“We and the systems we create—our societies, political systems, economies, religions, cultures, technologies—impact the total environment. Since we are a part of nature rather than outside it, we are challenged to recognize the ramifications of our interdependence.”
The ensuing chaos in the Common Core debate is blinding parents to the manifestation of what David Spangler calls “Gaian thinking”, predicated on understanding systems thinking. The authors who quoted the challenge above were none other than the ecocrats who merged Oregon’s Environmental Literacy Plan with the Common Core giving us Environmental Literacy Strands (ELStrands).http://www.eeao.org/images/pdf_docs/OELP/oelp_aligningofstrandsandstandards.pdf Appendix C details the 5 Strands of Environmental Literacy covering essential elements also found in Ecovillage Design Education, copyrighted in 2012 as “Gaia Education”. This article is an attempt to not only sound an alarm, but to elucidate how academic subjects will be totally erased from your school’s curriculum in favor of a radical systemic restructuring. https://gaiaeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/EDE-Curriculum-English.pdf
Ecovillage Design Educators see their curriculum as complementing the United Nations Decade for Sustainable Development, under girded by the US Partnership,http://k12.uspartnership.org/node/380 which in turn Oregon favors in their Environmental Literacy Plan. It is easy to dismiss the concept of Gaian scenarios such as ‘global consciousness’, ‘new age’, ‘a world soul’, or the ‘sacredness of the earth’. However, as stated in Oregon’s Environmental Literacy Strands, children will obtain “habits of a systems thinker, evaluate personal beliefs and values, and analyze ecological indicators of sustainability, all from a “holistic perspective”. Ecovillage Design Education describes itself as ‘holistic’ as “sustainability requires whole systems learning”.
Both curricular designs coerce students to heal and protect the biosphere, curb social injustice and live economically sustainable lives. Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) outlines 4 dimensions: a Worldview, Ecological, Social and Economic. Oregon’s Environmental Literacy’s Strands will have students “explain the dynamic and interconnected nature of political, economic, social and cultural systems.” Oregon’s Environmental Literacy planners must have breathed the breath of life into the Strands, as they declare it to be a “living document”, lacking however the rites of spring and woodland ceremonies to reverence the Earth.
But, if not to reverence the Earth, how does systems thinking conflict with values held by a majority of Americans? Systems thinking expert, Jamie Cloud of the Cloud Institute, found Christian thinking a barrier. Christians anticipating ‘end times’ put environmentalism on the back burner. A fundamentalist denial of Darwin’s theory puts evolutionary systems thinking on the chopping block. And, those setting their sights on a heavenly world, rather than a material world dismiss this turning point for all nations. Home schooled children, according to Ms. Cloud would be “lacking a strong Education for Sustainability curriculum.” Be mindful. The Cloud Institute’s guidepost is Agenda 21 and this institute is one of Oregon’s Environmental Literacy Plan’s partners. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5825f79f59cc6805946db437/t/589b3e2aff7c503ff1373409/1486569002770/Publications-K-12-Chapter-Environmental-Law-Institute-Education-for-Sustainability-2009.pdf
Analogies to systems thinking concepts are seemingly harmless. The solar system and the circulatory system, examples of physical and biological systems are universally understood and appropriately fit in the Strand 2 – Physical, Living and Human Systems . Oregon’s Environmental Literacy standards puts Systems Thinking in Strand number 1 as it is the overall toolbox for thinking about anything. Quote:
“Systems’ Thinking is not limited to any one subject area and can be practiced through all curricular areas. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills consider systems thinking – the ability to “analyze how parts of a whole interact with each other to produce overall outcomes in complex systems. . . Students use the knowledge gained to consider the implications and consequences of choices on the economic, ecological and social systems within which they live….”
“Systems Philosophy is a discipline aimed at constructing a new philosophy (in the sense of worldview) by using systems concepts. The discipline was first described by Ervin Laszlo in his 1972 book Introduction to Systems Philosophy: Toward a New Paradigm of Contemporary Thought. It has been described as the “reorientation of thought and world view ensuing from the introduction of “systems” as a new scientific paradigm.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_philosophy
The central components in conditioning students towards a shared meaning of a worldview:
Recognize that mental models are developed over time from an individual’s experiences and surroundings and, as such, a person’s perspective can be limited by them.
Consider how mental models affect current reality and the future.
Analyze Earth system indicators of sustainability
Human decisions about consumption, production, distribution and disposal of goods and services and their effect on the sustainability of Earth’s natural, economic and social systems.
How an individual’s perception of the environment is influenced in part by individual traits and group membership or affiliation.
Explain the interrelationship between environmental quality, including air quality, water quality and quantity, biodiversity, climate change, disease vectors, and natural disasters, and human health and well being, including the ability to produce and access nutritious food, access shelter, and achieve mental and physical health.
Analyze some of the effects that their actions and the groups they belong to (e.g., family or school class) have on the sustainability of the environment and their community.
Seek to determine the interests that underlie people’s positions and behaviors
Changing perspectives is the penultimate point of utilizing systems thinking skills. Changing your child’s perspective in schooling is nothing short of indoctrinating progressive correctness, whether it be political, social, economic or environmental. The Earth Charter’s Education Guide states; “In the holistic sense promoted by the Earth Charter, sustainable development or sustainable ways of living require changes in both the hearts and minds of individuals, along with the reorientation of public policies and practice.” One policy seeks the “elimination of all forms of discrimination”. In Peter Roget’s terminology, the forms of discrimination are synonymous with dissimilarity, disagreement, distinction, discordance and differentiate. If your child’ thinking is different, it might be because he’s an individual.
Oregon’s Environmental Literacy Strands credit the Waters Foundation for the “Habits of a Systems Thinker. (Appendix C) – Habits such as a “change perspectives, seeing the Big Picture, change over time, interdependencies, surfacing and testing assumptions and mental models”. Verification of the “desirable effect on student learning” is grounded not on empirical studies, rather on the “anecdotes of teachers” and experimental pilot programs more comfortably called “action research”. The foundation connects some dots to lesson plans for interested parents at the Creative Learning Exchange.
Gaian theory, is based on Organicism, “a world view based on the biological as a complex structure (the whole) of interdependent and subordinate elements (the parts) whose relations and properties are largely determined by the function as a whole. . . Thus the organismic view looks at the world in terms of systems, wholes, and organizations . . . “ In short, a Gaian world view is the ultimate complex organization containing a multiplicity of interrelated systems. Does this description relate to Oregon’s holistic notion of how students are to “analyze how parts of a whole interact with each other to produce overall outcomes in complex systems”?
Gaian theory also has roots in dialectical naturalism, a unity of mankind and nature ever advancing to a greater wholeness without an end of history. Related concepts linked on Wiki’s site are “dialectical materialism, eco-anarchism, libertarian socialism and Marxism”. The Sustainable Oregon Schools Initiative is managed by the Sustainable Schools Collaborative, which blatantly admits to using Agenda 21 as their guide book. Why would anyone doubt that Oregon has also embraced the principles of the Earth Charter and a Gaian education? Is not Earth Day celebrated in our schools?
Whether you are Christian or not, global environmental education will abolish the reductionist view of an academic education. Oregon’s Environmental Literacy strands speak of the “integration and infusion of the disciplines from the natural sciences to the social sciences to the humanities”. All disciplines will be subsumed under the umbrella of environmental literacy, eventually eradicating the Carnegie Units. No classroom in the future will be explicitly reserved for Math, Science or English. Read what the Center for Ecoliteracy states in plain English regarding the recruitments of systems thinking.