Bringing human passion into: sustainability education and bridging cultures.

• Author: Gorman, June
• Position: Essay

Human passion, it can be argued, is the source of all human life and progress. It can also be argued that human passion, when misguided, misunderstood and developed along unhealthy, aggressively competitive paths or solely for material greed is the source of much of the suffering, conflict, cruelty, pain and destruction that humans cause one another. In reality, the creative and destructive sides of human passion are deeply integral to what it means to be human, but as an educator I increasingly wonder how can we differentiate between the two sides? How can we learn or, more poignantly, relearn to overcome our own deeply felt and historically reinforced fears of difference and change? How to develop the human passion of the newly discovered brain centres of empathy, care and loving communication (1)--the areas of emotional and social intelligences (2) that most productively bridge difference and different cultures--in learning how to best achieve sustainable living on this planet? In doing so, we could potentially create the type of education for sustainability that would reinforce how to passionately care for ourselves, each other and our planet, in order to ultimately save humanity itself.

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Interestingly, the answer to these complex questions already exists in the human child and appears to exist innately in the structure of the human brain. We are beginning to better understand human brain development and how the human child learns. Neuroscience now points to new and necessary education of more than just rational/cognitive and empirical facts disassociated from deeper motivating and emotional values. Increasingly more critical to human and planet sustainability is how the human brain learns emotional intelligence, which constructs' to override the less evolved, older areas of the human brain based in the fear/survival brainstem. We must foster an education that integrates the rational brain with the universal values of the human heart best understood by these emotional brain centres.

Understanding this process goes to the very heart of how the human animal was created and its development as a social animal that is dependent on others to both live and thrive. For all our dominance, humans are, ironically, born the most helpless animal in the world. We lack instinct and the ability to care for ourselves and are largely dependent on those around us for survival. However, what we lack in independence and animal prowess we make up for with something far more incredible--a brain designed for learning and thus innovation, set up with the highest motivation to connect with those around us on whom we depend for our very survival, be it our parents, tribal elders, teachers, mentors or other protectors.

Apparently, this was done by emotion-reinforced neuron connections that deeply strengthened survival ties to other human beings, thus fostering reproduction and longevity. As the human species thrived, it expanded across the whole planet and humans began to interact with each other in ways that increased the competition for...