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Green Teaching & Learning
I stumbled across this video tonight as I was taking part in the 31-day Comment Challenge. I was directed to it from a blog that I hadn’t read before called Literacy, Technology, Learning authored by Sarah Hanawal.
The video itself is by Bill Farren. He’s an educator in the Dominican Republic blogging at Education for Well-being. His message is quite simple:
The purpose of education should be to create well-being.
- We should educate in way that places personal well-being at the center of all educational decision-making.
- We cannot achieve personal well-being without also simultaneously promoting economic well-being, social well-being, and
environmental well-being.- We must strive to understand the relationships between personal, economic, social and environmental well-being.
This got me thinking about how “green” the teaching and learning is in our school. I wonder how bored my students are with their learning and I worry that some of them will become the “dropouts” in the statistics that Farren mentions. As our school continues along its journey through the Inquiry Learning process, perhaps this is a chance to push for deeper “green” teaching and learning in our classrooms.
May 5th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Hi Kia,
I’m so glad you were also moved by Bill Farren’s video. I am hoping to one day have my own message be as eloquent as his, but for now, I’m content with promoting his video and site as much as possible. How cool that the comment challenge is helping with this!
I am very interested in reading about your trip. Your experience in the English classroom sounds fascinating. How do we promote connections between students? Some who have been given so much seem to lack passion for anything but self-amusement, yet I am sure there is more to them. Would connecting with other students about subjects as meaningful as sustainability help prevent the dropout factor you describe? I think it must, but how do we accomplish that?
Best thoughts to you on the rest of your journey!
Sarah
May 6th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Hi Sarah
You’ve posed some very good questions for me to give some thoughts too. As I am currently in transit (sitting at London’s Heathrow Airport awaiting my flight to Bangkok) I will give the questions some thought and blog post my response in a week or so when I return home to New Zealand.
My Travel Blog http://teachingsagittarian.blogspot.com
To Argentina and Beyond details my trip and you can see how I have tried to engage my students back in New Zealand while I have been away.
Thanks for commenting.
Kind Regards
Chrissy
June 5th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
a marvellous topic to think about more deeply – I know at our school there is great resistance to even talking about ‘green’ issues. in fact, quite a negative response is gleaned from the majority of staff. i find it hard to believe in these times that so many heads are so far in the sand still
thanks for the thoughts
d-)