|
Better yet, the
students had more time to apply math and science in real world contexts
and better understood the concepts of the interrelation of these different
areas of study. Teachers in this study, reported students developed
better interpersonal skills, reduced classroom misbehavior, and students
believed their studies were meaningful. Finally, students were developing
a greater understanding of social, economic and political systems.
SO: better achievement on standard tests, good behavior, problem solving,
team- work, and interweaving subjects to make learning real. End result:
the 2003 budget blueprint calls this ineffective? And says let’s
drop it? It deserves millions of more dollars and more praise.
The timing
for this attack is actually very clear. Think tanks, especially
those who represent polluting industries, corporations who seek
pop contracts in schools and corporate sponsored “educational”
materials as "good curriculum", see environmental education
as bringing light to issues, much like the Roper Study showed, Americans
know very little about. The Western Fuels Association downplays
the possibilities of global warming, the Temperate Forest Foundation
brags of our nation having more trees than 100 years ago and Monsanto
will be feeding a growing world with GM foods? But, do we, the public
understand the science, the tradeoffs and consequences of this fast
moving technology? Hugh think tanks such as the Koch Family Foundation,
Scaife Family Foundation, Competitive Enterprise Institute and the
AMOCO and Weyerhaeuser Foundations are funding attacks on environmental
education. Their war chests are deep, their PR is slick and the
ability to have access to political powers is well known. (If anyone
wants a chart of who is funding the attack on environmental education,
I would be glad to provide it).
Case in point:
a book called the “Skeptical Environmentalist” by Bjorn
Lomberg, is getting rave reviews from the likes of the N.Y Times
and the Washington Post. It down plays everything from extinction
to unhealthy diets to global warming. Some of the worlds’ most
premier scientists have decried that this book is a farce, poorly
researched and written by those who continue to profit from the
planet. Why isn’t this being discussed in classrooms as “overt
advocacy” better yet, why isn’t it on 60 Minutes or the
worlds news?
Forty years
ago we called “advocacy” in schools, “civics”,
now we prefer a numb, materialistic generation fluent in standardized
tests that basically reveille in semantics and put critical thinking,
problem solving, and citizen participation on the endangered species
list. (Students might ask, what is that endangered species list,
in a few years in this new world of non-science according to the
Bush Administration.)
Protecting
God’s creation is a form of advocacy that we must encourage
from the likes of environmental education? Instead, environmental
concerns are treated like inconsequential data, mostly exaggerated
and according to President Bush: meaningless. Imagine the discussion
we will have with our grandchildren’s grandchildren about this
“Cro-Magnon administration” who mocks science to protect
ecosystem integrity and worships at the alter of the almighty dollar,
even when their economic deities like Enron have gone extinct.
EE takes tangible
scientific principles, as diverse as physics, chemistry, biology,
and math, and constructs a road map to this planet’s sustainability.
But, it also gives insight to the massive abuse of natural resources
and the industries that leave a legacy of pillage on national forest
land. It exposes the current extinction rate and asks students to
utilize their education as knowledgeable citizens. And that rattles
the despoilers of nature to the bone.
Turn to the
Office of Management and Budget Report (www.whitehouse.gov/om/budget/fy/2003
and click on the Environmental Protection Agency section. In terms
of environmental protection, the Bush folks advocate “systems
must become efficient and “low cost” as possible while
at the same time maintaining environmental progress. This must sound
reassuring to those who live by 40% of the nation’ water that
is undrinkable and unswimmable. And must confound those who see
pork barrel stimulus packages that loot Fort Knox for the friends
of Bush as many of our environmental needs go neglected. Just the
repair of the nation’s infrastructure could create billions
of dollars of jobs and employ millions.
Page four contains
the knock out punches. Under “program listings” Environmental
Education’s assessment is recorded in big red letters: INEFFECTIVE.
Here is where
the plot will thicken: Will industries that have joined as partners
with certain environmental groups, scream in protest. Or worse yet,
will negotiations restore a neutered form on environmental education,
one signed and sealed by industry itself?
What will the
big environmental groups do? Will they seize on this moment of true
“homeland security”? Will they put Mr. Bush on the hotseat,
and ask. Doesn’t your education program “leave no children
behind?”
As Sam Smith,
so eloquently states, “Bush is destroying our Constitution,
bringing disgrace to our history, and endangering the entire planet.”
We, a nation of proud liberty loving patriots, are allowing arrogant
corporations, and greedy intellectuals to attack an area of knowledge,
called ecology, and dismember it.
To cast away
environmental education is more than a tragedy it is form of theft.
Aldo Leopold’s son, Luna, says it best. “ Of all the causes
that attract the attention of these young people, the plight of
nature is one which may be truly a last call. Things wild and free
are being destroyed by the impersonality of our attitude toward
the land.
What better
way to fight the destruction of nature than to place in the hands
of the young this powerful plea for a land ethic?” Mr. Bush,
teach the children well, parents scream loud and clear for restored
EE funding and our cherished press, now is the time for those pens
to write freely and defend education about our living earth. Write
and call Congress, write letters to the editor, attend your next
school board meeting and find out about environmental education
in the classroom and exercise your right to have your children become
ecological fluent decision makers! This might be a very helpful
contact:
John F. Borowski has been teaching Marine Science, Environmental
Biology and Earth Science for 22 years at North Salem High in Salem,
Oregon.
John Borowski |
You can contact John Borowski at jenjill@proaxis.com
Also by John
Borowski:
|
