The article “The best of Both Worlds: A Critical pedagogy of Place” by David A Gruenewald argues that “Place-based pedagogies are needed so that the education of citizens might have some direct bearing on the well-being of the social and ecological places people actually inhabit” (4). What this means exactly is that when learning about a certain topic that is place-based such as central park or a unique neighborhood, it is best to occupy yourself in that location whilst learning about it to get a better understanding of it. This was at first very confusing to me but I quickly understood the function and the practicality of this method when looking back at previous trips my colleagues at Macaulay and I went on last year.
The most memorable trip to me was visiting the Lower East Side Tenement Museum because I instantly connected the readings from class about immigrants that were struggling to fit families of 10 into a small room the size of a college dorm with what I saw when actually visiting the museum. I saw the knitting factories that the housewives’ established inside their homes to make a few extra dollars a month. I got a true feel for the living conditions that were not so apparent to me when reading the books about immigration in New York City.
Because of this realization I agree with David Gruenewald and I believe that place-based education is an exciting way for people to learn about certain topics because it connects the outside environmental world with the pedagogy of the scientific world. The Bioblitz event that most Macaulay student went to was another great example of place-based learning because we learned about all the different types of plants and animals that were located in central park, a park that is extremely well known amongst us as fellow New Yorkers. Learning about things in the park that I never even knew existed definitely brought me closer in a sense to my surroundings.