Sitting in classes, reading texts, writing papers, taking tests. Humans weren’t meant to learn like that, let alone live like that. How can we expect to create better human beings if we have them sitting around for most of the day, in class or doing homework? There’s a reason that we possess this upright body with physically/mechanically efficient legs and feet and arms and hands…we were meant to WALK THE EARTH and engage with it actively. It seems to me that instead of equipping students to actively (literally “active”) create a better world, academics is all too often training people to sit down, rather than “stand up” in defense of the Earth and its inhabitants.
I think all of our environmental problems stem from one root cause: we no longer (on a daily basis) come face-to-face with the fact that our life depends on the gifts of the Earth. What I mean is that we are almost entirely removed from what all it takes to meet our most essential needs of food, water, shelter, clothing, and fire. If every one of us had to WORK BY HAND—instead of rely on fossil-fueled industries—to meet these needs for ourselves and for each other, we would be surprised and humbled by how much it involves! Our environmental problems would fade away if humans began to EXPERIENCE FIRSTHAND what impact they’re having on the land. Therefore, we desperately need to return to a handmade world so that people can GET that direct experience and finally wise up about their impact. Otherwise, if we remain disconnected from our means of subsistence, we will continue to consume way more and way faster than the Earth can provide for us, and then we won’t see the impact(s) of our overconsumption until it’s way too late. (By the way, it’s only since the advent of agriculture 10,000 years ago that we’ve been able to have massive—largely sedentary—human populations, which are the breeding grounds for social, economic, and environmental problems.)
