In honor of Earth Day, brush up on the EcoJustice basics through the following video:

http://vimeo.com/55569750

In this video, Rebecca Martusewicz defines how the the Ecojustice Education masters program emerged from “a crisis in the way we think about the way we are in relationship to each other and in relationship to the more than human world.”  This short video looks at the two components of the program for teachers and community educators, which include:  1) identifying the historic and cultural basis for heirarchized thinking (mechanism, adrocentrism, ethnocentrism,etc.)  that causes the hyper separation of individuals from human and natural communities, and 2) researching alternative cultural perspectives that identify and value the commons.  Through the cultural analysis of fragmented ways of thinking, teachers can understand how to incorporate more diverse, democratic and sustainable lessons and stop perpetuating more destructive perspectives.

The SEMIS Coalition is based in exploring the principles of EcoJustice Education through direct community based projects that value place and people and their contributions to sustainable societies.  Reflect on how this year’s focus on history of the commons and ecojustice literacy helped you to understand the past and build solutions for the future.  What are some examples of stories you’ve studied about alternative cultural perspectives that provide a different approach to living within natural systems, not separate from them?