A little less shitty or the next right step?
Doom, "all-the-feels," and purpose on a warming planet
Since I ripped off the band-aid and wrote about climate change last week, I’m going to stick with it for another post. It’s timely since it’s “climate week” (NB: that name seems inappropriate at this point) and lots of my peeps are out in NYC for the event.
I don’t even know what all happens at such an event. I hope the week is filled with reality and imagination, imbuing all who attend with a sense of purpose (see We Can Fix ItKimberly Nicholas’ useful diagram below) and responsibility, too.
Today you’re going to read some of my (rare) internal monologue. So step on up for lots of feels, a dash of doom, and my purposeful next right step.
Before we get into it, 2 favors:
Tl;dr
I am all over the place on Kim’s diagram (see above) — especially bouncing between “all the feels,” doom, and purpose.
I feel doom when nature-based learning’s potential to influence education and climate catastrophes seems insignificant and somehow improbable (even though we know how to do it).
I feel purpose when I recognize nature-based learning as a meaningful 1-degree shift contextualized in how change happens in education. When I see nature-based learning as the next right step to revolutionize education for healing, joyful, and relevant learning fit for the moment (including the climate emergency) and on the path toward whatever education should be.
Between those extremes, I’m just navigating “all the feels.”
Plotting Me
Sometimes (like as I write this), I flutter back and forth between purpose, “all-the-feels,” and doom (refer to diagram above). For me, “all-the-feels” start to dip doomy when I hear folks talking about education transformation ideas I don’t understand and ignoring ideas I do understand and that work (nature-based learning, nature-connections in schools). I start to feel darker when I read or listen to ideas that feel so so so out-of-touch with the daily experiences of students and educators in schools world over.
It’s not helpful to name or criticize here. Not my style either. Instead, I am naming my struggle and explaining why I gravitate toward nature-based learning as a super simple “next right step” to revolutionize education for healing, joyful, and relevant learning fit for the moment (including the climate emergency) and on the path toward whatever education should be.
Doomy Days
I’m no marketing genius, but I feel confident that a tagline for how nature connections will transform schools shouldn’t be: “Making schools a little less shitty.”
On my doomy days, that’s where I go, though. I feel ashamed.
My friends are off inventing electric vehicles and climate-friendly investment portfolios. They are mobilizing battery energy storage technology to transform renewable energy access in lower-and-middle-income countries. They are converting climate warming carbon dioxide into inert rock. They are transforming commercial building practices to net zero emissions. They are pushing California to have 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045.
Those doomy days, I walk into the room shuffling my feet.
Hey guys, what do you think about having students go outdoors during the school day?
My internal monologue (which I almost never keep internal, but this one I have until now) goes like this:
“Those inventions you’re working on sound really important. Also, can’t we just make things a little bit less shitty with nature in schools?”
If I’m feeling slightly less doomy, I reframe my internal monologue like this:
“Can’t we at least do the things (go outdoors, nature connections in school) that we know will make things (mental health, cognitive function, physical wellbeing, planetary consciousness) a little better?
I mean…I’m not suggesting nature connections in school in lieu of electric vehicles. I am simply saying in addition to all.the.things. Also. Because we know how. Now. No inventions needed. And for some reason we’re still not doing it.
Rationally, I know my friends won’t laugh me out of the room. Because they’re my friends. But I’ve kept this inside for the most part because my contribution to this living “project” seems to pale in comparison to theirs. Meanwhile, I’ve also been struggling to mobilize gazillions of folks (educators, revolutionaries, funders, journalists, parents, students) to invest in such a self-evident and simple solution. Makes me feel doomy and gloomy.
Purpose Days
I have purpose days too. More of them than doom days. On my purpose days, I confidently speak about the exact same suggestions — going outdoors, nature-connections in school, nature-based learning practices — as the most essential, probable, immediate, and profound shifts we can make for students and educators. As the next right step.
I see inspiring educators (like these 11, the ‘22-’23 Brains on Nature Fellows, and so many others) who are rolling up their sleeves and doing nature-based learning. I see their students who are loving it.
Also, on these purpose days I can describe a plan for taking this step. No inventions needed. Grow educator capacity to implement nature-based learning practices in and as the way they teach. Then, stitch together a network of individual educators who are transforming learning by opening their classroom doors and teaching their students outdoors. And/or who are bringing nature indoors in meaningful ways that are positively impacting their learners (and themselves!).
As a reminder, nature-based learning is: learning outdoors or bringing elements of nature indoors for learning.
Nature-based learning is one way to achieve nature connections in school.
Nature-based learning practices are instructional and classroom design actions to implement nature-based learning.
They can be employed by any educator, anywhere, at any grade level, in any content area, in any curriculum or school design model.
They can be applied in formal (i.e., in schools, during the school day) and informal (i.e., in everyday life) educational settings.
They are within an individual educator’s locus of control to implement.
1-degree Shifts
Since this post has already included some confessions, I might as well share another: I have a crush on education historian Larry Cuban. (Shhh…Larry doesn’t know about me, and this is a relatively recent development, so I don’t know where it’s heading). Among Larry’s crush-worthy features are his axioms to parse education reform.
My fave among these axioms is:
Small changes in classroom practice occur often. Fundamental and rapid changes in ways of teaching seldom happen. –Larry Cuban
Larry’s advice here undergirds my love affair with nature-based learning practices because these practices are simple. They are small, 1-degree, changes. A pine forest shower curtain hung over chaotic shelves in a windowless classroom. A carnation in a jar in the center of each desk pod. Finding seeds and stones on a walk outdoors to map out factors of 24. A spelling test in the forest next to school.
Larry backs up his axiom as follows:
Over decades, experienced teachers have become allergic to reformer claims of fast and deep changes in what they do daily in their classrooms. As gatekeepers for their students, teachers, aware of the settings in which they teach, have learned to adapt new ideas and practices that accord with their beliefs and that they think will help students. Reforms that ignore these historical realities are ill-fated. I support those efforts to build on this history of classroom change, teacher wisdom of practice, and awareness of the context in which the reform will occur.
Thanks for your support, Larry! Suddenly, the same suggestion that makes me feel sheepish in a room full of climate warriors feels like the next right step to alter the educational trajectory toward healing, joyful, and relevant learning fit for the moment (including the climate emergency) and on the longer path toward whatever education should be in a warming world.
❤️, B