A relative newcomer on the block, EarthDiverse came up trumps at the 2022 Hamilton CBD business awards in the Public Good category.
An adult and community education provider and not-for-profit social enterprise, EarthDiverse offer a wide range of diversity education courses in both the social and natural sciences.
The brainchild of long time educators Todd Nachowitz and Nona Morris, their overarching goal is to provide programmes designed to broaden worldviews which in turn will mitigate racism, discrimination and environmental degradation, and very importantly, to promote the joys of following an interest, learning new things, sharing ideas, and engaging in meaningful discussions.
“The idea behind EarthDiverse is to provide community-based diversity education in both the cultural diversity space and in environmental diversity. We look at it in terms of a two-way street so we can do community education for the community, but we also encourage education by the community,” Nona says.
Now based in Anglesea Street, like many not-for-profits EarthDiverse started life at the couple’s home, moving around various temporary locations before settling in the CBD.
“It was also our growth that precipitated the move. In the last place we only had two classrooms and we’ve grown so much in the last year that we’ve now got six different classrooms and we have a number of teachers that are zooming from their own spaces as well,” Todd says.
They currently offer over 150 different courses in the broad categories of language, culture and nature on a rotating basis, with new courses introduced each term.
Courses are open, affordable and accessible to anyone, anywhere and they welcome learners and qualified instructors from around the globe.
“One of the silver linings that has come out of the pandemic is that people are much more familiar now with using modern technologies than they were three years ago. We were already providing access for Zoom audiences before Covid hit, so we were well poised to continue our courses without interruption during the lockdowns. After the lockdowns, we picked up on that wave of people saying, ‘you know – it’s a cold, wet, rainy winter night. I don’t feel like going out. I’ll just log in from the comfort of my home with a cup of tea and listen to a great lecture,’” Todd says.
With learning for the joy of learning at the forefront of how the courses are designed, there are no assignments or assessments, just a 1.5 hour class each week that can be attended in person (depending on the tutor), online at the time of the class, or via a recording of the class if they are unable to attend at the scheduled course time.
There are no criteria for enrolment, so regardless of prior learning or age or any other barrier to a pathway to learning, an EarthDiverse course is open to all.
“What’s unique about what we’re offering is accessibility, affordability, and learning without the pressures of a formal school system. Yes, you can go to a university and enrol in papers that discuss diversity and yes, there are some great programmes in the social sciences and in the languages, but, to access these courses, you have to apply to get accepted, pay the university fees, do the hard work – assignments, exams, tutorials – in order to walk out with the knowledge. What we are saying is that this content should be accessible to anybody that wants it. Both of us felt, from our teaching years, that it shouldn’t so stressful to learn about something that interests you. You should be able to say, ‘I want to learn this language,’ and, for a low cost and no assessment pressures, be able to access the knowledge you want in a stress-free environment,” Nona says.
Developing new courses means two things: listening to what tutors have to offer in the subjects that they are passionate about, and listening to what the community wants and finding someone passionate to teach those particular topics.
While many of the lecturers are seasoned teachers, Nona guides and mentors some of the very knowledgeable individuals leading the non-language courses, who perhaps are less experienced in teaching, to develop courses that are sometimes quirky but always interesting. This includes all of the junior lecturers who are in their teens and early 20s,
“We have a 20 year old junior lecturer, Michael Burton Smith, who loves history and birds equally. Together, we created a course called ‘The Social History of Birds’, looking at how humans and birds have interacted over time, in a number of different contexts. Then he came up with the idea for another course called ‘The Birds of World War I’ in which he veered away from what happened to the humans in wartime, and instead asked what happened to the birds on the Western Front? It was a absolutely fascinating exploration of the impacts of war on nature,” Nona says.
The same process of instructor mentoring happens with the language courses. Language director Cristina Schumacher individually works with the newest language instructors to use a distinctive intuitive grammar curriculum that she has developed, which emphasises understanding the patterns in the language rather than on rote learning.
In the corporate space, EarthDiverse offers tailor-made professional development in cultural diversity for business.
“Next month we have a professional development programme that caters to businesses called ‘Doing Business in China’. And as we move into next year, we’ll be doing a variety of other ‘doing business’ workshops. But we also cater to and have done quite a number of professional development seminars for individual organisations, groups, businesses, associations, who want multicultural training in any of a wide variety of subjects,” Todd says.
With many businesses staffed by people from different ethnicities these days, EarthDiverse can also design programmes to help breach the gaps in understanding.
“We have the academic resources and the access to such an incredible range of teachers. We can design anything from language workshops to cultural, historical and religious diversity courses to ecology seminars,” Nona says.
While EarthDiverse sits in a unique educational space, Nona says, they are not replicating what is already on offer in New Zealand.
“We’re not going to compete for other people’s students. Our goal is to fill the needs that exist. For example, we partner with the Talents of the Pacific Academy (TOPA) . They teach multiple Pacific language and cultural classes across Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia, with an emphasis on gafa (whakapapa), song, dance and history. We promote them, because people need to have access to their knowledge and skills. We want to build this kind of collaborative way of thinking about education because ultimately, it benefits all of our futures.”
To find out more about EarthDiverse visit earthdiverse.org.nz.
