Challenges to Joining MN Forest and K-12 Public Education Efforts and Initiatives

If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.

-- Hal Borland

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Despite the many attributes that may be derived from collaborative efforts and the academic literature supporting place-based, inter-disciplinary, and experiential learning, many challenges face collaborative efforts between Minnesota forestry and Minnesota K-12 public education.

National Trends in Public Education

The Bush administration has heavily promoted educational standards and testing assessments to improve education in the United States. The No Child Left Behind Act and sub-sequent intitiatives emphasize achievement, rigor, competitivenesse, and technical skills. A recent publication titled "Meeting the Challenge of a Changing World: Strengthening Education for the 21st Century" identifies the following challenges and solutions:

  • innovating education -- President Bush's 2006 Education Agenda (which includes the intitiatives listed below)
  • improving math and science knowledge -- American Competitiveness Initiative
  • accelerating our schools' progress -- High School Reform Initiative
  • promoting freedom and understanding -- National Security Language Initiative

The intitiatives and programs of the 2006 Education Agenda promote international competition, rigorous standards, and education in the name of national security. These ideals are in sharp contrast to cooperation and collaboration, integrated and inter-disciplinary teaching methods, and education in the name of human and environmental values that are promoted by environemental, place, community, experiential, and service -based education movements. When the federal government is promoting and endorsing one way, both in theory and funding, it is difficult to work against the grain.

Minnesota Academic Standards

"Because there are no environmental education standards noted in the state science or social studies standards, not many school groups choose the forest management class. Groups want programs that help their students to meet state graduation standards", Program Coordinator, Laurentian Environmental Center. A similar response was recieved by another Minnesota environmental learning center. When national trends promote standards and achievement, state trends are likely to follow. In order to "stay competitive" with other states and provide Minnesota students a fair, equal, or better opportunity to enter higher education or a workplace anywhere they choose, teaching standards and basic skills must be a high priority. This means that value-laden education is slighted. As specified by the initiative listed above, science and math become the life-blood for funding, assessment, and support, while endorsement of time and money for the value of arts, social studies, and physical education wanes.

Minnesota Education Standards do have the capacity to accomadate forest ecosystem education, through standards like 'Life Sciences and Scientific Inquiry'. However, issues and topics of management that bring the value of resources and long term consideration of ecosystem health and integrity lose a foothold because there are no standards requiring students develop skills to judge ecological value. It is not to say that teachers cannot incorporate these questions and considerations in, but the first priority becomes covering and reinforcing standardized test material.

Funding

Engaging in learning and work outside of the classroom requires additional funding for transportation, teacher training, resources and equipment, etc. In a time when funds are being cut from schools, eliminating activities like field trips are easy ways to adjust spending. Also, for kids, going to an environmental learning center for a few nights costs money, which may pose problems. Funding is also short on the non-profit end. Overall, cuts and rejection for funding are easy to justify when there are no numbers or easilty quantifiable means to proving that learning has taken place.

In the same way, educational outreach and promotion demands time and money from government agencies and non-profit organizations. When forest maintenance, research, and restorative efforts need to happen now in order to sustain current health and integrity and protect from further damage, funds will likely be allocated there first, and then to education.

Educator Training and Resources

Educators may not be trained to take on place-based education in a forest setting or to integrate forests into curricula. If they know little to nothing about Minnesota forests themselves, then it is unlikely that they will seek out resources, integrate forests into their curriculum, or even know where to begin if they did want to focus on Minnesota forests. A certain degree of teacher educational outreach needs to complement collaborative efforts.

Assumptions

There are many assumptions within the educational community that place and community based reform methods are in conflict with standards based reforms, coming both from advocates of more locally oriented curricula and those who uphold learning standards. If the purpose of institutionalizing state-based standards is to assure that regardless of what school a student graduates from, he or she is equally qualified to enter post-graduate education anywhere in the country or world, then it is easy to assume that focus on local environments, issues, and people as a learning context, is a major dis-advantage to students (Jennings 49). "Sustainabilty" does not appear within the standards, desired outcomes, or benchmarks language of the Minnesota science or social studies education standards. It is not assumed to be important or pertinent enough yet to be mandated material. Until it is assumed by an education system to be important, it is unlikely to be widely taught (Gruenewald 2005).