Poster – Declaration of Interdependence
In the video “Did You Ever Wonder“, I mention that schools are good at teaching about the Declaration of Independence but not so interested in teaching about the Declaration of Interdependence. This is a clear and powerful example of how education has traditionally valued and promoted ideas having to do with individualism, domination, competition, and fragmentation. This divisive pedagogy is evident in the educational model used in most schools which relies on “subjects” to deliver siloed, neatly bounded and easily regurgitable information packets. This model does little to connect ideas, cause and effect, or to help educe dependencies. It does little to promote the synthesis of new ideas from disparate subject material. It does little to connect students to real-world issues since the real world does not neatly fit into subjects. It promotes the erroneous thinking that people and their economies are disconnected from the environment that envelops them.
The effects of a pedagogy of independence are all around us. As a nation, we Americans have been taught to be self-reliant even though, as a group, few of us see the irony of how, in our quest for independence, we are willing to rely on others heavily for cheap labor, dumping grounds, carbon sinks, raw materials… Today, we often hear about our need to become energy independent, as if as a species, we were able to cut ourselves off from the energy flows of the universe, which for us, begin with our nearest star. The idea of competition is bandied around with little reflection as to how it separates people from each other, from good ideas, and from that which sustains them. As we listen to politicians and policy makers speak, it’s obvious that they are products of a segregating educational system. Their thinking resides at the surface level, poorly able to connect cause and effect beyond the simplest level. They lecture about the economy (stupid), oblivious to the pillars that support it. Their connective thinking is in short supply thus they are incapable of valuing that which might not appear immediately profitable.
If we are to make progress that actually helps lead us toward well-being, then schools will have to move away from fragmentation and independence as ways of thinking and instead, redirect educational efforts toward system thinking, connectivity and cooperation. Even though connective pedagogy is never going to be as easy as the highly formulaic and devised-for-convenience model of today, it’s what is sorely needed to help overcome the major challenges of the day like war, inequity and environmental degradation.
In: Nature As Teacher · Tagged with: declaration of interdependence, interdependence, poster, systems thinking
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Jenny Luca
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Mike Parent
