New Jersey and a Sutainable Future New Jersey and a Sutainable Future[Article submitted to The Dockett, the journal of the NJ Council for the Social Studies]
| "Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden [state] grow?" For more decades than not, the answer has been -- all over the place and every which way. And if you went to college out of state, more often than not it was the Turnpike's view of older industries and refineries you had to counter in late night bull sessions where New Jersey was often the butt of jokes. But earnest environmentalists, battling bureaucrats, creative corporate leaders, and concerned community activists who have been contending with one another over the direction of growth in recent decades have begun to rethink their strategies and reformulate their confrontations to seek a more consensual cast to the future. This shift might be a reflection of grass roots insights pushing upward or the beckoning call of global and national leaders who were trying to envision a more sustainable future. Most likely, it's a combination of the two dynamics at work at once. Newspaper reports, for example, announce study trips to the Netherlands for broadly representative delegations of New Jerseyans to study the relevance of the "Dutch Green Plan" which is based more on consensus-building than command and control strategies, for our similarly dense and polluted region.
These questions are at the heart of Global Learning's most recent curriculum development project on New Jersey and Sustainable Development. Last year we conducted a series of briefings with diverse participants on issues of sustainability that are challenging our State:
We learned that there are tons of primary resources available for use by the enterprising teacher and a host of resource people from all walks of life who are willing to fashion and contribute their pieces to the jigsaw puzzle of New Jersey's healthier future. Teachers from Allendale to Newark, North Arlington to Flemington are writing and piloting lessons that will help middle and high school students make connections between their local watershed and their distant water supply, between the food on store shelves, "Jersey fresh" produce, and the survival of farming in an urban state, between personal and local issues and the global commitment to sustainable development. The results of these teachers' creative efforts will be available for dissemination in the coming school year. These lessons should help teachers meet that often elusive requirement -- especially at the secondary level -- to teach New Jersey studies, including within the context of existing courses, whether U.S. history or the world history/cultures requirements. The lessons will also help teachers address the State's recently promulgated so-called standards for social studies such as those addressing societal ideas and forces throughout the history of New Jersey... the economic forces, ideas, and institutions throughout the history of New Jersey... and the three standards focusing on geographical understanding. Mary may maintain her commitment to contrariness, but many of the State's decision makers may find consensus-building more productive for our generation, as well as for those in the future.
|
|