Is the Modern Version of Education Killing Us?

Human beings evolved as a territorial species.  Reaction is a big part of our design especially to immediate threats to our comfortable routines.  If the impact of some problem is only slowly felt then this “reaction” just isn’t triggered.  In a way our learning is part of this design problem.  Much of what the author discusses concerns the fact that education should be about teaching wisdom.  As I would prefer to put it – it should be about overcoming our reactionary design by learning to see even the slow acting yet significant problems.  

 

I was particularly amused by the Inuit example that the author gave: 

“Stories of native Inuit with at most a high school education, but a rich knowledge of their environment, realizing that something was going wrong with the climate in their areas abound. How could partially educated (by US standards today) people see what fully educated people seem unable to see?”

 

The author argues that we need to see everything as a “whole” – learn a bit of all things instead of being specialists in one area ignoring everything else.  If we need to go deeper we have the option of doing so.  When we encounter any problem we are able to act together in unison instead of being divided in our efforts (as we are now).

 

Of course we must ask ourselves how we can foster this among many people because this sort of progressive thinking is blocked by the fact that:

a)  we’ve gone down the specialized path for so long that it’s very, very hard to reform it without a crisis (“the shock”) to force us to adapt (think Darwin’s natural selection or specifically disruptive selection and Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine)

b) special interests (those with power) will try to keep us on this self-destructive road.  Technical specialists help to create fancy quick fix, money making solutions.  Keeping us divided and ignorant is the best way to prevent society from stripping them of power.  If a shock does occur, they are often well placed to seize the advantage and maintain the “status quo” in some form after the shock occurs (visibly or invisibly).

 

Can we change the education system?  Can we change the way people think?  Can we change society?  There is no clear answer.  The outcome certainly seems messy though I am highly skeptical that we can overcome our reactionary design and our exploitative tendencies.  All of this has been built into us through evolution and when given the right environmment to be taken to the extreme it manifests into the current situation that we see before us.  

 

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December 11, 2007

Is the Modern Version of Education Killing Us?

My question today is: Why can’t educated people see what is happening to the world?

The first premise is that most people are educated (in the developed world anyway). They go to school for 12 to 16 years in many instances. With all that schooling you would think they would look at something like the global warming issue, be able to follow the basic science (not that they would understand the more arcane aspects of the actual science necessarily), and use critical thinking to realize that we do, in fact, face a tremendous problem. But we have witnessed the unfolding of a slow motion awakening to reality (although I’m not sure we are there yet) with much gnashing of teeth and denial aplenty.

Why has it taken so long to get the schooled public’s attention let alone convince the populace that anthropogenic greenhouse gasses are causing the earth to heat up? My suspicion is that all that schooling never prepared the populace to be able to judge the veracity of such a phenomenon. In spite of requiring science classes at all levels of education, people were not able to read and understand the articles, say in Discover Magazine or Scientific American. Nor were they able to use critical thinking skills to assess the claims, particularly regarding the use of computer models. The knee-jerk response was to disregard the evidence from an area they simply couldn’t understand.

I claim there is sufficient evidence in this issue, politics in general, and — don’t get me started on — evolution vs. creationism (intelligent design) that support the idea that our modern form of education is failing miserably in its purpose of producing educated citizens. Stories of native Inuit with at most a high school education, but a rich knowledge of their environment, realizing that something was going wrong with the climate in their areas abound. How could partially educated (by US standards today) people see what fully educated people seem unable to see?

This idea is not new, or isolated. Let me quote you from David Orr’s “Earth in Mind.”

The conventional wisdom holds that all education is good, and the more of it one has, the better. The essays in Part One challenges this view from an ecological perspective. The truth is that without significant precautions, education can equip people merely to be more effective vandals of the earth. If one listens carefully, it may even be possible to hear the Creation groan every year in late May when another batch of smart, degree-holding, but ecologically illiterate, Homo sapiens who are eager to succeed are launched into the biosphere.

Orr’s first chapter is entitled, “What is Education For?” Part One is entitled, “The Problem with Education.” He generally concludes that education should be for increasing wisdom, especially in terms of understanding how nature works and our role within the biosphere. The rest of the first part of the book provides a stark critique of why education is not fulfilling that purpose. In his view education should produce graduates who can successfully operate in the world as a whole, not just the local economy. In other words, wisdom comes from understanding the really big picture of life. Unfortunately, modern schools are not designed to foster wisdom by increasing understanding of the whole world.

Fundamentally, education, as practiced in the United States and increasingly in the developed world, is geared to produce specialists and professionals. It is organized around disciplinary subjects and is primarily concerned with producing graduates who are ready to enter the job force. The arguments for this, clearly reasonable from the advent of agriculture to well into the industrial revolution, were taken as axiomatic by economists. The first argument stems from the efficiency gains one recognizes by becoming adept at specific skills. An expert can get the job done more efficiently and effectively than a novice. All well and good. The second argument admits to the limits of human learning and knowledge stores. It effectively says that no human can know everything so it is better to learn a lot about one thing than a little about a lot of things. Generalists aren’t effective, specialists save time and resources. A slam dunk for economics.

There are just a couple of problems with these arguments. First, are they really true? Consider the effectiveness/efficiency argument. Maybe as long as what is being produced is relatively simple, like manufacturing an automobile, each operation can be reduced to a point where if a worker performs only that operation then that is efficient. But doesn’t the overall efficiency depend on how well the managers designed the whole process? Then what about complex processes that require adaptive responses from the participants. In today’s high-tech world more and more work is accomplished in interdisciplinary teams wherein each team member must be proficient in several different areas. It seems to be more true now that real value added comes from systems integration, not a reductionist mechanism.

The second argument — that a human mind is limited in capacity — sounds reasonable on the face of it. It is true that one human mind cannot know everything. So it would seem to make sense that specialization is the only viable way to educate people. Only this argument misses something very important in the actual structure (or architecture, if you will) of knowledge. Namely, it does not take into account that there is a fundamental form of knowledge that is common to all fields and disciplines. This form is part of natural human thinking but is, like folk psychology or folk numeracy, very approximate as delivered in the human brain. It needs explication to become broadly useful as a basic scaffold for learning more domain-specific knowledge. A claim I have taken lately is that if students were educated in this explicitly, they would have a solid basis for learning virtually any discipline they chose much more efficiently. Moreover, if they found it necessary or desirable to change to a new discipline later in life, the fundamentals would still be there to provide transferable knowledge and skills.

The knowledge of which I speak is Systems Science. If you follow this link you will find a description and explanation of how systems science can achieve these objectives and why. My assertion is that learning the basis of how things and concepts are actually organized in the world provides one with a good basis for learning many other kinds of knowledge. Systems science is a form of meta-knowledge that is applicable in everything else. The argument is that everything in the world is a system and systems are themselves composed of sub-systems, hence knowing the nature of systemness is a basis for knowing how anything works. See also: Systems Theory on Wikipedia.

If true (and read the paper to see why it very well might be true), then an education based on systems science would be a better approach. It would encapsulate all that we think is important about general education while providing rigorous treatment of interdisciplinary knowledge. It would prepare students for much deeper disciplinary learning later. And most important, it would get them thinking systemically about their world and their place in it. It is also the case that thinking systemically involves thinking critically. This is what Orr wants to achieve and it is what humanity needs to face the future wherein the problems are all systemic (and global) in nature.

So it turns out that the main reasons given for siloed disciplinary education, which includes professional schooling, are not hard constraints determining that our current approach to education is the only one we can use. I haven’t addressed the issues of motivation to learn and timing of learning, nor issues like assessment of learning. All of these take on a very different appearance in a systems science based approach to education as you might imagine. I haven’t approached the subject of personal satisfaction and empowerment that go with understanding, but I think these are areas to explore in some future post.

Back to the original question. The reason educated people cannot see the problems or understand them rapidly enough to do something about them is that they have been trained to be specialist, reductionists. They learn to become experts without ever understanding how their body of expertise integrates with everything else in the world. They are blinded by their knowledge, not freed by it. Worse, they are told this is the way it should be and the only way it can be.

Doesn’t that need to change?

http://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/2007/12/is-the-modern-v.html

Slave labour that shames America

 

The price of cheap food…  Likely not reported far and wide…  Note the discrimination well…  

Slavery never vanished it simply got changed into another form.  If we cannot treat each other well then the land may well be lost.  Can one defy our race’s darker nature?

Of interest is Whole Foods:

“Burger King is not the only buyer digging in its heels. Whole Foods Market, which recently expanded into Britain with a store in London’s upmarket suburb of Kensington, has been discovered stocking tomatoes from one of the most notorious Florida sweatshop producers. Whole Foods ignored an appeal by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to pay an extra penny a pound for its tomatoes.  

In a statement Whole Foods said it was “committed to supporting and promoting economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable agriculture” and supports “the right of all workers to be treated fairly and humanely.”"

Slave labour that shames America

Migrant workers chained beaten and forced into debt, exposing the human cost of producing cheap food

By Leonard Doyle in Immokalee, Floride

Published: 19 December 2007

Three Florida fruit-pickers, held captive and brutalised by their employer for more than a year, finally broke free of their bonds by punching their way through the ventilator hatch of the van in which they were imprisoned. Once outside, they dashed for freedom.

When they found sanctuary one recent Sunday morning, all bore the marks of heavy beatings to the head and body. One of the pickers had a nasty, untreated knife wound on his arm. Police would learn later that another man had his hands chained behind his back every night to prevent him escaping, leaving his wrists swollen.

The migrants were not only forced to work in sub-human conditions but mistreated and forced into debt. They were locked up at night and had to pay for sub-standard food. If they took a shower with a garden hose or bucket, it cost them $5.

Their story of slavery and abuse in the fruit fields of sub-tropical Florida threatens to lift the lid on some appalling human rights abuses in America today.

Between December and May, Florida produces virtually the entire US crop of field-grown fresh tomatoes. Fruit picked here in the winter months ends up on the shelves of supermarkets and is also served in the country’s top restaurants and in tens of thousands of fast-food outlets.

But conditions in the state’s fruit-picking industry range from straightforward exploitation to forced labour. Tens of thousands of men, women and children – excluded from the protection of America’s employment laws and banned from unionising – work their fingers to the bone for rates of pay which have hardly budged in 30 years.

Until now, even appeals from the former president Jimmy Carter to help raise the wages of fruit-pickers have gone unheeded. However, with Florida looming as a key battleground during the the next presidential election, there is hope that their cause will be raised by the Democratic candidates Barack Obama and John Edwards.

Fruit-pickers, who typically earn about $200 (£100) a week, are part of an unregulated system designed to keep food prices low and the plates of America’s overweight families piled high. The migrants, largely Hispanic and with many of them from Mexico, are the last wretched link in a long chain of exploitation and abuse. They are paid 45 cents (22p) for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes collected. A worker has to pick nearly two-and-a-half tons of tomatoes – a near impossibility – in order to reach minimum wage. So bad are their working and living conditions that the US Department of Labour, which is not known for its sympathy to the underdog, has called it “a labour force in considerable distress”.

A week after the escapees managed to emerge from the van in which they had been locked up for the night, police discovered that a forced labour operation was supplying fruit-pickers to local growers. Court papers describe how migrant workers were forced into debt and beaten into going to work on farms in Florida, as well as in North and South Carolina. Detectives found another 11 men who were being kept against their will in the grounds of a Florida house shaded by palm trees. The bungalow stood abandoned this week, a Cadillac in the driveway alongside a black and chrome pick-up truck with a cowboy hat on the dashboard. The entire operation was being run by the Navarettes, a family well known in the area.

Also near by was the removals van from which Mariano Lucas, one of the first to escape, punched his way through a ventilation hatch to freedom in the early hours of 18 November. With him were Jose Velasquez, who had bruises on his face and ribs and a cut forearm, and Jose Hari. The men told police they had to relieve themselves inside the van. Other migrant workers were kept in other vehicles and sheds scattered around the garden.

Enslaved by the Navarettes for more than a year, the men had been working in blisteringly hot conditions, sometimes for seven days a week. Despite their hard work, they were mired in debt because of the punitive charges imposed by their employer, who is being held on minor charges while a grand jury investigates his alleged involvement in human trafficking.

The men had to pay to live in the back of vans and for food. Their entire pay cheques went to the Navarettes and they were still in debt. They slept in decrepit sheds and vehicles in a yard littered with rubbish. When one man did not want to go to work because he was sick, he was allegedly pushed and kicked by the Navarettes. “They physically loaded him in the van and made him go to work that day. Cesar, Geovanni and Martin Navarette beat him up and as a result he was bleeding in his mouth,” a grand jury was told.

The complaint reveals that the men were forced to pay rent of $20 (£10) a week to sleep in a locked furniture van where they had no option but to urinate and defecate in a corner. They had to pay $50 a week for meals – mostly rice and beans with meat perhaps twice a week if they were lucky. The fruit-pickers’ caravans, which they share with up to 15 other men, rent for $2,400 a month – more per square foot than a New York apartment – and are less than 10 minutes’ walk from the hiring fair where the men show up before sunrise. At least half those who come looking for work are not taken on.

Florida has a long history of exploiting migrant workers. Farm labourers have no protection under US law and can be fired at will. Conditions have barely changed since 1960 when the journalist Edward R Murrow shocked Americans with Harvest Of Shame, a television broadcast about the bleak and underpaid lives of the workers who put food on their tables. “We used to own our slaves but now we just rent them,” Murrow said, in a phrase that still resonates in Immokalee today.

For several years, a campaign has been under way to improve the workers’ conditions. After years of talks, a scheme to pay the tomato pickers a penny extra per pound has been signed off by McDonald’s, the world’s biggest restaurant chain, and by Yum!, which owns 35,000 restaurants including KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. But Burger King, which also buys its tomatoes in Immokalee, has so far refused to participate, threatening the entire scheme.

“We see no legal way of paying these workers,” said Steve Grover, the vice-president of Burger King. He complained that a local human rights group, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers “has gone after us because we are a known brand”. But he added: “At the end of the day, we don’t employ the farmworkers so how can we pay them?”

Burger King will not pay the extra penny a pound that the tomato-pickers are demanding he said. “If we agreed to the penny per pound, Burger King would pay about $250,000 annually, or $100 per worker. How does that solve exploitation and poverty?” he asked.

Burger King is not the only buyer digging in its heels. Whole Foods Market, which recently expanded into Britain with a store in London’s upmarket suburb of Kensington, has been discovered stocking tomatoes from one of the most notorious Florida sweatshop producers. Whole Foods ignored an appeal by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to pay an extra penny a pound for its tomatoes.

In a statement Whole Foods said it was “committed to supporting and promoting economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable agriculture” and supports “the right of all workers to be treated fairly and humanely.”

The Democratic candidates for the presidency do not often talk about exploited migrant workers, but there are hints that Barack Obama will visit the Immokalee fruit pickers sometime before Florida’s primary election on 5 February.

Jimmy Carter recently joined the campaign to improve the lot of fruit-pickers, appealing to Burger King and the growers “to restore the dignity of Florida’s tomato industry”. His appeal fell on deaf ears but 100 church groups, including the Catholic bishop of Miami, joined him.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3263500.ece

The Independent

21/12/07 2:39 PM

2007 Independent News and Media Limited

Japan for Sustainability: Reloaded

Editor’s Note:  In North America and Europe the idea of “slow food” has been catching on, along with local.  In Japan, they’ve taken it to the next level – “slow life”.  In a fast paced society that’s forgotten what it’s like to sit down and immerse itself in the beauty of the world around them, slow life is something we might all want to take to heart.

 

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WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Japan for Sustainability

 

Japan for Sustainability

BALATON GROUP

NOVEMBER 30, 2007 12:58 PM

 

 

By Junko Edahiro

With the ultimate aim of helping to create a sustainable society, I lecture and write in Japan, and I also translate into Japanese the latest information as well key messages from around the world. I have been honored to have had the opportunity to bring to Japan the words and writings of the environmental academic Lester Brown, Dennis Meadows, for example, and also to translate Mr. Al Gore’s book, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Eight years ago, I started an e-mail newsletter that provides a variety of environment-related information in Japanese. Today I have almost 10,000 subscribers, including people in national and local governments, the business world, NGOs, and universities. Going in the reverse direction, to communicate environmental information from Japan to the rest of the world in English, five years ago I launched with some colleagues and an NGO called “Japan for Sustainability,” which is one of the media partners from this conference. Today, we disseminate latest initiatives, technologies as well as old wisdom in the field of sustainability from Japan to 189 countries.

Now, may I ask you a question? When you hear the words “Japan” and “sustainability,” what kind of image comes to mind? Long ago, the Japanese lived in harmony with nature. Our houses were not built with solid brick and stone like in the West, but with soft materials like wood and paper. Even when the Japanese were inside their homes, they were aware of the wind and insects singing outside. During the hot summers, people cooled their senses by sprinkling water on the ground and by enjoying the sound of wind chimes. The traditional way of life was close to nature.

Allow me to mention a bit about the Edo Period, when the city of Edo–now known as Tokyo–was the center of Japan. The 265 years from 1603 to 1867 are known as the Edo Period. Japan was closed to the outside world and enjoyed a time of relative peace, with virtually no wars throughout the land. Japan’s economy and culture flourished, independently from the rest of the world.

The country’s population during this 250-year period was stable at about 30 million. Edo is estimated to have had a population of between 1 and 1.25 million people, making it largest city in the world at the time. Incidentally, the population of London was about 860,000 then, and Paris held about 670,000 people.

Today Japan depends on overseas imports for 80 percent of its energy, 60 percent of its food, and 80 percent of its timber. In contrast, during the Edo Period, because Japan was a closed country, there were no imports from overseas. Everything was done using energy and resources obtained within country.

Let’s look at this again. The population numbers were stable; society functioned and people made their livelihoods using mostly the plant-based resources and energy created from the sun the previous year; and a rich culture flourished under these conditions. You could say that a truly sustainable society existed in Japan during the Edo Period. Because all resources were regarded as precious, plenty of businesses evolved to deal with re-use and recycling. There were businesses that specialized in repairing metal goods; old cooking pots and kettles and other items of metal could be repaired and used again. There were special tradesmen who would repair wooden barrels and pails used to hold liquids. During this era, everything was repaired properly and used as long as possible. Paper lanterns and locks were repaired, mirrors were polished, and so on.

Specialized businesses would purchase waste paper, used clothes, and used pails. There were even businesses that would buy the valuable wax drippings from candles and use them to make new candles to sell, and businesses that would buy the ash left from burning fuel wood and sell it to farmers as fertilizer. At a time when, in Europe, human waste was thrown out of windows and diseases like the Plague spread across the land, in Japan, even human waste was used as a precious resource to be bought and sold. In fact, human waste from the richer neighborhoods apparently went for the highest prices because it had the highest nutrient content!

Since long ago, people used certain expressions closely related to concepts of sustainable lifestyles – expressions like taru wo shiru, which means “Be satisfied with what you have,” and mottainai, which means “Don’t waste!” One expression I am very fond of is seoi mizu, mizu means “water “and seoi means “you carry on your shoulder”, which literally means “water you carry,” although this term is not commonly used any more. Behind this saying was the idea that when you are born, you carry with you all of the water you will use during your lifetime. Basically, this saying taught us that if we use something wastefully, we will be in trouble later on in life, so we must use everything very carefully. This expression said it all in just a few words.

These are glimpses of the sustainable lifestyles that the Japanese were living then. But in the midst of the postwar reconstruction after Japan was defeated in the Second World War, an emphasis was put on hard-working and technological advances. Society and the economy were rebuilt upon a system that promoted consumption, with the idea that “consumption as a virtue.” The idea of “catching up and passing” captures the spirit of the day. Even today, now that Japan has joined the ranks of developed countries, I believe it has not yet escaped this developing-country mentality.

What about Japan today? The picture is not a simple one. We are told that adults and children do not smile as much as they used to. Suicide rates have risen, and the environment is deteriorating. But while we are often faced with depressing news, we can also sense the beginning of change and the beat of a new era. Progress is evident in the development of a variety of environmental technologies, which you can read at our JFS information database, and Japan is actively transferring them to developing countries in particular in Asia. A lot of people are also asking themselves what true happiness really is. Today I would like to introduce to you now some stories and initiatives that are not broadcast by TV or put in newspapers but might capture your interest especially in cultural sense.

The idea of “slow food” (in contrast to “fast food”) grew out of Italy, but after landing in Japan it evolved into the whole concept of “slow life.” There is a growing interest in living life to the fullest, rather than simply chasing after speed and efficiency. The Governor of Iwate Prefecture issued a “Take-It-Easy Declaration” in 2001 to launch a movement to put happiness before economic efficiency. He explained as follows.

“Let’s make our life in the new century more human, more natural, and more simple”-these ideas indicate Iwate’s ideal with “take-it-easy” slogan. For example, Iwate’s approach to buildings is to conserve traditional wooden houses that stand in harmony with nature, rather than to cut forests to make way for state-of-the-art buildings. Such a sense of harmonious coexistence between nature and humans is highly valued in Iwate’s take-it-easy movement.

By the way, this governor is now the minister of Public Management, Home Affairs, Post and Telecommunications at the Japanese National Government.

Iwate Prefecture is not an exception. More than ten cities in Japan have issued a “Slow-Life City Declaration,” and they are organizing conferences called “Slow-Life City Summits.” And there are many specialized magazines to tell people how to live slowly.

Here is another small but true story. When a new condominium was to be built at a place about an hour out of Tokyo, the prospective residents got into a huge debate about whether or not an elevator should be installed. Aware that elevators consume electricity, some said that the building should have no elevator, in order to help combat global warming. Others said that an elevator is needed for the elderly persons who would be living in the building. They had a hard time reaching any consensus, but in the end an excellent solution was proposed. Guess what?– a “slow elevator.” An elevator would be installed, but it would move so slowly that most people would not want to wait for it. Because most people can climb the stairs much more quickly, they would probably not use the elevator. But seniors and others who really have to use the elevator are usually not as pressed for time, so they will not mind waiting to use an elevator that moves slowly. This is an example of innovative solutions popping up around us, inspired by this key word of “slow.” Several years ago, one of the best selling books in Japan was titles “Slow is Beautiful”.

Here is another example. Five years ago I was one of a group of people who proposed the idea of “Candle Night for a Million.” We asked people to spend a “slow” evening, turning off the lights for two hours on the night of the summer and winter solstices. This idea has grown to the point that many events are now held around the country on the nights of the solstices, with 8 to 10 million people participating in ways they themselves choose. I believe this phenomenon is a sign that people are trying to reclaim their own time, their own lives, and their own happiness. During the summer candle night this year, Japan’s Ministry of the Environment joined as a partner in the appeal. In total, 63,138 facilities nationwide joined in the lights-out event, including a famous landmark known as the Tokyo Tower, resulting in a reduction of close to 1 million kilowatt-hours of electrical consumption.

In a separate interesting initiative, a group of key musicians in the Japanese music scene, including the world well-known Ryuichi Sakamoto, got together with their own money to launch the artists’ power, “ap bank.” It finances projects in renewable energy and other areas, and promotes environmental activities. Over 30,000 people gather at the “ap bank fes” outdoor concert held each year to raise funds for the bank, and it has grown into a huge event. At the concert, garbage is separated into 11 categories, and all plates and cutlery at food stalls are reusable. All power for the concert comes from renewable energy, including electricity for the concert itself and the energy for the shuttle buses to bring concert-goers to the venue.

The business world, as well, known for pursuing efficiency and economic growth above all else, is starting to show signs of change. Many “servicizing” businesses are appearing on the scene to provide functions and services, instead of simply selling products. It is also known as PSS: Product-Service System.

Let me give you some examples of servicing businesses. A distributor of work uniforms that leases the uniforms to companies for employees to use, started to collect and recycle the materials after they are worn out. Panasonic, an electrical good manufacturer offers a fluorescent lamp leasing service, in which it sells the “functions” of comfortable lighting to factories and office buildings rather than fluorescent lamps themselves. Another company offer an air-conditioning service incorporating a leasing scheme for air-conditioning systems, and payments are calculated based on the amount of air controlled by the air-conditioning system. A supplier of industrial pure water services installs its ultra-pure water production system at the site of client companies, who pay for expenses calculated based on the amount of water used, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industries set up a special commission to promote servicising development and produced a manual with over 80 case studies.

Some companies in Japan have been inspired by the example of the mountainous country of Bhutan in Asia, which, as an indicator of national progress instead of GDP or GNP uses GNH– What is GNH? Instead of Gross National Product, it means Gross National Happiness. One of impressed companies in Japan is trying to measure corporate progress with an indicator of GCH, “Gross Company Happiness.” When thinking about the happiness of their employees, about ten years ago, the company’s president considered their current sales levels to be too high, and put negative annual sales growth targets for about ten years. The result? I asked the company president. He said because of this unusual policy, which makes their employees happier with more smiles toward their customers, it has been difficult for his company to curb the sales! The company is now one of the model companies in Japan, cherished by their employees and local communities.

Humanity is being threatened by climate change and other environmental problems. In order to solve these problems, I believe there are five things we need–to know, to create a vision, to grasp the big picture, to act, and to communicate to others.

None of these come completely together in just one country, or in just one region. Today, the time has come for us to create something new–across borders, across the East and West. We must move from one-way communication and even from two-way communication of sharing experience and learning from each other, to what I call “co-creative or generative communication to create new paradigm and values by cultivating what East and West can offer.

Image: Cartoon by Professor Hiroshi Takatsuki, based on his cartoon collection,

“HaiKIbutsu,” or precious wastes. Via Japan for Sustainability.

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007648.html

Canada failing to protect its children

Let us not forget that it’s not just the children who are vulnerable.  Let us not forget that income and poverty are striking even those in the lower middle class – parents and youth – people earning $30000 or less as statistics by Dr. Valerie Tarasuk indicate so bleakly.  The issue is systemic at its core and its only by dealing with the root of the problem – this problem of inequity, lack of progressive social welfare, that we will help our children and our fellows in the community (who should be no less fortunate than anyone else).  Help the kids and keep them from a socially and economically destitute life.  

 

How do we do that?  By not being desensitized.  By raising our voice.  By seeking change at the grassroots.  By clamoring at the doors of the politicians who claim to serve the will of the people.  By becoming leaders.  Easier said than done.  The solution is obvious – it is whether we have the will to carry out our desires for a better future that is in question.

 

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Meagan Fitzpatrick

CanWest News Service

 

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

 

Canada is failing to protect the rights of its children in several key areas, according to a new report that marks the 18th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

 

The UNICEF Canada study, released Tuesday, says that child poverty remains a persistent problem, mental illness and other serious health problems like obesity are on the rise among children, Canada has one of the highest rates of children in welfare care of all industrialized countries, peer violence and bullying is prevalent, and there is an over-representation of First Nations and ethnic minority children in the justice system.

 

“Compared with other industrialized countries, our children are suffering from unacceptable rates of poverty, obesity, mental illness and violence that have persisted or increased since Canada ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991,” said Nigel Fisher, UNICEF Canada president and CEO, in a news release.

 

The study is meant to be a snapshot of what it’s like to be 18 years old in Canada, a generation after Canada signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991.

 

The report says Canada is making progress in some areas and has introduced many promising initiatives. Life expectancy has increased and infant mortality has declined over the past 18 years, but has stalled for the last five and the infant mortality rate for First Nations children is almost double the rate of non-aboriginal children.

 

The study said that 96 per cent of children with disabilities attend school, but that there are more limited opportunities for disabled children to participate successfully in education, employment and community life.

 

It also said that rates of immunization have increased but in some provinces are well below the national target.

 

In fact, much of the progress for children varies across the provinces and initiatives tend to be fragmented and short-term, the report said.

 

“There is absolutely no doubt that we can improve the situation of Canadian children,” Fisher said. “We can do it with solid political leadership; a comprehensive legal framework to ensure the rights of children; a sustainable and well-resourced national plan of action with clear and measurable targets; and a focal point for children at the federal level.”

 

The UNICEF study says that in addition to stronger legislation and a national plan to improve the lives of children, Canada should have a national children’s commissioner to ensure the rights of children are being protected.

 

UNICEF Canada has started a petition on its website for the establishment of a commissioner.

The report highlights that aboriginal children in particular are facing “enormous challenges.”

 

The poverty rate for aboriginal children is close to three times that of other Canadian children, children in some aboriginal communities lack access to adequate housing, clean water and good education and Aboriginal children are disproportionately represented in the child welfare and youth justice systems.

 

The report also concludes that, based on interviews researchers did with youth, Canada’s 7, 814,600 children and youth want to be included in decisions that affect them.

 

© CanWest News Service 2007

 

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