In many ways, my being able – as a “formal” academic – to speak at (and now to write for) an association of outdoor educators is a monumental step toward bridging the gap that has always existed between the areas of formal and non-formal education. That such a gap is even possible in a field such as environmental education is shocking, yet the fact remains that although EE began as a discipline almost 30 years ago, we see few if any changes in the attitudes and life-styles of the majority of those upon whom the survival of the planet depends. Indeed, rampant consumerism, recognized as the primary factor in environmental destruction, increases unabated. Why has there been so little success in this vital area, and what can we as environmentally concerned teachers do to create a reverence for nature in our students? An eco-conscience?
In their excellent 1994 study, entitled The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places, Gary Nabhan and Stephen Trimble discuss the ways in which young humans, like all young creatures, find their places – and in doing so, form their identities – in the sights, smells and sounds of whatever world surrounds them, be it urban, rural or wilderness. They also make it very clear that in order to preserve what is left of this fragile planet, parents and educators must provide an abundance of opportunities for young people to interact with the world of nature. However, because of our rapidly shrinking wild spaces, very few people growing up in today’s world have hands-on interactions with - or an understanding of - the world’s natural systems. As a result, they acquire no appreciation for nature’s beauty nor any sense of responsibility for its accelerating demise. Most of the public’s awareness of the environment is theoretical at best, usually acquired within four sterile walls, and second-hand via the writings of others. And therein lies the major difference between in-house and in-the-field EE classes. Formal education has a great deal indeed to learn from organizations such as AEOE and its members.
~~Formal education has a great deal indeed to learn from organizations such as AEOE and its members.~~
Most researchers agree that the reason a quarter-century of formal, academic environmental education has been largely unsuccessful is that the major emphasis has been on the presentation of purely scientific facts, rather than on accessing the “affective domain” of the learners via the teaching of moral and ethical values. According to Bloom’s Taxonomy, academic success means achievement of consecutive levels of thinking, from memorization synthesis and evaluation. Thus, being successful in mathematics might mean knowing the multiplication tables or how to apply an algebraic equation; in history it might be recalling the date of the Magna Carta or being able to explain the significance of Napoleon’s loss at Waterloo, and in English the use of proper grammar or the explication of a poem. If environmental education is to be seen as simply a part of the traditional science curriculum, then certainly the ability to cite facts and figures having to do with man’s destruction of the earth, to understand biota and food webs, toxic wastes and biological magnification may be counted as success. However, in a world choked with landfills and toxic dumps, unable to measure or control its non-point pollution of air, land or water, where forests are being clear-cut and species condemned to extinction at unprecedented rates, the skills established by Bloom are simply not sufficient. Success in environmental education means convincing the public that it must change its values and lifestyles so as to no longer degrade and destroy the planet. Lack of success - failure - means the certain death of what is left of this fragile eco-system. At issue here, clearly, is a missing link in the interface between basic environmental awareness and a sense of personal environmental responsibility.
Success in environmental education
means convincing the public that it must change its values and lifestyles so
as to no longer degrade and destroy the planet.
An additional problem is that culture, politics, ethics, philosophy and aesthetics
are all "don’t-tread-on-me’s." They are highly subjective,
individual choices, untouchable, seen as part of both our individual and our
collective identities. Even before political correctness became an issue, some
twenty years ago, teachers were trained not to impose their own agendas - political,
religious or other - on their students. We were taught that our personal opinions
might be offensive to others, and that "the American way" was to
give every student the right to his/her own beliefs. The issue of what schools
should teach, and/or should be allowed to teach is certainly not a new one,
but this is perhaps the first time in mankind’s history when its own
survival as a species depends so directly on that decision. In the first quarter
of this
century, with the advent of Dewey’s "progressive education," the
teaching of ethical values was taken away from the schools because it was felt
that such issues were doctrinaire, dogmatic, narrow-minded, conservative. And
perhaps they were. But while a call for spiritual teachings may make many people
(including me) uneasy because of the obvious door it leaves open for abuse
of the privilege, it seems that we have very little choice. We need only to
look
at the Eastern cultures, such as Buddhism, and at the interaction of Native
American peoples with their natural world, to understand what is lacking in
our own teachings.
Michael Caduto reminds us that "values-free education is as impossible
as values-free living" and recalls the words of John Dewey who believed
that "...every subject, every method of instruction, every incident of
school life [is] pregnant with moral possibility." (13)
C.A. Bowers begins his Introduction to The Culture of Denial: Why the Environmental Movement Needs a Strategy for Reforming Universities and Public Schools by discussing the fact that educational systems separate ...the multiple forms of cultural knowledge into high and low-status categories. Basically, high-status knowledge is associated with modern assumptions, values and ways of knowing; knowledge which is not associated with the modern individualistic and technologically oriented culture of change has been viewed as low-status - and largely excluded from the nation’s classrooms. (1)
Bowers makes it clear that knowledge having to do with the ways in which man fits intrinsically into nature’s plan and web have, for at least the past several centuries, been considered low-status and without value, indeed, perhaps even perverse and dangerous, since they challenge the socially-acceptable ideals of “getting ahead” and “making a better life.”
In a 1998 volume entitled Virgin Forest, Eric Zencey argues that academia is, in fact, a major contributor to the furthering of those values and worldviews that lead to environmental destruction, alleging that academia sees "nature as so much visual furniture" (62) and discussing the implications that such an attitude has for mankind’s moral stewardship of the earth, commenting that "science and mathematics give us the knowledge we need to understand how the world works. But wisdom, built on the foundation of what we value, guides our actions." (12) However, in an article entitled "Learning Our Way to a Better Environmental Future" David Rejeski proposes that the environmental education community become pro-active rather than re-active in our approach to environmental issues, and ends by reminding us that “...those who believe in education, practice it, and understand its power become the new agents of change.” (16)
To do this we must seize every possible chance to emphasize
the importance of environmental values and ethics. We are abdicating our responsibility
if we forgo
chances to build curricula which emphasize these issues, if we do not choose
our texts with an eye to the eco-values they present, if we do not develop
our lesson plans and writing assignments in such a way that students are forced
to
deal with the difficult questions of environmental ethics. It is important
to keep in mind as we re-think our teaching that it is the values, beliefs
and lifestyles
of the general public, not those of the much smaller intellectual and scientific
community, which will eventually save or destroy the planet. To believe that
more than the tiniest fraction of our student-body is anything other than the
general public is not only delusional, but downright dangerous. And the general
public, as we have seen clearly in twenty-five years of environmental education,
does not respond emotionally to scientific knowledge. Our choice, then, is
simple: we can either continue to not tread on the anthropocentric values of
the students
in our classrooms, maintaining– while we watch the environment disintegrate–our
belief in the right of each person to choose his or her own lifestyle, or we
can teach environmental values in the same way that we teach tolerance of race,
religion, nationality and gender.
~~...we are going to have to make a commitment, each of us in our own way
–formal or non-formal, in-house or in the field–
to being an agent of change for the environment.~~
The unfortunate fact remains that most formal environmental studies programs still resemble traditional science or social studies curricula far more closely than they do something meant to stop the destruction of the planet. And, although many college English departments now offer literature courses with an eco-critical focus, I would add–at the risk of offending many of my friends, colleagues and peers–that while eco-criticism is fascinating for those of us already in the field, a university class with an eco-critical focus continues to produce English teachers, not environmental activists. If we are to succeed in producing the environmentally-informed and ecologically-active citizenry that Stapp advocated in 1969, we are going to have to look beyond the syllabi and texts and writing assignments that we have depended upon for so long; we are going to have to re-think our classroom practices; and we are going to have to make a commitment, each of us in our own way –formal or non-formal, in-house or in the field–to being an agent of change for the environment.
Bowers, C.A. (1997) The Culture of Denial: Why
the Environmental Movement Needs a Strategy for reforming universities and
Public Schools. Albany: State University
of New York press.
Caduto, M. (1983). “A Review of Environmental Values Education.” Journal
of Environmental Education 14 (3) 13-21.
Nabhan, G. P. & Trimble, S. (1994). The Geography of Childhood: Why Children
Need Wild Places. Boston: Beacon Press.
Rejeski, D. (1998) “Learning Our Way to a Better Environmental Future.” Environmental
Communicator 28 (3) 15-16.
Stapp, W.B. et. al. (1969) “The Concept of Environmental Education.” Journal
of Environmental Education, 1 (1) 30-32.
Zencey, E. (1998) Virgin Forest. Athens, University of Georgia Press.