relevant pedagogy. To do EcoJustice Education the classroom can’t be run by a dictatorial lecturer. The culture and life experiences of the students will matter—will shape the content and process, really—so teachers need to be fully aware of CRP: to know the socio-political context of the school, community, and students. Teachers need to let student voices do important work: using seminars and small group discussions often will help with this. Teachers need to know about community and parent resources so that the responsibility isn’t solely the teacher’s; there needs to be modeling of partnership. Teachers need to use inquiry-based, project-based, service-learning and place-based projects. They need to know the best ways to construct and facilitate these. They need to know how to imbed literature, critical thinking, and writing so that students are still prepared to “meet the standards” set forth in the curriculum and do well on standardized tests. Teachers need to know how to assess alternative projects like these; how should students be held accountable? What kind of thoughtful reading, writing, and discussion should occur along the way? Perception is important, so other teachers, parents, and administrators need to be convinced that students are challenged and held to high standards. And how can a teacher do all of this and not be completely overwhelmed with all of the work?

Then there is the content. EcoJustice is not content itself. Content and context are present already, though EcoJustice might affect what I choose to focus on. EcoJustice, for me at this point, shapes how I see the content. What I want to get into, especially in the next meeting, is how EcoJustice, as we understand it, is affecting our thinking so far. In what ways are we being confirmed and encouraged and challenged and discouraged?


 * Summary of Third Meeting**

We started talking about the exhibit at the Museum of Life and Science on race. (Here is a link to a news story on it and here is a link to the exhibit site.) Tommy's school took several classes to see the exhibit, and he commented on the different conversations that occurred among students and staff in response. He raised a good question about when to cover such topics with kids. He noted that 8th graders are in a different developmental position to handle critical conversations than 5th graders. That's something we have to consider when discussing EcoJustice with our students; or, rather, when we discuss environmental racism or anthropocentrism or the connections between language and culture. How do (or how //should// or //when should//) we tackle these ideas in the classroom? This gets back to what has come up most often in our discussions: what to do with the kids. We might think it's important to discuss climate change or consumerism, but what are the best ways to do so? To get back to Tommy's comments and question, what is most effective for students at their particular developmental, cultural, and intellectual place?

We then talked about resources that everyone might be interested in, from the book Confessions of an Eco-Sinner, which Tommy uses in his classroom (here is a review; here is an interview with the author, Fred Pearce) to What on Earth: An Ecology Reader to curriculum from Facing the Future.

We then moved into chapter 3, specifically the "discourses of modernity" (anthropocentrism, scientism, ethnocentrism, etc.) I found the most interesting part was when I asked everyone to define EcoJustice Education in their own words. In one response the word "radical" was used to describe the position, as it is outside the mainstream. Another response connected the study of history (primarily people) with the study of people and how they interact with the environment. A couple confessed a struggle to put it into words, which I can understand. EcoJustice Education is about examining the cultural roots of social and ecological crises and helping and empowering students to think and act in ways that are more sustainable. To put it another way, EcoJustice Education is about educating to restore a sustainable cultural and environmental commons, the public places that are not privatized (require money to access) and consumer-based. EcoJustice Education should have us thinking about democracy and community and sustainability all at the same time.

We ended by discussing scientism, that in our culture science is seen as objective, true, powerful, and necessary. While the authors of the text write that they are not anti-science, it is easy to read it that way. What should our relationship to science be? What do we teach our students about science? Are there implicit messages that communicate that science is the best and only way of understanding the world?

For the next meeting we will be discussing chapters 4, 5 and 6, which are on gender, race, and social class from an EcoJustice perspective.


 * Summary of Fourth Meeting**

At the beginning I was talking to Kevin about storytelling and the role it plays in education: both teachers as storytellers and students as being able to tell their own stories in the classroom. Teaching as storytelling reframes the common understanding of teaching: from teaching as experts unloading information to storytellers engaging an audience with drama and humor and excitement and tragedy. Stories seem way more effective than force-feeding data. What would storytelling look like within an EcoJustice framework? What stories are we telling about the world in our classrooms? What cultural values are present in those stories? What values are absent? More specifically: How do our science classes explain the world? What do the stories in our history classes teach us about nature, about inventions, about men and women? What does the language of mathematics emphasize and what does it minimize? (Are the “modern” academic disciplines inherently going to foster a worldview that is not ecological?)

Russ commented on “the woods” being a dangerous place in fairy tales, which was especially insightful, and a great example of how EJE can be integrated in ELA. Just like when he asked students to write about home and then asked why so few wrote about nature, this is another way to think critically about the stories we tell. If in so many stories (in English class, in history class, in films, in popular culture, etc.) nature is either absent, minimized, or ominous, why are we surprised that students are disconnected (or disembedded) from the natural world? What if nature was a common topic in our classes? What if we consistently analyzed how nature is positioned in typical curricular topics and worked on fostering a love of nature both inside and outside the classroom?

We talked about the dualisms that exist and circulate in Westernized industrial culture, and that are imbued with hierarchical meaning: men/women, light/dark, advance/primitive, reason/emotion, humans/nature, etc. I asked if the dualisms can be used as conversation starters in the classroom. Examples:
 * 1) Are men better than women? Who might think so? Who might not? What messages circulate about gender in our culture? How should we evaluate those messages?
 * 2) Are technological inventions always good? How should we evaluate whether new technologies and inventions are good or not? What about the invention of machine guns, nuclear weapons, and personal computers? Who thinks these are mostly good advances in human history? Who thinks they have led to mostly negative consequences?
 * 3) Are humans more important than animals? Who thinks humans are better and why? Who thinks humans, animals, plants, and nature are basically equal in value and why? What contributes to people thinking the way that they do about humans and nature?
 * 4) Are people in "rich" countries (like the United States) better than people in the "poorest" countries? What explains why some people have a lot of money and others do not? Does having more money make us better people? Are some cultures just better than others? How do we define what makes one country, culture, or person better than another?

In response to this we then talked about how to start our lessons with student opinions and experiences, and using those to teach about concepts or definitions or whatnot. Asking for student ideas isn't just a warm-up. We do a disservice when we disconnect course material from our student's lives or expect them to make connections on their own. Typically, teachers share information that is decontextualized from the lives of the students, which leads to the question, "Why do we have to know this?" We talked about making our teaching “personal,” that is, making it relevant to our kids’ lives. The need to have seminars and projects is key, and we keep coming to this again and again. Kids need to be invested in their education, into what we are asking them to learn about. This investment should be personal to each of them; they should each find value in learning what we are teaching. We do this by inviting them to participate in the learning process. Their voices and experiences should matter. They need to be co-storytellers in the classroom. Otherwise students are swimming in a sea of information that has little value beyond getting grades and working their way through the system.

Four of us met to discuss globalization. The text presented critiques of globalization as well as the efforts by some to resist and preserve their own local knowledge and traditions. Both Russ and Kevin spent time in other countries since our last meeting, and they made connections from what they observed and experienced to the text. For example, Russ participated in a slow food experience in Paris, which is in stark contrast to the fast food culture so prominent in the U.S. Kevin observed highly literate and less materialistic and Cuban communities.
 * Summary of Fifth Meeting**

We discussed the rhetoric of "preparing students for the global economy" and "teaching and learning in the 21st century." The global economy relies on practices that are exploitative and degrading to the environment and certain people groups, so preparing students to participate in that system is in essence making sure that they have the necessary skills to wind up benefiting from that system and not suffering from it. If we are teaching for a more sustainable future, we have to reframe this discourse; we must be less focused on economics and more focused on ecology. Similarly, teaching and learning in the 21st century is largely about technology, but also about collaboration and problem solving (the skills necessary to compete in today's marketplace). We questioned the effectiveness of technology for one. Russ even deliberately chooses not to use technology, instead going with "old fashioned" pencils, paper, books, and conversations. Too many "use" technology without thinking through how the medium shapes the experience and what skills are reinforced and which ones are ignored. Regarding collaboration and problem solving, we agreed that these have always been mainstays of good teaching and learning. The rampant individualism in most schools makes cooperative learning seem cutting edge, which we found sadly comical.

One way to resist globalization is to turn local. We wondered how we can "turn local" in our teaching: the curriculum we could use, the trips we could take, the questions we could ask our students. The local food movement is one part of the localization movement. Check out organizations like Sustainable Table and Slow Food USA. There is a curriculum guide to accompany a film called //Nourish: Food + Community//. The home page is here. The film is 30 minutes long, and the curriculum is designed for middle school students. Here is the trailer for the film:

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Here is the curriculum guide:



There is the transitions movement, too. Check this out from the Transition United Stateswebsite: "The Transition Movement is a vibrant, grassroots movement that seeks to build community resilience in the face of such challenges as peak oil, climate change and the economic crisis. It represents one of the most promising ways of engaging people in strengthening their communities against the effects of these challenges, resulting in a life that is more abundant, fulfilling, equitable and socially connected." What would it look like in our classrooms to talk about or learn about what the transitions movement is and what transition towns are, and to get kids thinking about what they could do to strengthen their communities's social, cultural, and economic future?

These grassroots efforts are growing, and in order to prepare our students to live more ethically and sustainably, we must teach them about such alternatives to the global economy.

At this meeting we discussed chapter 8 on Indigenous knowledge. We talked about what we can learn from more traditional communities, specifically the sustainable practices that stand in stark contrast to the "globalized" world we live in today. Here is a definition of what Indigenous knowledge is, which I found here:
 * Summary of Sixth Meeting**

Indigenous Knowledge (IK) can be broadly defined as the knowledge that an indigenous (local) community accumulates over generations of living in a particular environment. This definition encompasses all forms of knowledge – technologies, know-how skills, practices and beliefs – that enable the community to achieve stable livelihoods in their environment. A number of terms are used interchangeably to refer to the concept of IK, including Traditional Knowledge (TK), Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK), Local Knowledge (LK) and Indigenous Knowledge System (IKS).

IK is unique to every culture and society and it is embedded in community practices, institutions, relationships and rituals. IK is considered a part of the local knowledge in the sense that it is rooted in a particular community and situated within broader cultural traditions. It is a set of experiences generated by people living in those communities.

IK is based on, and is deeply embedded in local experience and historic reality, and is therefore unique to that specific culture; it also plays an important role in defining the identity of the community. It has developed over the centuries of experimentation on how to adapt to local conditions. It therefore represents all the skills and innovations of a people and embodies the collective wisdom and resourcefulness of the community.

Dana mentioned that she's been thinking about race and culture and the role they play in how students are selected for educational programs. Her experiences reminded us that cultural norms favor certain people groups and marginalize others. As teachers, if we are to provide equal access and equal opportunities to all of our students, we have to rethink our expectations, our pedagogy, our assumptions, and our curriculum. Oftentimes our methods and subjects speak to a narrow cultural group, and those students belonging to that cultural group tend to do well. In order to engage students from non-dominant cultural groups, we have to teach to their cultural knowledge and experiences. This means that we have to get to know our students in order to meet them where they are, and we never want to make assumptions about a student based on skin color, dialect, family income or any other difference.

Dana mentioned that she knows of work being done in Alaska in which the Indigenous knowledge of Elders is being taught to students in schools. In fact, there is an organization called the Alaska Native Knowledge Network. Some of you might be interested in the Alaska Standards for Culturally Responsive Schools. It contains cultural standards for educators. For example, culturally responsive educators incorporate local ways of knowing and teaching in their work; use the local environment and community resources on a regular basis to link what they are teaching to the everyday lives of the students; participate in community events and activities in an appropriate and supportive way; work closely with parents to achieve a high level of complimentary educational expectations between home and school; and recognize the full educational potential of each student and provide the challenges necessary for them to achieve that potential. There are also standards for students, curriculum, schools, and communities. Here is the document:



Mike mentioned using the work of Spencer Wells on DNA and migration in human history. Here is a quote from an article based on his latest book, //Pandora's Seed//, in which he argues that farming set humankind on the road to ruin:

The shift from a hunter-gathering lifestyle to an agricultural way of life, he believes, has not just led to many of the environmental problems we face today, it has caused some of dire medical disorders, from infectious diseases and obesity to the mental illnesses that are rampant in modern, urban living. "Since we settled down, population density increased massively. We became sedentary and the foods we ate changed enormously from the days we were hunter-gatherers," he explains. "We were once used to living in groups of no more than about 150 individuals. Now we live in cities of millions and the cultural cacophony creates a feeling of unease and we are seeing evidence of that with the rise of mental illness."

Mike mentioned that in the documentary Journey of Man, Wells talks with Indigenous people whose stories of the world are different from Wells'. Mike discusses this with his students, the fact that there are other ways of understanding the world besides science and DNA. We questioned, though, if Wells is seen as "superior" to the Indigenous in the documentary, thereby reinforcing the dualism that "our" cultural knowledge is better than theirs, which positions them as inferior or primitive.

Another important part of our discussion was on storytelling, which we had discussed before. What happens when we think of ourselves, as teachers, as storytellers? In what ways do the stories we tell our students about the world, about right and wrong, about humans, about plants and animals, contribute to more sustainable and just ways of thinking and living? In what ways do the stories ignore the suffering of humans and plants and animals and of the consequences of the global economy? How can we use stories to help students understand better the world we live in (and the planet we live on) and the ways they can make a positive contribution to its long-term health?