Green School Demand the Impossible! Research, sustainability and learning Teach C.R.E.A.T.E. Proposal for MIT Global Environment Initiative seeks public comment As the world’s population continues to expand, our natural resources will become increasingly strained. In an effort to find sustainable solutions for the planet’s growing population while minimizing environmental impacts, MIT’s Environmental Research Council (ERC) has put forward a detailed implementation plan to establish a Global Environmental Initiative to complement the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI). The interdisciplinary, faculty-led council presented the plan to the MIT community last Thursday in a forum held at the Kirsch Auditorium in the Stata Center. Council members outlined an initiative that would bring together MIT’s “core strengths” across campus to help solve the world’s pressing environmental challenges, from mitigating climate change to curbing contamination and maintaining fresh water supplies. In the areas of climate and oceans, MIT already has a strong foundation of interdisciplinary collaboration.
Sustainable Development – Earth Charter Initiative Principle 14 of the Earth Charter emphasizes the importance of “Integrating into…education and life-long learning the knowledge, values, and skills needed for a sustainable way of life”. Education is fundamental to the mission of Earth Charter Initiative. ECI has therefore created the Earth Charter Center for Education for Sustainable Development at the University for Peace in Costa Rica. The Center deepens students’ and program participants’ understanding of sustainability vision and practice, and build the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values they need to shape a sustainable future. To reinforce the legitimacy of the Earth Charter Center and the importance of its mission, a UNESCO Chair on Education for Sustainable Development and the Earth Charter was created as a collaborative effort between UNESCO, Earth Charter International, and the University for Peace. The Earth Charter Center for ESD: What is Education for Sustainable Development?
The Zapatistas' first school opens for session Yesterday, 1,700 students from around the world enrolled in the first Zapatistas school, held at the University of the People’s Land of Chiapas. (WNV/Moysés Zúñiga Santiago) Last December, tens of thousands of indigenous Zapatistas mobilized, peacefully and in complete silence, to occupy five municipal government office buildings in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. That same day, which coincided with the end of one cycle on the Maya calendar, Zapatistas released a communiqué, asking, “Did you hear it?” It appears that the answer was yes, because this week thousands of people from around the world are descending on Chiapas for the Zapatistas’ first organizing school, called la escuelita de libertad, which means the little school of liberty. Originally the group allotted for only 500 students. Just as the Zapatistas have, for two decades, rejected hierarchical systems, the escuelita will also eschew traditional teaching models. “In legal cases, do cultures translate?”
New Opportunity to Join the Zapatista Freedom School A few days ago, Zapatista Subcomandante Moises sent a communiqué with updates about the upcoming Zapatista Freedom School, to be held from August 12-16 in the Zapatista Autonomous Communities (“caracoles”, which is the Spanish name of “snails’ conchs” referring to the spiral of History). A total of 1,700 students from across all the continents will be attending, from South Africa to Canada, as far away to Brazil or Germany. Due to the high demand, new School cycles will be opened in December. To the ones who cannot travel to Chiapas, the Freedom School Workshops will be globally broadcasted by their special team of Zapatista sisters and brothers of independent media who will be responding your questions via “chat”, but you must have an invitation and a key number. If you want to take the class by videoconference and you don’t have an invitation, please ask for one at the following email address: video@ezln.org.mx Here is the complete communique translated into English: Video
ucation Resources Information Center NotesFAQContact Us Collection Thesaurus AdvancedSearch Tips Privacy | Copyright | Contact Us | Selection Policy | API Journals | Non-Journals | Download | Submit | Multimedia | Widget Pay Off Your Student Loans With Volunteer Work Through SponsorChange Amid the great music and movies (and, yes, parties) that will light up Austin, Texas, next month during the South by Southwest festival, a small nonprofit called SponsorChange.org will receive a community service award for finding a way to help college graduates battle student loan debt by volunteering. If you have a student loan (and we're guessing you do—the researchers at ProjectOnStudentDebt.org say seven of 10 college students who graduated in 2013 owed money on a student loan, averaging nearly $30,000 in debt each) or would love to help others knock down those payments, you'll want to know about SponsorChange. Here's how it works: Graduates with student loan debt sign up to volunteer at organizations that need manpower. The grads help their community by putting in hours toward that organization's goals. Raymar Hampshire, cofounder of SponsorChange.org, sees that work experience as a key to his organization's power. Hampshire started SponsorChange in Pittsburgh in 2009.
The significant learning benefits of getting rid of grades (essay) For the last decade and a half, I’ve engaged in anthropological research on higher education, identifying several challenges and mismatches between what we know about learning “in real life” and learning in college. In my most recent book, “I Love Learning; I Hate School”: An Anthropology of College, I identified a number of ways that formal education has led to a lack of learning. Colleges promote credentials, obedience and the sorting of haves and have-nots, but not necessarily learning. People kept asking me what I would do to improve things. I’d been making some efforts in that direction, but still I fretted over how to make my pedagogy align with my theoretical understanding of how people learn. Last summer, as I prepared my classes, deeply immersed in the thinking that had led to the book, I decided I would go all the way and get rid of grades. My reasons for wanting to get rid of grades were numerous: I felt as if students are fixated on grades above all else. Solutions Outcomes