Caroline Smith

Reconnecting with Earth: Ecospirituality as the Missing Dimension in Spirituality and Sustainability Education

This chapter proposes ecospirituality as the missing dimension in Education for Sustainability. The period 2005–2014 is the UNESCO Decade for Education for Sustainable Development, and the transdisciplinary field of Education for Sustainability (EfS) has the goal of fostering an environmental stewardship approach to life on Earth. But EfS rarely includes a spiritual dimension which has the potential to ground students’ experience in a recasting of the I-It to an I-Thou relationship with Nature. Extreme consumerism, burgeoning human population, and spiritual impoverishment have led to a radical disconnection of humans from Nature, and many young people fear the future, believing themselves to be powerless to change direction. While the exploitation of Nature has underpinnings in the Abrahamic religions which privilege the human over the rest of creation, in recognition of the convergence of cosmology, ecology, and spirituality through ecospirituality, religions are beginning to recast themselves to take account of the global ecological crisis. Thomas Berry (2000) describes this recasting as “moments of grace,” where humanity begins to understand its deep connection within the evolution of the universe and that human wellbeing is intimately entwined with the wellbeing of Earth’s ecosystems. Indeed humans would seem to be born with an empathetic orientation toward Nature. Thus, positive age-appropriate ecospiritual experiences are critical for developing concern for the environment, without which children may develop “ecophobia” (Sobel, 1999). The chapter concludes with a discussion of approaches and resources for ecospirituality education.

Education for Sustainability and the Role of Future-Focus Pedagogy

This chapter argues that an explicitly futures-focused approach is essential for students to be able to actively engage with education for sustainability (EfS). It is argued that given the current global situation, it is clear that sustainability is the key issue for global pedagogies in the early twenty-first century and beyond. The chapter suggests that one of the key pedagogical roles of Futures Education (FE) is to enable all students, whatever their age, to become active participants in creating and learning to bring forth a different reality of sustainability and to generate a renewed sense of hope and purpose for a sustainable future that is worth living for in the global culture.