Do we know what we are doing? New online text and some other things!

Do we know what we are doing?  Reflections on learning, knowledge, economics, community and
sustainability.

 Rolf Jucker has just published what he terms "his farewell text on ESD" text online. I an impressed by the depth and breadth of his thinking. Do have a look.      http://rolfjucker.net/


Abstract: The discourse of education for sustainability has been severely limited by the fact that it
largely refuses to acknowledge important insights from other fields of learning and
knowledge. A denial to engage with central insights with regard to how the world and more
specifically how human interaction with the human and non-human world work means that
it has been to a large extent a self-centred discourse. It is tangled up in reflections on
education without contextualising this in the real world. My main point is that not just
education in general, but also so-called education for sustainable development (ESD) needs
to perform a radical paradigm shift and become communal learning in real-time in a real
place. And this necessitates a willingness to face some tough questions on the prevailing
denial.  (Berne, 2014)


Se-ed are continuing to do great things and are running a series of webinars at around £10 a throw.
http://se-ed.co.uk/edu/

Ellen McArthur is busy at Davos and Unilever have just joined her Circular Economy group. Also The Ellen Mc Arthur Foundation has just published the 3rd chapter of their work to try and mainstream Circular Economy thinking and turn it into practice.
 http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/news/project-mainstream

"Following the release of Towards the Circular Economy vol.3, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation announces Project Mainstream, a collaborative project which could help businesses to shift towards a circular economy and as a result save US$ 500 million in materials and prevent 100 million tonnes of waste globally."

Saw a 3D printer at work yesterday. Hard to believe what I was seeing and touching.Imagine wanting a part for a machine and living far away from the parts dept. A local 3D printer could be the solution. Find and download the software and away you go.
Here's a tale for you! In 1971 in Mwinilunga, NW province of Zambia, near the source of the great Zambezi river, we were working in a secondary school of 800+ students and  100+ staff when the town water-pump broke. We, well mainly my colleague Steve Bodsworth, kept the school and hospital going for 3 months until the parts arrived. Households had to survive on two buckets of water a day. Luckily we had just installed two 2000 gallon tanks on the school farm. These were uprooted and one placed near the school kitchens and the other by the hospital. Then making one out of two very old 250cc Villiers water-pumps useable, borrowing a 500 gallon water-bowser, putting onto a "donated" gov't trailer hauled by a borrowed land-rover, Steve filled up the two tanks nearly every day for months taking water from the river Lunga. The pupils washed in the river and kept a look-out for crocs!

The Global Learning Programme (GLP)

The Global Learning Programme is funded by the Department for International Development and runs from 2013 to 2017. It is managed by a consortium of leading global learning and educational organisations: Pearson (lead), Geographical Association, Institute of Education, Oxfam UK, Royal Geographical Society, SSAT and Think Global. The Institute of Education (through DERC) is leading on two workstreams: Continuing Professional Development and Research and Evaluation. 

We are delighted to let you know about the new Global Learning Programme (GLP) for England which launches this month. The GLP is a ground-breaking new programme which will create a national network of like-minded schools, committed to equipping their pupils to make a positive contribution to a globalised world by helping their teachers to deliver effective teaching and learning about development and global issues at Key Stages 2 and 3.

The programme supports teachers to help their pupils learn about the challenges our world faces and think critically about how to deal with issues such as poverty, inequality and sustainability. It helps pupils make sense of the world in which they live and to understand their role within a global society. It puts a primary focus on developing pupil’s knowledge and understanding of development and global issues through subject-based learning in key curriculum areas. It also recognises the important role global learning initiatives can have in encouraging pupils’ values and skills development.

 

The GLP offers schools in England:

• A free peer-led locally-based programme of support to enhance teaching about global issues and whole school approaches to global learning; 

•  e-credits which schools can use to pay for CPD from approved providers;

•  A specialised online audit tool for schools to highlight current global learning strengths and areas of priority; 

• An individualised action plan for schools to understand how they might enhance future global learning provision; 

• Curriculum guidance to support global learning in key subject areas; 

• Easily-accessible and approved resources available to support classroom teaching and whole-school global learning initiatives; 

• An online tool to assess pupils’ global learning; 

• Opportunities for teachers to become accredited GLP Lead Practitioners and for schools to become GLP Expert Centres;

• The Innovation Fund to support teacher-led research on a global learning issue.

To find out more about the GLP and to register your school visit: 

Website: www.glp-e.org.uk.

Email: glp@pearson.com 

Twitter: @glp-e

A Sense of Place

A sense of place

What might this mean to have “a sense of place”?

Is it somewhere we know, belong, relate to, feel safe in, are drawn to, feel at home in, long for, dream about, think about often, remember fondly, use as a reference point to compare with other places, place our heart upon, store our treasures there, feel treasured there, go to sleep there, meditate, make love, bring our friends, wish to share with others, keep secret, keep clean and tidy, look after, care for, feel a part of?

Is it large or small, low or high, indoors or outside, here and now or elsewhere, maybe always elsewhere? Is it where our roots are, where we were born and grew up, our parents home, our “heimat”, where our ancestors are buried or roam?

It is and can be all of these things

The scale can be from a mere fleeting thought, through heart-felt musings, a doll’s house filled with carefully placed ideas and memories, a photo album of the past, a room, sitting on a loving parent’s knee, a bench overlooking a mere with birds swooping, swans almost still, gently moving surface, breeze in the leaves of a willow caressing the lake’s edge on a cool Spring morning behind Rostherne church where I was christened.

It could be your first home or your last home, the backyard, street or garden, shared games with mates on a summer’s day, being called in to bed whilst it’s still light, but nearly 9pm.

The smell of pine forest, collecting and cooking wild mushrooms, so much knowledge transmitted by a loving parent, mediated learning of all that surrounds me.

The dales, each so different, yet so familiar, the field patterns, the cows and sheep, ducks and geese flying, dusk sounds of nesting and preparations for the night, open fires, baked potatoes too hot to hold, being part of a group, maybe a family old or new, maybe friends or better in some ways with strangers sharing a love of place, a refuge in the mountains.

Going for a “pee” at 2am, unzipping the tent, no light pollution, Ibex hooves clattering on the rocks below Mont Perdu above a frozen lake at over 2500 metres, the whole sky filled with stars, feeling in awe yet part of the universe. We are all star dust.

             

Write about your “Place”.

An autobiography in 10 chapters. Maybe just the headings with a brief comment on each. Perhaps start with a time line of your life. Then annotate it. Look for the “sense of place”. Could start with a list of “Places where I have lived”.

A set of photos, across time, old and recent and space close up and panoramic views. Could be images of just one place. Google sense of place and look at images.

Transition 2.0 to be shown today!

Willow and other materials for making baskets and plant supports.

What a boring title. I've been on two 1day courses for working with basket making materials.
Firstly, here in Bristol making plant supports and a willow ball (much enjoyed by Molly & Flo's two kittens Nim & Trixie. Imogen & I repeated the willow ball (with a small sponge tennis ball in the middle, removed once the structure was self suporting) and she made an excellent willow ball for her guinea pig. The plant support is holding up the huge pink Peonies by the front door. The larger, taller plant support will be for runner beans, transplanted yesterday.
The second workshop this April was given by our friends Jane & Peter at their place near Mirande in SW France, where they have been for 11 years now, teaching & practicing permaculture. A walk through their woods revealed many differnet materials which can be used for making things using basket weaving techniques. We gathered Hazel (thick & thin), Butcher's Broom (prickly with red berries but wonderfully straight and green), wild Clematis (old vines make excellent basket handles), Broom (covered in yellow flowers) and noticed the difference made by managing the woodland (also, badger setts, old tracks, ditches and  the remains of a large pit alledgedly used for an arms cache by the Resistance during WWII). I spent a morning with them coppicing two old Hazel coppices, using some of the material for a bean frame. Yes I know we should be harvesting in late winter when the sap is not rising. After an excellent lunch, (we all brought food to share, amazing how this always seems to work with no planning), we made frames for the baskets and then set about weaving them. Jane had plenty of dried bullrushes dampened and wrapped in old wet towels. I have never used rushes before and found them to be a wonderful material to handle. She also has rows of different willow growing, some of  which had been harvested, stored and then put in an old bath to soak for a few days prior to use in order to soften them. I made a little basket from fresh Hazel, Butcher's Broom and old dried (redampened/softened) rushes. We swapped some different willow cuttings.
It is hard to convey the atmosphere of joy and frustration, satisfaction and wonder amongst the group mostly making a basket for the first time. I am more determined than ever to teach the grandchildren how to make things themsleves using natural materials (often found) and basket weaving techniques.

What a mixture - wabi sabi, Tesco, non-linear pedagogy and Globalisation.

Convergence today of a number of very diverse findings. Or are they?

I am "Exploring non-linear pedagogical approaches to ESDGC".

"Oh no Tesco!" New Internationalist Blog about a Tesco supermarket opening in Keynsham near Bristol. Read the comments.

An article on Pelican web about "The biology of Globalisation".

LESSONS OF NATURE

• All living systems self-organize and maintain themselves by the same biological principles, which we can identify and abstract.
• Among the principles essential to the health of living systems are empowered participation of all parts and continual negotiation of self-interest at all levels of organization.
• Humanity constitutes a living system within the larger living system of our Earth.
• Essential to the health of humanity is empowered participation of all humans and negotiated self-interest among individual, local and global economies as well as the Earth itself.


An e-mail about wabi sabi with a quote from "The Soul of Rumi".

How much longer will my poor old shed last?
The decay, weathering and changes after a hard winter.
The soil crumbly from the frost. Weeds enjoying freedom.
Clearing dead leaves from the pond. Sorry sleeping frog!
Cutting some willow.
Make something with the grandchildren over half term?
Raking up windblown rubbish and have a bonfire.
The snowdrops and croci emerging.
Catkins on the hazel bushes. Birdsong.

Only the good die young

If I had enough time, I’d work on the barn more slowly, say no not today, maybe tomorrow I’ll help you sort out *&%^$** .

I’d play my saxophone every day, use my rowing machine and lose that extra stone, play the guitar again, dig over my allotment more thoroughly, not in such a rush, enjoying the moment, the smell of the broken soil, watching the worms, the earwig scuttling off, carefully picking out every last bit of fragile, white bindweed root …..

but in fact I’m trying to practise Permaculture, so I don’t dig over the whole allotment ever, usually I leave it covered perhaps with a green manure such as field beans or cardboard, composted leaves or leave the stalks with seed heads for the birds and the untidy joy of the seasons displayed, first frost on browning leaves.

Yes it is autumn now, the leaves so colourful have started falling in earnest now.

Each time I drive to Rob’s deserted deathly hush flat there are more leaves on the pavements of Redland, leaves being removed from green Clifton lawns and yes our Green has been covered, overshadowed, lost, yet not gone in our hearts. Molly his just teenage daughter still senses his presence.

For 15 days I’ve been stirring up his immaculately organised stuff, delving into his affairs, stopping his life with letters, death certificates, phone calls, moves towards probate, an ever approaching finality          ,     that my son-in-law and friend is really dead, his goods and chattels dispersed, his life deconstructed.

Beautifully shaped yellow maple leaves waiting to fall. The red leaves on the Japanese maple next to the Buddha in my garden who gently smiles at me.

Robert Leslie Green 12^th August 1964 – 8^th October 2010

Making your own timber and furniture oil

Been treating the barn framework with a mixture of 60% linseed oil, 40% turpentine and a drying agent 2%. The old timber beams and uprights needed wirebrushing and cleaning, but now they are all painted with the oil, the colours in the wood stand out. Some of the timbers are pre1750, most from early 1800s, all very local I think. Many had already been used a couple of times at least. 5 new timbers were from local oak trees cut up by Phillipe Abadie at the saw mill less than a kilometre away, and delivered as green oak in Sept 2008, when we started the barn renovation, so lees than 2 years old. The oldest timbers are nearly black and deeply grained, the 1800s uprights are deep red/brown and the new oak as you would expect still very pale but darkening even after 2 years. Great pleasure to see these warm colours come alive from the dust and years of use.
I  have used this mixture on floors (chestnut), the stairs (turkey oak) and garden furniture.
The beans and tomatoes planted in late May are going crazy now, enough for some everyday.