Sontag+Journal+Entries

1) What educational outcomes are called for by sustainability problems and challenges? 2) What habits of mind, language and practice need to be undercut for sustainability problems to be recognized and addressed? 3) What experiences and learning are likely to provoke the (cultural) transformations called for by sustainability challenges?
 * Prompts:**

**February 2, 2014** The Texas Board of Education has recently [|announced tighter rules on textbook selection]. Textbook selection, and how they are used, present major issues to both sustainability education and traditional education. While the recent tightening of the rules for Texas promises to minimize ideological inputs into the selection process, it is interesting to not the backlash. Prominent politicians and community leaders believe that their ideological approach is 'the truth.' These conflicting views of what is worthy of teaching will yield extremely different and potentially dangerous opinions. Ideally, a school should maintain its neutrality - teaching information, facts, and thinking styles. The skills should allow the student to come to their own conclusions. For example, a student may be taught evolution because it is rooted in scientific theories, but they may learn about creationism in a church setting. While Texas is making strives to root out ideology, I do not think it is enough. Texas is too large of a textbook consumer to make these decisions on their own. They often effect the textbooks available to the entire nation.