Standards of the day...

Over a year ago, I started training as a doula aka birth assistant -not the midwife, but the person supporting the mother) and one of the most amazing reminders time after time is the amazing intelligence of a woman's body in preparing and laboring to give birth. Unfortunately, when interventions that are not absolutely medically necessary are the norm, the birthing experience is hijacked for many women. In short, we were constantly reminded of certain "expectations" and more or less the sequence of stages in labor that kind of serve as the template for what to expect, but the journey's stage is ultimately set by the woman's body, and things happen on her body's time/space. Reading about standards brought me back to the idea that we all need (i.e. EDUCATORS)support in journeying through whatever the task at hand is. It didn't surprise me to read the following within the IN Environmental Education Teacher Survey General Conclusions:
-Most teachers do not use the outdoors to teach a variety of subjects more than 3 times each year.
-Among teachers who do not integrate environmental education into their teaching, there is a strong feeling that it is not relevant to what they teach.
-The primary perceived barrier to integrating environmental education in the curriculum is lack of time in the school day.
The recommendations for what to target sound great, but where is the capacity-building model for schools, districts (the wholeness of it all), and above all teacher support to actually be in position to implement? I think teachers would be better equipped in creating the responsive learning environments we all envision by making things actually feasible on a real tangible level.

At the end of the day, everything comes down to fund$, so policy really can be a force to mandate the future of EE in public education. How much are those military spending figures #%@%! again?