|
Editor-in-Chief of Editor-in-Chief
of Editor-in-Chief of Author of unschooling books
|
Musings, meanderings, wonderings and wanderings about unschooling, natural parenting, sustainable living and more by Wendy Priesnitz. Comments? Suggestions? Email Me It All Starts With
the Kids – April 28,
2008 One of the things I appreciate and share is Speth’s recognition that we need to attack the root of the problem in order to reverse the destructive momentum...to create transformative change rather than trading some emission credits here, protecting a fishery there and solving an environmental problem elsewhere – although those products of mainstream environmentalism are important efforts. The other thing I appreciate is his understanding of the connections between environmental problems and other human challenges such as health, freedom, peace, stability and community, although I would add “education” to his list. We need profound change in our values, culture and
worldviews. And I believe that fundamental level of change needs to start with
examining our attitudes toward children – how we birth them, educate them,
nurture their ability to think creatively and independently, respect their
rights, shape their values, learn from their instinctive kinship with the
natural world and with each other. When we get that right, we will have, I
believe, created the changes in ourselves that will allow us to proceed with the
transformative change that is required for our species to survive. Will it be the Economy or the Environment? – April 27,
2008 But I think this time around things may be different, given the urgency of the consensus about climate change. In fact, a full-blown recession – in spite of its short-term pain – might be the best thing that could happen right now. Almost two years ago, in his review of the economics of climate change, former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern warned that international action needed to be taken immediately if we are to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. His message was clear: We must act promptly or pay a far higher economic price later. So I’m hoping that the issues currently in the news, which range from melting glaciers and declining fish stocks to the hoarding of rice and the escalating price of wheat and oil, might be converging in a way that will motivate individuals, companies and governments to maintain and extend this embryonic focus on living within our means – both economic and ecological. If we pay close enough attention, one of the lessons to be learned is that there are limits to growth and that the growth-at-all-costs economic mentality is a sure path to destruction. Pursuing energy efficiency is one of the best ways to deal
with an economic downturn…and, obviously, has environmental benefits too.
Continuing their pursuit of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies
would also help companies create and maintain their green reputations in front a
public that I don’t think is going to stop paying attention. There is plenty
of work to be done on the technologies necessary to create and maintain a
low-carbon economy, so the dinosaur-like high-carbon oil economy companies might be motivated to shift their
focus in a way that would help both their bottom lines and the Earth. And that
should mean that we reach the end of the decade with both the economy and
environment in better shape than going in. Shakespeare Didn’t Blog – April 24, 2008 A media release I received the other day is entitled “Shakespeare Didn’t Blog: Author Says Texting and Testing Are Destroying Kids Writing Style.” (The lack of a possessive apostrophe is the PR writer’s, not mine.) The item being promoted is a new book called K.I.S.S. Keep It Short and Simple, written by a former teacher named Jacquie Ream. She contends that text messaging and the Internet are destroying the way our children are reading, thinking and writing. “These kids aren’t learning to spell. They’re learning acronyms and short hand,” says Ream, “Text messaging is destroying the written word.” While she may have identified a problem, I disagree with where the blame should be placed. In the U.S., a National Center for Education Statistics study reports only one out of four high school seniors is a proficient writer. A College Board survey of the nation’s blue-chip companies found only two thirds of their employees are capable writers. Trouble is, this isn’t a particularly new phenomenon. For at least 25 years, I hired interns who couldn’t put a sentence together, let alone a complete magazine article – and they were usually college students, some in journalism programs! Despite a whole industry dedicated to teaching reading and writing, the levels of functional illiteracy in North America are huge – over 40 percent of adults in Canada can’t read the directions on their medicine bottles or hazardous warning labels on products. Many of them are over 40, speak English as their first language and went to at least elementary school. So let’s not wring our hands about the loss of the good old days and blame modern technology for the problem. In fact, I dare say kids are more motivated to read and write than they once were, now that they’re text messaging, blogging, facebook/MySpace posting and researching online. (Neilson/NetRatings reports the average 12- to 17-year-old visits more than 1,400 web pages a month.) Sure, language will be changed dramatically by electronic communications, and maybe the jargon will clutter it up and dumb it down a bit…although I wonder if the effect will be much different than the slang we used as teens. But I bet these kids have a good chance of becoming more dedicated readers and writers because they are actually reading and writing about real-life things that are important to them. Ream does note that critical thinking – or perhaps, says I, thinking of any sort – is not a priority when teachers are focused on teaching to standardized tests. As for good old Will Shakespeare, his beautiful, flowing
prose might have been popular once upon a time – and still is to some who have
the patience to understand it in context – but in today’s world, it’s an
acquired taste. And I can’t imagine that being forced to study it in high
school creates a love of reading and writing in large numbers of teens. As
someone whose four decade-long writing career has been driven by a quest for
succinctness, most days I’d prefer to try and understand a text message than a
passage of olde English. (Better still, bring on a William Carlos Williams poem!) Happy Earth Day – April 22, 2008 And we still need symbols, I’m afraid, lest we become
complacent that we have fixed the problem. Also in my in-box
this morning was a press release from the International Climate Science
Coalition. Today, they issued the Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change, which
calls on world leaders to “reject the views expressed by the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as popular, but
misguided works such as An Inconvenient Truth.” All taxes, regulations and
other interventions intended to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide should “be
abandoned forthwith,” conclude the signatories. Aha, says I. Something fishy
here. And sure enough, about ten seconds worth of research shows that this is
the product of the predictable motley crew of climate change deniers, including
energy industry lobbyist Tom Harris and the notorious Dr. Tim Ball. Ball claims
to be a leading climate change scientist, but his credentials appear to be
less than he claims. Hhe and his cronies are, to one degree or another, funded
by the oil and gas industry and organized by the same PR firms hired by the
tobacco industry to try and convince us that smoking doesn’t cause cancer. The
non-profit Vancouver-based website DeSmogBlog has uncovered much about these
people and the ICSC and other similar “organizations” and phony grassroots
coalitions that are sometimes called “Astroturf.” (Just go to the site and
do a keyword search.) The site, which is devoted
to combating what it says is “a well-funded and highly organized public
relations campaign” against climate change, says this tactic is common,
pointing to a 1998 anti-Kyoto petition signed by about 17,000 global scientists,
most of whom turned out to have industry backing, weak credentials or both.
Nevertheless some media outlets will unquestioningly publish today’s press
release. And some uninformed people – including lots for whom lifestyle change
is too much trouble – will choose to believe what they read. But heck, even
George W. Bush no longer denies the scientific realities of climate change! As I
said, Happy Earth Day. Threadbare Words – April 20, 2008 That’s why I’m puzzled that so many homeschoolers – especially in the U.S. – persist in wearing that threadbare terminology when it has long ceased to fit. The result is a seemingly never-ending argument about what should or shouldn’t be defined as homeschooling. I understand the concern about loss of freedom that results from including charter schoolers, correspondence schoolers and those enrolled in public systems for other reasons under the homeschooler umbrella. One of the concerns is that the powers-that-be will force “homeschools” to be more like regular schools. But I think that will be a problem until secular homeschoolers, unschoolers, radical unschoolers, life learners, home-based educators and all the rest stop lumping themselves in with the school-at-homers. And that includes allowing patriarchal right wing organizations like HSLDA to speak for them. The current situation in California, about which I wrote last month, is a good example. Homeschooling there is legal but unregulated, as it is in many places, give or take a regulation or two. But homeschooling is much more regulated than it used to be before the fear-mongering, create-a-problem-so-you-can-solve-it-and-sell-memberships HSLDA came along. What does “homeschooling” mean anyway? Maybe it simply means what it says: schooling at home. If that’s the case, how our family learned decades ago wasn’t homeschooling and, further, must have been illegal. After all, the law here says families must provide “satisfactory instruction at home or elsewhere.” Aside from the fact that there is no definition provided of “satisfactory” (and I’m pretty confident there won’t be because if they defined it for homeschooling, I’m pretty sure unhappy schoolschooling parents would be calling their lawyers to apply it to their situations), we didn’t instruct our kids about much, if anything. That lack of instruction is why I have a hard time identifying with the term “homeschooler.” (And why I have decided to decline most media requests for interviews unless I can be sure we’re speaking the same language.) So maybe the term isn’t being misused after all. Maybe it’s just evolved…or been co-opted. I believe that it’s usually a good thing – a sign of progress – when a formerly uncommon term becomes common. In the same way, although I abhor the meaningless misuse of words “natural” and “green” and “eco-friendly” in this age of environmental greenwashing, I am glad people care enough about the environment for marketers to use the terms. Unfortunately, words that we use to label things are
shorthand, conjuring up a whole set of attitudes and practices, which people use
to slot and pass quick judgment. So if, in its popularity, a term has become
misconstrued or otherwise problematic, why not find another? I’ve always felt
that it’s a bad idea to define something by saying what it’s not. The type
of education – the philosophy of life – that I call “life learning”
involves no school. And who cares that it’s sometimes home-centered? That’s
not very descriptive of the values involved. In my opinion, we’re long passed
the time when we should find better terminology that doesn’t signal a view of
education and of children that maintains the same oppression and powerlessness
found in schools.
However, the fact that there are increasing numbers of businesses trying to present themselves as green when they’re not is, I think, an inevitable growing pain in the move towards real sustainability. Yes, these greenwashers are exploiting people’s honest desire to be responsible consumers and environmental friendliness is often little more than the sales angle du jour. But if there is an upside to this, it’s that companies are competing for customers based on their perceived greenness! And that can be seen as both a sign of and a precursor to progress. Until we live in a perfectly green world, the answer to this conundrum lies partly in balance and in understanding that toxicity is a tricky issue and that ridding our lives of all toxins and pollutants is almost impossible. A huge part of the solution is for governments to create better standards and labeling regulations…and to enforce them. Furthermore, as author and green business guru Joel Makower points out, we all need to be as hard on ourselves as we are on the companies we criticize. In his blog, Two Steps Forward, he writes, “While it’s good that we maintain high standards for companies seeking to claim environmental leadership, I can’t help but ponder the hypocrisy of it all: how much more we expect of companies than of ourselves.” So while we’re on the lookout for greenwash, let’s all
examine our own lives to be sure we are doing all that we can to address
environmental problems…without holding others to a higher standard than we
have set for ourselves. Downshifting For You and the Environment
– April 12, 2008 The campaign’s website lists many simple living suggestions and people are encouraged to try one a day throughout the week. They include: plant something in the garden to cultivate and eat; eliminate three non-essential purchases; cut up a credit card and focus on living within your means; cook a simple meal using fresh, locally sourced ingredients and enjoy it together at the table; turn off the television, turn on the radio, play a few games and talk. There is also a guide to chart personal progress called “The Downshifting Manifesto,” which is available to read or print responsibly from the website. Of course, like the recent Earth Hour, doing these things for
just one week will not solve global warming. But it can be symbolic of the need
for change and it might even inspire people to embark on some permanent changes
in their own lives and to agitate for more broadly-based change by governments
and the corporate community. So happy downshifting! Are Schools Learning From Homeschoolers? – April 5, 2008 copyright © Wendy Priesnitz 2008 |
Topics & Passions: life learning ~ Monthly Archives: ~ What I'm Reading: The Bridge at the Edge of the
World by James Gustave Speth (Yale University Press, 2008) ~ What
I'm Listening To:
Make Someone Happy by Sophie Milman
(Linus Entertainment/Warmer, 2007)
~
Fav
Bookmarks:
Daughter Blog ~ Fav Quotes:
Art, Writing, Creativity
|
Blog Updates
When the Green is Just Veneer – April 12, 2008