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Shannon:
How about helping your students live more sustainably? More than regurgitating
some vague theories about sustainable development they would have to think
about how they live. If this changes their behavior, it may change how their
friends live as well, and so on.
Our modern lifestyle is unsustainable. So, change the system. The only way to
change a complex social system is from the bottom-up. The best way to do that
is to show people how they can save the planet while improving their lives. The
hair shirt of self-denial offered by so many environmental writings is
unattractive (too much like dieting?). The alternative of nanny-state
regulation seems un-American, especially now. Instead people can save the
planet by pursuing their personal well-being (and what's more American than
capitalist self-interest?).
[Beware shameless self-promotion: the theory for this approach is laid out in
my book Sustainable Capitalism and the Pursuit of Well-Being - now out in
paperback - and I'm working on a 'how to' book for 'everyman/everywoman' and a
supporting website.]
First your students need to understand how they have learned their lifestyle
and why they so often use 'retail therapy' to feel good, for a short term fix
of their problems. Exercise: ask them to describe how they have been trapped on
the hedonic treadmill and give examples of how they consume to remedy
unhappiness. Can they explain why retail therapy leaves them unfulfilled and
unsatisfied? Why is it addictive?
Second they need to understand their psychological needs: autonomy, competence,
and relatedness. Exercise: ask them to give examples from their personal
experience of how satisfying any/each of these needs made them feel. How could
they satisfy these essential needs in the future? How would that change their
lives?
Third your students could examine Flow, the state of total engagement with an
activity (and then with life). Exercise: have they ever experienced Flow? How
did it make them feel? How does Flow relate to Mindfulness? How does Flow
relate to their psychological needs?
If you want to go further, you could get into issues of financial resilience,
debt management, and investing that all satisfy psychological needs better than
retail therapy and reduce consumption. While these issues may be beyond the
purview of the class, they are important for well-being (viz the suffering from
the 2007-2008 housing meltdown and the pain of recessions and unemployment).
These are matters I am particularly interested in because of my CPA/CA
training.
I have not developed a syllabus for teaching this approach - perhaps I should -
and these are just a few ideas I cobbled together in a few minutes. If you are
interested in using this approach, I would be happy to work with you in any way
you need,
Cheers,
Neil
Neil E. Harrison, Ph.D., FCA, CPA
Executive Director
The Sustainable Development Institute (www.sd-institute.org)
P.O. Box 423 Laramie, WY 82073
Goodshop to save money and support The Sustainable Development Institute at
www.Goodshop.com
Author, Sustainable Capitalism and the Pursuit of Well-Being (Routledge 2014)
more information at www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415662819
Co-Editor, Climate Innovation: Liberal Capitalism and Climate Change (Palgrave
Macmillan 2014) more information at
http://us.macmillan.com/climateinnovation/NeilEHarrison.
Author, Constructing Sustainable Development (SUNY Press)
Co-Editor, Science and Politics in the International Environment (Rowman and
Littlefield)
Editor, Complexity in World Politics (SUNY Press)
Editor, National, Regional and Global Institutions, Infrastructures and
Governance, Vol. 1, National and Regional Institutions and Infrastructures.
London and Paris: EOLSS/UNESCO, 2008. (EOLSS/UNESCO)
----------------------------------------
From: "Shannon Kathryn Orr" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, January 08, 2016 10:17 AM
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject: [gep-ed] non-traditional class assignments
Dear All, I am teaching a new class in Global Sustainable Development and
because it got added to the schedule late I have less than 20 students (normal
enrollment should be 50). Since it's a small class I thought it might be fun
to offer students the opportunity to do a non-traditional project instead of a
research paper if they so choose. I was just wondering if anyone had any
ideas for projects. So far I've listed a comprehensive time line of events in
a narrow area (with a paper discussing the connections between events), doing a
project through the UN online volunteering system, and blogging once a week
about current events in sustainable development. If you have an idea, please
email them to me off-list and I will compile them into one post. Shannon
___________________________ Shannon K. Orr, Ph.D. Associate Professor/Graduate
Coordinator 118 Williams Hall Bowling Green, OH Department of Political Science
Bowling Green State University [email protected]
https://twitter.com/CapacityBldg4SD
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