Kia ora PeDaGoGs I came across the comment by Raymond de Young on seminar methods on Chris Smaje's Small Farm Future blog. I looked up de Young (info in italics below) and the Kahn paper he refers to. It all sounded like something which some of you could use - here's hoping. 😁 Christine /https://seas.umich.edu/research/faculty/raymond-de-young// / // /Associate Professor// //Behavior, Education, and Communication// //Climate + Energy// //Food Systems// //// //About// //// //Raymond De Young, PhD, is a broadly trained psychologist, planner, and engineer. He is an Associate Professor of Environmental Psychology and Planning at SEAS and in the Program in the Environment (PitE), and a Faculty Associate at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum and at the Graham Sustainability Institute. His research focus is on the process of re-localization, a response to emerging biophysical limits and the consequences of having deeply disrupted the Earth's ecosystems. De Young applies conservation and environmental psychology principles to the challenge of helping people to envision and adopt frugal behavioral responses that support a life lived well within local resource limits. Despite what for some people is a dismal forecast, his work is decidedly hopeful. He is described as neither an optimist nor pessimist when it comes to human behavior, but rather an idealist without illusions.// //// //His current work includes research on (1) helping people to pre-familiarize themselves with the behavioral aspects of the coming resource downshift, (2) motivating environmental stewardship using innate satisfactions and (3) using nature to restore the mental vitality needed for responding to and coping with the lean and difficult yet exciting times ahead.// /// https://smallfarmfuture.org.uk/?p=1958 Of climate crimes, community conflicts and carbon cowboys 6.6.22 Raymond De Young on June 8, 2022 at 01:42 said: On “…no small farm catch phrase.” I’ve been teaching a seminar on localization for 15 years with a colleague. Content of the initial class sessions evolved through several stages. Early years we had to argue hard for our stated premise of energy descent, later contended with questions about the ecomodernist counter-arguments, and more recently the privileging of DEI concepts before anything else can be considered (where your discussions of authenticity have greatly helped Chris). It was fascinating that an eco-anxiety slowly emerged over the first decade (and not just in our seminar but across our entire school of environment) and then unexpectedly, it completely went away, at least in our seminar. We were baffled about that, but finally realized we could ask the students why that happened. A few things came up (e.g., our inclusion of psychological well being in the readings, affirmative stories of small-scale localization efforts) but universally they credited a phrase we use and a technique that directs the focus of conversations on small steps, that can be taken now, but are about the future. The phrase we use is sometimes credited to perma-culture folks but I’ve also heard that it was used by a football coach: “Blame no one. Expect no help. Do something.” The emphasis is, of course, on that last part. And that’s what the students say their education has come to ignore. Now we’re a professional school so we do emphasize procedural knowledge. But even my school has moved more and more toward academic publications, conceptual frameworks (how I’ve come to hate that term), international/global thinking, etc. and away from grounded, practical, and smaller-scale efforts. The other thing we do is use “barn raising” to structure conversations. Kahn has discussed four basic types of seminars (Kahn, 1971)*: A. FREE-FOR-ALL: There is a prize out there in the middle of the floor. It may be the instructor’s approval or it may be one’s own self-esteem, but it’s there and the goal is to win it, and anything goes. You win by looking not just smart, but by looking smarter. And that means it’s just as important to make others look dumb as to make you look smart. The main tool is criticism of the readings and other member’s ideas. The academic critique mode fits well in this model. B. BEAUTY CONTEST: In this model I parade my idea to you seeking your admiration. Then it’s off the runway I go to get ready for my next appearance while you’re parading your idea. Of course, I’m not paying any attention to your ideas, nor you to mine. C. DISTINGUISHED HOUSE TOUR: In this model someone advances an idea. The rest of the seminar spends time exploring it, asking questions, uncovering inconsistencies, etc. When they have got a good grasp on it one of the other members offers another idea. It may be a whole different point of view on the same subject. The seminar members then explore that new idea. This is a high form of discourse and can produce good outcomes. However, while outright criticism is not used, neither are ideas compared, or built upon. D. BARN RAISING: In frontier North America when a family urgently needed a barn and had limited resources, their community gathered to help build the structure. The family described the idea, the kind of barn they needed, picked the site, etc. But it was the community that pitched in and actually built it. One student’s feedback really captured the process: “[The seminar] prompted intellectual curiosity by building a classroom environment that was founded on building UP each other’s thoughts, instead of on critiquing them and breaking them down. [The] course taught me the value in thinking ahead to how we’ll respond as a community to our changing world, and that in higher education, we need to think more about doing through action, and by starting small.” I know this is a long comment, and it may seem to be about congratulating myself for running a great seminar. But what I really mean to convey is how rare it is to find a place like this blog where “barn raising” is the social norm. And maybe to wonder if “Do something + Barn raising = Realistic optimism about the future.” --------------------------------------------------------------------- *The Seminar By Michael Kahn https://ibis.geog.ubc.ca/~ewyly/g552/Kahn(1971)