Middlebury College ENVS0300: Approaching Sustainability from the Roots
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During the spring semesters of 2019, 2020, and 2021 as a Professor of the Practice at Middlebury College I designed and taught "Approaching Sustainability from the Roots" in the Environmental Studies Program.
The course explores ancients texts, indigenous ways of being, social and climate justice, dominant worldviews, systems theories, economics, social impacts of all media in order to consider what is missing from today's sustainability practices and movements that should be re-learned to re-imagine a world where planetary and human health are the metrics of success. There is a mentoring component to the course as well. Each student is matched with a practitioner that relates to their interest for a conversation or two. For 12 weeks each student commits to a contemplative practice and to studying Lao Tzu's Daode Jing. They are asked to integrate this practice into their personal inquiries to make visible the well-being of the individual as the root of our inter-dependent and inter-connected collective health and species survival. |
Discussing how we adapt communities and local economics based on Kate Raworth's "Doughnut Economics". May 2019
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Sharing after a contemplative classroom practice painting silently in pairs while considering the human place in the universe after reading "Journey of the Universe" by Mary Evelyn Tucker and Brian Swimme. March 2020 (pre-covid evacuation)
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Sharing our empty vessel basketmaking stories after our visit from Abenaki Educator Judy Dow. Outdoor socially distant classroom, April 2021
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