School is a structured, goal-oriented institution that teaches many subjects and facts. Yet, school is a small part of one’s life. Life is made up of experiences, trial and error. Every day and every minute is another opportunity to learn something. Knowledge is useless if it is not acted upon, though. People must try to internalize their experiences and incorporate the lessons into their mindsets and interactions with the world.
Ecology is an important subject for the general public to understand and thereby be able to change the way they relate to their environment. School is a great place to introduce the science behind ecology, but experiences must be created outside of the classroom to ensure the students are passionate about ecology as well. For many, school is an institution dedicated to removing all originality and creativity and teaching society exactly how to think. Students work the “system” learning to spit back the information handed to them, but often do not try to incorporate the new ideas into their lives.
I don’t have an amazing, clever plan to inject passion for ecology into society. But I do think I have some ideas of things that may be exacerbating the disinterest. Society is becoming more and more urban and people are forgetting how interrelated our lives are with nature. Technology is considered our savior; it doesn’t matter what mistakes we make now because an invention will rectify it. Our senses are overwhelmed by virtual stimulants, distancing us from our senses. (There are even virtual pets now! How can one cuddle with or walk a joystick?!) Everything has a monetary value. If something is cheap, people lose respect for it. Society has taught us the blame game and removed responsibility from our shoulders. We feel we deserve to take and use what we want as we please, without worrying about the consequences. Our society has become individualistic and selfish.
I realize I have just gone on rant of some of the wrongs in today’s society. I apologize. My point is that ecology is about how everything is connected and affects something else. If people do not learn to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions because they do not experience the connectivity between action and reaction, then ecology is incomprehensible.
I agree with what you say about how ecology should be more strongly incorporated into our education system. I also agree that some schools do not encourage this type of learning, or learning in general, rather memorization of facts. I was fortunate enough to attend a magnet school for grade school. The schools main goal was to get us to question what we were being taught and allow us to have say in what we learned to a degree. If we wanted class outside, we could. We also took many trips to the pine barrens to learn about the environment. I know my education differed greatly from my friends who went to the public school in our town. The environmental field trips I went on occurred far more often than my friends.I feel like this in part shaped my experience with the environment differently than my friends. Maybe a little off topic, but basically I see the importance of incorporating environmental awareness and learning into early education.
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