This is my dream: To live as my forefathers once did - in harmony with the land that sustains us. A project to investigate and innovate the creation of a low impact home with methods of living in a form of permaculture designed to sustain my family and improve biodiversity. To leave the land richer than before and in doing so enable others to do so.
An ecologically informed approach to education.
Posted 28/06/08 by Matt B in the Unspecified category
As ecologically minded people it falls to us to investigate if a more "natural" lifestyle and ecologically informed methods of doing things can have a positive benefit on commonly accepted practices.Take, for example, schools - currently children start school very early and are pushed academically right from the start. However, The Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) are suggesting that school starting age should be increased to seven years of age. [BBC News Story]
Child development expert Elizabeth Hartley Brewer writes in the Telegraph "Does early schooling harm our children?" asking exactly the same question (also of British Schools). The issue is raise in theage.com.au
Also raising the question is this academic study: Is Early Learning Really More Productive? The Effect of School Starting Age on School and Labor Market Performance by Peter Fredriksson and
Björn Öckert. (Germany).
This study shows clearly the school starting ages in different countries. Four years old being the youngest age (Northern Ireland) with a few countries opting for five years of age (Malta, Netherlands England and the rest of the UK) while the bulk opt for six years of age (Austria, Belgium, Norway, Portugal and many others).
So the UK is actually unusual in all of Europe for it's starting age. Perhaps as the PAT suggests there is something in rethinking the way we educate our children. As ecologically minded people we are already familiar with the art of not thinking in constrained boxes and so it may fall to us to consider all the reasonable alternatives.
Take, for a continuing example, ecovillages (something I have a great interest in). Were a number of us to establish such a thing where would the children be educated? Supposing that the village is a working farm and follows the principles of permaculture what can we take from that to apply as an educational policy?
How does nature do things?
Not with lists and flash cards but by presenting an ongoing series of challenges and opportunities that the growing creature can attempt when ready. Birds hatch and are often utterly helpless, they are fed and sooner or later they feel the need to test their wings. If they don't feel that call eventually mum and dad force the issue and the bird learns to fly.
No let us apply this to a theoretical nursery and school complex in the heart of the ecovillage. Children are allowed to participate in whatever activities they desire from all those made available to them. This includes guided attempts at everything the adults do (wood work, tending animals etc). As the children grow older they are given more time to work with the adults. For them it is play but it is also learning. Just like the cubs of a fox "hunt" each other so that one day they can hunt food so the human young should be allowed to develop likewise.
Of course there are going to be times of formal training and these times will increase as the time comes to take the GCSE, A-Level and so forth but this should be a blended process whereby the children do not notice the transition. Perhaps the summer holiday should be abolished on the ecovillage-permaculture-farm-home and replaced by reduced "institute time" and increase family-centric "working".
We can be sure that the children would be physically fit, active and healthy. We can be sure that they will grow up with a full set of practical employable skills and we know that they will be socially well rounded and fully emotionally developed. I would not mind "betting" that there is every chance that all the children would be academically advanced too.
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