Blog 3: How Environment And School Can Be Together

    There is a primary school in Bhutan called Jigme Losel. They are trying to change the country by making it an eco-friendly school. When you walk into the school the first thing you see, everywhere, is flowers and vines. Afterwards you see a sign that has hand prints all over it and says, ‘Let nature be your teacher.’ That is the whole point here. Learning and changing by nature. They have began to circle their curriculum around the environment. It is part of Green Schools for Green Bhutan, in this they initiate their Gross National Happiness (GNH). Instead of being like the rest of the world and measuring they advancement by their Gross Domestic Product, they have decided to use this instead. It has four pillars by which they live; equitable social development, cultural preservation, conservation of environment, and promotion of good governance. In 2009, they decided to converge the conservation of the environment with the education is school. They think that the student that are going to graduate in a few years may really help the rest of the country in the long run.
    I agree. An issue with the world today is that we think that it is all just one big renewable resource that we may use as we please. They truth is we can’t. Eventually some of the things that we use are going to run out. When they do, the countries that were smart enough to come up with smarter, greener ways of living are going to be the ones that prosper. They have been getting a lot of criticism for the way that they run things. I think it makes a lot of people uncomfortable. They also realize the importance of education and how much you can bring. Bhutan’s minister of Education, Thakur Singh Powdyel says, “It's a values-led approach to education that stems from the belief that education should be more than academic attainment, it should be about expanding children's minds and teaching what it is to be human – and at the forefront of this is the conservation of the natural environment." I completely agree with this. Teaching is so much more, and could be so much more than what we make it. We may be ahead for the time being but eventually, I believe it is places like Bhutan that will take the lead.

'Let nature be your teacher': Bhutan takes conservation into the classroom
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/jan/02/nature-teacher-bhutan-conservation-classroom

Ashley Burkhart
2/7/2013
8:52 PM