This week is a good time to come back from my 2-month absence I reckon. I am working (and even getting paid for it) and studying, but have a wee bit of time to post. This week in my master's studies we were only assigned a discussion topic and a portfolio topic for personal reflection. Usually there's a writing assignment as well. I managed to combine the two assignments in what I think is a clever way (scuse me whilst I pat myself on the back).
The first is the discussion topic. We're halfway through the course "Living and Learning Globally" now and it has so far been only about conservation, saving the planet and such. It's a topic about which I feel strongly, but I was expecting a bit of a bird course about teaching outside your country, being culturally sensitive and that sort of thing which, of course, I would ace. Turns out this course has been the toughest of the 6 I've taken! Every week we're assigned a book worth of reading, the usual writing, grading, groupwork, etc., and THEN some extra material on the state of our planet, the sustainable development goals of the UN and stuff like that.
The first part of this post was an assignment I was none too thrilled about. I don't like rubrics because, like standardized tests, I find they focus students' efforts on passing, not learning. We were ordered to make a rubric to evaluate students who were doing projects like the ones in the YouTube vid about Indian Ocean region kids conservation projects. I designed a rubric for a garden project that I hoped would encourage learning. Here it is:
Garden-Based Learning Rubric
The part that most impressed me in the video about the Indian
Ocean region’s eco-schools was the garden-based learning project. In the past I
have read about garden-based learning projects and actually experimented with
them on my own a few times. I believe it is a good example of experiential
learning, ecological literacy, agricultural discovery, environmental awareness,
hands-on science, cooperation/collaboration, moral improvement through hard
work, and possibly most importantly a chance to form a connection with nature
that will grow into responsible stewardship and conservation of living things
on our planet. I particularly liked the way Matthew Teeluck, a student in the
video, said that he shared what he was learning at school with his parents who
don’t know much about environmental issues
I decided that if I had to make a rubric for a future project such
as this, it would be divided into three parts: two parts formative and one part
summative evaluation. The first will be my observation of cooperation and
communication between the groups. Though the project will be about 90%
hands-on, it will require effective and efficient collaboration with a partner
for things like dividing responsibilities equitably. Planting, tilling,
fertilizing, watering, weeding, and harvesting duties must be shared. There
will be a variety of vegetables to choose from as well, so that choice me be
arrived at democratically. Finally, the fruits (or vegetables) of the students’
labors must be divided up reasonably between the members of each group.
The second part would consist of a written report done by the
students (ideally in teams of two) on how gardening is a good way to help the
environment. In-class lessons paired with the garden project will include
gardening virtues such as cleaning the air; benefitting the soil; lowering trips
to the grocery store; reducing imported produce; composting and using your own
waste; benefits to bees, worms, birds, spiders, insects; reduction of carbon
footprint; reduction of global warming; boosting physical health through
exercise and nutrition; stimulating mental health through peace and beauty; and
lowering noise pollution. Any combination of five of these or any other valid
benefits to gardening will earn the group full marks on their essay.
Part three will be based on what kind of connection the students
form with nature. This may seem a lot for a teacher to expect from students,
however, as of March, 2021 over 83 million Tamagotchi electronic, egg-shaped
pets had been sold. If millions of people can form bonds with those, I think
connections with living plants should not be considered an unreasonable thing
to ask. Maria Montessori was an advocate of garden-based education. In “The
Absorbent Mind” she said that when a student learns that the life of a plant
depends on his/her care, it becomes more than a lesson, it becomes a mission
|
Cooperation and Communication |
5. Students exhibit above average
skills in democratic decision making and sharing. |
4. Students show good skills in
decision making and sharing. |
3. Students show average cooperation
and decision making skills. |
2. Students have some difficulty in
working with one another and making decisions equitably. |
1. Students do not succeed in working
well with one another. |
|
Conservationism (Written report) |
Students mention five or more
environmental advantages of gardening. |
Students mention four environmental advantages
of gardening. |
Students mention three environmental
advantages of gardening. |
Students mention two environmental
advantages of gardening. |
Students mention one or fewer
environmental advantages of gardening. |
|
Connection |
Students show an obvious connection
to nature. |
Students show a palpable connection
to nature. |
Students show some connection to
nature. |
Students show very little connection
to nature. |
Students show no connection to
nature. |
Subramanium, A. (2002). Garden-based learning in basic
education: a historical review. UC Berkely Monograph Series. https://doi.org/https://littlegreenthumbs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/GardenBasedLearninginBaseicEducation_4H.pdf
Voltaire said, “Judge a man by his questions rather than his
answers.”
What is your
initial reaction to this quote?
The first thing I thought of when I read this quote was the
two-word title of this paper and the best advice I have ever received or given:
question everything. I received it from my 17th century literature
professor Joyce Forbes, and it summarized quite succinctly the renewed hunger
for knowledge and the vast supplies of it to which, at the time, my university
education was opening my eyes. That, in turn, reminded me of the Socrates
quote, “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I
know nothing”
What is your
deeper reaction to this quote?
Consider the source. Voltaire was a significant contributor to the
18th century Enlightenment. He declared himself a member of the “party
of humanity” and waged war on the twin Hydras of fanaticism and superstition to
which the European social order of his time had fallen victim to their
intellectual endarkening, in his opinion
What is your
even deeper reaction to this quote?
It seems to me that the good people who make up the majority in
our world seem to be held in a similar miasma of false optimism and ignorant
inaction as Voltaire perceived the people of Europe to be under during his day.
In no aspect more than the main subject of this course: global competence.
People seem to be kept globally incompetent with a Panglossian optimism about
the state of our planet complicated by environmental and ecological illiteracy.
In Voltaire’s day it might have (or might not have) been more a question of
philosophy whereas in modern times the Panglosses of the world are captains of
industry who want to wring every resource out of the world before someone else
can, with little to no concern about destroying the planet that is the only
place where they can use those resources. In a word, they are apocalyptically
antisocial and need to be subverted. These are the people who are telling us
that they have all the answers when their one and only question is, “How can I
maximize my profit?” When will we realize they are all tongue?
How do you
relate this quote to active/inquiry-based learning and assessment of student
learning outcome?
The answer to that question is in the word “inquiry,” isn’t it? As
a teacher in a world where people are assets of industry and beholden to capitalist
sophistry, we need to encourage our students to disregard the false answers and
concentrate on the question from whence they all emanate. And we need to teach
our students to question that question. Is life all about profit? Is profit
just about resources? What are the things that will profit most and from which
the most will profit? Soon the idea of profit will take on a less industrial
and more egalitarian meaning. Soon we will realize that we profit more from
brotherhood, compassion, and empathy than competition, avarice, and violence. Soon
we will realize worldwide similarities abound and Robert Putnam’s idea of
bonding social capital will replace money as capital and a novel capitalism
will be formed
Boyd, C. (2017). Voltaire's Candide is the hero we
need. Medium. https://doi.org/https://clarkboyd.medium.com/voltaires-candide-is-the-hero-we-need-59e1c9e9292
Shank, J. B. (2022). Voltaire (E. N. Zalta, Ed.). The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://doi.org/https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=voltaire
