We are living in a unique time, not just
in human history, but in planetary history. From the war in Iraq
to the war on rainforests; from global markets to global warming
- it is clear we must learn to live in ways that honor all life.
Ever more profound and rapid technological advances are outpacing
our collective wisdom and maturity. In other words, we currently
know more about computers than about compassion -- or community.
Of course we need to train scientists. But also, and perhaps more
importantly, we need to train community builders - social scientists
- with the knowledge, skills, and commitment to create sustainable
models of living and working together in peaceful and productive
ways.
 Unfortunately, our present educational system seems stuck in the
industrial era and we are still training leaders who know how
to dig deeper and faster into the world's resources. We now need
to step back and ask, "How can we educate leaders for the
21st century - leaders who know how to heal the Earth rather than
destroy it?"
Education for sustainability, at its core, must recognize and
honor our fundamental interdependence with all life. It must provide
deep and direct experiences of the concepts, skills, and tools
of sustainable living and empower students to help build a more
sustainable future. More practically, education for sustainability
teaches how to:
- Slow down this global juggernaut of destruction;
- Build new, more sustainable institutions - from local economies
to new forms of community and education;
- Create new worldviews in which we see ourselves as embedded
in the fabric of all life.
Ecovillages provide excellent contexts for
a new, more sustainable form of education. Ecovillages blend social
and ecological tools such as consensus decision-making, appropriate
technologies, and organic agriculture into greater wholes and
begin to tell stories about what it means to be in right relationship
to each other, the world, and ourselves.
Ecovillages ask the simple, yet profound question, "How can
we live well, but lightly?" To the extent that others begin
to ask and try to answer this question, ecovillages can become
a pivot point upon which the world turns toward a more ecological
era. |
