KOAN: a paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provoke enlightenment.

When the TEA team works with faculty to provide professional development support, we are cognizant that they often crave very practical advice that can be implemented ASAP. We respect this desire and understand where it is coming from. We also believe that it is sometimes valuable to get faculty and staff "comfortably off-balance" in order to create space for them to arrive at new and perhaps unexpected realizations about their work. 

The Climate “Koans’ below are designed to allow faculty the head space for rumination about education, especially as it relates to the Climate Crisis. (We realize these do not really qualify as Koans in the way the word is defined. We just love the word, and wanted to find a way to feature it, lol.) 

Earth Action  KOANS

• Earth Action Teaching ramps it up, and keeps it dancing; it’s a simulation of the larger global dance engaged in by millions of others.

• Earth Action Teaching creates enough momentum in students to glide over the many speed bumps that thwart learning.

• Earth Action Teaching should have an element of play,  and can include looking at the structures of things, and ruminating about the planet’s deeper connections. 

• Earth Action Teaching is about: Practice it, then do it again, practice. Try it this way, try it that way, play, experiment; trying, competing, wrestling with raw material.

• Earth Action Teaching is a low stakes experience in a high stakes context.

• Earth Action Teaching should reduce stress in students; In regards to the Climate Crisis students are stressed to begin with. 

• Earth Action Teaching trusts students, and invites them to meet high expectations. 

• Earth Action Teaching needs to be gracious in the face of crisis. 

• Earth Action Teaching is an invitation for students to make a difference. 

• Earth Action Teaching will lead to broken hearts. And opened minds. 

• The student mind asked to engage in Earth Action Teaching develops savvy about making choices.

• Students gain power by acting in concert; the student comes into full flower in collective action. 

• Earth Action Teaching is not about information. It’s about having an honest intellectual relationship with your students, so they can flip that to their own relationship to the planet and society. 

• Earth Action Teaching means: fewer blank pages, more hands in the air, more volume in the room, more actual heat to cool down the planet.

• Earth Action Teaching is focused: on a multitude of eco and human made systems.

• Teachers who bring their passion for Earth Action into the classroom empower their students.