Hold up a mirror and ask yourself what you are capable of doing, and what you really care about. Then take the initiative - don't wait for someone else to ask you to act.
Sylvia EarleRead
There's something missing about how we're informing the youngsters coming along about what matters in the world. We teach them the numbers and the letters, but we fail to communicate the importance of our connection to the living world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We need to emphasize the importance of nature and our connection to it in education.
Sylvia Earle highlights a critical gap in the education system, where we focus primarily on academics like numbers and letters but neglect to teach the significance of our relationship with the natural world. This disconnect could lead to a lack of appreciation and understanding of environmental issues among the younger generation.
Themes
EducationNatureConnectionEnvironmentYouth
In practice
Example use cases
During a school assembly, I used this quote to discuss integrating environmental studies into the curriculum.
More from Sylvia Earle
All quotes →I'm haunted by the thought of what Ray Anderson calls 'tomorrow's child,' asking why we didn't do something on our watch to save sharks and bluefin tuna and squids and coral reefs and the living ocean while there still was time. Well, now is that time.
Sylvia EarleRead
Even if you never have the chance to see or touch the ocean, the ocean touches you with every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, every bite you consume. Everyone, everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea.
Sylvia EarleRead
There is a terribly terrestrial mindset about what we need to do to take care of the planet-as if the ocean somehow doesn't matter or is so big, so vast that it can take care of itself, or that there is nothing that we could possibly do that we could harm the ocean...We are learning otherwise.
Sylvia EarleRead
No water, no life. No blue, no green.
Sylvia EarleRead
I have come up at the end of a dive, and the boat was not where I left it. I had to take care of a buddy who did panic. But I was confident the boat would come back.
Sylvia EarleRead
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This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Some days you don't want to run and you resist every step of the three miles, but you do it anyway. You practice whether you want to or not. You don't wait around for inspiration and a deep desire to run ... That's how writing is too ... One of the main aims in writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body; to grow patient and nonaggressive.
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We live in a world of unused and misapplied knowledge and skill.
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