In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation—even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of the pine.
—Great Law of the Six Nations
Long before Europeans landed in the Americas, the indigenous peoples of the continent had their own systems of governing and decision-making. The six First Nations that inhabited the area now known as the northeastern United States, who were called the Iroquois Confederacy by the French, expected their chiefs to consider three things when making law: the effect of their decision on peace, the effect on the natural world, and the effect on seven generations in the future. Thanks to a revival of interest in the traditions of America's First Nations and a surge of conviction that we must consider environmental impacts, this concept has become an inspiration for the sustainability movement.
We propose it as an inspiration for the sustainable school movement. School buildings contribute a large share of the carbon emissions of the built environment; and yet many are still being operated and built with insufficient attention to the many ways in which, without wise design, they waste energy, dirty the environment, disconnect children from nature, and teach them implicitly that sustainability is just an option, and that disregard for the natural world is permissible.
In this chapter, a chorus of not only environmentalists and sustainability-minded designers but also students, parents, and administrators extol the urgency of sustainable schools. The reasons they give are many: economic, educational, environmental, and moral. As Cayuga Bear Clan Mother Carol Jacobs, a leader of one of the Six Nations, told the United Nations in 1995, "We call the future generations 'the coming faces.' We are told that we can see the faces of the children to come in the rain that is falling, and that we must tread lightly on the earth, for we are walking on the faces of our children yet to come."
