Carlie Naughton
Roland Kenny
Final Essay
Sustainability has become vital to humanities’ survival. If the average pace of living is continued,
consuming faster and faster every year, then the world is surely headed for an unpleasant end. People
are becoming more aware of the fact that globalization is taking over the planet and may not necessarily
be a good thing and they are becoming more receptive to the idea that something needs to change.
However, to start to culminate change in the way humans live, something simple must be done first.
Why not have education starting with kindergarten have a focus on sustainability? Rather than
experiencing the first major exposure to these environmental issues in a college classroom, it would be
part of a child’s upbringing. There has already been a push for major education reform, and some
changes have already been made, such as teaching the importance of recycling and energy saving. The
younger a person is, the more vulnerable they are. This vulnerability can be a good thing when it allows
a child’s mind to be molded in a positive fashion. Teaching the importance of sustainable living, energy
sharing and conservation and the globalization phenomena is the key to creating a more sustainable
culture and better place to live.
Only with education reform can sustainable living take hold in the world today. Approaching a
person’s mind at a very young age with a set of ideas (obviously in this case all things sustainable vs.
having lots of things), that set of ideas will take root and help instill values and morals that reflect the
movement for a more sustainable culture (for instance, littering would only be considered wrong
because many laws prohibit it, it would feel wrong, much like stealing, and would generate guilt from
the culprit). Participants in a May 2007 an international workshop in Sweden on the role of early
childhood education in a sustainable society brought many childhood professionals together and they
agreed that the traditions of early childhood pedagogies aligned with education for sustainability, such
as the inter-disciplinary approach, using nature for learning, learning through experiments and real-life
projects, and the involvement of parents and communities.1 In addition to keeping with these ideas, it is
important that children are taught the 7 Rs. These would join or replace the traditional 3 Rs – reading,
writing, and arithmetic. These seven new important ideals are reduce, reuse, recycle, respect, reflect,
repair and responsibility, and they will help the education reform take a strong hold and change our
planet. Even something as simple as eating less meat can help with the sustainable movement. If
education is over-hauled, and edited to include these important life lessons at an early age, then the
world will soon be moving in a more positive direction because the generations of the future will be
knowledgeable about what needs to change in order for the cultural paradigm to change tides and head
for a more sustainable way of life.
Teaching the next generation the importance of energy sharing is another task that must be set
in motion and completed. As Thomas Friedman says, the world is now flat. It has becoming flat for a few
years in the making now and it keeps getting flatter.2 This flatness has essentially leveled the playing
field. New technologies make it easier to share different types of energies all around the globe. The
internet is the most obvious example of this idea. It can connect countries that hadn’t previously been
involved in international affairs to major world powers. Energy sharing and energy conservation are
crucial to maintaining a sustainable way of life. Fossil fuels are obviously non-renewable and new energy
1
Assadourian, Erik, Linda Starke, and Lisa Mastny. "Education's New Assignment: Sustainability." State of the
World, 2010: Transforming Cultures : from Consumerism to Sustainability : a Worldwatch Institute
Report on Progress toward a Sustainable Society. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print.
2
Friedman, Thomas L. The World Is Flat: a Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 2006. Print.
needs to be put in their place. At the end of the film, after basically shaming everyone with the way
humanity has treated the earth, the narrator lists some alternative forms of power that are being
employed to positively affect the planet- sea snakes (using the oceans waves to generate power) and
wind turbines being just a few.3 It is important to make sure that the next generation is aware of how
much energy sharing and conservation of energy can make a difference. Putting these ideas in the minds
of children will make them seem the natural choice as they age. The train of thought will be ‘of course
I’m going to walk to work when its only 6 blocks away’ instead of ‘why would I walk to work and risk
ruining my new suit and not being able to show off the new escalade’.
During an education reform, globalization and all that it can cause should not be left out.
Globalization has been deemed a danger to the world at the rate it is currently progressing. Though
globalization in itself can be a very good thing (creating a worldwide market, making countries more
banded together, more exchange of ideas and customs), it can also be harmful. The children of the next
generation need to be educated on this topic. They need to be made aware that globalization can
produce a domino effect. Because so many countries markets are so closely intertwined and so reliant
on each other, when one falls or experiences a slump, others are bound to as well. Globalization can
also cause job loss as companies relocate someplace where the labor and costs of running a business are
much smaller. Teaching students in high school what globalization is, what its capable of and what it has
done so far can help protect the next generation from making mistakes that have been made in the
past. Young people are more susceptible to marketing and commercialism. Educating them on the issues
at hand will ensure that they at least have an idea of what they’re up against.
Education reform is necessary to keep up with the way the world is changing. As humanity
becomes lost in a sea of new technologies and vast consumerism culture, education must be the beacon
3
HOME, 2008 film by Yaan Arthus Bertrand
that pulls the world back into a realm of possibility and understanding. The importance of sustainable
living, energy sharing and conservation, and understanding globalization are all imperative if America,
and the world, is to be a pleasant place to live in the future. The next generation will learn from the
mistakes of generations past, and education reform will succeed across the globe. It has to, if
sustainable living is to be achieved as the world moves forward, ever faster.
Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) is a political action committee whose mission is to
encourage a more productive dialogue within the Democratic Party on the need to fundamentally
reform American public education. According to their website, DFER operates on all levels of
government to educate elected officials and support reform-minded candidates for public office.
Obviously, this group is very effective because they have a large amount of supporters and can reach
many people because of their national status.
Carlie’s opinion: I think that every citizen has the duty and the right to educate themselves. As
the world changes and grows, what is most important changes along with that. Its our civil duty to make
sure that we are educated in the direction change is heading. As living a more sustainable life is
necessary now for the planets health, we must all try to move in that direction. Its our job to make sure
the younger people and school aged children have knowledge appropriate for their capacity to learn.
We need to make sure that the education reform is a success because sustainability can only be built if
we have a solid understanding of why it is necessary.
Roland’s opinion: I agree with the position on teaching sustainability at a young age. Have you
ever heard you the phrase, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Well it is the same with humans. We
are creatures of habit, and you can’t ask a 30 year old human to completely change overnight if at all.
They say that the human brain is at its highest developmental stage between the ages 3-8. So the key is
to teach the youth at susceptible ages to think about the future. Show them the path to a culture of
sustainability. Teach them that over consumption will harm their future. Kids are smarter than one
would think. It is imperative that we try and shape their future into a mold of post-consumer culture.
We will never be able to change world culture without stopping the marketing agencies from targeting
young adults and young kids, unless we teach the kids to not trust companies. We have a chance to curb
the globalization of economies into a globalization policy of sustainability, if we focus our energy and
resources on the youth of tomorrow.
Rights and Responsibilities of an Average Citizen Relative to this issue: The average citizen has
the right to decide what kind of education their child should get, but who wouldn’t want one that
includes a better future for humanity? It’s a civic responsibility to make sure that the do children get an
education, and education reform will ensure a proper, necessary, applicable education. Parents have the
authority as to what their child can be exposed to, but they should be exposing them to what the world
is becoming. Teaching the basics of sustainable living in the home is an easy way to enlighten children
on simple ways they can help.