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| Sustainable Education: Lessons from the Arctic |
| Sustainable p. 2 |
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Economic and Ecological Sustainability
Bowers et al. (2000) describe how the dominant Western capitalist-consumerist socioeconomic model reinforced by the modern technocentric educational system has an ecological footprint that undermines the viability of the earth's ecosystems. They explain that many traditional cultures that have adopted alternative pathways of development and demonstrated the capacity to live in long-term sustainable relationships with the environment — as the Iñupiat of arctic Alaska did successfully for most of the past five millennia — could in fact be viewed as “better adapted” in an evolutionary sense. Just as the diversity of species is vital to a healthy ecosystem, they suggest, the maintenance of cultural diversity is equally important in maintaining sustainable human options on the planet.
Given the rather pessimistic scenario described in the preceding section and in light of the arguments put forward by Bowers, et al. above, the question to pose at this point — would be whether it might be possible for the Iñupiat to decide eventually that they had had enough? What if they wanted no more of the Western-originated, technology-dependent socioeconomic model thrust upon them since the development of the Prudhoe Bay oilfields? In other words, could they decide one day to turn the clock back in terms of returning to their self-sufficient, ecologically sustainable, hunting-gathering roots of the not-so-distant past?
As mentioned at the very start of this article, the technology-rich lifestyle that is prevalent today across Alaska’s North Slope is only possible due to the abundant monetary and energy resources made available through the exploitation of the region’s abundant fossil fuel reserves, which have served — since the late 1960s — as the chief engine of socioeconomic change in the area. These reserves are currently dwindling, and will eventually be depleted. Some of the native elders I interviewed perceived that to be a rather positive development. As one individual prophesied gleefully: “Western technology, Western education, will eventually cease in the future here on the North Slope, once the oil stops flowing … All that knowledge that has been acquired here and compiled in these machines will come to a screeching halt. Because when you cannot make electricity to turn your computer on, everything you’ve learned dies with that machine. It will disappear as fast as it came. And once that happens (our traditional) learning can be brought back again, we can re-educate ourselves again … in northern Canada, this American society has not touched the Eskimo population yet, in the Northwest Territories, in Baffin Island, so when this Western society collapses here we’ll bring them in as our teachers. We will bring back the Native way of respecting the land you live on.”
However, a native educator I spoke with cautioned that, while the idea of going back to pre-contact lifeways was a very attractive idea in theory, the Iñupiat of Alaska’s North Slope have now reached a point where they simply cannot exist without modern technological conveniences: “We can’t go back to life as it once used to be, because we just don’t have the knowledge to be able to do that; I am talking about living off the land a hundred percent of the time without technological advances … in this day and age, you can’t survive without some reliance on technology.” Her neighboring colleague agreed heartily: “In my opinion, for a person that has been exposed to this modern world and has nothing but the modern world, it would be hard to go back to nothing. And it would be a big, rude awakening.” She also drew my attention to research suggesting that forthcoming climatic changes across the circumpolar regions — the parts of the earth most dramatically affected thus far by global warming — may well render much of the indigenous knowledge accumulated by the Iñupiat obsolete.
One of my doctoral students at my previous institution won a grant a couple years ago to facilitate the development of public computer labs in remote villages scattered across the mountains of Nepal. Since most of the locations were off the electricity grid, establishing a computer lab meant also generating the electricity to power it. While there were documented benefits to these communities to have access to these labs, nevertheless whenever the labs were in operation the tranquility and clean air of these Himalayan villages were shattered by the roar of gasoline-fueled generators – the only costeffective way determined to produce the electricity to power the labs. So … as we eventually think about moving forward into a more globally (in every sense of the word) sustainable model of education, the core question we need to consider is how to bring about a system that, while providing access to the high technology tools societies and individual learners need to empower themselves, manages to do so without the intense energy and environmental costs that, as Bowers warns, will eventually undermine the Western capitalist-consumerist socioeconomic model that dominates the globe currently. I invite you to join me for these questions and more on my blog at ColleaguesPlus.com where I will be conducting a dialogue with you and others on this article and more.
References
Blackman, M. B. (1989). Sadie Brower Neakok, an Iñupiaq woman. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Boeri, D. (1983). People of the ice whale: Eskimos, white men, and the whale. New York: E. P.
Dutton. Bowers, C. A. (2000). Let them eat data: How computers affect education, cultural diversity, and the prospects of ecological sustainability. Athens: The University of Georgia Press. Bowers, C.A.,
Vasquez, M., & Roaf, M. (2000). Native people and the challenge of computers: Reservation schools, individualism, and consumerism. American Indian Quarterly, 24(2), 182-199.
Chance, N. A. (1990). The Iñupiat and arctic Alaska: An ethnography of development. Forth Worth, TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Subramony, D. P. (2005). The socio-cultural ramifications of technology-rich educational environments within the context of Iñupiat Eskimo learners in a remote Alaskan arctic community: An exploratory case study. Unpublished Dissertation, Indiana University.
Subramony, D. P. (2006). Culturally and geographically relevant performance interventions: A case study from Arctic Alaska. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 19(2), 115-134.
Subramony, D. P. (2007a). Understanding the complex dimensions of the digital divide: Lessons learned in the Alaskan arctic. Journal of Negro Education, 76(1), 57-67.
Subramony, D. P. (2007b). Culturally negotiating the meanings of technology use. In Kidd, T. & Song, H. (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Instructional Systems & Technology. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Worl, R., & Smythe, C. W. (1986). Barrow: A decade of modernization. Anchorage, AK: Minerals Management Service — Alaska Outer Continental Shelf Region.
