What About Other Pressing Issues?
Many
people today feel that there are concerns which are so pressing that
these concerns must be solved before any others (like developing
alternative forms of education) are addressed. Such people will say that
one can not discuss philosophy with someone starving - feed the person
first, and then one can give time and energy to philosophy.
Holistic
education has seen the situation a bit differently, and thinks this
metaphor is inadequate. Let us assume that a person is starving
unnecessarily because that person has some fundamentally mistaken
notions. Perhaps one needs to feed the person initially, but no amount
of just feeding the person will help; simply giving them food will only
mean they end up starving again later. Holistic education has long
maintained that mis-education or inadequate education lies at the roots
of our modern problems, and a different kind of education has a real
chance of solving them.
For the way that holistic education has seen and responded to some of today's pressing concerns see:
A Response to
Ecological Concerns
from Holistic Education
"It is in doing good that one becomes good;
I know of no practice more certain."
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
That
we face ecological challenges, perhaps even perils, seems generally
accepted, if not widely acted upon. Information about these challenges
has been widespread for several decades now, but very little behavior
has changed to address them positively. That education should play a
vital role in meeting these challenges or perils is less accepted. At
most, it seems to be considered as a "good" subject for education, but
not a "necessary" one (like algebra, which is required by all students
for graduation from high school). Holistic education, however, has felt
that learning how to live with and on our planet is fundamentally
important. Moreover, such learning (because it needs to change behavior)
must involve developing relationships with and changing perceptions of
nature. Holistic education has also maintained that mainstream education
is not geared for such learning.
For
the sake of argument, let us assume that mainstream education did feel
that ecology was a necessary subject for study. Can education as it is
normally practiced meet the ecological challenge? Education, in the
main, considers its job to be the conveyance of information and the
development of certain academic skills (and for craft classes, certain
craft skills). The question has to be asked, "Is our ecology in peril
because we lack information or lack skills to act in more ecologically
responsible ways?" The answer is clearly, "no." We have the knowledge
and abilities to act less destructively, but do not. Knowledge and
behavior are not as linked as education would like to believe.
What
has been learned from several topics in education concerning
destructive or dangerous behavior has demonstrated that simply having
information about such behaviors does not significantly alter them, or
if it does, the alteration is generally only short-lived. This has been
seen with sex education to prevent unwanted pregnancy, drug and alcohol
education to prevent substance-abuse, and AIDS education to prevent the
spread of HIV. Students have time and again demonstrated that they can
take courses in these subjects, pass tests to show they have absorbed
the information, and then act as though they knew nothing. Often, when
they suffer the consequences of acting in contradiction to their
knowledge, they express surprise that it happened to them.
This
unfortunate track record does not mean that education can't do
anything. Behaviors or life-styles do change, but they only change when
mind-sets or consciousness are changed. The question naturally follows,
"What changes mind-sets and/or consciousness, and how can education play
a positive role in this?"
One
thing that seems to change consciousness is consciousness-expanding
experiences, life-altering events, epiphanies, "ah-ha" moments, etc.,
but these are usually taken to be acts of fate or divine inspiration,
and therefore outside human control. They are certainly beyond the
commonly perceived purview of schools. Yet, there are a great many
educational establishments which are entirely based on giving students
such experiences. These are often outdoor-education establishments,
community service endeavors, career placements activities,
adventure-travel businesses, and many therapeutic establishments created
to make life-style changes. The success of these establishments should
be learned from, not ignored.
Other
changes in consciousness are seen to be the result of slow cultural
change (a kind of attrition) taking decades if not generations to occur,
and usually occurring only when the cost of change is relatively low.
This has been seen in attitudes towards slavery (which changed faster in
the North where the cost of doing away with it was lower than in the
South), women's rights (which history seems to indicate gained
recognition when women were needed to replace men in the workforce
during the world wars) and children's rights (but only when child-labor
was no longer needed), etc. If the cost of change is high, and/or the
time in which the needed change must occur is short, the
cultural-attrition method of change is clearly inadequate.
Holistic
education has long contended that some things can only be truly learned
through experience, while other things can only be learned through
intellectualizing. We can really only learn to ride a bicycle through
the experience of riding one, whereas no experience can teach us the
distance from Jupiter to the sun which we can only derive
intellectually. Both forms of learning have their place, and holistic
education claims that great confusion and 'mis-learning' occurs when the
wrong kind of learning is applied to a subject; i.e., one could never
learn to ride a bicycle from reading books about it. Holistic education
claims that such an application of the wrong kind of learning is just
what occurs in many subjects in much mainstream education because
mainstream schools are really only geared for the conveyance of
information, not experiences. Ecology is one such subject (other
subjects are 'character education' and 'values education' - no one
develops character or values by reading about them or discussing them).
The
question naturally follows, "What kinds of experiences of nature might
provide some assistance in meeting the ecological challenge?" At one end
of a spectrum of experiences of nature we might consider that of a
young person who is being forced to mow the lawn, and perhaps at the
other end the experience of a young person discovering the beauty and
wonder of some natural setting. Not all experiences of nature are the
same. The kind of experience of nature that might provide a real change
in behavior towards nature is one that changes a person's relationship
with nature. Such an experience might be one of beauty, awe and wonder
(which many people report as generating a sense of transcendence) or it
might be a simple act of caring for something in nature and feeling the
'rightness' of such action. What is important is the relationship to
nature, and this seems to have bearing on our relationship to others and
even ourselves.
If
you are in harmony with nature, with all the things around you, then
you are in harmony with all human beings. If you have lost your
relationship with nature you will inevitably lose your relationship with
human beings.
- J. Krishnamurti
Holistic
education has contended that the motives for our actions are important
for us to pay attention to and learn about. If a student is having
experiences of caring for nature and acting ecologically for the sake of
grades, then such actions are just another form of self-centeredness,
and nature, yet again, is being exploited for personal gain. The
invisible lesson (to exploit nature for personal gain) is in direct
contradiction to the intended lesson. This same invisible lesson is
often the one that is learned when students hear ecological messages
which emphasize that we need to save the rain forests, rivers and lakes,
the ozone layer, etc. because we as humans will suffer from their
degradation. Such messages keep self-interest at the center of concern.
From such messages it would follow that if the degradation of something
in nature did not cause human suffering, it would be alright. Yet this
is the very relationship with nature that has caused the ecological
crisis. We thought our pollution and depletion of natural resources
would not cause us problems, only to find years or decades later that it
does. How then can we help young people (and older ones for that
matter) have relationships with nature that do not end up contributing
to the very ecological problems we need to solve?
Holistic
education has long asked fundamental questions about the relationships
we have, as individuals and in the collective. If the 'self' or the 'me'
has preeminent importance, then relationships with everything (spouses,
family, friends, neighbors, society, etc.) are necessarily mediated by
self-interest, and the closest one can get to care or cooperation with
something else is mutual self-interest. Yet every religion and every
traditional wisdom has the diminution of the 'I' or 'self' as a
foundation. 'Selflessness' is universally seen as a hallmark of good
parents and spouses, as well as a virtue that allows substantive
relationship with friends, contact with whatever is considered sacred,
and, when actualized in larger settings, creates heroes or even saints.
This is one of the reasons why self-knowledge is given such importance
in holistic education. Without understanding ourselves, and the wrongful
preeminence we often give to ourselves, we can never have rightful
relationships to anyone or anything else, and that includes nature.
Of
course, children must acquire information about the environment and
about the dangers currently posed by our relationship to nature.
Children must also have a variety of experiences of taking care of
nature, not for any secondary reward but simply for the intrinsic reward
of doing so. Children must also have experiences of the grandeur of
nature, of nature as an expression of something much larger and more
significant than themselves. And throughout these experiences of service
and wonder, children must be encouraged to ask questions about
themselves and what might be a 'right' relationship to others and to
nature.
