Monday, May 17, 2010
Jessica Joyce - Environmental Education (THURS)
Teachers need to try to cultivate a sense of environmental responsibility, morals, and ideas. They specifically need to construct their curriculum to meet these objectives. In the curriculum, they need to teach each of the three worldview points- anthropocentrism, biocentrism, and egocentrism. They need to reinforce each of these ideas with logic, examples, and connections to the students. This allows students to understand each view, so that the teacher can ultimately show the students that the only view that makes sense is the ecocentric one. Anthropocentrism eventually would cancel itself out because Earth has a finite amount of resources and humans cannot keep using the Earth as they wish. Biocentrism focuses on individual species’ purposes on Earth and their inner directedness. This view starts to get at the idea that people should take into account the Earth and our actions on other things, but does not fully satisfy the need to take care of the Earth as a whole, that is where ecocentrism comes in. Ecocentrism supports the idea of biodiversity, global change, and many other environmental factors. Ecocentrism can become a universal truth if it is taught in the schools and can help to shape environmental progress. The age at which this is taught doesn't matter. The material that is taught doesn't change, its the way it is presented changes.
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Would the value of adding the worldviews to a curriculum change if the student were allowed to discern for themselves which is the "correct" worldview rather than having the teacher tell them?
ReplyDeleteIn some ways, doesn't this idea parallel forcing religion into the school system? Part of learning and maturing is making decisions, and children should be allowed a choice of what they feel is most accurate worldview. Wouldn't it be more ethical to provide the information to the students and allow them to choose?
ReplyDeleteWhat would be the best way to get this idea into action, and get this material into the schools before more damage is done?
ReplyDeleteAmerica's school system is falling behind when compared to other countries around the world. Do you think that by adding more curriculum we will help or hurt our school system?
ReplyDeleteImplementing environmental education into the school curriculum is a good idea. You should explain how we can influence students who attend schools in undeveloped areas when it is sometimes obvious that the government isn't interested in investing in that community.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, what would be the challenges in implementing this into urban area schools? For example, some of the schools that are on the south/west side of Chicago?
Given the complexity of the american education system, who do you think should be in charge of ensuring that these school children get the "right" environmental education? As a result, could this cause a controversy among parents that do not believe that school children should learn about the environment?
ReplyDeleteI agree with much of what has already been said: wouldn't education be more valuable if a student were able to use their own judgment in deciding which approach was the best?
ReplyDeleteAlso, in teaching children an ecocentric approach, it is inevitable that alternatives to current approaches will be addressed. How will these approaches cater to poorer neighborhoods (affordability, accessibility, etc.)?
Schools in the United States, whether public and private, are going to require funding to support a curriculum that is going to be environmentally geared. Would this funding come from the tax payers? Or should the government subsidize more of the education system to be able to cover more subjects?
ReplyDeleteWhy does the age at which environmental education is taught not matter? I would argue that if one wishes environmental education to actually be effective, teaching it at a younger age would be best.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the moral realist view, people learn by situation, are taught things by authority, but they are not justified by authority. If children are not taught environmental education until an older age, some are likely to not learn of the situation until then. According to the moral realist view, one can only rebuke facts and learn from situations if they are presented with it. What are the ethical implications of the public school system being the authority figure in this circumstance, as opposed to parents or some other authority figure?
"The material that is taught doesn't change, its the way it is presented changes."
ReplyDeleteIs this statement in reference to the various ways it could be presented to different age groups or societal groups? If so, what different methods of conveying the message do you see being most effective?
These seems like a good idea; however, schools are always being restricted by time and money. If this were to be added to the curriculum, how do you decide what to cut out of the curriculum? can you really be an effective environmentalist if you can not write, do math, or do not understand biology? How would the entire structure of the course work be changed to make room for these new important topics, but also keep what is necessary of the older also important topics?
ReplyDeleteI doubt math, writing or biology will be cut, they would definitely go after the fine arts, which is no better.
ReplyDeleteI feel it would be best to get these ideas into the heads of children at an early age. How would one make these ideas interesting to children?