What About Your Environment?

When we think of the environment, we most often imagine a whole host of ideas: carbon emissions, polar ice caps melting, Al Gore’s slideshow. But for all of us, there is an environment that affects our lives with far greater significance on a constant basis: our personal environment.

The ancient Greeks had a concept of micro- and macrocosm, a belief that individuals were small versions of the outside world. Extending this idea, therefore, we can see how a person – his or her thoughts, actions, attitudes and values – might reflect the microcosm in which this person lives. (And the microcosm might also be reflected in the person.) The same statement can be made about physical condition. In healthy environments, people tend to live a more healthy lifestyle: consuming better food, breathing cleaner air. And through this lifestyle, these people actively enrich their own environment: encouraging organic farming through their buying decisions, ensuring cleaner air quality through the use of fuel-efficient cars or public transportation.

Often people don’t think about the importance of their working and living environment. The irony is that many people who express sentiments about improving the environment on a big scale neglect their own individual environments. Little details around us can have a big impact on creativity and the process of learning.

For example, outdoor education is being implemented throughout the world. Simply put, outdoor education is taking education outside. It is using the elements of natural environment as a teaching stimulant, encouraging students to see the outside world as a place of learning, as an environment that should be studied and appreciated. This concept encompasses three overlapping concerns – environmental education, outdoor activity, and personal and social development – which are important aspects of a healthy and sustainable lifestyle.

Comparing indoor and outdoor classrooms, we can see that the situation of communication is very different. Inside we traditionally have a teacher in front of the classroom and students sitting opposite. Usually this creates certain boundaries, which carry both positive and negative implications. For a student, this is a passive role, which fails to encourage self-involvement. Outdoor education has been proven to eliminate many of these boundaries. Teacher and student are nearly on the same level, both exposed to the same conditions set by the environment, moving around instead of remaining inert. This creates a more active environment, with more opportunities for students to take part in the learning process; moreover, it puts the relationships (between students, teachers and the environment itself) into new status.

Another aspect of one’s environment is the workplace. Meetings and conferences are often contained within stiff boundaries, thus decreasing efficiency and stifling creativity. The Open Space Technology (created by Harrison Owen in 1980s) is a method that breaks down the boundaries in an environment, leading to a more active form of discussion and decision-making. Participants themselves create thematic working groups and take responsibility for the results. People are given the freedom to discuss their priorities, all within an environment of greater openness.

Governments and various organizations have devoted tremendous effort into eliminating pollution from our environment. But while we are focused on the water supply or the atmosphere, we risk forgetting the importance of eliminating pollution in our lives. The examples are numerous: an overload of advertisement, shopping in a grocery store that leaves us feeling drained and pessimistic, working in a windowless cube, watching bad television. Of course, many of these factors cannot be regulated by the state. It is up to each individual to clear out the pollution in his or her environment–whether it is the job you work, the place you live, or the things you buy. Your personal environment is exactly that: yours. But if enough people devote themselves to preserving a clean individual environment, then this environment – represented by the companies, organizations, jobs, and governments – will begin to change for the better.

Photograph by Sven Weigand, © 2003