Abstract
As part of their first-year curriculum, students at Swaraj University in western India head off on a ten-day “cycle yatra,” a low-technology bicycle journey through nearby villages that provides them with an immersion opportunity to see and experience the world differently. The invitation to the students is to “leave behind your money, credit cards, cell phone, iPod, snack food, and all things plastic” and to “secure your food and shelter with the gifts of your labor, your creativity, and your capacity to build relationships with strangers. You will practice surrender.”
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Notes
- 1.
Swaraj University, “Year 1,” www.swarajuniversity.org/year-wise-flow.html.
- 2.
Deep Time Walk website, http://deeptimewalk.org.
- 3.
“Free Home University,” www.facebook.com/freehomeuni/.
- 4.
Stephen Sterling, “Sustainable Education: Towards a Deep Learning Response to Unsustainability,” Policy and Practice, no. 6 (Spring 2008): 64.
- 5.
Judi Marshall, Gill Coleman, and Peter Reason, eds., Leadership for Sustainability: An Action Research Approach (Sheffield, U.K.: Greenleaf Publishing, 2011), 14; Donna Trueit, ed., Pragmatism, Post-Modernism and Complexity Theory (London: Routledge, 2012), 197–98; Richard Buchanan, “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking,” Design Issues 8, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 5–21.
- 6.
Peter Reason and Hilary Bradbury, eds., Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice (London: Sage, 2015).
- 7.
Allan Kaplan and Sue Davidoff, A Delicate Activism: A Radical Approach to Change (Johannesburg: Proteus Initiative, 2014), 26.
- 8.
Trueit, ed., Pragmatism, Post-Modernism and Complexity Theory, 239. Box 18–1 based on the following sources: Richard J. Light, Making the Most of College: Students Speak their Mind (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2001); Eric Mazur, Peer Instruction: A User’s Manual Series in Educational Innovation (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997); Jane Eberle and Marcus Childress, “Heutagogy: It Isn’t Your Mother’s Pedagogy Any More,” National Social Science Journal 28, no. 1 (2007): 28–32; Sabine O’Hara, The UNISA Signature Curriculum Project: Implementing UNISA’s Academic Identity as The African University in the Service of Humanity (Washington, DC: Global Ecology LLC, 2012); Sabine O’Hara, “Local Commitments, Global Reach: Advancing an Ethic of Sustainability,” in Divya Singh, ed., Globethics: Responsible Leadership in Higher Education (forthcoming 2017); Lisa Marie Blaschke, Program Director, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, “Sustaining Lifelong Learning: A Review of Heutagogical Practice,” EDEN presentation in Dublin, Ireland, 2011. See also Sabine O’Hara, “Sustainable Urban Agriculture,” UDC course numbers ENVS 452 and ENVS 453, and E. Harrison, “Exploration and Inquiry: Capstone,” UDC course numbers IGED 391 and IGED 392.
- 9.
“An Invitation: Eco-versities Network: A Gathering of Kindred Folk Reimagining Higher Education,” April 10, 2015, www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/Newecoversitiesinvite.pdf.
- 10.
Gaia University website, www.gaiauniversity.org.
- 11.
Red Crow Community College website, www.redcrowcollege.com.
- 12.
Universidades de La Tierra website, http://universidadesdelatierra.org; Mike Emiliani, “In Rural Mexico, Student-Led Education Heals Old Wounds,” Yes! Magazine, January 11, 2013.
- 13.
Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life (San Francisco, CA: Wiley and Sons, 2007), 25.
- 14.
John Dewey, “The Quest for Certainty,” quoted in Buchanan, “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking,” 6.
- 15.
Francisco Varela et al., The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1993); George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, The Metaphors We Live By (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
- 16.
Daniella Tilbury, Education for Sustainable Development: An Expert Review of Processes and Leaning (Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 2011).
- 17.
Efrat Eilam and Tamar Trop, “ESD Pedagogy: A Guide for the Perplexed,” Journal of Environmental Education 42, no. 1 (2011): 43–64.
- 18.
George Monbiot, “Why We Fight for the Living World: It’s About Love, and It’s Time We Said So,” The Guardian (U.K.), June 16, 2015.
- 19.
Jonathan Dawson, “Bringing the Classroom to Life,” TEDxFindhorn, May 29, 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3jxrT9VQ_w.
- 20.
Kenneth J. Gergen, Social Construction and Pedagogical Practice, unpublished paper, 10, www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/faculty/gergen/Social_Construction_and_Pedagogical_Practice.pdf.
- 21.
Stephen Allen, “Reflexivity for Sustainability: Appreciating Entanglement and Becoming Relationally Reflective,” International Journal of Work Innovation 1, no. 2 (January 2015): 240–50.
- 22.
Innovation Hub website, www.theinnovationhub.com.
- 23.
Gaia Education website, www.gaiaeducation.org/index.php/en.
- 24.
CEAL-Network website, http://ceal.eu.
- 25.
Box 18–2 from the following sources: Morten Asfeldt and Glen Hvenegaard, “Perceived Learning, Critical Elements and Lasting Impacts on University-based Wilderness Educational Expeditions,” Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning 14, vol. 2 (2014); Lisbeth Grundy and Bud Simpkin, “Working with the Youth Service,” in John Huckle and Stephen Sterling, eds., Education for Sustainability (London: Earthscan, 2001); Archibald Sia, Harold Hungerford, and Audrey Tomera, “Selected Predictors of Responsible Environmental Behavior: An Analysis,” Journal of Environmental Education 17, no. 2 (1985/86): 31–41; Takako Takano, “A 20-year Retrospective Study of the Impact of Expeditions on Japanese Participants,” Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning 10, no. 2 (2010): 77–94; Takako Takano, Nohsanson-no-hito-to-kurashi-ga-sasaeru-chiiki-no-kyoikuryoku (Educational Power of Community Based on People and Life in Rural Villages) (Tokyo: Ecoplus, 2011), 1–26.
- 26.
Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Aylesbury, U.K.: Intertext, 1972), 17.
- 27.
Jim Garrison, “The Holy Grail in Education,” Huffington Post, March 4, 2014. A review of a survey of 42,257 students aged 18–25 (the millennial generation) from one hundred countries identified substantial disaffection with conventional formal university education. It found that 53 percent of interviewees see a disconnection between what they are learning today versus what they will need tomorrow. The review concluded that, “Universities will need to transform themselves into a place where young people can not only study and take exams, but learn from doing. To provide them with real‐world experiences that are relevant.” See YouthSpeak and AISEC (in partnership with PriceWaterhouseCoopers), Improving the Journey from Education to Employment: YouthSpeak Survey Millennial Insight Report (Rotterdam: 2015), 32; Stefan Collini, What Are Universities For? (London: Penguin Books, 2012); Cristina Escrigas, A Higher Calling for Higher Education (Great Transition Initiative, June 2016).
- 28.
Box 18–3 from the following sources: Edgar Morin, Homeland Earth (New York: Hampton Press, 2002); Moacir Gadotti, Pedagogia da Terra, second edition (São Paulo, Brazil: Peirópolis, 2010). The Paulo Freire Institute in São Paulo launched the Ecopedagogy Letter at an international meeting in 1999; Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences (New York: Basic Books, 2006); Daniel Goleman, Ecological Intelligence (New York: Broadway Books, 2009); Daniel Goleman, Lisa Bennett, and Zenobia Barlow, Ecoliterate: How Educators Are Cultivating Emotional, Social and Ecological Intelligence (Berkeley, CA: Center for Ecoliteracy, 2012); UNESCO, Learning: The Treasure Within (Paris: 1996); Rafael Díaz-Salazar, Educación y cambio ecosocial (Madrid: PPC Editorial, 2016).
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Dawson, J., Oliveira, H. (2017). Bringing the Classroom Back to Life. In: EarthEd. State of the World. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-843-5_17
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