RSS
RSSConference Explores the Role of the Natural World in K12 Education
October 2, 2009
On October 16 and 17, Ashland will host some of the region’s most influential thinkers on the role of nature in public education. Co-sponsored by Northland College and the Green Charter Schools Network, the Upper Midwest Green Schools Conference will give teachers, administrators, parents and students the tools to begin innovating within traditional K-12 programs, as well as charter schools. William Cronon, one of the featured commentators on Ken Burns’ acclaimed PBS series “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” will deliver the keynote address “Connections Human and Natural” at 9 a.m., Saturday in Northland’s Alvord Auditorium. Cronon’s keynote is free and open to the public.
“In education, there’s one thing we all agree on and that’s that change is coming,” said Rick Fairbanks, Provost of Northland College in Ashland, WI, who along with Senn Brown of the Green Charter Schools Network is organizing the conference. “One thing we’ve realized at Northland is that our location, here on the south shore of Lake Superior, is a huge resource for learning, and we completely redesigned our curriculum to take advantage of our location.”
While charter schools are an important new tool for educational change that is receiving a great deal of attention and federal funding, Fairbanks stresses that you don’t need to have a student enrolled in a charter school to find the workshop useful. “If you’re doing it thoughtfully, taking students outside solves a lot of problems that teachers face in traditional systems. We know that hands-on work in the natural environment connects for kids who don’t do as well with books at a desk. It can impact on learning, on motivation, even on behavior and classroom management.”
Senn Brown, director of the Green Charter Network, agrees. “I didn’t begin my career in education as an environmentalist,” said Brown. “I came to it because my son was not a traditional learner, and he taught me the value of this kind of education.” Brown believes that charter schools offer K-12 programs a way to innovate and experiment that ultimately makes all schools stronger. “Change is difficult in any institution,” says Brown. “Charters allow districts to experiment in a way that doesn’t have to impact the whole group, but can help serve students whose needs aren’t being met in a traditional setting.” As traditional K-12 districts are losing more and more students to online education options, Brown believes that green charters offer an alternative to families that want an educational community but don’t feel at home in traditional schools.
Conference keynotes include:
• Connections Human and Natural: What Does It Mean To Be an Educated Person? by William Cronon. Cronon is the Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and is a national leader in developing the connection between the natural world, the value of education, and its relationship to human society. Cronon was a featured commentator in the PBS series “The National Parks” and is the author of a much-discussed essay on the nature of liberal education, “Only Connect,” that has helped shape the development of Northland College’s Connections curricula. His topic at Northland for the Upper Midwest Green Schools Conference, “Connections Human and Natural: What does it Mean to be an Educated Person,” will return him to a consideration of the nature of education and of nature in education.
• Revitalizing Public Education: Let Teachers Lead the Learning by Joe Graba. Graba is one of the founding partners in Education/Evolving, a 'design shop'; based in Minnesota but with people in other states, working nationally to help public education with the difficult process of change and the redesign of schooling. Formally the project is a joint venture of the Center for Policy Studies—a non-commercial/non-academic/non-governmental policy-studies group formed in 1982—and Hamline University, where Graba was Dean of the Graduate School of Education.
The conference will be held at Northland College. The conference program is available at http://www.northland.edu/assets/files/SOEI/UpperMidwestGreenSchoolsConference.pdf and online registration is available at https://www.northland.edu/register/index.php?id=46. The cost for both days is $70, or $65 for just the Saturday session. Educators, parents and community members are welcome to attend.
