2014+homework+schedule


 * week 1, Tuesday, January 21 **
 * // EcoEd 101 //**


 * read/watch **

12 minute video about the need to change our educational paradigm. Watch for content and mode of delivery. E/Affective? For whom? []

25 minute film for kids about Renewable Energy, with teacher's guide and links to other resources for teaching solar. E/Affective? For whom? To what extent do these curricular materials get atEcoEd's literacy goals? []

Very short article on teaching kids design/systems thinking. Please read this then google around to find other things that discuss how/why to teach kids about systems. []

Starting at this EPA page, also google around to see what you can find on creative teaching about air quality to elementary students (with our 40 first graders in mind). []


 * week 2, Tuesday, January 28 **
 * // From Research to Teaching //**

memo 1
 * write **

SRI Consulting. 2006. "The American Environmental Values Survey: American Views on the Environment in an Era of Polarization and Conflicting Priorities."
 * read/watch **

Wiggins, Grant & Jay McTighe. 2005. "What is Backward Design?" //Understanding by Design.//

Galston, William. 2001. "Political Knowledge, Political Engagement and Civic Education." Annual Review of Political Science. 2001. 4:217–34.

Pelissier, Catherine. 1991. "The Anthropology of Teaching and Learning ," Annual Review of Anthropology. 20:75-95.
 * 6000 **

Collins, James. 2009. "Social Reproduction in Classrooms and Schools." Annual Review of Anthropology. 38:33–48.


 * week 3, Tuesday February 4 **
 * // Values in/of (Eco) Education //**

memo 2
 * write **

In reading and watching this week, please think about //why// environmental education is valuable, about the //values that should motivate and be built into// environmental education (noting the differences between Orr and Ridley/Low on this), and about the //ways values education should (or not) be threaded through public education// (remembering the long-running debate in the United States on the place of religion in public schools; noting also the increasing presence of commercial interests in public education (see x and y). Consider whether chemical and other “science-based” corporations should produce and share public school curriculum. Is this a form of corporate social responsibility, or an instance of conflicts of interests? Also consider what Jane Elliot’s pedagogical intervention into racial bias suggests for environmental education (which also calls for //cultural// transformation in students). And consider how education that aims to //transform// students relates to but differs from education that aims to //empower// students.
 * read/watch **

Finally, consider the place of public education in the values of Americans. If we were to run a study of “American Values and Public Education” along the lines of the survey we read last week on Americans’’ environmental values, what questions would we ask? Do you think American public education values have changed over the last few decades (keep this question in mind for next week, when we’ll focus on the history of public education in the United States). For those who have read Foucault, think about the “self” (or selves) that are cared for in the contemporary United States, and where public goods – including public education -- are in the discursive field. Can we see connections or similarities in the way “Americans” value and care for “the environment,” public health, and public education?

// [|Frontline: A Class Divided] // (45 minute video about educator Jane Elliot)

Lakoff, George. 2010. "Why It Matters How We Frame the Environment," //Environmental Communication//, March.

Brown, Paige. 2012. "[|Got Frames? Why How We Frame the Environment Matters]." SciLogs. March 25.

Orr, David. 2006. "Framing Sustainability," //Conservation Biology//, April.

Ridley, Matt & Bobbi Low. 1993. "[|Can Selfishness Save the Environment?]" //The Atlantic Monthly.// September.

American Chemistry Council’s [|Hands on Plastics™ (HOP™)]

American Chemistry Council’s [|Chlorine Science Center.]

de la Torre III, Pedro. 2013a. “Latour’s Monsters: Postenvironmentalism and the Politics of Nature,” Essay for RPI STS PhD Seminar, Environment and Social Theory (taught by Professor Steve Breyman). May 10.
 * 6000 **


 * week 4, Tuesday February 11 **
 * // Public Education In History //**

class: Ira Share, 1st grade teacher mid-term questions posted

// School: The Story of American Public Education // (4 hour film)
 * watch/read **

Kevin Arnold, “Review of School, The Story of American Public Education,” Kravis Leadership Institute, Leadership Review, Spring 2004

Miner, Barbara. 2013. “The Meaning of Choice,” Guernica. Feburary 8.

Karp, Stan. 2014. "Problems with the Common Core." Re-thinking Schools. 28/2. p10-17.

Ferguson, Daniel. 2014. "Martin Luther King Jr. and the Common Core: A Critical Reading of 'Close Reading." Re-thinking Schools.

[|Teaching Resignation Letter: My profession no longer exists.]

Collins, Patricia Hill. 2009. Another Kind of Public Education: Race, Schools, the Media and Democratic Possibilities. Beacon Press.
 * 6000 **

(no class/Monday schedule, Tuesday 4-8pm + Wednesday 9:30-5:30 BP Disaster Workshop)
 * week 5 **, **Tuesday February 18**
 * // Toxic Sludge is Good for You //**

Our challenge this week is to think about how curriculum and our educational system overall can prepare students to think and act well in a world saturated with media, commercial interests and what could be called cynical professionalism (see the public relations and advertising professionals portrayed in //Toxic Sludge is Good For You// for examples of the latter). Consider how schooling can prepare students to make sense of greenwashing, the kinds of corporate pressure evident in the story of Tyrone Hayes, and the subtle (and not so subtle) commercial bias in educational materials about hydrofacking (see Project Look Sharp’s materials for teaching about hydrofracking and media credibility).

[|Toxic Sludge is Good for You (]45 minute film)
 * watch/read **

Study guide for //Toxic Sludge is Good for You//.

[|Study Confirms Tea Party Was Created by Big Tobacco and Billionaires] (read comments, too).

[|Leaked Docs Reveal How Top Think Tank Turns Oil Money Into Climate Denial].

Aviv, Rachel. 2014. [|"A Valuable Reputation: After Tyrone Hayes said that a chemical was harmful, its maker pursed him,"] The New Yorker. February.

Darling, Eliza. 2001. "The Lorax Redox: Profit Biggering and Some Selective Silences in American Environmentalism." Culture and Ecology.

[|Stop Greenwashing.org]

[|Introduction to Media Literacy]

[|Project Look Sharp's Media Literacy Handouts]

Project Look Sharp's Curriculum on "[|Media Constructions of Sustainability],"[|Chemicals in the Environment]" and "[|Hydrofracking, Media and Credibility]"

(Thursday class: EERP #1; Saturday: STANYS workshop)
 * week 6, Tuesday February 25 **
 * // Kids in Context //**

memo 3, annotation 1
 * write **

[|Frontline, Poor Kids] (54 minute video)
 * read/watch **

[|Frontline, Middle School Moment] (13 minute video)

[|Frontline, Merchants of Cool] (53 minute video)

[|Frontline, Generation Like] (video, out February 18)

[|Frontline Map, Where is Childhood Poverty Getting Worse]

[|Frontline, The Test Score Gap]

[|Steele, Claude. “The Stereotype Threat.”] Frontline interview.

Reed, Betsy. 2014. “ [|How Universal Pre-K Could Redistribute Wealth Right Now.”] February

[|Mixed News in EPA report on Toxins and Children]

[|Carroll, Linda 2014.] // Mold, Mice and Zip Codes: Inside the Childhood Asthma Epidemic. MSN. January 3. //

(Sunday 2-4pm: Sust Ed Network Meeting; Sunday 4-6: Sust Film; Tuesday 9:15-12:15: Tamarac #2; Thursday class: EERP #2)
 * week 7, Tuesday March 4 **
 * // Modes of Environmental Ed //**

midterm essay, annotation 2
 * write **

// [|The Druk White Lotus School] // (Ladakh, India) (25 minute film)
 * read/watch **

// [|Is School Enough?] // (55 minute film)

[|Fast Times at West Philly High] (36 minutes)

[|What is Project Based Learning?] (1p w links)

[|Kaid Benfield’s Blog. No Child Left Outside.]

National Environmental Education & Training Foundation. 2000. Environment-based Education. Creating High Performance Schools and Students.

National Association for the Advancement of Environmental Education

// Excellence in Environmental Education - Guidelines for Learning (K-12) (revised 2010) // []

[|Education for a Sustainable Future] (53min)
 * 6000 **

(RPI spring break; Thursday class: EERP #3)
 * week 8, Tuesday March 9 **

(Wednesday 9:15-12:15: Tamarac #3; Thursday class: EERP #4)
 * week 9, Tuesday March 18 **
 * Pedagogies of/for the Oppressed **

annotation 3
 * write **

Friere, Paulo. 2006. (30th Anniversary Edition).
 * read/watch **

[|Miles Horton: Radical Hillbilly] (video interview, 2 hours)

Giroux, Henry. [|“Rethinking education as freedom: Paulo Freire and the promise of critical pedagogy.”] Truthout. January 1, 2010.

Paul Friere: Discussed by [|Pedagogy of the Oppressed: Discussed by Noam Chomsky, Howard Gardner, and Bruno della Chiesa] (90 minute video)

Bowers, Chet A., ed. //Re-thinking Freire: Globalization and the environmental crisis//. 2004.
 * 6000 **

Horton, Myles and Paulo Friere. //We Make the Road By Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change//

Kahn, Richard. //"[|Eco-Justice: Updating __Pedagogy of the Oppressed__ for the Age of Ecological Calamity.]// (Thursday class: EERP #5)
 * week 10, Tuesday March 25 **
 * Steps to an Ecology of Mind **

memo 4, annotation 4
 * write **

Selections. Bateson, Gregory. 1972. // Steps to an Ecology of Mind. //
 * read/watch **

Gardner Campbell's keynote at the OpenEd Conference, "// [|Ecologies of Yearning and the Future of Open Education]," ( //60 minute lecture).

Bateson, Gregory, Mind and Nature, much easier than most of Steps, see especially the appendix titled "Time is out of Joint," starting on page 230.

Wohlwend, Karen. “More than a Child’s Work: Framing Teacher Discourse about Play.” InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies. Vol 3(1). 2007.

Bateson, Gregory. 1972. // Steps to an Ecology of Mind. //
 * 6000 **

(Wednesday 9:15-12:15: Tamarac #4; Thursday: EERP #6)
 * week 11, Tuesday April 1 **
 * Psychoanalysis and Education **

memo 5, annotation 5
 * write **

Felman, Shoshana. Psychoanalysis and Education. Yale French Studies. 1982
 * read/watch **

Felman, Shoshana. 1987. (chapters 1-3) Jacques Lacan and the Adventure of Insight: Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Culture.
 * 6000 **

(Sunday 2-4pm: SustEd Network Meeting; Sunday 4-6pm: Sust Film; Thursday: EERP #7)
 * week 12, Tuesday April 8 **
 * Education and Postcolonialism **

memo 6
 * write **


 * read/watch **

[|Spivak, Gayatri. 1998. "Can the Subaltern Speak."]

Spivak, Gayatri. 2012. "[|Occupying Education]."

Morton, Stephen. 2003. Routledge Critical Thinkers: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
 * 6000**

Spivak, Gayatri. 2012. Introduction (p1-34) + "The Double Bind Starts to Kick In" (p97-118). // An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization //. Harvard University Press.

[|Pateron, Riley. on Spivak and double bind.]

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 2012. //An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization//. Harvard University Press.
 * supplemental **

Selections**,** // Disrupting Preconceptions: Postcolonialism and Education // edited by Anne Hickling-Hudson, Julie Matthews and Annette Woods. Brisbane: Post Press, 2004

(Thursday class; EERP #8) memo 7
 * week 13, Tuesday April15 **
 * write **

(see Earth Week Festival schedule; Thursday class: EERP #9; Saturday: Festival Finale)
 * week 14, Tuesday April 22 **
 * Earth Week! **

(Sunday: EERP Symposium, 1-5pm; Wednesday: STS UG Research Symposium; Thursday: no class) April 29 May 1
 * week 15, Tuesday April 29 **


 * week 16 **, **Tuesday May 6**

final essay exam or organizational study
 * write **