Curriculum: The Green Studies Curriculum
Our mission at Green School is to deliver a generation of global citizens who are knowledgeable about and inspired to take responsibility for the sustainability of the world.
We do this by:
- Emphasizing 'learning by doing';
- Placing great weight in developing social responsibility;
- Appreciating integrity, honesty, ethics, and compassion as core underlying values;
- Recognizing the importance of a holistic education.
Through a Curriculum which:
- Develops the essential skills, of reading, writing, mathematics and science to a high degree
- Has a Green aspect which evolves from nature to ecology to environment to sustainability through a 'getting your hands dirty' and 'getting mud between your toes' approach;
- Recognizes and celebrates the local geographical and cultural and artistic context;
- Is based on continuity and progression
The aims of our Green Studies Curriculum are:
To nurture respect for and understanding of the natural world
To heighten students' environmental awareness and to promote stewardship
To develop ecological values out of first hand experience
To understand and practice permaculture (the harmonious integration of land and people to provide food, shelter, energy, and other materials and non-materials needs in a sustainable way.) This includes on-campus food gardens, aquatic systems, appropriate technologies, awareness of waste and water usage and employing management systems, rice agriculture, and animal care, learning from local community members, and designing with renewable natural resources such as bamboo.
To view school and offer a curriculum which is holistic - integrating all aspects of the child's nature, multiple intelligences, and curiosity for learning - through a hands-on practicum model which is part of an academically rigorous learning program; in a school where classrooms are integrated into the natural and permaculture environment (eco-literacy.)
To understand sustainability as an entire web of relationships in community, interacting with other communities - human and non-human - in ways that enable them to live and develop according to their nature.
To think in terms of relationships of inter-connecting patterns and contexts (systems thinking)
To collaborate with members of both the school community (mentorship program) and with the wider local community (apprenticeship program.)
To integrate subject matter such as science, mathematics and social studies, contextualizing academic disciplines in meaningful experiential projects.
To foster in our students a love for learning about themselves, each other, and the wider world community in ways which are respectful, have depth of understanding, and compassionate coexistence.
To instill pride, responsibility, and cooperation among students as life-long learners and future leaders in the world.
