Philosophy of multicultural and environmental education

As my culminating paper for the Education for Future course, I wrote on the following thesis —

Today’s environmental and multicultural crises are rooted in human conditioning and can be addressed powerfully through education.

My paper starts out as —

"We are living in the midst of two major crises, environmental and multicultural, that impact all of life. Several facts point to the nature of the crises:

Human breast milk often contains more toxins than are permissible in milk sold by dairies. (Orr, 2004, I)

There has been a marked decline in fungi worldwide, and no one knows why. (Orr, 2004, I)

Even today when women head countries around the world, in the US, women are paid 23% less than men. (Retrieved August 29, 2008, from http://www.cluw.org/programs-payequity.html)

Black infants are two to three times more likely than white infants to have low birth weight, which results in higher mortality rates among Black infants. (KC Schoendorf, K.C., Hogue, C.J., Kleinman, J.C., & Rowley, D. (1992). Mortality among infants of black as compared with white college-educated parents. New England Journal of Medicine, 326, 1522-1526.)

These facts are daunting. They make the crises real but don’t connect it to your and my existence. They don’t give us a clue about what we can do to get over the crises. It is exasperating to see the crises and not know where or how to start addressing it. Most solutions that are offered seem piecemeal. It is my thesis that both of these crises are deeply connected by a common root. The root lies in the nature of human conditioning and thinking. I also contend that education can effectively address this common root by providing a clear framework for bringing about environmentally and culturally sensitive education."

The paper is available for download

Download paper_philosophy_of_environmental_and_multicultural_education.doc