For the past twenty years we have been led to believe that there is a significant educational response underway around the world for dealing with the environmental problems of the earth. It is not true. Right from the start that effort has been co-opted, and diluted, and trivialized. Now we are on the verge of losing a whole generation of planetary citizens who could have set the course for a different future. There is not much time left. This book is about a new path that the world's largest group of professional educators in the environmental field has already taken. We hope you will join us.

I am afraid parts of our account are not going to be much fun to read. I have agonized over my approach here for some time, and I have listened to all manner of contrary advice. A couple of my reviewers even said it would be a great work if I just left out the opening chapter. But I am convinced that environmental education has become little more than so much mush to so many people that if I don't make our case strongly enough, folks will just stir us in with all the other educational supplements available. Besides, as you will see, we no longer believe we are environmental education; we think we are an alternative to it.

. A Small Suggestion... Reading this book may turn out to be a bit of a journey itself. Like many new experiences, the first chapters could provide some tough going, but please forge ahead. There are lots of good things coming, and once you get your bearings and get into the rhythm, things should become easier. Frankly, if you are the kind of a traveler though, who likes to have the experience first, then read the guidebook, or if you prefer getting the positive before the negative, then you may want to read the last chapter of this book first.

Why do I sound so angry? Sure it bugs me that I have watched a number of people sacrifice significant portions of their lives to the goal of making a focused educational response to our environmental crisis, only to be thwarted over and over by people who are patently less concerned, less committed, and less skillful than they are. However, the main source of my vitriolic comments is the escalating destruction of this planet and a feeling of immense sorrow that we have failed to do enough. In a couple of generations we have destroyed much of the earth; in a couple of more it may be too late to reverse the process. I say a pox on all those in education who feel no bitterness, who refuse to speak out, who cannot bring themselves to take a negative stand against the sad state of our field.

Although such words may not make it appear so, I have actually tried to drain away as much of the accumulated resentment as possible from these pages. I have soaked the words in the waters of both time and distance and poured off the resulting liquid on several occasions. In the end, I am afraid it is still some pretty strong stuff. I would make just one request of you: don't let my histrionics in such places get in the way of a thoughtful analysis of my points. I may be abrasive, but it is not because I love the earth any less. It may just be that I love it more.

As far as I know, most of the folks I complain about in the sickening state of environmental education depicted here are all good people, committed to the earth, and, no doubt, they have also sacrificed in pursuit of their beliefs. But one can still believe that many of them were dead wrong in how they went about doing it, while others simply didn't do enough.

In the Institute's Members Survey last year, someone asked if it was really necessary for us to come across so aggressively, almost like we were in a battle. But that is exactly the point. We are. We are in a battle for the hearts and minds of those who can make a significant difference in the health of the earth. Should we not fight for the attention of those teachers and leaders who may yet be the best hope for the future? I realize some of them would follow the path we have taken more readily if I took a less antagonistic approach here, but this way, when people join us, they will be clear about where they are going.

"Having to squeeze the last drop of utility out of the land has the same desperate finality as having to chop up the furniture to keep warm." -- Aldo Leopold

You see, we don't think just as long as everyone espouses the same general goals that everything will be fine. We feel the situation is so crisis-oriented that it will require much more from us than just a breathless, "Oh, we're all in this together, just working away." I am reminded of one of those folks who claim we should be building bridges instead of cutting others down, who went off to a centre to put together a new environmental education program for them, and after spending a single weekend patching together a potpourri of various activities from other people's work, returned saying, "Oh, I just love putting together curriculums." It is going to take a lot more than that, believe me.

There is little doubt that our environmental crisis will worsen in the years ahead. Will we be ready on the educational front to respond to that situation, or will we still be mouthing organizational platitudes and mixing educational potpourris while the other creatures of the earth, as well as many of our fellow human passengers, sicken and die around us?

People tell me that we should be more positive in our approach, but hey, we are not selling aspirin here. This is not just a matter of being neutral or mildly disapproving about the other group's product. We believe the other product misleads people into thinking it represents a cure when it doesn't. In fact, we are afraid it may be contributing to the disease instead of arresting it. (By leading people to believe they are dealing with the problems when in reality they may be subtly conveying the very ideas that caused them.) Please explain to me how you can take a positive approach in a situation you believe is that grave.

"To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven and the same key opens the gates of hell." -- Chinese Proverb

If you are a newcomer to this field, now is the time to make a choice. The path for an educational response to our environmental crisis divides here, and this book will attempt to explain a route you may not have known existed. If you are an old-timer who has been pursuing this route all along on your own, then after reading these pages, we hope you will stand up and let others know there is a genuine alternative to environmental miseducation. Give them a headstart on their journey. Don't let "cornucopian" thinking dominate our organizations and publications and conventions. Of course, if you have already started down the other path, we hope you will hear our cries of alarm and retrace your steps.

To be honest, the earth needs your leadership like never before, You will read in the following pages that the earth is in trouble and we are the problem. But that can also be turned around the other way: the earth is in trouble and we are the solution.

"I slept and dreamt that life was pleasure, I woke and saw that life was service, I served and discovered that service was pleasure." -- Rabindranath Tagore

As I tell my graduate students each fall, as far as I can foresee, there is no pursuit, no profession, no position out there of any more importance than the journey they are undertaking. What we are talking about here is literally the health of the planet earth.

It is a journey I hope you will undertake too. We may never meet, but please consider joining us on the path of earth education. It is a demanding one. It requires passion and perseverance. It can be lonely, and no doubt you will suffer the slings and arrows of the complacent and counterproductive, but it is a path with heart.

Good journeying,

SVM
Illinois Prairie Path
October, 1989

Continue... Prologue

Earth Education... A New Beginning Copyright © 1990 The Institute for Earth Education. All Rights Reserved.