A click of the mind

We are talking about ecological economics this week.  Is there any other kind?  Do we have an economy without nature?  Can we even survive?  These are rhetorical questions.  The answers are not up for debate.  But yet somehow we think that we should always pose the economy and the environment against each other.  I am so bored of this nonsense.  They are the SAME THING!!!  We can try to avoid this fact all the way until the demise of our species, but I suggest that we figure it out pretty darn quick.  The environment is our economy.  Deal with it. 

I guess what I'm saying is that we need to have a paradigm shift towards this way of thinking sooner than later.  Ecological economics needs to be "the way", not "a subject".  We must think about the environment whenever we think about "growth", "development" or the economy.  We can no longer afford to separate them, as they are indeed not separate.  

As you know I'm working in a rural school in Pondoland, on the Wild Coast of South Africa.  I work with the most amazing group of kids.  I am not sure yet how I will actually pry myself away from them to leave.  I am doing empowerment and development work with them using an ABCD (Asset-based community development) style approach to the workshops and the learning.  I want to be a facilitator and let them determine their own future.

But then I have a slight issue.  I also want to impart my views on these wonderful kids.  So I am left with a dilemma.  What do I do?

The other day they were drawing their vision for the future of their community.  They got to be the developers.  They had the ability to create any future they wanted.  Some of the drawings showed exciting and innovative developments in the community, but there were two things on every page that were the same.  A tar road, and power lines. 

Now what am I supposed to do?  Do I leave it at that?  It is their vision.  Do I have a right to share my own opinions? 

Well, I didn't think for too long about the ethics of it and I shared my opinion.  At least a little bit.  I simply asked them.  If you have power lines bringing you electricity, do you have to pay for it?  They said yes.  And once you pay for it, do you have to pay for it again? Yes.  Do you have to pay for it forever? Yes. And will it look nice to have these electricity lines through the community? No. Don't some people have electricity already? Doesn't this school have electricity?  Yes.  How? Solar.  What resource do you have in this community that is free?  The sun.  

That was basically the discussion.  We were talking about critical thinking and creative problem solving and how perhaps there were other ways to solve the problems that they had.  They wanted electricity, not necessarily power lines.  So I felt like I asked them a few questions to guide them towards some different ways of thinking.  I hope that was okay. 

An author by the name of Donella Meadows writes a lot about systems and how we can change them.  She has identified various leverage points where change can happen.  The number one leverage point is  changing people's paradigms. She says... "you could say paradigms are harder to change than anything else about a system, and therefore this item should be lowest on the list, not the highest. But there's nothing physical or expensive or even slow about paradigm change.  In a single individual it can happen in a millisecond.  All it takes is a click in the mind, a new ways of seeing."

I hope that when I work with these kids there are a few clicks in their minds, and that they are opened up to a new way of seeing.