Tell your senator:
Health care reform must include a strong public health insurance option that’s available immediately.
The term “field ecology” is not generally accepted in the Russian environmental education and was introduced into the educational practice by us (Association “Ecosystem”) in the early 90s. By “field ecology” we mean the forms and methods of the environmental education that help students to investigate nature through real nature objects – animals, plants, nature communities (ecosystems) in their natural form of existence. This approach predetermines that the main forms of children’s education are outdoor lessons – excursions, a “field” practices, outdoor lessons, expeditions. Our approach is not new, it has existed in various forms for many years for example in the sphere of the additional (out-of-school) education. In this aspect our country has no analogies in the world, nowhere but in Russia there is such a broad scale state system of the environment (eco-biological) education that is based on the out-of-school work.
The “naturalistic” approach in teaching biology and educating children was used in the first years of the Soviet period. “The Biostation for young naturalists” was founded in Moscow in 1918 and young naturalist movement started at the same time. Such educators as B.V.Vsesvyatsky and P.P.Smolin stood at the roots of it. They could unite an inborn children’s aspiration for the study of nature and scientists’ possibilities in investigating nature. One of the founders of the Russian young naturalist movement and the “author” of the naturalistic approach in the Russian out-of-school education P.P.Smolin attributed the success of the young naturalist movement by a close contact of children with nature and an investigative approach in their studies of nature. The first Russian young naturalist groups were naturalistic in the full meaning of the word – children lived, studied in nature (lessons in the woods), and carried out research work in the woods on the specially arranged areas (camps). The first experience of combining studies and original research work in nature proved to be successful and began to extend fast throughout the country.
In the 1930s the naturalistic approach was changed into the “socialistic” one, i.e. it was necessary to develop agriculture, “to overtake and leave somebody or something behind”. The young naturalist movement was combined with the pioneer movement and had lost its unique character for many years. Only few enthusiasts kept developing naturalistic approach. They founded a network of “naturalistic” groups of children in Moscow that continue to exist up to nowadays. They are “The Club of Young Zoo-Friends” and “The Biology Club”. Second one was a branch of All-Russian Society for Nature Preservation and later and up to now – of the State Darwin Museum. “The Biology Club” is also a branch of the Moscow Society of Nature Investigators. After the Second World War the young naturalist movement spread all over the country – the “stations for young naturalists” began to appear everywhere . It’s a pity but they were characterized by an “agricultural” approach though there had been a tendency to increasing the number of groups of the naturalistic approach since 1970s.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s there appeared a real boom of the naturalistic approach that coincided with the disappearing of the agricultural one. By that time the social idea of man’s place and role in nature had changed greatly – the appeal for conquering nature had been replaced by one for preserving it. The regeneration of the roots of the environmental education coincided with the “changing course” of the whole country and falling into an economic decay – all these events were reflected in shattering the establishments of the additional education. At the same time there appeared an important problem of looking for ways of attracting young generation’s attention to investigating and preserving the Nature.
The idea was not a simple one to implement. First, for many years of the pioneer domination in the young naturalist movement the educational culture itself and the ways of the environmental education of children had been lost. Second, young biology teacher succeeded naturalistic biologists of the “old school”. These new educators studied biology and geography only through books, they didn’t know real nature and some of them never took part in the field work (owing to various circumstances). The third reason for this was a rapid development of ecological science, nature-preservation methods and monitoring research. Research methods had made a great progress but almost nobody tried to put them into the educational practice. Fourth, the early 1990s were marked by a great deal of foreign influence in the environmental education that was showered on “unprepared heads” of Russian environment teachers. An insufficient development of a “naturalistic” trend in the Russian environmental education can finally be explained by these factors. The last reason had played a very important role in the present correlation of trends of the environmental education.
Russia has recently become a state of the “general ecologization”. Moreover the importance of this sphere of human knowledge and the necessity of the environmental education are admitted by everybody including teachers and ministers. The final aim of the environmental education is the formation of a “healthy environment community” that lives in harmony with nature. Mixing concepts, terms and theories gives a negative phenomenon – representatives of different trends can not speak the same language in spite of the only and identical aim – educating a generation of people who would thinks “ecologically” (in an environment way).
The analysis of the environmental education in Russian schools for the last 10 years helps to come to the conclusion that the environmental education includes at least 5 trends: “school (theoretical) ecology“, “technical (industrial) ecology“, “socio-political ecology“, “playing ecology“, ‘field ecology“. The present classification is rather symbolic and thus we may speak of different ecology, using these word-combinations only in quotation marks and bearing in mind that we don’t speak of ecology as a whole but only of some trends of the environmental education. All these trends are characterized by different approaches to the education of children, a quite different substance forms of work and direct ways of communication with children. Moreover, each of these trends has got its own authors, its own means of communication and its own audience.
The “school (theoretical) ecology trend of the environmental education” is mainly based on studying general environment objective laws and global environmental problems. Textbooks that educators use in their teaching are written in a very “dull” and “global” manner.
The “technical” trend in the environment education is based on studying the results of the industrial influence on the environment and the ways of struggle with pollution by various technical means. As a part of professional education this sphere is certainly very important but is not the main one in forming a correct attitude of a person to the Nature.
The “sociopolitical” ecology is nature preservation through the adoption of “Reduce-Reuse-Recycle” philosophy, and its implementation in industry and everyday life. This trend though spreading quickly throughout the country is inefficient because it causes fear for the future and a social tensions as a result of searching for scapegoats. Positive aspect sociopolitical ecology is that many people start to support the idea of preserving nature and thus can attract the attention of “powerful people of the world” to the ecological problems.
The “playing” trend in education is something new for our country and is spreading fast among educators (especially in schools). Any game including an ecological one is a fine occupation for children that aids to their maturity and an easy way of acquiring useful knowledge for adults. A foreign influence in this field contributes to an active development of the “playing” ecology in our country as our foreign colleagues have gained an enormous experience for many years and it is deprived of national peculiarities and need only a translation.
Nowadays the sphere of the “field” ecology turned out to be a less developed and less simple form of the environmental education in Russia. And it is quite evident: the teachers who have got a special natural sciences education are engaged in the sphere of the “school” ecology. The former engineers and educators of technical colleges are engaged in the “technical” ecology. Everybody can be engaged in the “socio-political” and “playing” ecology including former active members of youth communist movement. But everything mentioned above is insufficient for a “field” ecology educator. The person must combine the qualities of a scientist, an outdoor guide and an entrepreneur to successfully teach “field” ecology.
by Alexander S. Bogolubov
Environmental and Housing Movements: Grassroots Experience in Hungary, Russia and Estonia
The vast empty plains of the Russian steppe may seem inhospitable to many, but for some it offers the chance to return to a simple life and escape from today’s pressures and problems. Sergey Boriso…
Rodnoe – Eco-village of Kin’s domains
Recently in Russia there has been an increase in the number of people who, preferring life in nature to the hustle and bustle of the city, have moved to Eco-villages…and are creating “Kin’s domains.” They have given up the use of fertilizers, heavy agricultural machines, and grow all their food themselves.
How Permaculture Water Harvesting Works? Geoff Lawton founding Director of the Permaculture Research Institute talks about Permaculture Water Harvesting techniques, swales and sillways. PERMACULTURE: A Designers’ Manual
This summary consists of both direct quotes (in “”) and our summary of the Mondragon text.
I. OPEN ADMISSION
The Cooperatives do not discriminate on the basic of religious, political, ethnic, or sex when it comes to becoming a member of the Cooperative.
II. DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION
All authority is vested in the “general assembly,” which consists of all the worker owners of the enterprise, one person one vote. The general assembly elects the “Governing Council”, which would be like the Board of Directors, which appoints (and removes) the organization’s management..
III. SOVEREIGNTY OF LABOR
“In the MCC Co-operatives it is understood that Labor is the main factor for transforming nature, society and human beings themselves. As a result, Labor is granted full sovereignty in the organization of the co-operative enterprise, the wealth created is distributed in terms of the labor provided and there is a firm commitment to the creation of new jobs. As far as the wealth generated by the Co-operative is concerned, this is distributed among the members in proportion to their labor and not on the basis of their holding in Share Capital. The pay policy of MCC’s co-operatives takes its inspiration from principles of Solidarity, which are materialized in sufficient remuneration for labor on the basis of solidarity.”
Worker owners receive competitive and just salaries and dividends based on the profitability of the co-op.
IV. INSTRUMENTAL AND SUBORDINATE NATURE OF CAPITAL
Generally, a corporation sells shares of ownership and management to raise capital, and then hires labor. The Mondragon Cooperatives do not sell shares in order to raise capital. Here, the workers own the enterprise and the management and rent the capital.
V. PARTICIPATORY MANAGEMENT
“This Principle implies the progressive development of self-management and, consequently, of the participation of the members in business management. This requires: (1) The development of adequate mechanisms and channels for participation. (2) Transparent information with respect to the performance of the basic management variables of the Co-operative. (3) The use of methods of consultation and negotiation with the worker-members and their social representatives in those economic, organizational and labor decisions which affect them. (4) The systematic application of social and professional training plans.
(5) The establishment of internal promotion as a basic means of covering positions with greater professional responsibility.”
VI. PAYMENT SOLIDARITY
” The Mondragón Co-operative Experience declares sufficient payment based on solidarity to be a basic principle of its management. Solidarity is manifest both internally and externally, as well as at the Corporate level.”
VII. INTERCOOPERATION
The Cooperatives cooperate with each other, with other cooperatives in the area, and with national and international cooperative organizations.
VIII. SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION
The Cooperatives acknowledge a duty to contribute to the common good: (1) by reinvesting a high proportion of their profits, including regular investments in community funds for job creation; (2) 10% of the net profit of the Cooperatives is donated to charitable organizations; (3) taking care of their social security, unemployment, and health insurance requirements (through a cooperative owner by the other cooperatives; and (4) being active in their community.
IX. UNIVERSALITY
“The Mondragón Co-operative Experience, as an expression of its universal vocation, proclaims its solidarity with all those who work for economic democracy in the sphere of the Social Economy and supports the objectives of Peace, Justice and Development, characteristic of the International Co-operative Movement. Likewise, through OTALORA, which is our Business and Co-operative Training Centre, we try and disseminate co-operative culture on the basis of our own social-economic experience, developed over the last 40 years.”
X. EDUCATION
“Education and Training have played a decisive role in the creation and development of the Mondragón Co-operative Movement. Its founder and main driving force, the priest José María Arizmendiarrieta, was always quite clear that ‘education, understanding as such the complex of ideas and concepts adopted by a man, is the key to the development and progress of a people’. Insisting on this idea, Father Arizmendiarrieta liked to repeat ‘that education is the natural and indispensable cornerstone for the promotion of a new humane and just social order’ and that ‘knowledge has to be socialised to democratise power’.
“Therefore, on the basis of this approach, the first thing he did when he came to Mondragón was to create the Polytechnic School in 1943 (today Mondragón Eskola Politeknikoa), which during all these years has been the main source of managers and skilled workers for our co-operatives.”
The Mondragón Corporation is a group of manufacturing, financial and retail companies based in the Basque Country and extended over the rest of Spain and abroad. It is one of the world’s largest worker cooperatives and one important example of workers’ self-management.
Organization
The sovereign body is the 650-member Co-operative Congress, its delegates elected from across the individual co-operatives. The annual general assembly elects a governing council which has day-to-day management responsibility and appoints senior staff. For each individual business, there is also a workplace council, the elected President of which assists the manager with the running of the business on behalf of the workers.
Current developments
In the 1980s, the various companies responded to pressures of globalisation by joining together as the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation. The MCC is now the Basque Country’s largest corporation, the seventh largest in Spain. It is considered the world’s largest worker co-operative. In 2006 the MCC contributed 3.8% towards the total GDP of the Basque Country.
Education has always been key to MCC and its development, hence the conversion of the old school into the University of Mondragón in the 1990s, a private university to promote further development. Some 4,000 students attend the university campuses in Oñati , Eskoriatza and Mondragón.
MCC now constitutes over 150 companies, with important manufacturing and engineering interests, as well as retail, financial and educational arms. Its supermarket arm, Eroski, is the largest Spanish-owned retail food chain and the third largest retail group in Spain.
The Basque government and the tax authorities of the Basque provinces have special measures to help co-operatives. The Deba county around Mondragón has kept a very high employment rate even during Basque industrial crisis.
Mission
MONDRAGON’s mission combines the basic objectives of a business organisation competing in international markets with the use of democratic methods in its organisation and with special emphasis on job creation, the promotion of its workers in human and professional terms and a commitment to the development of its social environment.
MONDRAGON’s mission combines the basic objectives of a business organisation competing in international markets with the use of democratic methods in its organisation and with special emphasis on job creation, the promotion of its workers in human and professional terms and a commitment to the development of its social environment.
Listen to video presentation about Mondragón here:
www.socialprofitnews.org
Can coops go global? Mondragon is trying. (Mondragon cooperatives in Spain’s Basque region)(includes related articles on Italian and Mondragon cooperatives)
New America – New Currency.
The Detroit News.
Nation’s economic crisis prompts group to jump-start local economy with own bills.
Three Detroit businesses are reviving a Depression-era idea of creating local currency, Detroit Cheers, in an effort to keep money spent in Detroit circulating within the community.
During the Great Depression eight decades ago, confidence in the national economy was so shattered, and people’s ability to earn cash so limited, that thousands of communities created local currencies to save hometown commerce.
Provincial dollars allowed businesses and their customers to exchange goods and services with currency that had regional worth.
A Detroit trio of small-business owners are reviving the idea, following an emerging national trend. The businesses are creating a currency called Detroit Cheers, and more than a dozen city merchants have already agreed to accept it as real money. “The world is just now reeling from economic chaos; in Detroit, that’s how we always roll,” said Jerry Belanger, 49, a backer of the currency, as he watched the initial run of Cheers bills roll off the presses last week.
In Detroit, the jobless rate is 22.2 percent. The median sale price of a home is cheaper than a Chevrolet Aveo. Two of Detroit’s Big Three automakers are surviving on federal loans amid the global recession.
“That doesn’t mean you can’t do business in Detroit — you can. But, man, you have to support one another or you will die,” said Belanger, who owns the Park Bar and Bucharest Grill and the building that houses the Cliff Bells jazz club near the Fox Theatre and Comerica Park.
Detroit Cheers joins an estimated 75 local currency systems that have sprung up recently in the U.S., said Michael Shuman, author of “The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition.”
That includes Traverse City, where more than a 100 businesses and institutions accept “Bay Bucks” as currency.
Local money is a direct response to the national economic crisis, Shuman said.
“The federal government is desperately trying to restore consumer confidence. This is a community doing the same thing, only in miniature. They are trying to pump up local demand and revive their community’s health.”
Legal scholars say local currency is permitted as long as it doesn’t resemble federally issued money.
Belanger’s partners in the Detroit experiment are John Linardos, owner of Motor City Brewing Works, and Tim Tharp, owner of Grand Trunk Pub, formerly Foran’s Irish Pub.
The three are backing the Cheers money — which will come in $3 denominations — with 3,000 U.S. dollars, and they put the federal money in an escrow account.
Those who have agreed to accept the Detroit money include a building and furniture design firm called Dormouse, the Canine to Five dog day care center, a graphics designer, a carpenter, a nonprofit and several restaurants and bars.
And this is just through word-of-mouth: The three Cheers backers have not formally begun to pitch the idea to others, to see just how much it can grow.
The goal is to keep business flowing in their hometown and not have it be ferried off to suburbia or some corporate headquarters in Arkansas or Tokyo.
The business owners intend to give the Detroit currency to businesses and individuals they know will spend it at participating businesses.
If anyone wants to cash in the Cheers bills for U.S. dollars, one of the founders of the Detroit currency will give the person the real thing.
“There’s no question in my mind this has real value,” said Billy West, a co-owner of Dormouse.
With the currency, he said, “I can get a good meal, I can get a beer, I can help another Detroit business. That is money to me. To keep commerce in Detroit, I totally support that goal.”
Traverse City’s Bay Bucks program started four years ago. Today, there’s more than $13,000 worth of the currency circulating in the community, said Stephanie Mills, one of the creators of the program.
Beyond restaurants and bars, a local grocery store accepts the Bay Bucks; so do a bed and breakfast inn, a winery, a physician, an attorney, an accountant and tarot card readers, Mills said.
Among the largest of local currencies is BerkShares, launched three years ago in the rural Berkshires area of southern Massachusetts.
Nearly $2 million worth of local currency is circulating among businesses and private individuals, said Susan Witt, who sits on the board of the BerkShares program.
“It reformed the way many business owners and residents think about their local economy and helped educate the community on why shopping locally matters,” she said.
“The current national economy has only increased the use of BerkShares.”
Jerry Belanger, Tim Tharp and John.
Detroit Cheers joins an estimated 75 local currency systems that have sprung up recently in the U.S.
