After growing up paying attention to the socially conscious messages of the punk bands he played in, OVS history Tyson Luneau found his passion for social justice and implemented it into OVS for the first time this year.
Mr. Luneau has had an interest in social justice for most of his life, but he more recently connected his fascination to the environment. His new Environmental Justice course fit in perfectly with the OVS curriculum.
“Environmental Justice as a discipline gave me the opportunity to address a lot of important issues in our world that don’t get enough attention,” said Mr. Luneau.
He believes that the socratic seminars he uses in that course give his students a better quality of learning by exercising all mediums of literature, and that it is more effective than a testing environment. He structures the class like a college course in order to simulate a real world experience.
His goal for the students during the seminars is inquiry. He wants them to really think about and reflect on the topics by asking questions.
His students love his teaching and feel like the seminars help them understand the material better because they get to ask questions and debate with each other about the readings.
Annie Heinemann is a student in his Environmental Justice class, and she feels like she has learned a lot from Mr. Luneau because of the seminars and because he is passionate about teaching the class.
“We’re able to discuss issues in a way we would never get the opportunity to in a normal classroom,” Annie said.
Mr. Luneau made his passion project a reality in the form of an engaging, collage-like course that connects the environment with social justice issues in the past and the present.
“The goal is for all students to come away with a more in depth, more nuanced understanding of various environmental issues,” said Mr. Luneau