I chose this article because for me it introduces a socioecological justice framework that speaks to me and my research, it introduces the concepts of a critical pedagogy of place which speaks to my curriculum implementation, and it highlights many of the challenges and tensions that I have experienced working within the current education system. Below are my thoughts and some of the questions this article generated for me. I would love to hear from others about ways they see this article being relevant to their own work and how I might utilize it in mine.
Socioecological Justice Framework: Furman and Gruenewald identify the links between social justice and environmental justice and how modern developed economies have created environmental problems that impact both humans and nonhumans, these are inseparable. Environmental problems are experienced as social injustices and are disproportionately felt depending on race, class, and other social groups. How are the issues that my student experience felt differently by differing social groups-what social groups do they identify as? Youth, gender, urban, minority, class???
Critical Pedagogy of Place:I have been thinking a lot about how to develop my own critical pedagogy of place and about how I can infuse the values of critical pedagogy and the environmental situation that we find ourselves in today into a curriculum that speaks to young people in the city. As I shared with you all at the USER-S, the research that my students and I have been conducting tries to address and “problematize the taken-for-granted assumptions, and unjust outcomes of conventional educational and cultural practices” (p.58) as well as incorporate a local experience that is present in the lives of my students.
Through implementation of my own critical pedagogy of place I have seen in my students how their ways of viewing the world are so strongly influenced by the capitalist, globalized city/country/world that we live in. A larger question I have for myself is how do we help people/my students realize that they are interconnected and mutually implicated in one another’s lives…I find this very difficult – that it matters to care about all kinds of people. A question my students have raised and struggle with is whether people are inherently good or bad??
Current Education System: Much of this article really spoke to my own critiques/limitations/assumptions of the current education system and continue to challenge me on how I view the the purposes of education. I feel this is the larger picture and implications of my own work, especially thinking about how might we reform education to embrace a socioecological ethic, why this is not part of the larger discussion on education and if it is even possible to imagine an alternative educational system? Where do we fit the economic, social, and moral purposes of schooling into our current system and how do we prioritize (or not prioritize) these?
I mentioned at the USER-S some of the tensions that I have experienced working within the traditional education paradigm with an emphasis on western values of progress and achievement for economic advancement. I have the privilege of not having to teach my course with any high stakes tests and have the luxury of developing more alternative assessments however, this has created confusion for students who have one experience in my class where they are receiving a message from me about schooling and then their other classes that value competition, individualism, and achievement. This has also raised questions for me about what are my own assumptions in my classroom? What are the implicit messages I am sending to my students and what are the ideology and values that I am conveying? Are these better? If so Why?
I have some larger questions that this article helped me to frame for myself and my course…What are the cultural and ecological conflicts that come from a preparation of young people to participate in the global economy? How does the dominant culture impact/affect people and places, humans and habitat? What are the purposes of education/schooling in the larger arena of cultural and ecological conflict? How do we prepare our students within our modern capitalist world to engage politically and ecologically with a knowledge and understanding of how social, economic, political, environmental systems are interrelated and value outcomes of care for humans and the earth?
This article is relevant to my experience as a science educator where mainstream education reform has embraced standardized testing culture that tends to ignore the importance of place, culture and community to standardize the experiences of students. School curriculum has been designed without any involvement of the local and natural communities thus ignoring the issues of ecology and community.
I think it is important to bridge the gap that exists between school and student’s life where learning can be situated not only in the classroom but also in the community. This could lead to a shift in curricular and instructional focus while enhancing student engagement and achievement. Furman and Gruenewald argue that critical pedagogy is a vehicle for a critical leadership of place intended to enhance socioecological justice in schools. This has its implications in the education practice.
Furman & Gruenewald (2004) claim that political economies of modern or postmodern states have created myriad environmental problems for human and nonhuman communities all over the globe (p.2)
This article resonates with my research as I am trying to use interventions to lower the stress and negative emotions in the classrooms that arise from various angels. One of them is the high stakes testing which creates pressure for students and teachers to eliminate divergent thinking and learning. American education has been neglecting the local and the ecological in favor of the logic of standardization and high stakes testing designed to prepare children for competition in the global marketplace, thus ignoring social and ecological practices. With a recent changes on teacher evaluation and student evaluation with the application of Common Core, the stress level has elevated.
Standardized testing and assessment has aimed teachers and students to believe that this is the purpose of education and the only way to succeed. This practice hinders students’ overall learning potential, which fosters a negative atmosphere (lack of engagement and creativity), where students’ learning is judged from their test scores, and teachers’ performance is judged from students’ test scores.
Furman and Gruenewald suggest critical place-based pedagogy as a better choice to educational practices that neglect ecological social issues. Critical pedagogy seeks decolonization and re-inhabitation through synthesizing critical and place-based approaches. It values the importance of the local and learning communities as it criticizes standardized curriculum models which alienates learners from the reality. Modern classrooms are seen as isolated from the local places and culture. Teachers and school leaders should collaborate to bridge the classroom with community thus making learning reflective and transformational.
Furman and Gruenewald argue that ecological crisis are inseparable from social crises, and as educators we have the obligation to address these issues. Furman & Gruenewald (2004) talk about Critical-Humanist perspective as both constructivist and normative approach, which views social structures as human constructions responsible for inequities that result from unequal power relationships that leads to inequitable outcomes for children (p.5). Social justice discourses discussed in this paper calls for educators to become aware and change the injustice ways rooted in our educational system. Even though it looks as acceptable way to make it a norm the standardized tests we must examine power structures within and among different social groups. I see social justice as patterns of social life are overlapping and intertwined with one another. But it seems as social life is separated from the school, and schooling becomes justice without the involvement of race, gender, sexuality, disability and all other socioeconomic aspects. The dilemma we face as educators is the reality that resources for teaching and learning are not distributed and received equally. We are obligated to promote social justice in our schools so we can increase a sense of agency among students and teachers, while developing social and cultural identity. Teaching and learning should be interchangeable with understanding inequality in schools and society and contributing to bring equality and justice among each other.
Marissa, your question, “What are the cultural and ecological conflicts that come from a preparation of young people to participate in the global economy? ” resonated with me. While I enjoyed this article (and other works by Gruenewald), I cannot reconcile the schism caused by teaching youth cooperative and communal practices *within* a strongly entrenched capitalist paradigm. As long as capitalism continues to be the prevailing logic of not only our economic system, but also our cultural, social, and political relations, teaching youth how to disengage with or resist individualism, commodification, and competition (and environmental massacre) seems to be (it pains me to type this) a disservice to kids. And that’s ugly. It may be that the “reinhabitation” outlined by Gruenewald and Furman may play some part in dismantling the capitalist ethos, as healthy community relations impede economic profit. Of course, this is a double-edged sword. In every action research project, youth must also learn how empathy and care are handicaps in the global economy: This might create sparks that will lead to alternatives to capitalism and traditional definitions of success and progress.
Though I’ve read David Gruenewald before and looked to his work for guidance, I really appreciated this piece co-authored with Gail Furman, in that it’s helping me sort out, think through, name and critique some of the theoretical frameworks and assumptions I already (or might in future) incorporate into my own teaching practice, educational leadership and research. After seeing Marisa’s impressive presentation at USER-S, I hoped to be able to develop a grasp of theory, teaching practice and research around my work (which shares some similarities of purpose with hers) that would be as well integrated as hers. I hope that some of the thought in this reading that has apparently moved Marisa forward in this direction will be helpful to me as well.
As a literacy and language (read: non-science) trained educator, who leads high school and college students in school/community garden-centered, place-based, experiential and intellectual inquiry that bridges social, economic and ecological ground, I often struggle to define my work and its purpose. This is true despite my dead certainly, on many levels, that it’s important, challenging and exciting work that makes me feel more whole and human. I’ve settled most recently on calling it “education for sustainability,” and said that my questions include how and what “ordinary” people need to understand in order to enact their roles as consumers, as civic agents, as global citizens and as environmental stewards. Lacking the elegance and complexity evident in this reading, my latest attempt at formulating a theoretical construction has been frustrating and disappointing.
Though I’m not sure I see the ecological justice framework as being capable of entirely taking in the concerns of social justice, I appreciate Furman’s and Gruenewald’s elucidation of the parallels and and connections between the two. I also appreciate their deconstruction of the complexities and contradictions faced by educators truly committed to social and environmental justice who nevertheless work (along with our students and the students’ families, etc.) within a system that uses these very same terms, often while operationalizing them in ways that instead guarantee inequity, exploitation and harm. And I agree completely with the authors and with Joel Spring (1998, qtd in Furman and Gruenewald) that current education reform does not prepare students either to identify these contradictions or to question, challenge and address them at any level. Finally, while I think “empowering” students as “agents of change” is a tricky business (someone–maybe Jennifer or Kylah?__ raised this issue during our last class) I appreciate the author’s concrete discussion of what such a pedagogy (and the PD and leadership that would support it) would/does look like, how institutional and systemic constraints may be negotiated, and what kinds of educational and social outcomes it would seek to produce.