How School Buildings Can Connect Students to the Environment →
Here are the first two paragraphs of the article:
In his ethnography Wisdom Sits in Places, the anthropologist Keith Basso reveals the Western Apaches’ poetic sense of place. Landscape symbolizes a community’s history and is intrinsically linked with the memory of ancestors and their way of life. As children come of age, they demonstrate their maturity by recognizing and honoring the stories of each place. The land, learning, and culture are one.
As we strive to shape society’s current relationship with the natural environment into one of respect, we need to create places that convey a new narrative and a connection to nature. As a member of the Western Apache explains, “Wisdom sits in places. It’s like water that never dries up. You need to drink water to stay alive, don’t you? Well, you also need to drink from places.” Elders tell their children, “Drink from places, then you can work on your mind.”
Be sure to read the rest of the article! The author goes on to speak about plans for a school in Denmark that will help students connect to the world around them.
