I started reading about education again...

I haven't read much that is useful about education since Dewey. Paolo Freire's Pedagogy of the Opressed was great too.

I am reading some Ivan Illich and am getting psyched again about teaching with a green curriculum. I just got the latest copy of the National Teacher's Association magazine, which frankly is usually a bore. They had a great spread on going green.

Most of what we've done so far at my school has been in spite of the powers that be, not because of them. We re-instituted recycling, built a solar car and started a Green Club, not because we got any encouragement, but because the students wanted to do it, and it needed to be done.

Don't expect any pats on the back for doing anything green.

It's okay, because at least they were not fighting us, much.

Can't stop the unstoppable. The color of the future is green.

Here's a project we did a couple of years ago with Art Haines:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0JNohHaqM4

Curriculum for the 21st Century

I came up with a rough idea of a curriculum that might work for the 21st century. In keeping with the idea of riding the Doomstead into our evolving fate, this is a rough outline of something that could work to teach students the skills they may need in the future. It involves learning by doing, which as Dewey said is the best way to do it.

Tell me, I'll forget. Show me, I'll remember. Involve me and I'll understand.

Here's my start:

Curriculum for the 21st Century and Beyond. First draft, February 21st, 2009

I think we need to study things differently in the 21st century. We need a curriculum that makes us into something beyond "consumers". We need to be focused on production and consumption with the idea of sustainability foremost in our curricula.
With that in mind I have a sample curriculum framework that is very different from what is taught today.

Culture and Agriculture. Students learn about where their food comes from and get a hands on introduction to growing things. They start plants early in the spring and nurture them into a harvest in the fall. Along the way they learn about how food is grown, the renewable power of the sun and the earth and basic biology.
They also learn history through the study of agriculture and how civilizations have sustained themselves and fallen with the fertility of the land.

Home and Hearth. Students learn about the home and how to make it a sustainable unit. They learn through doing weatherization projects in the community how to make a home function as sustainable unit. They learn about energy throughout the course and learn about the production of energy through solar, wind and wood as well as other renewables that will power our communities sustainably after the fossil fuels dwindle.

Transportation. Students learn about transportation by building a solar/electric car. Along with this come physics and energy studies that put what we are doing now into perspective. This course teaches students how to create sustainable transportation, while it introduces them to the problems we face now with resource use and pollution. Mass transit and personal transportation will be looked at as well.

Food and Energy. Students learn about food and food systems through shopping at the local farmer’s market, taking those foods back to the classroom and learning how to cook them. Along the way they’ll learn about food systems, community supported agriculture and value added products. The conversion of locally available foods to healthy nutrition will be a skill that is very relevant.

5) Art. Students will learn about the creation of media and objects. They will learn about how to create media, instead of simply consuming it. They will use high technology such as cameras and computers as well as timeless media such as clay to produce objects and media that have value and meaning. Local events such as Maple Sunday will be the focus of the pottery that they create, while the media that they create become a part of local cultural events.

What do you think? That's what I have so far.

Hello out there in Blogland.

Today we shovelled out from the latest snowstorm and then I went up to the maple sugarhouse to show some friends how to do tubing.

We snowshoed to the top of the lot and back and got to see some of the tubing we have already installed. We plugged one more tree into the system and called it a day.

Earlier this week I had a visit from a young man who is looking for a "doomstead". He is a peak oil person and wants to find a place to be before the problems begin. He has a great blog named Doomstead Diary that you might want to check out.

We were looking up the definition of Doomstead and came upon a very interesting one. It was the name of the horse used by the Fates, or Narns in Scandinavian mythology. The Narns wove fate with their looms.

I think that that may be an appropriate name for a doomstead. It's the horse that we ride with the fates into the future.