"I am not a teacher; only
a fellow traveler of whom
you asked the way. I pointed
ahead–ahead of myself
as well as of you. "
--George Bernard Shaw
Jackie
Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.,
President
of Speedlearning 100, is
a father, activist, and educator. Prior to entering the field of education,
he studied the planets in our Solar System from one end to the other during
a 20-year career in the U.S. robotic space program. He discovered that
there may not be a single drop of available fresh water or a breath of
fresh air other than on Earth. Humans may one day live on other worlds,
but the Earth will be always be our only true home.
From the age of five, he was excited about the heavens above and went on to study astronomy at the University of Southern California. After graduation, he got a job with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Project Voyager, a grand NASA mission to explore Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune with two spacecraft. It appeared that dreams were about to come true.
But a few years later, while on vacation in Yosemite National Park, Jackie somehow woke up to the realization that he had spent little time in his life contemplating the wonders of planet Earth. Upon returning home, he began studying about how the Earth worked and discovered that what little he knew about pollution, toxic wastes, and cruelty to our fellow creatures had been grossly underplayed to him in his reading and his studies. He found out that the Earth´s life support systems were headed for disaster.
After obtaining a Masters degree in Environmental Studies, Jackie continued to search for the right path for many more years. He began teaching adults returning to school in the late 1980´s and discovered that the knowledge he had about the toll our lifestyles were taking on the Earth was hard for folks to swallow. Looking for a way to share the awareness of the terrible harm we were doing the Earth to his students, he learned that many scholars felt that the profound disconnection from the natural world that modern city dwellers experience was a root cause for our terrible environmental and social abuses.
Studying
these phenomena further became the subject of Jackie´s doctoral program
and his focus on the fields of ecopsychology, ecofeminism, deep ecology,
and bioregionalism, among others. With this unique collection of tools,
Jackie began speaking to students, educators, and the public about the
consequences of our separation from the cycles of the Earth. He developed
the Deep
Teaching Process, a collection of methods for teaching students to
notice the powerful connections between the environment and people.
Continuing to work for NASA/JPL until 1998, Jackie led the development of teacher training programs and student workshops in space and Earth science education.
While teaching adults returning to school, he discovered a severe lack of literacy skills in his students. Few could read faster than 200 words per minute and their comprehension was awful. Jackie remembered his own speed reading studies and decided to create a company that could make everyone a stellar learner. Today Speedlearning 100 is recognized by Fortune Magazine and trains business, students and the general public.