Orr’s (1991) sixth and final principle for rethinking education “propose[s] that the way in which learning occurs is as important as the content of particular courses.” (p. 14). He argues that lecture-style, indoor classes isolate and disengage students from the real world (Orr, 1991). My experience in the MES program has completely changed my perspectives on what constitutes “real academia”. In particular, my experience in your class of leading a tutorial discussion outdoors where my group and I led other students (grown men and women) in play as an educational activity challenged my understanding of what is considered “good” and “right” and what “a teacher would like”.
Weston (2004) and Gruenewald (2002) offer suggestions for alternative ways of learning that actively engage students and allow them to experience the environment firsthand, not just from books.
Before I speak of their suggestions and challenges, I must acknowledge the importance of local indigenous knowledge and language. Cole (2007) was a middle-class, white teacher, teaching environmental education in rural, working-class, New Mexico. She regrets not incorporating local indigenous knowledge into her curriculum and focusing on concepts important to the dominant paradigm, particularly scientific concepts (Cole, 2007). On the same note, Rasmussen and Akulukjuk (2009) discuss the inability for the languages of academia (“modern”, colonial languages) to capture the feelings for nature that can be captured in indigenous language.
This feeling for nature, this sense of “wildness” is precisely what Weston (2004) encourages environmental educators to bring to their students and their classrooms. Weston (2004) argues that the humanized spaces we live and teach in disconnect us from our inner animals and the rest of the Earth. Hence, we do not understand the true impacts of our exploitation of the Earth (Weston, 2004). Weston (2004) provides a few suggestions for teaching in a traditional classroom, the “least promising of settings” (p. 36), that challenge the sense of disconnect and provides students an opportunity to reconnect with their animal selves and the Earth. These suggestions include: holding hands, opening windows, bringing insects, twigs, flowers indoors, and of course, going outdoors (Weston, 2004). Weston (2004) asserts that to “pull off most of these things in a classroom” (p. 45), teachers must rethink their role as teachers, be aware of the “other forms and shapes of awareness” (p. 45) that “we coinhabit this world with” (p. 45) and be comfortable with their own animal self. This is precisely what I had to do (although I didn’t realize it at the time) to be able to lead my fellow graduate students into the park for a presentation.
Gruenewald (2002) acknowledges the difficulty in implementing alternative learning. He “doubted [his] creativity as a teacher” (p. 527) and was “shut down by an administration convinced that the classroom (not the community) was the appropriate place for learning” (p. 528). However, although he states that “contemporary education... make[s] learning, Thoreau style, nearly impossible” (p. 538-539), the very act of publishing literature on the value and importance of Thoreau style learning makes him one individual in the “system” that challenges the status quo. People like Gruenewald (and Steve!) who encourage their students to learn alternatively, in ways that make sense, may not have the dominant voice, but they are able to influence and encourage others.
So, thanks for allowing us to hold our presentation outside and for me to write a blog instead of a paper. It has changed my perspectives as a student and a teacher.
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