Education
is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
William Butler Yeats
Good
educators really “get” the first half of this quote from Yeats. Rote memorization of facts does little to
inspire students. We doubt that it does
much for learning either, preferring to focus instead on developing critical
thinking skills and tools for life-long independent learning. But while few would question the value of a focus
on critical thinking, we do debate our role as educators in lighting
fires.
Throughout
my teaching career, I have been a proponent of providing opportunities for
students to engage in undergraduate research – intense experiences in which
students are co-creators of knowledge, rather than simply vessels to be filled
with facts and ideas that others have already published. It was the transformative opportunity of doing
independent research that lit my own fire as a first-generation student, so
much so that I went on to graduate school to pursue a research-focused career.
As
both an undergraduate and graduate student in science, I was trained to believe
that the process of doing science is an objective one. But this never totally made sense to me. Science performed in a vacuum does little
other than to satisfy one’s curiosity about the world around us or about the secrets
of life at the molecular level. What
makes science so exciting and so
important is that it provides us with the ability to solve complex problems or to
create technology which can be used to improve the quality of life. However, as we learn those secrets of nature
and transform them into tools to manipulate elements of our natural world,
including humans, we are faced with tremendous ethical dilemmas and a
realization that the information we learn can be exploited and used in ways
never intended. Knowledge comes with
power, something that is rarely objective.
So as
educators of science, do we stick to the facts and theories and “the”
scientific method (as if it is a single linear process)? Do we continue to perpetuate the myth that
science is not subjective at times or could never be used for questionable
purposes? I think not. It is important to teach about the social
context of science and to critically evaluate the outcomes of scientific
research. Would this crush an aspiring
young scientist? I certainly hope not.
My
personal career path in science and education has certainly not been a linear
one. I was fortunate to have one of
those early research experiences – working on a project that had an
environmental chemistry focus. I had,
after all, grown up during the first environmental movement of the 1970s and
was clearly influenced by it and by the wilderness-like settings I lived in. I
then went on to graduate school in plant at a time when genetic engineering of
plants was a new field. Because I understand
the science behind the technology, and probably also because I know personally some
of the individuals who created the first genetically modified plants, I tend to
have more positive views about GMOs than many of my friends, despite my ongoing
love for wild places.
Graduate
school was followed by a stint in cancer research when HIV/AIDs first emerged
as a new disease within the gay community.
How can you stay objective when you attend a conference in San Francisco
and walk to the venue through crowds of terrified men – many the same age that
I was – facing an early death and begging you for information on what advances
in science will help them?
To
this day, I show my students the film “And the Band Played On” so that they might
know the early and ugly history of this disease – the science, the cultural
context, the politics, the religious fanaticism, and the fear. This fear was not only experienced by those
dying of HIV infection, but also by the public who was afraid they might catch
this dreadful disease for which there is still no cure over three decades
later. I share my stories of those days
in San Francisco – both the horrors I witnessed and the egos of scientists who
cared more about their future fame than the lives of so many. I find that I can’t simply stick to the facts
about the biochemistry of this disease.
As
fate would have it, I eventually returned to my environmental roots and now
work in the areas of ecological restoration (which involves value judgments
about what to “restore to”) and climate change.
Today, it is the scientists
who are fearful – this time not about a disease, but about the fate of the
planet. They find themselves caught up
in a bizarre social frenzy which is fraught with controversy, public distrust,
media manipulation, and politics. Top
climate scientists are the ones facing the threats of death – simply because of
their area of research. There are many
who aim to silence the voices of researchers like Michael Mann and James Hansen,
attempts that go way beyond those who tried to silence and discredit Rachel
Carson as a “hysterical female” who set aside her science and, in a “tragic
turn” in career began to write fables that encouraged “some of the most
destructive strains within environmentalism: alarmism, technophobia, failure to
consider the costs and benefits of alternatives, and the discounting of human
well-being around the world.”
Science
textbooks don’t tell stories about the character assassinations and death
threats. And nowhere in my science training
was I told that these sorts of things might happen, perhaps because it didn’t
happen in the past. But today, be it
climate change, evolution, nutrition, or genetic engineering, science has been
flung into the throes of political battlegrounds. Should I ignore this in my teaching?
At a
time when society is faced with tremendous challenges of poverty and growing inequality,
global environmental problems, food security, new and emerging diseases,
scarcity of resources, and conflict, more than ever we need not only science
and technology, but also innovative thinkers, advocates and activists. We need educated people who aren’t content
with simply finding a job, but are still idealistic enough to want to change
the world for the better. In other
words, we need higher education to lead the charge in lighting fires, to be
inspiring the next generation of problem solvers who will work at the front
lines of these grand challenges of the 21st century.
So is
this happening? Today, there is pervasive
criticism of higher education on many fronts ranging from tax payers to the
White House. Administrators don’t want
to rock the boat, or more precisely, are begging faculty not to rock the
boat. They implore us to be more
balanced in what we teach or in who we invite as speakers to campus – so as not
to offend or discourage potential donors or prospective students. Public institutions fall into line of
submission for fear of losing state and federal funding. The modus
operandi is to keep the faculty busy learning new technology which
supposedly will enhance learning or filling out assessment reports to appease
Washington, so they say. But perhaps it
is really just to keep faculty busy so that we don’t have time to incite a
movement or write a provocative op-ed.
We wouldn’t want to tarnish the image of the institution.
What
happened to the times when college campuses were at the forefront of calling
for social change – be it during the civil rights movement, the environmental
movement, or calling for divestment during the times of apartheid? I applaud the handful of students who are now
calling for divestment of another sort – aimed at shifting investment funds
from fossil fuel-related corporations and calling attention to global climate
change. And kudos to the almost 400
students who were arrested in Washington, D.C. this past weekend. They, along with busloads of others were
protesting the Keystone XL pipeline project.
A few
years ago, during the fall of the Occupy Movement, I participated in a march in
Washington about the same pipeline project.
When I came back to campus and told students in my Introduction to
Environmental Science course about the experience, it was obvious that they
were a) shocked that I would do something like this (it isn’t what scientists
do), and b) fearful that it was my expectation of them to do sometime similar
(it wasn’t). But, we talked about their
obvious aversion to political activism.
Some noted that such activity would be a black mark on their record,
thus hurting their chances for securing a job in the future. Most didn’t have a clue as to what the Keystone
Pipeline XL project was. My bad. I hadn’t yet gotten to the chapters on energy
or climate change. But surely they must
have seen something via social media from 350.org or other organizations? Nope, they had no idea who Bill McKibben is. I witnessed, with some sadness, the same
reaction and lack of awareness of current events from students in my first year
seminar which had the title of The Future
of Nature and Humans: 21st Century Environmentalism. My fault I guess. I hadn’t yet added those details into their
pails.
Since
that incident, I have been thinking a lot about these messy issues. My work with the United Nations on climate change
has taught me that while science might get countries to the negotiations table,
policy and multilateral agreements will ultimately be battles about economics,
cultural differences, national priorities, and politics. Nothing about the process is objective or logical. But the process is filled with passionate
people who care about the future of the planet, or at least their countries,
and about protecting their people and national interests. In too many of my students, I see apathy,
disconnect with current events, and a lack of awareness of historical context.
Over
the past few years, we have brought some fascinating speakers to campus. Some were involved in the civil rights
movement (Jesse Jackson and John Lewis).
Winona LaDuke talked about environmental and cultural sustainability
initiatives on reservations. Students
wanted to know how she dealt with the label of “activist’. Her response:
“I don’t consider myself an activist, just a responsible citizen.” Perfect.
Ph.D. biologist and author Sandra Steingraber spoke of the need for a
liberal arts education to understand issues like natural gas extraction
(fracking), to be able to formulate educated positions about whether it is a
good idea or not. Yes, she is an
activist, but that wasn’t her message on our campus. Each of these speakers illustrated to students
what it means to be engaged in a cause, to care about something.
What has been the response? Students texted during the talks, and
administrators ask us to be more balanced in our choice of speakers (reportedly
because some donors and board members were upset). Aren’t issues like inequality, the impact of the
forces of capitalism, the consequences of past and present exploitations,
social and environmental justice, clean energy (or energy independence), and
climate change the very ones that we should be lighting fires over? If not us in higher education, then who? Many colleges and universities have somewhere
in their mission statement a line about preparing students for “service for the
common good.” If we aren’t tackling the
big questions of our time, what “common good” are we working towards? And who decides? These aren’t questions that are objective, or
ones that any science I know can answer.
Recently, I
was reading a blog post that pointed out that more than twenty years ago the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS 1990) concluded that
scientific goals to solve society’s problems are fostered by a greater emphasis
on liberal education. In other words, it is the liberal education
of students that will help move science out of the laboratory and into practice
for the common good. To create those
responsible citizens that Ms. LaDuke spoke of.
Along these lines, the Association
of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has a major initiative known
as LEAP:
Liberal
Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) is an initiative that champions the
value of a liberal education—for individual students and for a nation dependent
on economic creativity and democratic vitality.
In
making a “Civic Case” for a liberal education, AAC&U has a slide
presentation on their LEAP website (see reference 3) that is really worth all
of us on college campuses to peruse. Two
slides in particular that caught my attention contained excerpts on “Education and Citizenship” from Ben
Barber in An
Aristocracy of Everyone:
The fundamental task of education in a democracy is the
apprenticeship of liberty—learning to be free... The literacy required to live
in civil society, the competence to participate in democratic communities, the
ability to think critically and act deliberately in a pluralistic world, the
empathy that permits us to hear and thus accommodate others, all involve skills
that must be acquired..
“Democracy is not a natural form...; it is an
extraordinary and rare contrivance of cultivated imagination... [E]ndow the
uneducated with a right to make collective decisions and what results is not
democracy but...the government of private prejudice and the tyranny of
opinion...”
Reviews
of this book indicate that Barber’s perspectives are controversial, critical of
conservative views, and exciting.
Exactly the types of topics we should be debating on campuses over
twenty years later.
In
2010, I wrote a chapter for a monograph published by the Council on
Undergraduate Research entitled “The Role of Department Chairs in Promoting and
Supporting Transformative Research.” In that chapter, I noted that
In defining liberal education, the AAC&U LEAP
initiative speaks of preparing individuals to deal with complexity—to “develop
a sense of social responsibility, as well as strong and transferable intellectual
and practical skills such as communication, analytical and problem-solving
skills, and a demonstrated ability to apply knowledge and skills in real-world
settings.”
The goal of creating an academic environment that could
lead to transformative research is certainly not contrary to the institutional
goals of liberally educating students and preparing them for making a positive
impact on society. Indeed, students who are being taught in an environment that
promotes critical thinking, a sense of social responsibility, and the application
of knowledge gained to solve real-world problems are precisely the type of students who will likely be the next
generation of innovators.
In
rereading this now, I realize that the experiences of my non-linear career path
were starting to converge in those words.
My role as educator, was to not only teach students about science and to
give them experiences in research, but also to inspire in them a desire to be
socially responsible and use their knowledge and experience to solve some of
the world’s most challenging problems. A
lofty ambition, perhaps, but in my mind, an essential one.
I
take students to the United Nation climate change conferences so that they can
see the many world views on this topic that differ from the official position
of the U.S. We grapple over
environmental and social justice issues when we are in the field of the largest
Superfund site east of the Mississippi River, trying to figure out how to
revegetate a mountain. We even read
excerpts from those who started the environmental movement and maintain it
today. Some of those famous scientists,
writers, and activists have radical views, but they have changed public policy
in this country, and some have had global impacts. Certainly not the stuff of objective science,
the type that is safely done in laboratories, hidden amongst the beakers and
solutions and equipment. If my students
and I simply stayed in the labs and focused only on reciting the facts, would
we be working on problems that really matter?
And if so, we would be doing so without really understanding the social
and political context of the problems or any solution that we might come up
with.
~~~
If
you are still following this rambling, you may be wondering what prompted this
diatribe. Several times in the past few
months, I have found myself at conferences where the question of whether
scientists should be engaged in advocacy on issues such as climate change. I have been approached by some who fear that
my climate change work is too liberal. And
recently, our college president chose to publicly admonish a colleague who
wrote a thought-provoking, well-written opinion piece that was published in a
local paper.
What
is this left-leaning work of mine that has some concerned? I lead a project that involves ecological
monitoring of eastern Pennsylvania, to see if there are signs of the impacts of
a changing climate and whether we can predict vulnerability of species and
habitats. I serve on both state and
international committees trying to advocate for science to be used in
developing policy related to climate change.
My students, colleagues, and I blog from the U.N. meetings to report on
what we are hearing and learning, since most of this is not covered by the U.S.
media. I even occasionally have an op-ed
published, some of which are subjective, non-scientific pieces. Others are carefully crafted responses
(retorts) to some really uneducated letters-to-the-editor that are filled with
all sorts of factual errors, especially ones on the topic of climate change. All radical stuff, I suppose, at least for a
scientist and an educator.
I
have a number of colleagues from other institutions who believe that it is an
ethical obligation of higher education to deal with climate change – through
curriculum, research, modeling best practices of sustainable practices, and
public outreach. I was recently reading
a blog post on this topic and realized that Dr. John Lemons from the School of
Law at Widener University captured the very essence of what I have been
thinking in a much more articulate way that I could have written. So to conclude, I share four excerpts from
Dr. Lemons’ essay with emphasis added.
Why
should universities deal with global climate change in a more wide-spread and
comprehensive manner? The reason lies within university responsibilities to
educate about important societal issues across all disciplines, including the
benefits of liberal education for all students.
Recent quantifiable scientific evidence concludes that mitigation of serious
and irreversible consequences of global climate change are plausible but only
if urgent action is taken within about a decade or so. Drawing on assessments
about the efficacy of environmental and sustainability programs, it seems clear
that “piecemeal” approaches to addressing the complicated root causes and
possible solutions to global climate change will not work. Because of the
pervasive influences that have caused global climate change, its solution needs
to include all disciplines and programs.
In
order to foster comprehensive education about global climate change, it will be
necessary for educators and environmental scientists and managers, and
high-level university administrators to advocate for university reform. One
might not relish being involved in advocacy, but the stark choice is this:
Either engage in advocacy or not. But if not, understand that this is a
decision, intentional or unwitting, to support the status quo that is
responsible for global climate change. Scientists or
other educators who might be reticent to engage in advocacy because of fear
that it might compromise real or perceived objectivity would be well advised to
read Lemons (1987), Nelson and Vucetich (2009), and Moore and Nelson (2010)
which dispel myths about the legitimacy of such reticence.
Seth (2008) makes
explicit the failure of higher education to address the strong ties between
capitalism and ever-increasing consumerism which, of course, increases the
problems of global climate change. Vucetich and Nelson (2010) demonstrate how
the lack of inclusion of ethics into sustainability programs, and by extension
those with a focus on global climate change, is stifling progress. Nussbaum
(2010) also lends her voice to how universities
have neglected liberal and civic education and by doing so contribute to the
root causes of problems such as global climate change.
The
failure of universities to develop comprehensive global climate change programs
might also stem from a lack of attention to responsibilities that come with the
protection of academic freedom, which not only allows faculty to conduct their
own teaching and research, but also entails the responsibility to enable all
students through university-wide programs of study to acquire learning to make
significant contributions to society (AACU 2006). Academic
freedom therefore requires faculty to advocate for the inclusion of
comprehensive global climate change programs. Surely, global climate is a huge
societal problem. Further, if faculty
members avoid taking action this implicitly or unwittingly represents a form of
advocacy because it is tantamount to supporting continuation of the status quo
that is responsible for global climate change.
These
excerpts include citations that can be found at the link that I provide; I highly
encourage you to read the entire piece by Dr. Lemons. And thanks for reading mine.
Benjamin R.
Barber, An Aristocracy of Everyone: The Politics of Education and the Future of
America, Oxford University Press, 1992.
