New Directions in Education
Matriarchs and Matrilines - Honouring our Elders: Sharing Lived Experiences of the Southern Resident Killer Whales of the Salish Sea in Teacher Education
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sandra Scott, Douglas Adler
In this study, we highlight perspectives underpinning the development of an ecological conscious environmental education within teacher education at the University of British Columbia. We consider ways to engage with scientific discourse through community, guided by the theme of ‘honouring our Elders’, and articulated through the lives of the Southern Resident Killer Whales. We story the lives of these critically endangered whales with whom we share the Salish Sea. Elder wisdom held and shared by Orca matriarchs is the lifeblood and Heart Knowledge of three related pods, J, K, and L. With the recent death of 105 year-old matriarch Granny J2, questions arise: Who will assume the role of knowledge keeper of the pods’ lived experiences? What is the future of the Southern Resident Orcas and the Salish Sea as matrilines diminish and disappear into Great Silence? (Saulitis, 2014). We present conversations embracing Elder Knowledge and Elder Wisdom in this Age of the Anthropocene, storied through the lens of how “place” is lived by Elders facing the threat of displacement from their homes, community, and traditional spaces. We share their lived experiences as Ki and Kin (Kimmerer, 2017), honour them with Respect, Reciprocity, Reverence, Responsibility, Rootedness (Archibald, 2008; Kimmerer, 2013, 2017), and nurture interspecies bonds through spiritual, corporeal, and cosmological connections (Fawcett, 1999; Jardine, 1998; Payne & Wattchow, 2009). We conclude with wisdom and inspiration from Robin Wall Kimmerer (2016): “To love a place is not enough. We must find ways to heal it (p. 317)”.
Can Happiness and Well-being Be Sustainable?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Caroline D. Ditlev-Simonsen
At the same time as we are urged to increase our consumption to maintain economic growth, the earth is facing unsustainable development. Resource depletion, environmental challenges, and climate change are some of the many negative consequences of our increased consumption. Gross National Product (GNP) is a key variable when countries “success” is measured. However, research shows that increased consumption and GNP growth, is not correlated with happiness in the long run. In this study I present and compare key models for measuring happiness and wellbeing (for example World Happiness Report, Happy Planet Index, Gross National Happiness etc.). Common for these measurement tools is that they have emerged from developed counties, and developed counties also get the highest score. The Nordic countries are on the top of several of the best known happiness measurements schemes. However, does this prove that people in the Nordic countries are happier that people in Africa (which are on the bottom of most of these scales)? In this study the variables in key happiness and wellbeing measurement tools are evaluated and revised by representatives in Tanzania. A revised and new survey for measuring happiness and wellbeing was developed. This revised model is tested in both Tanzania and Norway.
The Religion in the Room: The Destructive Cost of Failing to Secularize College Economics Classrooms
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Antonia Young
This is an op-ed that calls universities around the world to stop focusing the education of college economics majors on the capitalist dogma and give them the tools to create alternatives to our current destructive linear economy of capitalism. The first theme relates how religion is taught and how capitalism is taught in college economics classrooms; as an undoubted faith in something unknown without much opportunity for questioning such systems and the chance to imagine alternative theories. The second theme explains that unlike traditional religions that teach their pupils the inherent value of the Earth and the need to protect it, economics majors are being taught that the environment is merely a part of the economy, which views Earth as a limitless storehouse for humans to plunder for profit. With a finite Earth, this destructive dogma cannot be perpetuated. It is important that students learn this considering many economics majors go onto to hold occupations of leadership in our societies. The third theme is that education is the key to constructing our future. We are the products of what is passed down to us. Just like how religious beliefs shape the way its pupils go forth into the environment so too does the dogma that our world’s economic professors teach their students. For the sake of our world, professors must allow students to question capitalisms role in our world and give them the chance to explore alternative ideologies- ones that are not destructive to the future of our finite planet.
