Each day, I will examine one of David Orr’s principles for rethinking education (Orr, 1991) and extend that examination with contributions along the same lines of theory by other theorists.
Principle 1: “all education is environmental education” (Orr, 1991, p. 12).
Orr (1991) argues that by excluding concepts of the environment or the natural world from subjects traditionally separated from environmental studies, students are taught that they are separate from the environment. Orr (1991) describes the modern curriculum as “fragmented” (p. 11) and students educated by this modern curriculum as lacking “any broad, integrated sense of the unity of things” (p. 11).
Re-reading Orr’s work reminds me of the two contrasting Venn diagrams relating environment, society and economy.
The diagram I recall from my undergraduate degree is a slightly different version of the “Mickey Mouse” model. The “Mickey Mouse” model presented by OzPolitic (2006) views the environment, society and economy as separate concepts with no overlap and economy as the dominant concern, taking precedence over the environment and society. The model I previously learned put equal weight on all three elements of the diagram as concerns for humanity. However, the “bullseye” model now makes much more sense because it demonstrates how the economy cannot function without a society and society cannot function with the environment (OzPolitic, 2006). If education does not recognize what the “bullseye” model is trying to demonstrate, a “fragmented” (Orr, 1991, p. 11) curriculum producing “incomplete education[s]” (Orr, 1991, p. 11) will continue to exist. This allows economic concerns to trump social justice or environmental issues because schooling acts to separate the economy from the “bigger picture” concerning the environment and society.
In fact, Sauvé et al. (2007) identify that “education directly serves economic growth” (p. 47) because “education is defined as fuel for development” (p. 47). So, instead of learning to question the concept/ ideal of development, students are schooled to perpetuate a paradigm of development, where development is “a right and an obligation…[not]… an option… a choice” (Sauvé et al., 2007, p. 47).
What’s happening under this paradigm of development? “Our national accounting systems do not subtract the costs of biotic impoverishment, soil erosion, poisons in our air and water, and resource depletion from gross national product” (Orr, 1991, p. 11). By schooling to perpetuate a paradigm of development, we are just fooling ourselves with false wealth (Orr, 1991; Sauvé et al., 2007).
Do I agree with Orr’s (1991) first principle for rethinking environmental education? Yes, I do. I’m not trying to argue that every economics, fine arts and British history course should have an ecology or environmental studies course as a prerequisite. However, since I agree with the “bullseye” model (OzPolitic, 2006), I do mean that all disciplines in our current education system are relatable to principles of ecology, sustainability and environmental ethics. Not only is it critical for students to be able to relate their passions (for economics, fine arts, history, *insert any academic discipline here*…) to the “bigger picture” (Orr, 1991); I argue, from my personal experience in the MES program, that the very process of this relating one subject area to another challenges students to go beyond surface learning into deep understanding.
By learning with pedagogy produced with Orr’s first principle, “all education is environmental education” (Orr, 1991, p. 12), in mind, students would have a higher quality education where they can integrate themselves with the environment and their passions with principles of ecology, sustainability and environmental ethics (Orr, 1991).
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