SHORT NOTE
According to the advocates of ecopedagogy, the mainstream environmental education is an offshoot of the 'state and corporate-sponsored science and social studies standards' (Gaard[1], G.2009) which promotes the unsustainable nature of marketed lifestyles in the name of economic growth and emergent employment sector. They have tried strategic interventions to create a 'planetary consciousness' (Bowers[2], 2010) and 'Planetary citizenship' (Bower[3], 2004) through pedagogical experiments and creating educational programs that interrogate the intersection of mainstreamed social, political, economic and environmental systems. .
Kahn[4] (2008) observes, “As an outgrowth of critical pedagogy, ecopedagogy critiques environmental education and education for sustainable development as vain attempts by mainstream forms of pedagogy seeking to appear relevant regarding current issues of environmental degradation.”
ABCs as culled out from reading the work of advocates of ecopedagogy
ABCs of ECOPEDAGOY
A: Attempting to create a learning approach based on critical pedagogy that intersects ecology and pedagogy with a focus on 'education through ecology' rather that teaching of ecology as a part of prescribed environmental education which is more like 'education about ecology' dictated by dominant nature-degrading forces (State and rich corporate sector/ market forces) in the name of employable skills
B: Beginning is made with the critiquing the current prescribed environmental education curriculum in the name of sustainable development (dictated by dominant class of society stressing consumerists life-styles and way it is being taught which is out-and-out bookish) and make it transformatory with use of critical and creating thinking skills for right social and environmental actions
C: Centring learning of environmental science curriculum as integration of social environment with natural environment and their; teaching it through direct study of the social and natural environments to discover the connections for sustainability within local socio-cultural system
REFERENCES
[1] Gaard, G. (2009). Children’s environmental literature: from ecocriticism to ecopedagogy. Neohelicon 36:321–334
[2] Bowers, C.A. 2010. Educational Reforms that Foster Ecological Intelligence. Education and the Environment Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 9–31
[3]Bowers, C.A. (2004). "Revitalizing the Commons or an Individualized Approach to Planetary Citizenship: The Choice Before Us". Educational Studies. 36:1 – via Taylor & Francis.
[4] Kahn, Richard. (2008). From Education for Sustainable Development to Ecopedagogy: Sustaining Capitalism or Sustaining Life? Green Theory & Praxis: The Journal of Ecopedagogy
Comments