It's About More Than Just The Physical Plant: Why Greening the Curriculum in Higher Education Matters

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IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT THE PHYSICAL PLANT: WHY GREENING THE CURRICULUM IN HIGHER EDUCATION MATTERS

Jay W. Roberts, Ph.D.

Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana

ABSTRACT:

The United Nations has declared the period 2005-2015 as the decade for Education for Sustainable Development. Clearly, within the last five years, we have seen a fast and remarkable turn toward issues of climate change and sustainability within the United States. Seemingly, everyone is thinking about it, discussing ways forward, and (maybe) willing to commit to serious action. Amidst all of this dusty stampeding however, there remains little to no talk about the role of education and schooling in either the problem or imagining potential solutions. This is curious. Surely, the cumulative experiences of sixteen years of schooling ought to have a profound influence (negatively or positively) on our relationship to the natural world? Indeed, many progressive educators have made the point that schooling and curriculum decisions on a whole host of social justice issues are not, in fact, neutral. Rather, what we teach and how we teach often normalize attitudes, behaviors, and values about the world and our place in it. Educator and critical theorist Henry Giroux claimed that “the political is pedagogical and the pedagogical is political.” This paper will critically examine the current organization of curriculum and the dominant pedagogical approaches present in higher education. What is it that counts for knowledge? How do we currently construct the purposes of school and what college is for? After a critical examination of the current state of curriculum affairs in higher education, this paper will, in the words of Maxine Greene, “imagine if things were otherwise.” What knowledge would be of the most worth if we educated for sustainability in our colleges and universities? What ought to be the purpose of school given the climate challenges before us? Keywords: education, curriculum, sustainability, philosophy

Introduction

Without a doubt, we are entering into a new era in higher education in terms of questions of environmental sustainability. With the establishment of the American Association for Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), the President’s Climate Commitment, PowerShift, Focus The Nation, and many other sustainability initiatives focused on colleges and universities, there appears to be a growing sense that higher education must lead the way when it comes to educating for sustainability. To be sure, significant steps are being taken. Many campuses have committed to significant carbon reductions through the President’s Climate Commitment. Others have campus student cultures that are pushing for real changes. The recent initiative by the students at Evergreen State College to vote in favor of a $1.00 per credit clean energy fee is a case in point of such efforts. In addition, environmental majors and curricular emphases appear to be growing on American college and university campuses. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Five College Majors on the Rise” (August 31, 2009) includes “sustainability” on that list and goes on to claim that “some 70 institutions have sustainability-related academic programs” (retrieved 9/19/09 from http://chronicle.com/article/5-College-Majors-On-the-Rise/48207/).

My own college here in Indiana provides a case in point. In the last ten years, we have established an “Environmental Responsibility Committee” charged with overseeing the green initiatives on campus, set aside release time for a faculty member to oversee an Environmental Programs major, financed alternative energy projects including a small windmill on our student-run farm, and moved to a tray-less cafeteria. Also during this time, students have formed a group, the Environmental Action Coalition, dedicated to environmental activism both on and off-campus. We are considering a new major in Environmental Studies to complement our existing Environmental Science major. And finally, just this semester two students, entirely of their own initiative, are undertaking a comprehensive Greenhouse Gas Inventory of the college as an independent study and learning a whole lot in the process (they also happen to attending this conference). Yet, despite these laudable advances, something gnaws at me about the current state of sustainability education in our institutions of higher learning. In the1930’s, at the University of Wisconsin, Aldo Leopold presented his classic environmental treatise, “The Land Ethic” before the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In this talk, Leopold rails against the land conservation movement of his day, criticizing it as too shallow and devoid of real ethical considerations. Leopold claimed that “despite nearly a century of propaganda, conservation still proceeds at a snails pace; progress still consists largely of letterhead pieties and convention oratory” (pg. 207). Despite the fact Leopold penned these words almost seventy-five years ago, it speaks quite accurately to the state of affairs in higher education today. Leopold finishes this section of “The Land Ethic” with a powerful statement: “No important change in ethics was ever accomplished without an internal change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions…in our attempt to make conservation easy, we have made it trivial” (pgs. 209-210). In this paper, I would like to argue that, while we have made laudable advances in sustainability education in our colleges and universities, we have yet to resolve Leopold’s primary caution. Our campuses may be greener, our students may be more “environmentally aware” but how much of this progress, in Leopold’s words “consist of letterhead pieties and convention oratory?” Are we, in higher education, asking the right questions? In our attempt to make sustainability easy, have we made it trivial?

This paper will critically examine the current organization of curriculum and the dominant pedagogical approaches present in higher education. In doing so, I will focus on two key concerns that commonly constitute a philosophical approach to education and schooling. The first are questions of epistemology. What is it that counts for knowledge? What knowledge is of the most worth? David Orr (1994) famously claimed that “all education is environmental education” (pg. 12). How does our current situation, on the precipice of making significant and possibly catastrophic anthropogenic change to the living planet, affect what counts for knowledge? A second set of philosophical concerns in education involves questions of metaphysics. What is the purpose of school? What is the reality of the educational space our students, faculty, and staff experience? Michael Bonnet (2004), for example, argues that we need a new “metaphysics of education.” He writes that “the exploration of issues raised by environmental education invites a radical re-interpretation of the philosophical groundwork and first principles of education: the nature, structure and constitution of educational space, its reality” (pg. 11, emphasis in text). How might we need to re-define the purposes of college, of university life, given the environmental challenges before us? How are we defining what constitutes the “real world” for the students in our care? After a critical examination of the current state of curriculum affairs in higher education, this paper will, in the words of Maxine Greene, “imagine if things were otherwise.” What knowledge would be of the most worth if we educated for sustainability in our colleges and universities? What ought to be the purpose of school given the climate challenges before us? What Knowledge is of the Most Worth?

Questions of epistemology in the philosophy of education are some of the most time-honored and contentious in the field. This makes some sense given that so much of how we come to view education and schooling is wrapped up in notions of curriculum, content, and knowledge acquisition. The classic framing of this particular debate in education has pitted conservative educational philosophies, such as Essentialism and Perrenialism, against “liberal” ones, like Progressivism and Critical Pedagogy. Should we emphasize the changing nature of the curriculum and knowledge or the steadying force of time-tested values and ideals? Do we create solidarity and unity through a common curriculum or through common experience? Is the child an empty slate to be filled through direct instruction or an intrinsically motivated natural learner constrained by too much structure and discipline? These more or less classical questions in the philosophy of education often yield intense and fascinating debates, some that have gone on for as long as the written word. It is not my intent to re-hash them here. Again I return to Aldo Leopold and his Land Ethic, as he sets the stage for an epistemological concern that is, to me, central to any consideration of meaningful educational reform in light of our current environmental challenges. Leopold took note of the fact that many in his day viewed the ecological damage wrought by poor farming practices as the result of a lack of education. But Leopold does not buy this. He writes: “the usual answer to this dilemma is ‘more conservation education.’ No one will debate this, but is it certain that only the volume of education needs stepping up? Is something lacking in the content as well? (pg. 207, emphasis in text). This line of thinking is picked up in the contemporary literature by David Orr (1994) who speaks of this distinction between education and education of a certain kind:

My point is simply that education is no guarantee of decency, prudence, or wisdom. More of the same kind of education will only compound our problems. This is not an argument for ignorance but rather a statement that the worth of education must now be measured against the standards of decency and human survival—the issues now looming so large before us in the twenty-first century. It is not education, but education of a certain kind, that will save us. (pg. 8)

To Leopold and Orr, simply advocating for “more education” obfuscates the issue. If the very kind of knowledge being transmitted is, by definition, harmful to our relationship with what David Abrams calls the “more than human world,” why would we want more of it?

Critical pedagogists have long argued that knowledge is not a singular entity, nor is it neutral. It is more accurate to speak of “knowledges” in the plural and to critically examine the social dynamics that serve to privilege particular knowledge sets while marginalizing and silencing others. McLaren (1998) summarizes this stance well:

The dominant culture is able to ‘frame’ the ways in which subordinate groups live and respond to their own cultural system and lived experiences; in other words, the dominant culture is able to manufacture dreams and desires for both dominant and subordinate groups by supplying ‘terms of reference’ (i.e. images, visions, stories, ideals) against which all individuals are expected to live their lives. (p. 203)

What possible harm would there be in the growth of sustainability, environmental studies, and other innovative curricular projects? In the ideal, there is certainly nothing wrong with “more” environmental curricular emphasis in higher education. Here again I return to Leopold’s admonishment that by making something “easy” we are making it trivial. C.A. Bowers (1997) carries this line of thinking into higher education by comparing sustainability movements on college campuses with earlier social justice movements in ethnic and women’s studies: “environmental studies is being accepted as an area of academic study, but it has no significant influence on what is taught in departments such as psychology, political science, philosophy, history, economics, sociology, and so forth” (pg. 13). To get beyond mere “tokenism,” sustainability education must be more than a major or a series of courses. It must question the very nature of knowledge itself and challenge the privileged and currently dominant epistemological orientations of the modern institution of higher education. Comparing this again with broader “multiculturalism” in the Academy, there are levels of acceptance and incorporation in to the core of the curriculum and campus life. At its weakest, multiculturalism in higher education consists of the tokenized efforts Bowers speaks of. A course or department here or there, a sprinkling of “diversity” in both students, faculty, and staff and perhaps a half-hearted administrative commitment to a dean-ship or equivalent. Sound familiar? Some might argue (myself included), that this is exactly the position most of higher education in the U.S. finds itself in relative to sustainability efforts. However, at its most vibrant and “radical” (radical means “root”), multiculturalism is not about quotas, courses, or diversity initiatives. It’s about questioning the very nature of what constitutes knowledge and who gets to define it. Who benefits from the way the curriculum is constructed and who pays? It is the rare campus that takes multiculturalism this seriously but, for those that strive for this deeper engagement, struggling with these questions has brought about real change and real progress.

What is the Purpose of School?

A second set of philosophical questions informs a view of education in light of the environmental challenges before us. What is the purpose of school? In this case, what are we educating for? It is undeniable that the dominant framing of K-12 schooling and higher education today is through the lens of the marketplace. Economic purposes of school dominate the discourse. Whether it’s Democrats or Republicans, school reform is often framed in light of “global competition” and the need to train students for the “jobs of the twenty-first century.” College curriculum is most frequently discussed not in the classical liberal arts frame of “making a life” but the much more narrow angle of “making a living.” Despite much of the heated rhetoric from the Right, that higher education is dominated by a leftist ideology disparaging of free market economics, the vast majority of college students today experience a 2 or 4-year career designed around unquestioned assumptions about capitalism, the free market, technological progress, and vocational preparation.

John Dewey, perhaps the greatest American philosopher of the early twentieth century in the United States criticized this view of education when he said that “education is not preparation for future living, it is life itself.” Yet everywhere, we seem to be in just this business of preparation for future living. This can be seen in the fact that the word “vocation,” which means “calling” has come to mean something very different today in education (a “career”). David Orr criticizes the current state of vocational preparation in higher education this way: “the demands of building good communities within a sustainable society in a just world order will require more than the specialized, one dimensional mind and more than instrumental cleverness” (pg. 30). The current metaphysics of higher education, including the domination of economic purposes of schooling and educational tracks set-up almost entirely for career preparation, are profoundly unsustainable in light of our current environmental challenges. Woven through these particular purposes are unquestioned assumptions about the benefits of growth and consumption, about the reliance on technological progress, and individualism (and a certain construction of freedom) as the highest human good. Returning once more to Leopold, “Is not this formula too easy to accomplish anything worthwhile? It defines no right and wrong, no obligation, calls for no sacrifice, implies no change in the current philosophy of values…Just how far will such an education take us?” (pg. 206).

To Imagine Things Otherwise

What would real change and progress look like in terms of the epistemological and metaphysical challenges presented by climate change? As a pragmatist, I would say that it depends. It depends on the context and the unique set of relations and aspirations in the community of interest. Nonetheless, there are several overarching qualities that seem to meet with overwhelming support among those advocating for curricular reform focused on the issues of sustainability. First, because environmental problems are trans-disciplinary problems, the future of higher education must be multi and trans-discplinary in orientation. The “silo” thinking that has dominated higher education since its formation can be linked directly with a construction of knowledge and ways of thinking that are isolative, non-relational, and limiting. Orr argues that “we educate lots of in-the-box thinkers who perform within their various specialties rather like a dog kept in the yard by an electronic barrier. And there is a connection between knowledge organized in boxes , minds that stay in those boxes, and degraded ecologies and global imbalances” (95).

Second, curriculum in higher education must become more pragmatic. We often joke of the “ivory tower” or tell our students about how things are out there in the “real world.” This is a deeply flawed and damaging construction of knowledge and the learning enterprise. It tells our students that what they do “in here” is somehow less valuable, not “real,” and disembodies the mind from the heart and the soul. Even the half-hearted attempts at bringing the community to the classroom smack of triviality and tokenism. “Service learning,” offices of “experiential education” or “community engagement,” rather than fundamentally questioning the purposes of schooling, only seem to reinforce the divide. A student “stops” what he or she is doing in the classroom, leaves campus for “an experience,” and then returns to “reflect” on what she has learned. All of this so-called “experiential education” seems to take on more of a “been there, done that” mentality of “edutainment” that exoticizes and trivializes experience. To Jay (2005):

When our society is called an Erlebnisgesellschaft [experience-driven] by sociologists who point to the commodification of experiences as one of the most prevalent tendencies of our age, ranging from extreme sports to packaged tourism, they are not celebrating that development. What one might, in fact, say is that the very notion of experience as a commodity is precisely the opposite of what… an experience should be, that is, something which can never be fully possessed by its owner. (p. 407)

This does not mean we ought to shun service learning or opportunities for our students to engage in the community, in fact, I am arguing just the opposite. We need more of a certain kind. Much of what currently passes for “community engagement” and experiential learning reinforces certain anti-ecological attributes. To Bowers, “…the modern individual, in seeking one exciting experience after another, appears increasingly rootless and normless” (pg. 173). At every turn, we must work to break down the false divide between the “real” world and the school world. Students must be given radical responsibility to shape their world, and that includes in their college and university homes.

The emerging place-based education movement offers one intriguing opportunity to engage students (and faculty) with curricular projects that engender a sense of place while immersing them in holistic learning involving not just the mind but the body, the heart, and the soul as well. When we engage with the world around us, not as autonomous, passive, and entertained individuals but as relational, active, and engaged citizens of a particular place, knowledge has moral consequence. We can no longer simply be a spectator, waiting to be entertained. The famous educator Kurt Hahn once remarked, “let the boys and girls shoulder burdens big enough, if negligently performed, to wreck the State.” Here our students may be in front of us. The myriad projects happening on college campuses across this country, from bio-diesel conversions of trucks, to energy audits, community gardens, and composting program, indicate a real hunger to break out of the walls we have built for centuries in higher education and re-form what schooling is really for, in the end.

Third, we must re-kindle an interest and emphasis in natural history. Interestingly, in the early twentieth century, natural history was a mainstay on college and university campuses as well as in K-12 education. With the rise in prominence of Biology and, in particular, lab-oriented approaches to the study of the natural world, “field” science fell out of favor. In fact, my colleagues in Biology today tell me that “field ecology” is a rapidly diminishing element of Biology curriculum across higher education. But more than “just” the scientific way of knowing that comes from earlier versions of natural history education (not to mention some of the more unsavory elements of its colonial past), a new natural history education (some may choose to call it bio-regionalism) can emerge to re-invigorate experiential, field-based, exploration and understanding of the human and more-than-human world (Gruenwald 2003). Despite the current academic trend to disparage Romanticism as a “corrupting influence” on present day environmental thought, folks like Emerson, Thoreau, and Muir were right to emphasize that we need something more than “just” a scientific way of knowing to build a better relationship with the natural world. Indeed, one of our most celebrated scientists, Rachel Carson, argued eloquently for a visceral, experiential, and embodied relationship of caring with the natural world. As the modern world continues to develop new ways to mediate relationships and “direct contact” via machines and technology, we ignore and silence this more experiential way of knowing (and being) in the world at our own peril. Evidence mounts that the present younger generations are the most alienated ever from their natural environments. Childhood obesity is at an all-time high while the amount of time spent out of doors is at an all time low. How can we love something we do not know? How can we know something we do not come into direct contact with?

Finally, a recent book by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Norhaus declares the “death of environmentalism.” What they mean is that the current manifestation of the environmental movement, born from deep-ceded suspicions and criticisms of notions of progress, capitalism, and human ingenuity, must “die” in order for a more inclusive, inviting, and broader coalition to emerge. So long as the environmental movement can be easily caricatured as tree-hugging, granola-loving, bleeding heart, socialist lefties, it will remain marginalized out of main stream political discourse. Regardless of whether or not you agree with the premise, Shellenberger and Norhaus’ thesis contains seeds of the truth. The current environmental movement is too white, too middle class, and too elitist to build the broad coalition necessary to meet the significant challenges before us. Significant “greening” of the curriculum must include room for various constructions of the human-nature interface (including those critical of the dominant ideological positions in the field). The emerging field of eco-justice provides a promising new area for work that examines the intersections between race, class, and environmental problems. A new, more inclusive environmental curriculum would also integrate strong international perspectives and question the Western-centric focus on development and population control, for example.

And finally, despite some of what I have argued here, I think Shellenberger and Norhaus are correct in criticizing the current environmental movement for its broad-brush attacks on capitalism and technological progress. Clearly, we need technological advances and we need them now. No environmental studies major is worth the paper it’s written on if it does not demand that its students deal with quantitative literacy. Currently, the United States is shockingly behind on so-called STEM academic standards (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) compared to most other industrialized and emerging nations. A major argument in this paper is that we cannot ignore values and ethics in education and I hope I have made that clear. Nonetheless, we can also not ignore the critical importance of STEM curricula in helping point the way forwards to a more sustainable future. Environmental activists would do well to know how to interpret data. And engineers would do well to know, in the words of Rachel Carson, not just how to build something, but whether we should. And, perhaps most importantly, these kinds of students need to learn to talk with one another. It is not enough to reproduce more silo’s and specialties (even if they are environmentally themed), if at the end of the day, graduates don’t know how to work with one another, dialogue across difference, and empathize with a viewpoint that is not their own.

Conclusion

I have tried here to make the case that Aldo Leopold’s concerns about conservation education in the 1930’s remain with us today as we consider sustainability education. While the last ten years have witnessed tremendous growth and advances on our nations college and university campuses in terms of sustainability initiatives, concerns remain about the extent to which the curriculum remains relatively unchanged and unchallenged. In considering two classic questions of philosophy in education, what knowledge is of the most worth and what is the purpose of schooling, I have argued that the current sustainability initiatives in higher education are too shallow and trivial, preferencing style over substance. While improvements to college and university physical plants are worthwhile endeavors, they ignore the central purposes of these institutions, that of learning. While our new buildings reflect changes in our values, our curriculum lags behind. I have presented four possible reforms for consideration: moving from disciplinary to trans-disciplinary learning, breaking down the school world/real world dualism, re-kindling natural history, and emphasizing quantitative literacy and multi-perspective thinking. Without deeper reforms such as these, I believe we will fall short of the ethical shift needed to address the challenged before us. Repeating Leopold’s claim one last time: “No important change in ethics was ever accomplished without an internal change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions (pgs. 209-210). This is why greening the curriculum in higher education matters.

Contact Information:

Jay Roberts Assistant Professor, Education Earlham College Richmond, Indiana 47374 (765) 983-1327 roberja@earlham.edu

References:

Abram, D. (1997). The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World. New York:Vintage Books.

Bowers, C.A. 1997. The Culture of Denial. Lanham, Massachussetts: Rowman & Littlefield.

Greene, M. (1988). The Dialectic of Freedom. New York: Teachers College.

Gruenewald, D. A. (2003). The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place. Educational Researcher, 32(4), 3.

Jay, M. (2005). Songs of Experience: Modern American and European Variations on a Universal Theme. University of California Press.

Leopold, A. 1987. Sand County Almanac. New York: Oxford Press.

McLaren, P. (1998). Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education Reader. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Orr, D. 1994. The Earth In Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect. Washington DC.: Island Press.

Shellenberger, M., and Nordhous., T. (2005). The death of environmentalism: Global warming politics in a post environmental world. Grist Magazine, 8(2).