Educating the Young for a World of Change

by Margaret Bearlin

Presented at the Manning Clark House Symposium Science and Ethics: Can Homo sapiens Survive? Canberra, 17-18 May 2005

Print this page

• What should they learn?
• How should they learn?
• Who should learn and for what purpose?

Acknowledgement

Firstly. in affirming that in our lives we are all members one of another, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of this land and also those who have gone before us without whom we would neither be alive nor have the ideas and wisdom which we share. In particular I acknowledge those with whom I shared ideas in preparing this presentation.

A. Setting the Scene

In thinking about this presentation I asked myself how we would all be feeling at this stage of the conference: elated, inspired, overwhelmed by a sea of challenging ideas and information: probably all of the above. I will not attempt to cover a whole Education course in 20 or 25 minutes rather I will highlight some elements that seem essential (necessary but not sufficient) if we are to move forward into the paradigm shift necessary if we are to survive. In doing this I will also be highlighting parts of the very rich tapestry already woven for us by previous speakers.

1. "Unless we learn to live together, humankind will all die together"

" We must all live simply so that all may simply live".

So, first, the tapestry as I see it: It would seem that we have established in this conference that the state of the world is such that unless we learn to live together, we, i.e. humankind, will all die together which means, in the words of the ecumenical movement’s ONE WORLD WEEK theme: we must all "live simply so that all may simply live". We must learn how to live simply and share resources otherwise we will not survive. And we all believe we can take the first step. We believe it is possible to do it if we can inspire enough people quickly enough and acquire the wisdom of Professor Fenner in whose honour this conference is organised. To say that we must all live simply so that all may simply live is another way of saying that a global society to be environmentally sustainable must meet certain conditions, that it will be possible only if we live more simply and responsibly and learn to conserve and share resources. For this to happen, I would suggest, we must become more grateful for what we have, replacing our greed with gratitude; become more compassionate for those without, reducing our consumption; relearn our dependence on each other and on the earth, and develop reverence for it and all its creatures and finally build communities of trust as the basis for real security. Such a global society will be a society without war because war, and preparations for war, pose one the greatest threats to the biosphere. It will thus be at peace, in a positive sense, because it is just, participatory and compassionate and respectful of the non-human world

2. Our question then becomes: How can we achieve this immense cultural transformation?
How can we as parents, teachers, and citizens facilitate this transformation through the way we educate our children, young people and ourselves, in our families, schools, further education and training, in the life of the community and in all our cultural institutions? How can we involve everyone in this urgent enterprise, including those who appear to watch television mindlessly?

Now, the most obvious answer might seem to be that students, indeed all citizens should acquire the knowledge that has been shared at this conference, but at an appropriate level. While this is an essential prerequisite for responsible action, if the biosphere is not to be destroyed and human beings are to survive, I want to suggest that there are more important objectives that must be achieved first, for only if they are will it be possible for students to come to understand the world in a way that will enable and indeed empower them to act to change it. Otherwise how do we explain that we, and our political leaders who know so much, still insist in living in a culture of denial?

B. For such cultural transformation what must we all learn?

I will suggest a possible mini agenda, and look in depth at two or three aspects.

For such a cultural transformation to occur children, young people, all of us must learn

• to understand our interdependence as human beings, globally, and our dependence on the sun, the earth and all its creatures;
• to enlarge our capacity for empathy, compassion and gratitude: ‘to think with the heart’, to abhor violence
• to think concretely about the consequences of our actions;
• how to build inclusive communities, mutually beneficial, sharing scarce and abundant resources - locally, nationally, internationally as the basis for real security and happiness
• to understand how human beings have created and are formed by their culture
• to have a strong sense of themselves/ourselves as people able to affect the kind of society they live in
• essential knowledge of the social, cultural and natural worlds, visible and invisible.

1. But first, I want to ask you a question: What makes you cry? What brings tears to your eyes?

When do you find yourself weeping?

I will give you two minutes: About 30 seconds to note down a time when you remember weeping, then 30 seconds to share your memory with your neighbour and 30 seconds to listen to their story.

Then, perhaps some of you might like to share your stories.

Sharing some of our stories: what was at their centre/core?

What speaks to your heart?

Was it to do with suffering? The suffering of others? Generosity of spirit? Outstanding courage?

People of Canberra responding to the bushfires? Ataturk speaking to the mothers of the soldiers who are buried in Gallipoli? Forgiveness of great wrong: man who is tortured seeks out and in compassion forgives his torturer, a mother, the man who killed her daughter?

Stories told at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa? Actions for justice?

[At this point many people shared briefly their stories centring on compassion, reconciliation, experience of great beauty, injustice, great hurt]

My central question then is 'how do we learn, and how then do we teach, children and adults to think with the heart?', perceive all suffering people as worthy of compassion as we would in one family? For if we can do this we can be motivated to share the world’s resources and change our way of living to tread more gently on the earth and make our survival together possible.

How do we develop an empathetic understanding for another so that their welfare begins to matter to us, as much as if they were members of our own family or country, and so that concern for their welfare motivates us to the extent that we want to change our behaviour and work politically to change our society?

2. Learning to think with the heart - about the human world and the other than human world

To think with the heart: is what we have all just been doing as we were thinking about what made us weep and when we shared with each other our stories.

In all of our responses we made a judgement with which we associated a certain feeling. The connection between the two is not automatic. We learn to associate certain feelings with certain cognitive appraisals. We see a child as hurt - we feel compassion. But when we see children hurt, maimed by landmines, sick with AIDS, or without sufficient food and water, do we feel compassion for them all equally? Are we able, as easily, to perceive suffering in people we have been taught to see as enemy or stranger, or do we then make a different appraisal of their situation and associate it with a feeling of indifference rather than compassion? Do we blame them for their suffering so that they are then not deserving of our compassion and not deserving of an equal share of the world’s resources? To think with the heart is to be embarked on a challenging journey, but a deeply humanising one.

• Active, attentive deep listening, being ‘listened into being’,‘speaking ourselves into existence’, leading to empathetic understanding, compassion and growth in self-knowledge and confidence.

One practice that helps us on this journey is the skill of active listening that can be learnt by children and adults alike for this practice enables us to love ourselves and hence love our neighbour.

In this practice people divide into pairs and take it in turns to speak on a designated topic, and to listen. One person speaks for an agreed time, the other person listens, encouragingly, but without interruption, remembering what is said so they can faithfully repeat it back to the other without comment. The speaker then adds anything important that was omitted or perhaps misunderstood and thanks the one who listened with such care. Roles are then reversed so that each person speaks and is listened to in turn. It is what Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist calls " deep listening " . Deep listening and loving speech he sees as the key practices that promote understanding and compassion which are foundational for the achieving of reconciliation and peaceful relationships whether in the family, the community, or in international affairs.

When we become skilled in this practice, which is not as easy as it might sound, the desire to share similar experience or to affirm the other being so great, the rewards for both people involved can be considerable.

Not only is each person being "listened into being" by the other, they are also "speaking themselves into existence", using their own way of describing their experience without being told that their language is not acceptable: a very empowering experience for those whose speaking is controlled by others or who speak and are not heard, or who feel belittled when they do not use the "correct language".

This practice is central to the empowerment women experience when they tell their stories in women’s groups and are affirmed for activities not acknowledged in the dominant culture. This is an experience I imagine shared by indigenous people in the absence of non-indigenous people and by men who participate in a similar way in men’s groups. I will return to this point later in connection with science education, for it is important that classroom teachers also practise such respectful listening with their students as students with their teachers.

It will not come as a surprise that the teaching of such interpersonal and communication skills is central in the beyondblue schools research initiative which is working to reduce the levels of depression experienced by young people. A project that recognises the key role that schools play in the lives of young people and the profound influence they have on children, their families and the community.

If we are to persuade our fellow citizens to be involved in the cultural transformation we are speaking of, which affects every aspect of their lives, it is essential that they too have a sense of themselves as people whose voices will be heard when they speak out of their own experience and whose suggestions for action will be taken seriously. Deep listening then is an important practice for the whole community.

If we have enabled students to develop empathy and compassion for others by this and other practices, and to gain at the same time a sense of their own power to act, how do we turn this compassion into action, which is intelligent and responsible?

 

3. Understanding our interdependence as human beings and our dependence on the sun, the earth and all its creatures, that we are all members one of another

• Interdependence: thinking with increasing complexity about those on whom we depend for our daily lives: food, water, housing, energy, transport…

• Practising gratitude and compassion rather than wanting more than we need

Interdependence: Children can be taught from an early age, both at school and at home in the family, to think with increasing complexity about all the people on whose labour they depend for their normal daily activities beginning with members of their own family and extending beyond as, for example, they accompany their parents on shopping and other excursions. Where does this milk come from? Think of all the people involved and the energy sources used to grow, harvest, process, package and transport this packet of cheese, even from Bega!

A reflection on interdependence: Children and all members of our families as we, ourselves, can learn to reflect every day on the way in which we depend on the earth, the sky and the sun and the work of others for our very existence.

The following Five Contemplations are recited before every meal in some Buddhist communities or read in turn by children in families before the meal is eaten mindfully, that is with awareness. This practice is similar to saying grace in Jewish and Christian households. Habituated when young, it can have important lasting effect.

" The Five Contemplations"

• This food is the gift of the whole universe: the Earth, the sky, and much loving work.
• May we live and eat in mindfulness so that we are worthy to receive this food.
• May we transform our unskilful states of mind, and learn to eat in moderation.
• May we take only food that nourishes us and prevents illness.
• We accept this food in order realize the way of understanding and love

Thich Nhat Hanh

4 Thinking concretely about the consequences of our actions

Food and household, indeed all shopping, is a very complex moral and political matter through

which considerable power can be exercised. Similarly the u se of water, of energy whether in light,

heating or transport, all involve, like shopping, ethical and political dilemmas. What are the

consequences when we buy, use, dispose of this product rather than that?

Who made this polar fleece jacket? Was it made out of recycled plastic bags? Or? How much were the people who made it paid? How do we decide, for example, whether to buy Australian or Pakistani-grown rice, Danish or Australian cheese? Locally grown or transported, even imported, in- season or out-of-season vegetables? Australian-made products or much cheaper ones made in China?

Food and household shopping is indeed a very complex moral and political matter. But children can gradually be taught the ‘critical’, powerful and empowering questions which are fracturing of the dominant ideologies of consumer capitalism: What are the consequences? Who benefits most if we do this rather than that? What do we need to know before we can make a wise decision?

And the community-building, peace-building companion questions: How can we enable all people, and animals and plants and the earth to benefit? And especially the least powerful or the most in need?

These questions are foundational in the political and moral education of the young in a democratic society. They lead directly to global questions: how can we more effectively influence national policy in relation to environmental protection, international trade, aid, war and peace, as part of working for a more just, compassionate and participatory global society?

C. The role of primary care givers, especially women, in the process of cultural transformation

One of the important issues that has been raised, both directly and indirectly in this conference has been: how do we engage everyone in our community including especially those who seem unconcerned, in this urgent task of cultural transformation? In the second part of this talk I will concentrate on how we can more fully appreciate the relevance of the role many women are already playing, and how we can more fully engage them in this important task.

1. "HOUSEWIFE? OH…YOU DON’T WORK THEN? "

A powerful cartoon from the 1970s, expressed women’s demand that their essential work in child- rearing and household management be made visible by being named with respect. This point is seemingly ignored by those who wrote the new government ‘welfare to work’ policy which requires parents, receiving the Single Parents Benefit to ‘ return to work’ when their youngest child reaches six years of age. This cartoon shows a market researcher with a survey form being greeted at the door by a harassed mother with a screaming infant on one arm, a carpet sweeper in the other, an clothes-basket overflowing with washing, behind her.

Male market researcher says: "HOUSEWIFE? OH… YOU DON’T WORK THEN ?"

2. MAKE WOMEN COUNT: COUNT WOMEN’S WORK

Affirming women in their role

• as educators of the young
• as household managers
• as expert networkers and communicators
• as environmental advocates

Part of the important work that women do when they are not working (if you get my meaning) is to begin the education of their children in how to keep healthy, what food is good for them and why, and how we must care for the earth and its creatures, plants and animals.

Women control the household expenditure in most families — if we wish to change patterns of consumption we could well begin with affirming women in their role as the primary educators and household managers of our society, engage them meaningfully in policy making and thereby get onside the most extensive communication networks in Australian society. A first step might be to take seriously the slogan: MAKE WOMEN COUNT: COUNT WOMEN’S WORK as well as the African proverb, "If you educate a woman, you educate a nation." Rather than, as the Treasurer has done in foreshadowing new legislation, spoken them, as some of the most valuable workers in our community, out of existence.

How then can we improve the science education of girls and women when it is well known that many more girls than boys in our society grow up believing that they are ‘no good at science’? An action research project undertaken some years ago at the University of Canberra tackled this very problem with outstanding results. It set out to transform attitudes of women and girls to science and technology, beginning with the teachers in primary and early childhood who pass on their own self-limiting beliefs about science to their girl pupils.

If we reflect on the early learning experiences of children that we have just mentioned, thinking about the food we buy and the clothes we wear, we see that they are closely related to their personal and everyday experience. Two factors that research has shown are crucial in increasing the positive responses to science learning of girls and also of many boys, and of their teachers.

 

3. Enabling women primary and early childhood teachers to lose their self-limiting beliefs
about science and technology: The Primary and Early Childhood Science and Technology Education Project (PECSTEP)

Central features :

• Began with technology related to women teachers’ everyday experience: "electric toasters"
• Teachers encouraged to express feelings as well as thoughts
• Began with teachers’ questions, using problem-solving hands-on experiential approaches, pulling toasters apart
• Used collaborative, small group discussion

In the late 80’s when there was growing concern about the sparse science background of early childhood and primary teachers, I surveyed science teacher education programs across Australia and their perceived impact on women’s attitudes to science. From this developed PECSTEP, the Primary and Early Childhood Science and Technology Education Project: an action research project for inservice teachers (now called Professional Development) designed to enable primary and early childhood teachers to lose their self-limiting beliefs about their ability to teach science and technology.

It was based on new research in science education and in feminist theory. We used an interactive gender-sensitive approach, which systematically linked gender with the teaching and learning of science and technology. We began with electric toasters - technology, very familiar, but perceived as difficult, to these experienced women teachers. Rather, and importantly, we really began with women sharing their anxieties and hopes for the course over a cup of tea (they came to the classes at the end of a full school day). A crucial beginning: women experienced validation of their feelings as they named them in their own words.

We then asked them what they knew and would like to know about electric toasters and how we could find the answers. Why does the element get hot? How does the thermostat work etc? Teachers worked in groups to find answers that were then presented to the whole class. Tutors provided background theory as required, for example about the nature of electrical circuits, sufficient to help them in their research task.

There was delight and there was anger. One woman was so frightened of electricity her hands shook and virtually had to be held as she connected up a simple circuit with a cell, a globe and a switch. When she discovered there was nothing more to an electric circuit than that she was very ANGRY. Angry that she had been led to believe that this work was too difficult for her to understand.

Teachers began to discover that they could understand science by reading books by themselves. When they could not find answers to their questions in books, they asked who else might know? They contacted the manufacturers to ask questions about the sole plates of steam irons. They rang the CSIRO when they were stumped on another question and 3 scientists were asked before it was finally able to be answered. They were commended for their question. When this story was told at a national conference of science education researchers, a senior male university lecturer was heard to remark, "I wouldn’t have been game to do that!" As one woman teacher who went on to do Master’s work in this area said: " Before science had control over us, now we have control over science."

PECSTEP was a gender-sensitive, interactive teacher development program based on sound science education research and feminist theory. It enabled women teachers

• to experience the conditions of learning they were to reproduce in their classrooms with their own students
• to understand the gender-based response to science & technology of girls & boys in their classrooms
• to lose their fear of science and scientists

 

PECSTEP worked because it used women’s questions and their naming of the world, simultaneously validating their perceptions by providing concepts that made sense to them. As they reflected on their own responses, they saw the way in which their attitude to science, their consciousness was gendered and had been constructed by the discourse and expectations to which they had been subjected in their families and in the classroom. They began to understand the different responses of girls and boys in their classrooms as they, as teachers, reproduced the new conditions of learning they had experienced, in their classrooms: listening to what the children already knew and enabling their students to seek answers to their own questions.

How do you find out if worms sleep? From teachers who were science-shy some began to structure their whole early childhood curriculum: language teaching, art and mathematics around their children’s science learning. They were so empowered: one mended her own washing machine; another said: ‘I now have enough courage to ask my husband a question about science’ (he was a science teacher). They took off on broomsticks all over the place.

Imagine what we could achieve if we were to create similar conditions for community involvement in learning about and solving the immense science and technology-related problems we face today as a society. These conditions are: listening, beginning with their knowledge and their questions, using their language

4. Why are PECSTEP and the science education of women and girls (as of men and boys) so important?

My motivation in developing this project, together with others, was my concern as a citizen for the nature of Australia as a democracy. Science and technology are arguably the most powerful areas of knowledge in our society yet women are largely denied access to any significant decision-making in these areas, as in all other areas you might say.

All must have a sense of themselves as people able, and with a human right, to affect the kind of society they live in and to determine that the resources of the world be used for the common good

 

As some one who all her life has been committed to the use of science for human good and utterly opposed to its use for creating weapons of war and destruction of the biosphere, I saw women’s involvement in determining the direction of scientific and technological research and development in Australia as essential for two reasons. Firstly, it is their human right in a democracy and secondly their primary commitment to the preservation of life gives them skills shared also by men who are primary care givers in families. I do not see these as genetically determined but socially constructed.

5. Further insights derived from PECSTEP: there will not be time to develop these ideas

Participants acquired ‘powerful and empowering knowledge’:

• Scientific knowledge is constructed rather than discovered
• We can decide as a society which scientific knowledge we will develop and pursue and for what purpose
• Notions of masculinity and femininity are also socially constructed
• Dominant science and dominant forms of masculinity can be seen as interdependently constructed
• The relationship between science and the control, subjugation and destruction of nature
• Connections between ‘masculinity’, the ‘myth of redemptive violence’ and war

I wanted women as well as men to be able to lose their self-limiting beliefs about science and technology and claim their right to participate, at least in a minimal sense through the way they voted, in determining what sort of science and technology we should develop at public expense.

• On what grounds has the budget of the DSTO been increased while that of CSIRO constrained, who benefits?
• Why are we spending now $55 million per day on defence when our educational institutions, and health system and the environment are in such dire straights?

And more importantly I knew losing their fear of science would enable an even greater liberation for women because of the way in which scientific knowledge is so connected with patriarchal power. There is no time here to explore the valuable insight of feminist philosopher Evelyn Fox Keller1, that dominant science and dominant masculinities have been interdependently constructed in western culture. It is no accident that Physics, the science ostensibly most connected with the mind and notions of objectivity and least connected with human beings and the emotions is claimed to have pre-eminence over the other ‘hard’ sciences. /p>

The important point here is that primary care givers have developed skills in thinking concretely about the consequences of actions (much more difficult I’m sure you will agree than thinking abstractly). Secondly, they are more likely to be committed to the non-violent resolution of conflict. It is not that they are incapable of violence, rather that if they use violence they feel they have failed. They give little credence to the patriarchal myth that violence is redemptive, the myth behind all use of violence to ostensibly resolve conflict. Theirs are the skills and commitments we so desperately need in our political, social and economic decision-makers so many of whom seem incapable of thinking concretely and rationally about the consequences of their actions. 2

 

D. Moving to a new paradigm

In summary, for the goals of cultural transformation to be achieved globally it is crucial that equal priority be given to the education of girls and women. We must " empower the women, educate the men". Women must be involved equally with men at all levels of decision-making. New paradigms of scientific knowledge, of masculinity, of being fully human, be affirmed

" Peace is inextricably linked with equality between women and men " As Kofi Annan has so powerfully said, until women are involved in every level of decision-making, there will not be sustainable peace.

E. Returning to our original questions:

In educating for a world of change, who should learn and for what purpose ? The whole community for radical reconstruction and transformation of our way of life

How should we learn? In a manner that is empowering and inclusive

What should we learn? To enlarge our capacity for empathy, compassion and gratitude; to strengthen our understanding of interdependence; to build inclusive self-sustaining communities, local, national and international, with a strong sense of ourselves as people able to affect the kind of society we live in; to challenge the dominant paradigm, and above all to listen to the least powerful.

We have already taken the first step.

---

Notes:

1. Keller, Evelyn Fox (1985) Reflections on Gender and Science. Yale University Press

2. I have drawn these ideas from Ruddick, Sara (1995) Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace. Beacon Press