Place-Based Education and the Social Studies: Eco-Democratic Reform in Action

Ethan Lowenstein and John LupinacciNCSS CUFA

November 19, 2014

In this presentation...Introduce you to a program that is helping

educators enact Place-Based Education at scale.

Explore how we might broaden how we frame democracy to be more inclusive and propose reasons why it is crucial at this point in history to do so.

Offer some reasons for why Place-Based Education is among a handful of viable instructional approaches for social studies given “the time it is on the clock of the world.”

The Southeast Michigan Stewardship Coalition (SEMIS) is a strength-based coalition of educators from 18 schools

and over 35 community-partner organizations working together to

grow the visionary educational communities we need to create a just

and sustainable world.

GLSI Participation

Three pillars of practiceThe GLSI supports the hubs’ efforts to integrate three strategies into their work.

Place Based EducationSustained professional development

School-community partnerships

Place-Based EducationPlace-based education is the process of using the local community and environment as a starting point to teach concepts in language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, and other subjects across the curriculum.

(David Sobel, 2005)

C3 Standards-Arc of InquiryDeveloping questions and planning inquiries

Applying disciplinary concepts and tools

Evaluating sources and using evidence

Communicating conclusions & taking informed action.

9-Day Intensive PD Scope and Sequence

In between each meeting:

• Coaching

• School-based PD

• Community Partnerships

Community partnerships and coalition building can=teacher learning under the right conditions

In this presentation...Introduce you to a program that is helping

educators enact Place-Based Education at scale.

Explore how we might broaden how we frame democracy to be more inclusive and propose reasons why it is crucial at this point in history to do so.

Offer some reasons for why Place-Based Education is among a handful of viable instructional approaches for social studies given “the time it is on the clock of the world.”

Some important questions:How can we use and frame the Social

Studies and the C3 standards--e.g., conceptions of democracy--to change our culture to be more inclusive of diverse members of the web of life?

Why is Place-Based Education, or similar approaches, positioned to be at the center of the Social Studies? And what are the stakes if it is not?

“Social Studies is about understanding why people do the things they do…” (Grant,

Socials Studies for the Next Generation, xii)

Language matters…“…symbolic maps we make are like a road map to understanding the world. But, just as a road map leaves out much of the reality of the land it maps so the symbolic maps (our words and concepts) only reveal part of the world—or as Bateson puts it ‘the map is not the territory.’”

(Martusewicz, Edmondson, and Lupinacci, 2011, 54-55)

A cultural-ecological framework helps us to understand why we do what we doCenturies-Old Cultural Discourses

AnthropocentrismCommodificationIndividualismEthnocentrismAndrocentrismMechanismThe Myth of“Progress” and “Growth”Scientism

Is the language of civics as we currently use it anthropocentric?

Democracy δημοκρατία (dēmokratía) "rule of the people” (Wikipedia)

A republic affairs of state are a "public matter" (Latin: res publica) (Online Etymology Dictionary)

Public directly from Latin publicus "of the people; of the state; done for the state,” (Online Etymology Dictionary)

What would happen to our definition of democracy?Earth democracy: recognizing the need for

collective decision making by those who are most affected by the decision

Recognizing the importance of decisions that take seriously the right of other living creatures to renew themselves.

AND….WOULD WE STILL BE MEETING THE STANDARDS?

What if we used different language to describe community, different metaphors….

Ecology: From the root “Oikos” meaning “home”A strong emphasis on relationships and

interdependenceDisrupts the managerial model introduced mid-

20th C. where science is applied to manage and control problems “out there.”

How might going from “Democratic” to “Eco-Democratic,” Or from “Democracy” to “Earth Democracy” change our thinking and behavior?

How do we expand our universe of responsibility to all denizens of the

world?

It is not quite imaginable that people will exert themselves greatly to defend creatures and places that they have dispassionately studied. It is altogether imaginable that they will greatly exert themselves to defend creatures and places that they have involved their lives in.

~Wendell Berry

Great Lakes Education

Students from Neinas Elementary School in DPS on a MI Sea Grant research vessel

2014 Annual Community Forum

This year the Community Forum included 12 intergenerational workshops, most of them student and parent run

Do you share the Coalition’s underlying vision and want to learn more about how

to get involved?Contact: ethan.lowenstein@emich.edu

Like us on Facebookwww.facebook.com/semiscoalition

Youtube—Search for Southeast Michigan Stewardship Coalition and view our 6-

minute documentary