Changing The World Through Education

Kathleen Wolfe

“Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime.” -Ancient Proverb

This quote has been widely used as a philosophical idea to live by and has also been taught in various religious atmospheres. A dear friend of my family has taken this proverb quite literally. His name is Ed Redden and he is involved with a F.I.S.H. Ministries and UF/IFAS project in Haiti.I first talked with Ed about this mission almost two years ago when it was first getting started, and it immediately sparked my interest, leading me to write my senior research paper on the progress taking place in Haiti. In the typical Haitian diet, the nutrient that is most lacking is protein, so Ed and the rest of the team have decided to do something about it. They have been working with natives in Haiti, developing sustainable agriculture and aquaculture systems to provide a better source of daily food for people in the community. Ed has taken a personal interest in the actual fish project which is involved in building ponds to collect storm water and raise tilapia fish, which is a great source of protein. Instead of simply sending food and other charitable items to Haitian communities, which will only help for a short time, the ministry team is teaching the people to raise the tilapia on their own so that they can maintain the food source for many years to come. The project has been taken further to include poultry, goats, and swine.

Although I am very passionate about what Ed is doing in Haiti, I am somewhat removed from the situation since I have never been to Haiti and may not ever be able to go. So I started wondering how this idea relates to my life and what I want to do with my future. Is it possible that the ancient fishing proverb could be reworded to apply to education? "Give children what you know and you'll maintain today. Teach children to think for themselves and they'll change the world." This directly relates to the idea of Education for Sustainable Development. This is an idea that has been growing worldwide that embraces a new way to educate people as well as making them more aware of sustainable issues. The only way that we can have a hope of solving many of the worldwide problems we are facing today in order to have a better worldwide future is to teach our children how to think about these issues and to think in new ways. To understand why this is necessary, the current education system must first be discussed.

Most people within Florida are well aware of the controversy over the standardized FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test) testing that takes place every spring. The infamous FCAT is intended to be “part of Florida’s overall plan to increase student achievement by implementing higher standards”, according to Florida Department of Education (DOE) website. Herein lays the basis of the controversy. Legislators, who have no interaction with public school classrooms, are clinging to mere annual test score statistics to claim that the FCAT is achieving its goal of improving education in Florida. In fact, according to the Florida DOE student scores have continuously been on the rise for the past decade. However, most public school teachers will argue that education is not improving and students are not necessarily becoming more intelligent; they are simply learning how to do well on a standardized test. The intensity of the testing and its consequences has been increasing over the years as standards continue to rise and the outcomes are being used differently for schools as a result of the No Child Left Behind Act. A test that was once used to simply track a student’s progress and help schools assess areas in need is now determining whether students graduate high school, if a school will be shut down, if a school receives special funding, as well as the future career and salary for teachers. Parents across the state are unhappy with the stress that is being placed on their children at such an early age, and teachers are frustrated with the pressure that is being placed on them. Coming from a family of educators, as well as being a Florida public school student myself, I know this stress and pressure firsthand. My mom was a public school teacher for almost thirty years and has seen the evolution of the NCLB and FCAT. Teachers no longer have much choice in what they teach or how they present it since they have to basically teach toward the test. There is not as much freedom to engage students in special projects or units that are tailored to the special interests of the class. Curiosity in school is deteriorating as children begin to view the classroom as a place of judgment and boredom.

A number of people both within the education field as well as the general public are starting to realize that a teaching system based around simply feeding children facts does not have long-term benefits. Bloom’s Taxonomy, which is a hierarchy of thinking skills, places “Knowledge”, or the simple recall of facts, at the bottom of six categories of thinking. Knowledge is the lowest level of cognition and yet it is the one that many United States legislators are emphasizing as mandatory function children should perform on tests such as the FCAT. The two next highest rungs on the cognition ladder are being able to understand and apply knowledge learned, which are skills that are touched on through standardized tests. However, it is the highest three degrees that are the most important for people to achieve, which are analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. These levels require people to think for themselves, form their own opinions, make judgments about information, and create new solutions to problems. The education for sustainable development movement is striving towards putting a lot more emphasis on these higher levels. The reason for this was best said by Albert Einstein: “The significant problems we face cannot be solved with the same level of thinking we used when we created them.” In order to solve issues such as water shortages, oil shortages, pollution, war, poverty, and environmental impact, new generations must learn to think about them in new ways and look at them from different angles. By honing skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, tomorrow’s leaders will be better equipped to tackle these issues.

Learning the necessary skills to solve problems is only one part of the equation; children must also be exposed to the issues that our world is facing today. There are many resources available to find ideas of how to present different matters dealing with sustainable development to a wide variety of age levels. Many activities are very simple. One particular classroom could decide that they want to be in charge of a project to encourage students to bring in plastic grocery bags to be collected and recycled. Some schools have decided to start a [www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Topanga_EL/Garden/garden.htm vegetable garden] in their schoolyard so that students can learn to grow and cultivate their own vegetables and possibly take that information home with them. Even in Florida, teachers have many opportunities to integrate sustainable ideas into FCAT preparation. Instead of having students write essays about their favorite pet and why, teachers could possibly come up with prompts that have students explain an aspect of sustainability. Often in middle school students are taught to write persuasively. Perhaps a class could research a pressing environmental issue pertinent to their community or region and write persuasive letter to the respective authority or official to push for change. In this way, students might be encouraged that they can make a difference and will know that the world’s future is in their hands.

By the time students are more likely to watch the news or read newspapers for themselves, they are often in high school or beyond when they have already developed their own interests and their views on sustainable development. At this point, it may be too late for them to become curious about the world around them or be interested in being a key player in bringing about change. This effort has to begin as early as possible in elementary school. Teachers need to make sure that they are able to tap into students’ interests so that they can find their niche in the global mission toward sustainable development. Once people are able to relate to the world around them they are more likely to be inspired to envision a better and more ideal global community.

Through Education for Sustainable Development, children will not simply be given a plethora of knowledge and facts, they will be taught to think and question and challenge the status quo. They will not, in a sense be given a fish to eat for today, they will be taught to fish so they can eat for a lifetime. They will cultivate the skills necessary for action and change, and will be exposed to issues that may spark a fire within them to be able to envision a better future. Through Education for Sustainable Development we can teach children to think for themselves in order to change the world.

-Kathleen

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