Getting Zen with the Kids about Going Green

One of the 21st Century skills Friedman pinpoints in The World is Flat is what I’ll just call “green habits of mind”: finding energy- and resource-saving alternatives to traditional ways of doing things.

Web-based reading, writing, assessment, and research are all obvious examples of this new habit. Think of all the energy (and time) saved by going paperless.

But students are as “addicted” to 20th Century learning as teachers are to ditto teaching. Some of them chafe at the absence of the reams of paper they’ve been habituated to wasting for their schoolwork. Their habits have fossilized too.

So I threw this little Zen koan at 15-year-old Jennifer and Sarah yesterday:

“Do you love your children and grand-children?”

You can imagine their look–it’s one I get often–and the unriddling that followed.

And you (and they) can also get the point: daily headlines about global warming point to another educational responsibility for 21st Century schools, which is, namely, that sometimes student convenience has to take the back-burner to more front-burning (and globally destructive) considerations.

It’s not like we’re just here to get them into good colleges. Fat good that will do if that college happens to be coastal, and under water. (And again, there’s still their children to think of.)

Footnote: Along these lines, my school admissions director, Robin Berting, has just announced that the monthly school newsletter–traditionally a “read-and-toss” convenience–will soon find a new home: a school community wiki. That type of leadership is what it’s all about. (Robin’s recently taken up blogging, too!)

(Photo: Original: Volcano National Park, Hawaii, summer 2005)

Technorati Cosmos: other blogs commenting on this post

1. Three Cheers for My School Administrators: a Green Light. Now What? (Help!)
2. Green University Pledge — What About K-12? (Part 1 in a series)
3. Kicking the Habit, Day 2: The Kids Adapt Better Than the Addicts
4. Ed-reads of Note: Farren on Green Econ Textbooks, Horn on Obama Ed Policy

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