Michael Bonnett

Education for sustainability as a frame of mind

This article will review some problems with taking the notion of sustainable development, as a policy, as the touchstone of environmental education and will explore some central strands to understanding sustainability as a frame of mind. It will be argued that at the heart of this interpretation of sustainability lies the notion of a right relationship with nature which both conditions our attitudes towards the environment and our sense of our own identity. The contribution of certain influential eco‐centric accounts to the idea of sustainability is critically evaluated and a sense of sustainability is developed which is neither anthropocentric nor eco‐centric. It is argued that the essence of sustainability, so conceived, is intrinsic to authentic human consciousness and some of the metaphysical issues which it raises for education and modern Western society are indicated.

Education for Sustainable Development: a coherent philosophy for environmental education?

Abstract In recent years there has been a growing consensus that environmental education should be orientated around the idea of ‘sustainable development’. This paper examines some of the ambiguities and tensions that exist within this notion and suggests that its considerable attractions may be outweighed by its lack of clarity with regard to a range of fundamental values and principles which motivate environmental concern. It is argued that our relationship with nature is a central element of our sense of identity and that whereas sustainable development is highly problematical when taken as a statement of policy, sustainability conceived of as a frame of mind may have positive and wide‐reaching educational implications. Issues concerning the kinds of knowledge and approaches to teaching that should characterise environmental education are raised.

Environmental Education and Primary Children's Attitudes towards Nature and the Environment

Abstract> Some shortcomings of the current UK National Curriculum policy of delivering environmental education through traditional subjects are outlined and provide the context for reporting the results of a pilot study into Year 5/6 school childrens attitudes towards nature and the environment. Its findings indicate that while the attitudes of children of this age towards nature and the environment are generally very positive, they can involve a number of limitations, dichotomies and ambivalences which it will be important for their education to help them to address. Issues for educational policy and pedagogy, particularly the need for an enhanced role for pupil discussion and participation in environmental action, are raised.

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AND THE ISSUE OF NATURE

Much official environmental education policy in the UK and elsewhere makes scant reference to nature as such, and the issue of our underlying attitude towards it is rarely addressed. For the most part such policy is pre‐occupied with the issue of meeting ‘sustainably’ what are taken to be present and future human needs. This paper considers several issues posed by this anthropocentric approach and explores the view that environmental education—indeed any education—worthy of the name needs to bring a range of searching questions concerning nature to the attention of learners, and to encourage them to develop their own on‐going responses to those questions. It is argued that our present environmental predicament not only provides an exciting opportunity to re‐focus education on the issue of human relationship to nature, but also requires the exploration of this issue for its long‐term resolution. Extensive implications for the curriculum and the culture of the school are raised.

Environmental concern, moral education and our place in nature

Some strands of environmental concern invite a radical re-evaluation of many taken for granted assumptions of late modern ways of life—particularly those that structure how we relate to the natural world. This article explores some of the implications of such a re-evaluation for our understanding of moral education by examining the significance of ideas of our place in nature that focus not on our location in some grand abstract system, but on our felt sense of place in the course of our daily existence. It will be argued that exploration of the anticipatory and ecstatic nature of such concrete emplacement reveals an underlying normative character to our encounters with nature, now experienced as an autonomous and essentially mysterious non-human other that both sustains and is sustained by places—places in which find ourselves and live out our lives. It is argued that this view foregrounds a notion of transcendence that leads to both a questioning of the anthropocentrism (i.e. its metaphysical basis) that informs many Western moral views and an acknowledgement of intrinsic value in nature, such that some current mainstream understandings of the character of moral sensibility and of moral education can no longer be regarded as adequate.

Environmental Education and Beyond

The effect of human activity on the environment is rightly a matter of continuing concern both in general and for education in particular. The nature and place of environmental education is here examined in the light of current debates on what constitutes a proper relationship with nature and the qualities of knowledge appropriate to understanding our environmental situation. It is argued that issues are raised which are fundamental not simply to environmental education, but to the character of education as a whole.

Normalizing catastrophe: sustainability and scientism

Making an adequate response to our deteriorating environmental situation is a matter of ever increasing urgency. It is argued that a central obstacle to achieving this is the way that scientism has become normalized in our thinking about environmental issues. This is taken to reflect on an underlying ‘metaphysics of mastery’ that vitiates proper engagement with the natural environment, in particular, by subverting sensitivity to its own normative and purposive character. It is argued that the dominance of scientism can be exposed and disrupted by attending to understandings of nature that are intimate, embodied and emplaced, and that these need to be heeded in public debate of environmental issues.

Environmental concern and the metaphysics of education

We are only beginning to understand the significance of the issues which our environmental situation raises, and their implications for philosophy of education have yet to receive the depth of consideration they merit. This paper argues that certain strands of environmental concern invite us to reconsider the metaphysical basis of education. Having identified some senses in which education is properly construed as metaphysical, it explores questions posed for the conceptions of knowledge, truth, personhood and morality in which education is rooted, and for the versions of reality and the relationship to nature in which it invites pupils to participate.

Assessment and Multimedia Authoring - A Tool for Externalising Understanding

Multimedia authoring software has a number of features that, given teacher support, should provide conditions that help pupils create material that genuinely reflects their understanding. This paper reviews the ways in which use of this technology may also support improvements in assessment. Drawing on research findings it describes how pupil-produced multimedia documents can reveal aspects of performance that traditional tests may not recognise. If such assessment is to be accepted at the policy level, a shared set of criteria for achievement must be developed in terms of technical manipulation and content exposition. Lines of enquiry for further investigation of multimedia authoring, pupil learning and assessment are proposed.

ICT in Subject Teaching: an opportunity for curriculum renewal

ABSTRACT At a time of unprecedented levels of investment in ICT in UK schools this article reflects on curriculum issues raised by a recent piece of research into the potential of multimedia authoring to enhance childrens learning in the context of a drugs education programme with Year 6 children. It is argued that, given proper supporting structures, ICT of this highly interactive kind has the potential to develop qualities of evaluation, independence and responsibility in childrens learning and understanding. Its use can also challenge the existing culture of the classroom and stimulate teachers to devise teaching strategies which celebrate a reassertion of liberal educational values which have implications for the role of the teacher in interpreting the curriculum, teacher‐pupil interaction and modes of assessment.