Dear Clinton is a collection of photographs and letters explaining what public service bridge our students are building. This special collection was produced in partnership with Dear World, an innovative photography venture for social good.
Dear President Clinton,
The Bishnois are the original “tree huggers” and India’s – possibly the world’s – first environmentalists. For 500 years, much before the tragedy of global warming, the Bishnois preserved the delicate eco-balance between humans and mother nature.
As an educator, my teaching philosophy, my views on the purpose of education, and my role as a third-grade teacher have evolved over the years. My country of India and the world as a whole are in the throes of an environmental crisis.
While education has always been a good answer to the world’s problems, the ‘business/factory’ model of education is part of the problem. If we want to change our world, we have to change our educational systems and models. Education needs to be elevated to a higher ecological intelligence level. This ecological intelligence or ecoliteracy is the ability to understand the relationship between the abiotic and biotic. Reconnecting education with the web of life will help our children learn about sustainable communities in nature and introduce them to universal interconnectedness, which would lead to a systematic understanding of life systems.
In sum, education should be trans-disciplinary in outlook with an ecological perspective. We need to challenge the current model of education and invite nature, including farmers, artists, environmentalists, doctors, and politicians, to be educators. And on a global scale, may we create a community that has compassion for all living things, and lives in harmony with nature, just like the Bishnois.
Thank you,
Lauren
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