Cassandra and Curriculum as Usual: "A Crude Awakening"
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[Update: A fuller discussion of Peak Oil and the A Crude Awakening documentary is taking place at Crooks and Liars. Skeptics and believers are listening and debating there.]
I wonder if Cassandra, as the Greeks approached Troy, got more silent indifference from those she tried to warn, or instead argumentation and debate? My guess is the former.
I wonder how people in education - the institution that holds the minds and characters of the next generation captive for 12+ years of molding - react to Cassandras like the international scientific community about global warming.
And about its cousin, the Oil Crash.
Curriculum as usual, anyone?
Or is anyone designing inquiry-based learning into the claims of these experts? I’m no expert, but I’ve got ears that Apollo hasn’t plugged. Seems we should give these warnings a listen now. And free our students to listen to them too, and hone their info-literacy skills on something, oh, maybe a bit relevant.
And remember: the tragedy was, Cassandra was right. But Trojans were bewitched (call it consensus trance) - and Troy fell.
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Clay,
I’ll be interested to see my students’ reactions to this video and to the question of global warming in general.
You’ve said in previous posts that young adults need to be involved in “real world project-based learning”. The key for many of them might be to explore global topics in a more manageable local context, asking not “how can I solve this planetary environmental crisis ?” but rather “how can I conserve energy in my car, home, school?”.
We receive a constant stream of information from media and the worldwide web, much of it troubling or downright scary. Perhaps we can show our students how to begin mending our world one small piece at a time.
[Reply]
diane
30 Jul 07 at 12:15 pm
Diane, When you write, “The key for many of them might be to explore global topics in a more manageable local context, asking not “how can I solve this planetary environmental crisis ?” but rather “how can I conserve energy in my car, home, school?”,” that’s my point exactly. To explore how we can become a local part of the solution, not the problem. And how we’re part of the globe, not just the local.
That’s why that “Carbon Neutral Pledge” for K-12 schools, to follow the universities that committed recently, seems a good local - and consequential - place to start.
Like you say: at school, at home, in the community.
[Reply]
Clay Burell
30 Jul 07 at 12:52 pm
Clay,
This is kind of (very) off-topic, but I had to make sure that you saw this blog
http://altsearchengines.com/2007/07/30/vertical-search-engines-quotation-search/
Never made it to the bottom of your page before - very cool stuff in the sidebar!
diane
[Reply]
diane
30 Jul 07 at 10:52 pm
Thanks for the link, Diane!
[Reply]
Clay Burell
31 Jul 07 at 11:50 am
Speaking of links…Scott McLeod lists tops education blogs today on dangerously irrelevant
http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2007/08/top-edublogs—.html
After playing with the data, I located your blog at #165 VERY respectable, when you consider the thousands of educational bloggers who didn’t even make the list!
[Reply]
diane
1 Aug 07 at 8:37 am
Thanks for the news, Diane. It’s nice to hear, although I’m not sure of the value or accuracy of such a list. I’d like to see a list of promising new edublogs, rather than established ones. New blood means new conversations and new ideas. I’m sure Scott’s intentions are good, though.
[Reply]
Clay Burell
1 Aug 07 at 3:47 pm