Social Equity, Environment, & Development

S.E.E.D. Mission Statement: SEED nurtures and challenges interested, curious and compassionate students to grapple with today's major social issues and, in turn, produces empowered leaders.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

In a nutshell













Creating "Solutionaries"- A response to Zoe Weil's TED Talk




Zoe Weil, cofounder and president of the Institute for Humane Education, said in a recent TED Talk: “We need a bigger vision for the purpose of schooling... It should be this: that we provide every student with the knowledge, the tools, and the motivation to be conscientious choice makers and engaged change makers for a restored and healthy and humane world for all.” This is exactly what SEED will deliver its students. The thematic and interdisciplinary academic curriculum combined with the Experiential Program will produce graduates who are true “solutionaries.”


SEED academy will focus on issues of land use, the environment, social equity and global development. The emphasis will not merely be on debating ideas for an academic exercise. Rather, right from the start, students will be asked to decide on solutions for improvement. Most importantly, the students will need to engage in and implement these solutions. Weil professes: “We need to graduate a generation of solutionaries.” SEED will deliver just that.


As an anecdote, Weil describes a student who did a research assignment and after his presentation, he wanted to hand out leaflets. To Weil’s surprise, the student intended to hand the leaflets out onto the Philadelphia streets, not just in the classroom. Weil says: “He’d become an activist over night.” This is precisely what needs to happen. All projects should be public. Students must utilize social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube so that their ideas far exceed the walls of the school.


We have shared the idea of SEED to many educators and friends. We believe that the more we talk about it and the more feedback we get the better. Of the concerns people raise about the curriculum, the most common concern is whether graduates will be prepared. I absolutely loved the way in which Weil answered this same question:


“What would our graduates go on to do? Well they would do the same thing that graduates do today. They’d be business people and health care providers and plumbers and engineers... and beauticians... The difference would be they would perceive themselves as solutionaries. They would know that it was their responsibility to ensure that the systems within their profession were just and humane and peaceful. Why? Because that is what they would have learned in school.”


I’d like to thank Zoe Weil for an excellent talk (see talk) and further inspiring me to re-think how we educate.