The Failure of Environmental Education (And How We Can Fix It). Charles Saylan
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Ponzi scheme, on which much of the industrialized world's consumer culture is based, collapses. An ecological Ponzi scheme is based on fossil-fueled economic growth that has increased the earth's population far beyond sustainable levels, made it commonplace to buy products from across oceans, and created needs for depletable raw materials. The ecological Ponzi scheme works as long as there is a new “developing” nation to exploit for cheap labor and undervalued raw materials. As long as globalized corporations can move from country to country, extracting materials and availing themselves of cheap labor pools, developed nations can continue to have their inexpensive products. The costs are deferred to future generations, who will have to deal with the consequences of pollution, atmospheric CO2, and the collapse of local economies.
In a society like ours, which places such high value on the accumulation of wealth, any impediments to business or the free marketplace are often perceived as obstructive and are usually met with hostility or disbelief. Environmental protection, conservation, even energy frugality are seen as constraints to economic growth, especially when the ill effects of environmental degradation are not immediately detectable to the public at large. This situation is complicated by the fact that many of the scientific concepts explaining today's environmental problems are not easy to understand. Scientific and academic institutions have done little to ameliorate this problem-an excellent argument for including proficiency in communication skills in any study of science.
This chapter is not intended solely as a discussion of the United States' social and political climate, although the preceding examples are decidedly North American. These kinds of societal changes are found throughout the world, perhaps tied to the omnipresent nature of modern media. Open space on earth is shrinking; rural areas are becoming fewer and less populated as we globally gravitate toward urban centers.6 Where the United States was once the dominant capitalist industrial economy, India and China are acquiring a healthy share of the global market. So called developing nations now suffer the same environmental growing pains that America suffered, whether they choose to acknowledge and address it or not. In most countries, including in America, economic expansion still takes precedence over environmental protection.
The human state of denial exists globally. It is as though we have set aside any common sense in favor of short-term gain, and in doing so, we no longer consider or acknowledge our connection to the earth that sustains us. We think and teach that we are the masters of our own destinies, but this kind of thinking has serious flaws, which become increasingly obvious as we collectively move closer to destroying ourselves. This is one place where education can help us make some space in our thinking for the communal nature of the resources we depend on. Things like air, oceans, and freshwater belong to all life, not to a given nation, people, or species.
It is easier, perhaps even desirable, to look away when confronted by the magnitude and complexity of our current environmental dilemma. Believing that we, as individuals, can somehow bring about change, is probably somewhat simplistic. Local recycling is a nice idea, if everybody were to do it, but that's not happening. Environmental education must go beyond recycling programs and teach us how to achieve measurable and increasing impact by reducing our human footprint substantially in a lifelong endeavor. It must also show us that individual voices become louder in concert, and help us to appreciate that the problems we face are common to all of us, not subject to religious or political beliefs. Environmental education must clearly illustrate that there is only one earth, and we're all on it together.
If we look to history for examples, we find repeated instances where a motivated group triggered events that changed the course of history, frequently in the face of impossible odds. Environmental education has failed to teach us these lessons on a grand scale. Even though environmental advocates can talk the talk, the scope of real and measurable change is simply not broad enough. Awareness programs and schools do not currently teach flexibility or the critical importance of self-evaluation in the process of creating positive change. If one path seems like the sure way to proceed but fails to produce measurable impact on the problems it seeks to address, it must be modified or abandoned entirely in favor of something new. Diverse strategies must be applied simultaneously, and we can learn from both the successes and the failures of alternative approaches. Such a process of adaptive management must continue until concrete results are obtained. It is not enough to initiate legislation that bogs down or transmogrifies in the lawmaking process. Our leaders' habit of engaging in endless discussion and speculation, effectively pushing any real change far into the future, need not be tolerated. But how would we know this if we are not taught it? Educational institutions have not effectively taught us to exercise our collective buying power to stimulate immediate reductions in greenhouse gases, pollution, and overuse of resources by withholding our money from conglomerates who care little for our collective welfare and everything for their short-term profits. Withhold the cash and change will come quickly. Industry's bottom line is, after all, to get the money, and money is the ultimate regulator.
In the last fifty years, our educational institutions have changed, becoming, as noted in chapter 2, more focused on test scores than on the quality of overall education, something not easy to quantify. However one defines education, we do a great disservice to future generations if we do not find a way to impart the skills necessary for living fruitful lives irrespective of career choice. Our schools attempt to teach job skills for economic success, but in the process they fail to teach aesthetics, reason, the importance of a sense of community, civics, morality, evaluation, and compromise-the fundamental building blocks on which free and sustainable societies will be constructed.
While increasing the quantity (and quality) of environmental curricula in our schools is necessary and important, such curricula cannot be effective unless they are relevant to the lives of those they are meant to affect. If they are not, this may even prevent the desired results. There is some speculation that overemphasizing environmental problems, especially for children in the early stages of development, may create a kind of disassociation.7
Creating environmentally aware students in a society that does not recognize the gravity of the environmental problems it faces is not likely to have much of an impact on those problems. There exists a fundamental disconnect between what we are taught in school and how we behave in our everyday lives, at least where environmental education is concerned. This is something little-studied and very difficult to measure, but overcoming this disconnect is vital. Doing so will require all the creativity, sensitivity, and flexibility we can muster. It will require the combined effort of people from all walks of society.
We, the authors, both live and work in California, where the regular curricula of some public school districts teach environmental science and awareness, even though California's science content standards don't include these topics. Some schools even offer outdoor programs. Some private schools we've worked with have comprehensive environmental outdoor education programs for students at all age levels. In working with students from our area, environmentally educated and aware as they often are, we have not found them particularly committed to changing their consumption habits or willing to sacrifice creature comforts for the benefit of the environment. This is not to say they do not know the material; they do, but it does not seem to foster significant action. Frequently, our impression has been that the more opportunities presented to students for what we think are “meaningful outdoor educational experiences,” the less interested they seem to be in participating. This has led us to the conclusion that what might seem meaningful to educators is not necessarily meaningful to students, because it fails to make a relevant connection to their personal experiences. This may seem obvious, especially given that students are not usually the ones choosing what they will be taught, but it takes on more significance when we consider the fact that we hope environmental education will change behavior and thereby offset environmental degradation.
Relevance may be the toughest hurdle environmental education faces in changing behavior. It is overly simplistic to think that, because we teach ecology, or citizenry, or any of the topics discussed in this book, students will realize their connection to their environment. Effecting changes in behavior that have positive, significant impact on the environment will take much more than just curricula. Somehow, we must stimulate some relationship to nature that makes sense, given our lifestyle and career choices. This applies