If we think further about how we as humans co-exist with nature we need to question our actions and the impact that they cause on the natural world. How much thought do we put into questioning our actions and the impact that they may cause when we bring the natural environment into our classrooms? I’m not saying whether it is wrong or right but it deserves critical thinking. For example: A part of the elementary school system’s curriculum is to bring salmon eggs into the classroom so that children can learn about the life cycle of salmon. This creates incredible opportunities to learn about ecology and to build a relationship with wildlife however, what about the impact we create when we remove a species from it’s natural environment? What rights do these fish have? and are their rights even thought of? Is this an act of respect for salmon or an action made through ignorance? Has this hierarchy become so naturalized that we don’t question are actions when we bring the natural environment and animals into our classrooms? It seems that ethics is lost in our desire to learn and teach about ecology when we bring it into our classrooms to make it easier and more assessable to us. We can take this even further to think about the messages it sends to children when we bring pinecones, rocks, sticks, leaves etc. into our classroom. Is this respecting nature? It certainly brings an aesthetic appeal to our classrooms. Just because we can move it does it give us ownership? This relates to the educational boarders that our school buildings create and how we allow these walls to maintain our teaching and learning within a classroom. Why can’t we engage more with the world around us? Living in North Vancouver we are close to many forests, rivers, and ecology centres that we can learn about nature through nature.
“For Levinas, in the face-to-face relation the Other is absolutely other. This is an Other which I cannot represent and classify into a category - and hence not totalise. The face-to-face encounter ruptures my ego, eludes thematisations and formalisations and dissolves the capacity to possess and master the Other. Instead of grasping, I have to take responsibility for the Other: and this relation is one of welcoming, a welcoming of the other as stranger” (2005, p. 80). If we think with Levinas, we can imagine our relationship with the natural world as being the Other and in this way we take responsibility for the wellbeing of the other. It is this ethical responsibility and respect for the other that can bring hope and possibilities to better care for our natural environment and the species that co-exist with us. Instead of a sense of ownership of natural materials perhaps we can engage in feelings of responsibility toward the rights of the natural world. Levinas ideas of ‘the face’ can also help us to think about ethics and our relationship with nature. “The demand of ‘the one who needs you, who is counting on you’. The face in the ethical sense invoked by Levinas is ‘a notion through which man comes to me via a human act different from knowing’...An act which is fundamentally and originally ethical: that for Levinas is the relation to the other” (2005, p.80). It is our ethical responsibility to the other (nature) to make ethical decisions in our engagement with the natural world. As Levinas suggests the ethical response is “different then knowing” (2005, p.80), as we know that nature needs our care and it becomes our response to that knowing.
Santos, “Connects responsibility with care, and extends responsibility to cover not only other humans but other species and the environment we share: Postmodern knowledge cannot build solidarity in the technological age except by developing a new ethics, an ethics not colonized by science and technology, like liberal ethics, but, rather, based on a new principle. In my view this new principle is the principle of responsibility... The new principle of responsibility resides in Sorge, the caring that puts us at the centre of all that happens, and renders us responsible for the other, whether human beings and social groups, or objects, animals, nature, and so on...” (2005, p.82) Ethics is crucial in our work as teachers if we hope to model a caring relationship with nature to our students. This requires us to question our work continuously as Santo suggests it is our responsibility to others.
References:
Dahlberg, G. & Moss, P. (2005). Ethics and politics in early childhood education. Rouledge Farmer.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
2. The dichotomy in education:
I have been working at an elementary school in North Vancouver which has giving me insight into how the education system is teaching children about ecology and environmental issues. One of our school days we had a performance for the whole school to watch. It discussed environmental issues and how our natural world is in danger due to negative human impact such as: pollution, and garbage etc. One of the key messages from the performance was the little things that we could do differently that can help our environment such as using less throw away food containers, recycling, and walking/biking to school. Right after the performance was lunch time which on this day students were provided with a hot lunch. Ironically these hot lunches where served in all throw away containers. This caused me to think about the dichotomy between what we are teaching children and our actions modeling something that contradicts what we are teaching about. The schools recycling program only recycles certain types of paper and juice boxes because they can make 5 cents off of each one. Are we modeling that only if we make a profit that it’s worth our effort and time to recycle? We really need to think about this and take our actions seriously if we want to support and foster relationships of respect between ourselves/students and nature. If we don’t will be risking more negative impact on our natural world?
Severn Suzuki speech at UN Earth Summit 1992 Tell the World:
Severn Suzuki speaks to the environmental issues of our world and the impact of neoliberalism influence on a business consumerism society causing environmental conditions of crisis. What stands out to me is this recognition that there is a crisis but that people keep making choices that continue this negative cycle. This is a huge issue and can be overwhelming, but the question for me is, what can we do as teachers in the education system to help improve these conditions? Severn Suzuki quotes the great wisdom of her father “you are what you do, not what you say” (6:15). This statement can hold us all accountable if we begin to focus on our actions reflecting our teaching. Richard Louv writes, “ the way children understand and experience nature has changed radically. The polarity of the relationship has reversed. Today, kids are aware of the global threats to the environment-but their physical contact, their intimacy with nature, is fading.” (2005, p.1). How can we act as teachers in a way to encourage and foster this connected relationship between our students and nature? How can we take seriously environmental issues but also provide spaces for children to make positive environmental changes? What if we increase our engagement with the natural environment by creating outside space on our school grounds for school and community gardens. This would teach children about the value of gardening and create engagement between schools and the communities as we begin to make a positive impact in our world. This would also provide schools with nutritious foods for lunch and cooking programs as well as provide much needed garden space for our communities in which garden space is so valuable in a growing and changing city. We can also begin recycle programs that teach children and their families about recycling.
References:
Louv, Richard. (2005). Last Child In The Woods Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. Algonquin Books.
Severn Suzuki speech at UN Earth Summit 1992 Tell the World [online video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaOJrJ_oqFU
Severn Suzuki speech at UN Earth Summit 1992 Tell the World:
Severn Suzuki speaks to the environmental issues of our world and the impact of neoliberalism influence on a business consumerism society causing environmental conditions of crisis. What stands out to me is this recognition that there is a crisis but that people keep making choices that continue this negative cycle. This is a huge issue and can be overwhelming, but the question for me is, what can we do as teachers in the education system to help improve these conditions? Severn Suzuki quotes the great wisdom of her father “you are what you do, not what you say” (6:15). This statement can hold us all accountable if we begin to focus on our actions reflecting our teaching. Richard Louv writes, “ the way children understand and experience nature has changed radically. The polarity of the relationship has reversed. Today, kids are aware of the global threats to the environment-but their physical contact, their intimacy with nature, is fading.” (2005, p.1). How can we act as teachers in a way to encourage and foster this connected relationship between our students and nature? How can we take seriously environmental issues but also provide spaces for children to make positive environmental changes? What if we increase our engagement with the natural environment by creating outside space on our school grounds for school and community gardens. This would teach children about the value of gardening and create engagement between schools and the communities as we begin to make a positive impact in our world. This would also provide schools with nutritious foods for lunch and cooking programs as well as provide much needed garden space for our communities in which garden space is so valuable in a growing and changing city. We can also begin recycle programs that teach children and their families about recycling.
References:
Louv, Richard. (2005). Last Child In The Woods Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. Algonquin Books.
Severn Suzuki speech at UN Earth Summit 1992 Tell the World [online video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaOJrJ_oqFU
1. Educational Boarders: How do we engage with the natural world in education?
As an early childhood educator one of the questions that has been provoking my thinking for a few years is, how do we represent and teach young children about ecology? This question was brought on by my increasing relationship with nature. Through my circle of friends influence I have overcome many of my fears around exploring the forests in North Vancouver. I became aware of the difference in how I felt and thought when I was hiking and exploring in the forest. There is a presence there unlike anything else and I feel a sense of balance when I’m there. This change in my life has caused we to wonder why my experiences of exploring nature has been so limited when I have grown up in a city with an incredible amount of nature literally all around me? Why have I grown up to feel so afraid of the forest when I have seen more bears on the street outside my house then in the forest? Why was my education about ecology so limited in school?
The teacher part of my identity has been provoked to think about education and how I have seen and taken part in representing and teaching children about our natural world. It isn’t a secret that our natural environment all over the world is in danger due to harmful human choices made everyday. This is the social justice issue that I will discussing in my continued blogs. I am interested in engaging further about the impact that is caused by the lack of engaging seriously in ecology education and environmental issues with children. What is the neoliberalism’s role in influencing the lack of ecology education in schools? How do we co-exist with our natural world as a society? How do we value our forests, animals, etc. and how does this impact the level of engagement with exploring and learning about ecology in schools? One of the main people I will be thinking about this issue with is Richard Louv. In Richard’s book: Last Child In The Woods Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, he speaks directly to the social justice issue of the lack of engagement that human’s today have with the natural environment. Richard Louv states, “healing the broken bond between our young and nature-is in our self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demands it, but also because our mental , physical, and spiritual health depends upon it. The health of the earth is at stake as well. How young respond to nature, and how they raise their own children, will shape the configurations and conditions of our cities, homes-our daily lives” (2005, p.3)
In the last few years there has been a great emphasis on bringing the natural environment into our classrooms. It creates an aesthetic appeal in our classrooms that opens a space for children to engage and explore with natural materials. I also value what the natural materials represent in our classrooms but I have began to question more in-depth what this representation of natural materials means to education? If we bring the natural environment into our classrooms is that enough to learn about nature and grow a deep and engaged relationship with it? Does this do justice for what the forest can teach us? In bringing the natural materials into the classroom it seems that we engage even less with the outdoors.
References:
Louv, Richard. (2005). Last Child In The Woods Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. Algonquin Books.
The teacher part of my identity has been provoked to think about education and how I have seen and taken part in representing and teaching children about our natural world. It isn’t a secret that our natural environment all over the world is in danger due to harmful human choices made everyday. This is the social justice issue that I will discussing in my continued blogs. I am interested in engaging further about the impact that is caused by the lack of engaging seriously in ecology education and environmental issues with children. What is the neoliberalism’s role in influencing the lack of ecology education in schools? How do we co-exist with our natural world as a society? How do we value our forests, animals, etc. and how does this impact the level of engagement with exploring and learning about ecology in schools? One of the main people I will be thinking about this issue with is Richard Louv. In Richard’s book: Last Child In The Woods Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, he speaks directly to the social justice issue of the lack of engagement that human’s today have with the natural environment. Richard Louv states, “healing the broken bond between our young and nature-is in our self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demands it, but also because our mental , physical, and spiritual health depends upon it. The health of the earth is at stake as well. How young respond to nature, and how they raise their own children, will shape the configurations and conditions of our cities, homes-our daily lives” (2005, p.3)
In the last few years there has been a great emphasis on bringing the natural environment into our classrooms. It creates an aesthetic appeal in our classrooms that opens a space for children to engage and explore with natural materials. I also value what the natural materials represent in our classrooms but I have began to question more in-depth what this representation of natural materials means to education? If we bring the natural environment into our classrooms is that enough to learn about nature and grow a deep and engaged relationship with it? Does this do justice for what the forest can teach us? In bringing the natural materials into the classroom it seems that we engage even less with the outdoors.
References:
Louv, Richard. (2005). Last Child In The Woods Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. Algonquin Books.
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