An Updated Version for 1/27/2017
Some Thoughts on Eco-Social Systems Thinking in Higher Education - Mike Lees
I have been teaching on the college level for a long time (20 Years). One of the places where I would like to see change exists in the development of transdisciplinary studies as it pertains to undergraduate student learning experience and ecologically sustainable living systems theories. Today’s world is fraught with tremendous changes. The forces of globalization are quickly consuming cultures and the environment at such rapid rates that it can be difficult to keep up with how strong an impact our industrialized world is having on the physical, psychological, and overall holistic health of our natural world. A natural world in which we are also an interdependent and reflective part.
Today’s college curriculum finds its origination within an outdated, reductionist-oriented, Cartesian model that no longer works in our current world dynamic. University departmentalization directly influences the segregation of subject matter into specializations, thus breaking down the inherent foundation of systems into disconnected parts. This is evident in the splintering of social, political, religious, scientific, philosophical, spiritual, and environmental systems the world over. Especially as unchecked corporate and industrial entities create environmental degradation, religious warfare, cultural extinction, and Earth’s overall ecological dissolution. University programs have the ability and potentiality to foster a greater respect and understanding for the student’s journey throughout their college experience. The ability to educate students with ecologically systems-based theoretical paradigms can generate a curriculum that ties subject matter together as opposed to breaking it apart. In turn, this can develop a healthier global community oriented view of our world for the younger generations that participate in a world that does uniquely offer the opportunity to share in a wonderful life living paradigm.
There is an important need to address these issues in the undergraduate student’s educational experience in efforts to illustrate how interdependent today’s world systems exist in mutually caused and connected activities. Systems thinking provides an opportunity for a better understanding of what it means to be eco-literate in our vastly interconnected socio-ecological world system (Capra, 2004). Fritjof Capra (2004) in addressing the importance of cultivating Ecoliteracy aptly states that, “cooperation is actually much more important than competition” (p. 8). Capra speaks to the importance of thinking in terms of sustainability, resilience, patterns, and flow within a system. Development of an ecoliterate-based curriculum illustrates the inherent diversity of a system and the systemic ability to nurture healthier feedback loops (Capra, 2004). The feedback loops ultimately benefit everything that is living and breathing in our world.
An example of ecoliterate activity might include looking at a student who is an economics major. A healthy curriculum could show this student that one business-based decision in this part of the world has the ability to either bolster or destroy, a small village or the rain forest in another part of the world. This can be done by actually having someone from the sociology or environmental studies programs visit the classroom and serve as the instructor for the day. A visiting instructor participates in a shared instructional curriculum that at once begins to break down university specialization and segregation. The shared teaching curriculum provides a transdisciplinary communication between the students and educators, the particular topic, and the inherent interdependent connections between subjects as they exist inside and outside the classroom. There is a lack of sensitivity in the American education system that does not address effects and connectivity. Through the disconnected curriculum that is currently steering the educational system, the results of neglected awareness for effects and connectivity are showing not only in every ones’ home, neighborhood, town, city, state and country, but in the rest of the world as well.
References:
Capra, F. (2004). Ecology and community. Retrieved October 7, 2012, from http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/ecology-and-community
I have been teaching on the college level for a long time (20 Years). One of the places where I would like to see change exists in the development of transdisciplinary studies as it pertains to undergraduate student learning experience and ecologically sustainable living systems theories. Today’s world is fraught with tremendous changes. The forces of globalization are quickly consuming cultures and the environment at such rapid rates that it can be difficult to keep up with how strong an impact our industrialized world is having on the physical, psychological, and overall holistic health of our natural world. A natural world in which we are also an interdependent and reflective part.
Today’s college curriculum finds its origination within an outdated, reductionist-oriented, Cartesian model that no longer works in our current world dynamic. University departmentalization directly influences the segregation of subject matter into specializations, thus breaking down the inherent foundation of systems into disconnected parts. This is evident in the splintering of social, political, religious, scientific, philosophical, spiritual, and environmental systems the world over. Especially as unchecked corporate and industrial entities create environmental degradation, religious warfare, cultural extinction, and Earth’s overall ecological dissolution. University programs have the ability and potentiality to foster a greater respect and understanding for the student’s journey throughout their college experience. The ability to educate students with ecologically systems-based theoretical paradigms can generate a curriculum that ties subject matter together as opposed to breaking it apart. In turn, this can develop a healthier global community oriented view of our world for the younger generations that participate in a world that does uniquely offer the opportunity to share in a wonderful life living paradigm.
There is an important need to address these issues in the undergraduate student’s educational experience in efforts to illustrate how interdependent today’s world systems exist in mutually caused and connected activities. Systems thinking provides an opportunity for a better understanding of what it means to be eco-literate in our vastly interconnected socio-ecological world system (Capra, 2004). Fritjof Capra (2004) in addressing the importance of cultivating Ecoliteracy aptly states that, “cooperation is actually much more important than competition” (p. 8). Capra speaks to the importance of thinking in terms of sustainability, resilience, patterns, and flow within a system. Development of an ecoliterate-based curriculum illustrates the inherent diversity of a system and the systemic ability to nurture healthier feedback loops (Capra, 2004). The feedback loops ultimately benefit everything that is living and breathing in our world.
An example of ecoliterate activity might include looking at a student who is an economics major. A healthy curriculum could show this student that one business-based decision in this part of the world has the ability to either bolster or destroy, a small village or the rain forest in another part of the world. This can be done by actually having someone from the sociology or environmental studies programs visit the classroom and serve as the instructor for the day. A visiting instructor participates in a shared instructional curriculum that at once begins to break down university specialization and segregation. The shared teaching curriculum provides a transdisciplinary communication between the students and educators, the particular topic, and the inherent interdependent connections between subjects as they exist inside and outside the classroom. There is a lack of sensitivity in the American education system that does not address effects and connectivity. Through the disconnected curriculum that is currently steering the educational system, the results of neglected awareness for effects and connectivity are showing not only in every ones’ home, neighborhood, town, city, state and country, but in the rest of the world as well.
References:
Capra, F. (2004). Ecology and community. Retrieved October 7, 2012, from http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/ecology-and-community