Being Direct About Sustainability

 

As an educator in training, I will be starting my fieldwork experience working with children in a virtual classroom space. I will share the responsibility with my colleagues of teaching elementary students about how to create a sustainable environment and what that means. Sustainability is arguably the most vital issues that can be taught because if the next generations fail to care for our planet, the results will be catastrophic. I believe at this point in time, educators have failed to adequately encourage students to be vigilant about caring for the environment. For my role in teaching my first students about the environment, I have chosen to use direct instruction. I will be thinking with the students and using empathy to help them understand how frightening the world would be if the environment was no longer conducive to human life.

Since I have been tasked with applying the civics aspect of social studies to instruction on environmental sustainability, I will be teaching about our responsibility as citizens for sustaining the City of Newburgh. I believe that effective instruction on this subject matter involves injecting a touch of fear into the lesson. For example, after introducing the subject, I will talk about what an inhospitable world would look like in detail. I will ask the students how they think air, land and water pollution is affecting their lives now and what it could mean in the future. By having them paint a picture of what the future will look like if we don’t act now, student’s will be far more encouraged to make protecting the environment part of their lives.

Key prerequisite concepts for my lesson involve understanding global warming, greenhouse gasses, the United Nations and the Green New Deal. I believe it is important to bring current events into my instruction about the environment since the debated Green New Deal is the current plan to solve the global climate crisis. During my discussion with the students about the Green New Deal, I will show them how to create their own plan outlining how to sustain the City of Newburgh. I believe it is also productive to have a debate between students about agreements like the Green New Deal. Moderating a debate will encourage students to think for themselves and choose a side about a given issue. It will develop and refine their critical thinking skills and possibly give them the insight to create an even better plan.

I believe that administering a democratic classroom is key to students having the ability to learn. In other words, As I deliver direct instruction through lecture, I would share a dialogue with the students to keep them thinking and make them feel important. The truth is if students are not actively engaged, they will not learn. Many instructors who use direct instruction fall into the trap of delivering a lecture without establishing a dialogue with the students. In my professional opinion, that is the main reason students retain a small amount of information from direct instruction. As time marches on, educators must continue to think about how to create students that will take the lessons we teach to heart. It’s not enough to have a class of students who perform well. They must apply what they have learned after leaving the classroom  and make a difference by actively taking care of their City.