Why Ecological Education Now?
I have been doing ecological education for about 40 years. My first foray into what has become my life’s work was co-teaching a middle-school science class in Oakland, California. Our goal: to help learners understand how ecosystems work in general and learn some details about several specific ecosystems. We also wanted learners’ experience to be more like playing in a forest and less like working in a factory, although I wouldn’t have said it that way back then.
This combination of topic and approach grew from my love for ecology and approaches to education that emphasized “hands-on” learning and active engagement in making sense of the world while participating in a community. While I was aware that human-caused climate change and ecosystem degradation were issues, I was not nearly as worried about these issues as I am now. Since then, my sense of urgency about helping children think and be ecological has increased exponentially along with the rate of climate change.
I have come to believe that the ecophobic culture of the Global North and its drive to dominate has pushed our ecosystems, social systems, and climate out of balance. This behavior has had dire consequences, including extreme weather, supply chain issues, mass extinctions and tears in our social fabric. The best thing we can do to prepare our children for an uncertain future, emotionally and practically, is to help them develop ecophilia, a love of ecosystems, and to help them be ecological. Being ecological includes:
Being aware that we are interdependent with each other and our ecosystem.
Understanding the science of how ecosystems continually regenerate themselves through a dance of interdependence.
Being familiar with the contributors and relationships in one’s home ecosystem, including how humans can benefit from and contribute to our home ecosystem.
Acting in accordance with our interdependence with each other, ecosystems in general, and our home ecosystem by forming caring relationships with ourselves, others, and mother Earth.
I think the only way humans and many other species will make it to the next century is by transforming how we relate to each other and the rest of the natural world. And, what better place to start than helping our young grow into being ecological. Such a lofty and time-sensitive goal imparts some urgency to teach the above aspects of being ecological as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Yet, as an ecological educator, I do little teaching. Imprinting information onto others’ brains just never struck me as a thing to do. I also avoid curricula packaged in factories as I avoid food prepared that same way. On the other hand, I’ve always enjoyed conversations involving people really listening to each other. I also enjoy being a guide when I am in familiar territory and being guided when I am not, and sharing resources with others in both directions. Rather than teaching, I consider what I do as nurturing educational learning environments and communities.
Weaving Community One Thread at a Time
If communities are a web of relationships (see, David Haskel), then relationships are threads in a web. Not surprisingly, my goal for this blog is to spin some threads between forest educators, defined by Ricardo Sierra, to include all of us that support learning in ecosystems. In other words, I’d like this blog to contribute to an educational learning environment and community where forest and ecological educators engage in conversations, guide and be guided, and share resources about ecological education.