No Planet Left Behind

The latest news on the environmental front continues to shock and amaze- fishing species at non-harvestable levels by 2048. This is added to everything else that points to climate change at epic levels in the not to distant future. Climate change is the ultimate trump card for environmentalists. It knows no politics, no national boundaries- it leaves no one untouched by its inevitability. When environmentalists talked about endangered species, people could find a way not to care. When they talked about pollution, people could move or fight for it to be Not In My Backyard. But this is different. Entire coast lines under water. The spread of diseases like Malaria. Super-hurricanes and more frequent violent weather patterns. Not to mention the possibility of millions of "ecological refugees." How is it that we continue to act as if contiuing the way we have is sufficient? Maxine Greene calls this the ways in which we are "mystified" in to inaction. Ecological voyeurism. It seems as if our society needs a Pearl Harbour or a 9-11 to evoke us into action. We need a clear and present danger. Yet, the world our children will inherit seems somehow less pressing, less urgent. It is the ultimate irony that our schools are focusing on "achievement scores" and "leaving no child behind" when the world we will be leaving to those very children remains outside our attention. It is re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic at the highest level. It is time to demand a new and bold strategy- one that is commensurate with the ecological challenge before us. I propose to call it the "Leave No Planet Behind" initiative. This would involve the fundamental restructuring of the way we go about schooling in the United States. All schooling will focus on how we can make our planet, our only home, a more livable and sustainable place. Following David Orr's suggestion that all education is, at its core, environmental education, I would argue that we can still learn all the "essentials" of readings, writing, and quantitative literacy through an environmental lens. Because it is fundamentally interdisciplinary, this new curriculum would ask students to explore the sciences, social studies, humanities, and arts in terms of our relationship with the natural world in the hopes of both thinking through technical solutions and social/spiritual re-calibration of our way of life. George Bsh has said that we cannot afford to leave even a single child behind. What he, and all of us have forgotten, is the world we will actually leave our children is the more ethical question. So, what would a Leave No Planet Behind platform look like? I can think of several things:

1. All schools (K-16) would be asked to work on and implement a sustainability plan for their facilities- to give students expereintial knowledge of how to address "footprinting" and energy conservation at the level of practice.
2. Curricullum would be purposefully integrated and thematic- no longer disjointed and unconnected. Environmental probelms stem from our inability to see relationships and interdependence- our curriculum needs to mirror the natural world. This "ecology of learning" is essential for the cultural shifts needed in our society as a whole.
3. Students would be engaged in an intensely "local:global" curriculum that seeks to present both local problems to be studied and solved as well as global perspectives to understand how citizenship and activism must resonate out to the larger global community. This might look like the creation of local gardens and food for the cafeteria as well as a renewed Natural History curriculum that helps students understand local flora, fauna, and ecosystems. But it would also entail an exploration of the role of the U.S. in the global economy, the problems and possibilities of globalization, and the struggles of the developing world.
4. Students would be connected to real world problems and problem solvers: scientists, politicians, city planners, artists- citizens who can give both the practicalities of social change as well as the inspiration and the hope that it can be done.
5. Colleges and Universities would re-tool their teacher education curriculum to prepare teachers for this work and give them the skills they need to facilitate this curriculum change in schools.

What, you say? Another thing to add on to schools along with all the other requirements? No. This trumps all others. There is no other important work to be done, period. The world that we live in is simply more important than any other pet project out there (be it literacy, multiculturalism, math and science, etc.). And, of course, as John Dewey would say, it is not a matter of either/or- it is both/and. We teach all of these things through our environmental committment. In the end, I do not want to leave the world we are making to my children. We are leaving every child behind because we are leaving our planet behind- as if our actions do not have an impact or that there is nothing left to do. Someone (Goethe?) said, "boldness has genius, power, and magic in it." It is time to finally "see" again