6 - Places and Nature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 June 2009
Summary
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, policymakers are promoting globalization and a strong global economy. Schools are urged to adopt “world-class” standards and to produce graduates who will maintain the status of the United States as an economic leader. Where does a love of place fit into this picture? Should schools teach for an understanding and love of place or should they now offer curricula designed to transcend place? Is there a way to avoid the dichotomy built into these questions?
We'll start this chapter with a brief discussion of love of place and how that love has so often contributed to human happiness. Then we'll move to a more general level and explore the human connection to nature. Finally, we'll consider how schools might balance the tasks of preparing students for a global economy and of promoting the love and care of place that figure so importantly in human flourishing.
Love of Place
Many of us associate home more with a geographical region or community than with a house. Love of place is a theme that runs through fiction, poetry, and biography. John Adams, for example, had a lifelong love of Braintree and the Massachusetts coast where he was born. His biographer, David McCullough, writes:
Recalling his childhood later in life, Adams wrote of the unparalleled bliss of roaming the open fields and woodlands of the town, of exploring the creeks, hiking the beaches…. The first fifteen years of his life, he said, “went off like a fairytale.”
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- Information
- Happiness and Education , pp. 119 - 137Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003