Midterm+Essays+(3)

Alli Mrugal 10/28/15 Sust. Ed., STSS 4280-01 Prof. Fortun Midterm Essays

+ Describe the [|2013 prize-winning TedTalk by Sugata Mitra,]and the child-centered "SOLE" methods he advocates. Then propose a SOLE (self-organizing learning environment) for sustainability education. These guidelines for the SOLE Challenge competition will also be helpful.

In the prize-winning TedTalk, Build a School in the Cloud (2013), Sugarta Mitra discusses the problems with current educational models and his progressive solution. He frames the structure of attending classes, completing homework, and taking tests as components of the “bureaucratic administrative machine”; the output being a mass of identical students who can perform/work on the spot, anywhere. Mitra emphasizes that global communication once required skill sets such as good handwriting, reading, and arithmetic yet these skills no longer prepare students for a future in the age of computer technology. Since performing experiments in New Delhi, testing children’s ability to teach themselves, Mitra suggests “schools as we know them are obsolete.” His results show that children can teach themselves. Likewise, children will thrive if they are provided complex questions to explore and are encouraged (by grandmothers, specifically), rather than threatened by tests and examinations. Using these theories, Mitra promotes a new kind of school; he urges education to shift to Self-Organized Learning Environments (SOLE). In his iteration, The School in the Cloud, students will be monitored by an mediator for health and safety, driven by a mediator’s questions and, most importantly, connected to the internet. Mitra’s existing SOLE model involves components that are sustainable in themselves and can easily adapt to sustainability education. Primarily, the system requires a mediator to oversee the health and safety of the children. While, it is not necessary that the mediator be professionally trained in sustainability—students will teach themselves—questions that lead to environmental investigation and awareness should be formed with the influence of sustainable concepts. An example of question proposed by a mediator to students may include, “Why do some people suffer from asthma and not others?”, which asks students to explore air pollution and environmental justice. Like Mitra’s SOLE, a sustainable SOLE should have a group of at least four interested students, one of them nominated to be a “helper” to manage group behavior. Another concept also advocated by Mitra urges that the environment contain one computer per group of four students for research. Using less resources to try to help students learn, as is the case in the current school model, students can learn anywhere with the help of a mediator, peers, and wifi connectivity. In order to optimize sustainability education through SOLE, the curricula could offer a larger modification to the SOLE curricula. In addition to using online literature to learn, students could actively engage in fieldwork. A sustainable SOLE would allow students to gain physical experience that could take shape in the form of field trips or volunteer hours. For example, to facilitate efforts to make children stewards of the environment, students in Troy could take field trips to the Rensselaer Plateau to collect their own data or ask working professionals questions that they have. The data and answers that the students collect ‘in the field’ could supplement information from literature in the classroom to answering complex, environmental questions. Since the reformation of the current educational system is imminent and necessary, ‘educators’ should consider the SOLE model, which offers students an accessible and sustainable way to learn. With additions such as sustainability-focused questions and fieldwork, SOLE could influence generations to come to change societal habits and remediate the environment.

+ Describe and critically evaluate the arguments made in "The Heart of Sustainability: Big Ideas from the field of Environmental Education and their Relationship to Sustainability Education. or 'What's love got to do with it?'"

“The Heart of Sustainability: Big Ideas from the field of Environmental Education and their Relationship to Sustainability Education or 'What's love got to do with it?’” makes several points that can be assessed for ideological relevance and technical validity. To critique the article, the general argument and its layout must first be addressed. Donald J. Burgess and Tracie Johannessen begin enraptured in environmental appreciation and wonder, artfully describing their access and privilege to natural beauty. The scene progresses to that which most of the modern world its familiar: environmental destruction. However, framed in the environmental crisis, Burgess and Johannessen detail an educational disaster. Since sustainability education is vaguely defined, it miscommunicates the importance of ecology. The educational problem is exacerbated by increasing urgency for climate action and knowledge sharing. Advocating against the convergence of sustainability education curricula (that is ill-defined), the authors urge educators to understand what they are sustaining, why it is interesting, how it relates to environmental education. While Burgess and Johannessen suggest heresy in the current model of sustainability education, they neglect to realize the potentially unrealistic claims they make in their critique. In advocating for “Biophilia and the conservation of natural resources”, listed as the first “Big Idea” interpreted from environmental education, they urge educators and citizens to exercise restraint in their relationship with nature. The concept is simply stated as just because resources exist, does not mean that humans need to exploit them. In theory, this younger, environmentally-educated generation will learn and grow to exercise restraint. Realistically, however, it is likely that these children will be unable to transform the corporate bottom line model into a triple bottom line and the measurement of success away from gross domestic product. Therefore, to elucidate their goals for sustainability education, the authors could have provided concrete examples of restraint or an action plan for educators. Despite areas of inapplicability, the article provides support that has conceptual integrity. In addition to promoting direct environmental experience, Burgess and Johannessen acknowledge several Eco-ed literacy goals including the cultivation of the “understanding of potential for change”, “capacity to understand complex causation”, and the basis that science is “far from a straightforward social resource.” Furthermore, by reprimanding education that dissects sustainability into sectors, containing people (economies and social issues) and the environment, the argument asks educators to stray from mechanistic, reductionist views that often produce environmental blindness. Throughout “Heart of Sustainability: Big Ideas from the field of Environmental Education and their Relationship to Sustainability Education or 'What's love got to do with it?’” it is clear that the sustainability in itself is a vague term that requires interpretation. Diverging the possibilities of sustainability education, rather the converging them into what the curriculum is not, is an effective approach to education as was clearly developed through the article. While it may be burdensome for educators to attempt to incorporate direct environmental experience into sustainability education curricula as it exists currently, the authors acknowledge that it is not the only answer to engage in education and environmental change.

+ Describe the built features and daily life within a culturally inflected green school building in the United States, drawing inspiration from the Druk White Lotus School.

A culturally inflected green school building, based on the principles of the Druk White Lotus school, would include several buildings that surround a center building. All of the buildings would contain a surplus of natural light and green concepts such as natural heating and cooling utilized in the Druk Lotus School. Built by local architects, the structures would resemble the aesthetics of other community structures, since cultural identity varies across the United States. While a circular campus design could connote the idea of a ‘melting pot’ of cultures—which the United States generally represents— its purpose also welcomes the intersection of various educational disciplines and resembles the Druk Lotus School. The outer buildings would dwarf in scale to the center building, since collaboration and communication are fundamental to learning. However, individualized education can occur in the outer studies, and would be encouraged to take place anywhere. Unlike the Druk Lotus school, this American school would be positioned in an area of the town where businesses, farms, government and recreation also take place to encourage enrolled students to perform field studies outside of the ‘classroom.’ The center building/classroom would foster self-guided learning, which influences the daily life of a student. Although not as extremist as Albany’s Free School, the classroom would be overseen by several teachers, similar to that in Sugata Mitra’s "SOLE" methods for education, who guide scholarly exploration by posing complex, project-based questions for the students to investigate. Also similar to SOLE and rooted in democracy and progressive technology, the center classroom used by all ages would provide computers for students to work together in small groups and presentations. Weekly presentations featuring lecturers, speakers, or ordinary citizens would also be offered here to serve as educational supplementations or for student inspiration. Students would be responsible for tasks within the building, cleaning the areas they use and individually completing assigned maintenance projects from a housekeeping agenda. In order to provide students with a sense of ownership of the building structures and stewardship of the surrounding land, they would apply for maintenance tasks they have interest in and that demonstrate green design and technology. To best foster sustainability education and nurture american culture, students will have easy access to the natural environment such surrounding parks and community meeting places. In the United States, meeting places can include the grocery store, sports events, or other shopping districts. Ideally, these places would promote farm-to-table, locally made products and activity. However, allowing students to travel to existing, corrupt institutions on educational time would invite them to question the nature of legacy thinking. Furthermore, it could engender community participation and action. Immersing themselves in the natural environment and understanding what they should want to sustain; however, only covers one aspect of sustainability education. Students, therefore, utilize the campus’s facilities (libraries), the internet, field studies, and guest lecturers to learn about and explore questions on the environment, social equity, and sustainability. Using a new structural and curricular format for the basic American school could allow primary education to stimulate and interest its students and cause them to interact with their community and current social and environmental problems.