quinta-feira, 13 de fevereiro de 2014

What is your experience of learning and sustainability?

My experience in learning related to sustainability is, up until now, almost non existence. The university that I attendant wasn't really a pioneer in this matter, being more incline to literature and social humanities and less into science. But one thing that I gather in the African Literature class, was the urgent necessity of literacy in some of the african countries (we had more focus on Portuguese speaking countries). The illiteracy in this countries are hampering the development in these countries, and knowing education is one of the foundations ones enlightenment, as soon as I finished my degree I started an online blog, much similar to this one with free beginners teaching lessons and material:

Burro Velho Não Aprende Línguas

I started with the idea of abandoning old stereotypes on teaching books and tried to present a  useful content, some humor in between, with beautiful pictures framing examples, that would encourage engaging, with real role models of multicultural background. I thought people, no matter where they from or their background, deserve a chance in life, and they should look up to good role models as they could potentially become one themselves.
ex: Identity

To be true, I didn't know what the hell I was doing, cause I've never had taught before, and I'm sure I'ts filled with mistakes that should be supervised by someone else. But I wasn't expecting the feedback I got. People wrote me from all over the world, especially from the "less developed" countries thanking me. Teachers, students or merely curiouses wrote personal letters thanking me, telling me how useful they are, to children and grown ups.

This, to me, is sustainability in social equality, in environment protection and in economic progression, as those people will get a chance to make something for themselves, people that did not had chance to learn otherwise,  without a huge carbon footprint.

Now, with the course on Sustainability, Society and You, I think that I learn a lot about sustainability, especially awareness about thing that I didn't put in the equation, like the carbon footprint on internet servers, or how sustainability isn't adverse to economy, as SWOT reports showed us, but an integrated part of it, or the knowledge of where do our electrical power comes from and how much is wasted on the process. All of this could be integrated in a Portuguese learning course to foreign people, quite easily.

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