In fact, if Schumacher is to be believed, we have to focus not only on the content of the course but also on the purpose of life: “The ‘know-how’ is nothing in itself,” he wrote. “It is a means without an end… the task of education” must be “first and foremost to convey values, to convey how our lives should be done”.
life affirmation
This question cannot be avoided. Every educational system is necessarily an expression of, and therefore a teacher of, specific values. Our tradition stems from the liberal tradition – “liberalism” as it seeks to free the mind from stifling religious dogma.
Its courses introduce subjects we are still learning, in the service of industrialized economies and nascent democracies, but make assumptions that are at the root of the “permanent crisis” we now face: nature is a soulless mechanism that needs to be shaped into adults category; its inventory is practically infinite; and scrap doesn’t make much sense.
Surprisingly, the rise of neoliberalism — a new stifling dogma that sanctifies the freedom of markets to generate profits — roughly coincides with massive new disruptions, when 80% of carbon has already been emitted , 60% of animal populations have been lost.
The education system has been reshaped to reflect neoliberal values. Principals are trained to be managers of learning factories who have the knowledge and skills to compete against each other in another adult market by proving that they are competing for the children of today for the children of tomorrow, like milk bottles on a conveyor belt – jobs.
It is as if the education of human and earthly matter must be based on very different, life-affirming values. Most teachers are motivated by a desire to care for children, so even now the system is subverting itself to a small extent.
ally
In fact, I think that’s what happens when a wasp disrupts my English class.
Years after the first Wasp class, a student left school and gave me a thank you card. She said I inspired her to join the youth climate strike and study philosophy at university.
To my surprise, she cites not my many well-planned classes and rallies on climate change, but “when you hold the wasp.”
With this in mind, I think the purpose of education is best expressed not in Schumacher’s abstract values, but in concrete relationships.
Answering his inevitable questions creates relationships with each other and with nature, roles that become fundamental learning outcomes of the education system and permeate the economy and wider society. When I held the Hornets, the students’ relationship with the Hornets went from confrontational to more of an ally, or at least that put her on a new path.
problem
There are several aspects to the way this transition occurs in the Wasp course. First, there are some facts that students need to understand. They’re about how wasps and human interests come together.
The ecologist Freya Mathews said: “If my identity is logically interrelated with the identities of other creatures, then … my chances of self-realization depend on the existence of these creatures … our Interests will converge.” This information is necessary if people and the planet matter.
Second, the affective dimension shifts students from alertness to empathy.
exist Philosophy of life, Arne Naess, a philosopher of deep ecology, advocates an education that “thinks more about feelings”, contributing a chapter to the development of “feelings for all living things.” An education system fit for the future facing today’s children will produce emotionally literate young people, better aware of the deep motivations of themselves and others, and experienced in conflict resolution.
But if there were no wasps in the room, I doubt I’d get that thank you card, like reading this, you can’t ask some of the questions my students have been asking for six years: “What is it doing now?” “I can take it?”
teachable
The existence of living things is convincing, but factory education is obsessed with smart boards, as if consciously adapting children to semi-virtual life. What if children’s curriculum rights were expressed through encounters in life rather than themes?
Outdoor classes will be an everyday expectation. Visits by artists, asylum seekers and veterans will be as commonplace as textbooks.
Neoliberal education relies on separating school life from community life, but students of every age should be deeply involved in serving local communities, such as growing food, visiting the elderly and creating what Schumacher calls intermediate technology.
In the end, the spontaneity of the Wasp course works magic. Naess associates the center’s “journey of discovery feeling” with slower, deeper learning in spacious classes.
Factory learning is ruled by the fearsome god Kronos, but wise education must respect Kairos, the friendlier Greek god of time, whose educational incarnation is a teachable moment.
planet
When he incarnated as a wasp this spring, I asked a big question: How valuable is a wasp, given that there is no known biological life anywhere else in the universe? Who made you think it’s okay to kill wasps?
If “everyone” thinks so, is it true? So the best of liberalism still contributes! What educational system tells you subjunctive clauses before you’re twelve, but never explains why we need wasps? What else did I not tell you?
About 2,400 years ago, Taoist teacher Zhuang Zhou wrote: “I walk in the same river and know the joy of the fish in the river with my own joy.”
If we take young people for a walk, either literally or figuratively, the relationships they form with people and the planet will allow them to figure out the rest on their own.
One student recently said, “Sir, I think you’ve convinced my brain that wasps are okay, I just don’t know if I like this.” Before I could react, someone chimed in: “Sami. He It’s Sammy. Bet you don’t want to kill him now!”
this author
Matt Carmichael is a secondary school teacher from Leeds. This article is the winner of an educational competition sponsored by Man and Earth Matter. Renaissance and Ecologists Magazine et al. celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Schumacher Institute.
