Did You Ever Wonder (Video)
See Slides here – See references here.
The video below was created as a response to a thought-provoking video by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod about the accelerating rate of change in an increasingly flat and interconnected world. It was also created as a response to some prominent reports about education and the economy. (Report 1, Report 2)
While I agree with many of the ideas and recommendations that were published in the reports and understand that the video was never meant to tackle many of the issues that were brought up in my video, what caught my attention most was not what has been said, but what hasn’t: There is no mention of the unsustainability of our current economic/industrial system. It doesn’t matter how wired, honored or work-ready students are if they don’t have an understanding of what it is that sustains them: their biosphere. How is preparing students to enter an economic and industrial system that is at war with itself preparing them for the future? Wouldn’t we be better off educating people so that they can improve their chances of living well on a planet with a finite biosphere? Shouldn’t the purpose of an education have to do with living well, not with supporting economies?
So I wonder…Does your school educate about sustainability?
Does it teach about nature’s services?
Does it give environmental studies (it they are even offered) the same consideration as other studies like math, language arts…?
Does your school offer any antidotes to nature deficit disorder?
Does your school educate about economic and industrial paradigms that are not in the mainstream?
Does your school allow students to problem solve and think outside of the artificial boundaries called “subjects”?
Is your school concerned mostly with test scores, graduation placements, national rankings, future earnings potential? Or is it concerned with providing well-being?
