In Search of a Living Literacy: Language, Literature and Ecological Sensibility
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UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA IN SEARCH OF A LIVING LITERACY: LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND ECOLOGICAL SENSIBILITY By PATRICK G. HOWARD A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND RESEARCH IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF SECONDARY EDUCATION EDMONTON, ALBERTA WINTER 2006 Abstract The impetus for this study was the result of living with children on the coast of Newfoundland during the culmination of decades of blatant disregard for the marine ecosystem. The ensuing social upheaval underscored the deep interrelatedness of human culture and the living Earth. This research project is born of a belief that education, in its present form, may be an obstacle to a new understanding of our place in the living world. It proposes to see language as a way to re-vision what it means to dwell in place. Our society is in need of a highly ecologically literate citizenry. To achieve this we must move beyond the perspective of science that underlies many environmental education programs and recover an interpretive, moral, and human relationship with place. This study inquires into the pedagogical possibilities for nurturing ecological sensibility in children. The hermeneutic phenomenological methodology and the thematic analysis of children‘s written response to bioregional poetry revealed phenomenological insights of pedagogical value. As the children formed new ecological sensibilities, the interpretive practice was transformative for the researcher, deepening a sense of radical interconnectedness. Guided by the theory of ecological holism, this inquiry elaborates an experiential and embodied dimension of reader response theory. An important goal of the study is to understand literary engagement as nested in a larger web of relations that includes the cognitive, the biological, even the spiritual. Children‘s writers notebook entries revealed an orientation of patient regard for the greater life force. The interpretive process showed how the concept of givenness characterizes some children‘s relationship with the living world. The student writing provided possibilities to see the process of deepening children‘s ethical relationship with the ‗other than human‘ with whom they share their places. This inquiry records the disruption in children‘s lives characterized as a deep felt homelessness in response to the instability brought about by environmental degradation. It is hoped that this study is part of a future direction in curriculum studies that is driven by an understanding of the principles of ecology. It is a view that requires thinking in terms of relationship, connectedness and context. Acknowledgements “I am part of all that I have met” Alfred Lord Tennyson The completion of this dissertation has been part of a life journey that commenced in 1997 when I first attended the University of Alberta. In those early days there were many people who acted as mentors and guides, some of whom have seen me through to the end. I would like to express my sincere gratitude. To Dr. Ingrid Johnston whose encouragement and generosity made my decision to return to the Department of Secondary Education in 2002 seem like the most natural and inevitable choice. To Dr. Julia Ellis who introduced me to what it means to be place-conscious and set me on a path to discover the meaning of good inhabitance and the care and rootedness it requires. To Dr. David G. Smith, who modeled for me an attentive, mindful orientation to what it means to be truly engaged as a scholar, for his encouragement to see the wisdom of interconnections and patterns – the ‗cosmos in the local;‘ I am forever indebted. To Dr. Dennis Sumara for his interest in my work and for his dedication as a teacher and scholar. His encouragement to follow with confidence and creativity my line of inquiry was both rewarding and transformative. To Dr. Seonaigh MacPherson for introducing me to scholars of embodiment and ecology who validated the line of inquiry I hoped to pursue at a time when I needed it most. For her teaching and kindness I am truly thankful. To Dr. Max van Manen, my supervisor, who took the time to make a phone call in the spring of 1998 and inspired me to embark upon this part of the journey. His generosity, both personal and academic, his deep commitment to a pedagogical orientation shapes all that I write. I am forever grateful for his guidance and teaching, and for his insistence that language, when attended to rigorously, has an allusive power to address us deeply and move our lives forward. To the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, JDH. McFetridge Graduate Scholarship, the Walter H. Johns Graduate Fellowship, Mary Louise Imrie Graduate Award, the University of Alberta Graduate Intern Tuition Scholarship, and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador Education Leave Award for financial support provided. To the Department of Secondary Education for the opportunity to undertake a Teaching Assistantship and spend time teaching and learning in the post- secondary classroom. To Mrs. Lenora Furey, librarian, College of the North Atlantic, Baie Verte Campus, for her invaluable research assistance over the years. To the administrative staff in the Department of Secondary Education, to Dawne Cook and Donna Lauritsen for making the life of this graduate student so much easier. To the many fellow graduate students who provided community, collegiality and camaraderie throughout my residency, particularly, Andrew Foran, Mijung Kim, Laura Thompson, Loren Agrey, Judith van Manen, Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Nellis, Frank Elliott and Nicole Green. Finally, to my wife, Joy, and my children, Chelsea and Thomas, for their patience and love, for their willingness to uproot and travel across Canada (once again) and see it all as an ―excellent adventure.‖ Your sacrifice and support have made it all possible. Table of Contents Chapter 1 A Roundabout Return to Elemental Matters 1 Settling in 1 Living in place 3 Under the spell of spines 5 Being set down 8 ―We choose where we live‖ 11 A leaning into the light 13 Chapter 2 Educational Significance of the Study 17 Two classrooms 17 The limits of science 21 Different ways of knowing 27 Reclaiming the ―sensible‖ 30 Chapter 3 Research Methodology: Context and Plan 33 Rationale 33 Dissertation research question 35 Framework of inquiry 39 Writing prompts 39 Bioregional poetry 43 Interpretive process 46 Emergence of dual pedagogies 48 Overview of study 50 Chapter 4 The Nature of Ecological Sensibility 54 Beginning with experience 55 Teaching and learning ecological sensibility 58 Chapter 5 Ecological Sensibility and Relationship to Language 65 Ecocriticism and literary theory 70 Textuality as embodied integration 75 Chapter 6 Literature and the Ecology of Reader Response 82 The phenomenology of literary engagement 89 Literary engagement and implicit intricacy 92 Texts as situations 97 Language comes in the body 99 Chapter 7 Bioregionalism and the Poietic Process 106 Knotting place, body and mind 106 Poiesis and living in place: Interpreting bioregionalism 107 The reciprocal relation: Place and self 113 The promise of the literature of the bioregion 115 Chapter 8 Land(marks): The Writers Notebook 123 Writing with felt sense 126 Braided lives 135 Chapter 9 Awakening 140 Jonathan - Patience emerging and enduring 140 Matt - ―A respectful forbearance…‖ 144 Emily -―Toward a silent core of waiting…‖ 153 Chapter 10 Realizing 157 ―Lost, unhappy and at home…‖ 157 Sarah 157 Robbie 159 Mark 162 Michelle 164 David 166 Chapter 11 Advancing 172 Tony - The nature of gift 172 Jamie - Gifts met with gratitude 178 Stephanie - A wonderful, terrible place 179 Jenille -The givenness of Gaia 183 Imaginative visions and the gift event 187 Generational relationality 189 Russell - Ecological knowledge and the local 191 Jeff - Intergenerational knowledge 194 Jonathan - Nested in traditions of pattern and craft 196 Chapter 12 Discovering 199 The poiesis of wonder and possibility 199 Jamie – Re-membering the wondrous in the ordinary 201 Chapter 13 Understanding 206 ―Guilt‖ and the claim of the vulnerable 206 Tony - Revealing and denying identity 207 Michael – Exposing the face of the Other 210 Chapter 14 Creating 215 ―From your window (the hope of heaven) 215 Chapter 15 Conclusion 221 Radical interconnectedness and the curriculum 221 Bibliography 225 1 Chapter 1: A Roundabout Return to Elemental Matters Settling in After two years of doctoral study in Edmonton, Alberta my return to coastal Newfoundland and Labrador in the late summer of 2004 was an uneasy transition. It took weeks to settle into the rhythms of daily living in a small community after the tumult of a cross Canada move. I set out on long kayak trips and walks on my favourite beaches; I visited with old friends trying to find my stride, to make fit what often felt forced and off balance. There was a tacit awareness, a gnawing uncertainty that implicitly manifested itself as a hollowing in the centre of my body. The feeling was there- a murky quality of unease and emptiness that lingered in the momentary, almost too long silent gaps in catch up conversations with neighbours and friends. This felt sense was not simply internal, subjective or merely private, but intricately present, as if carried on the easterly wind – the wind that bears skeins of cold fog into the bay, to dissipate unnoticed in misty tendrils clinging to branches and boughs. What was the empty, hollowing out quality of unease that marked my return? Was it simply the inevitable awkwardness of seeing friends I had not seen in almost two years? Was it the jittery tentativeness with which we try to reinsert ourselves into other lives, after prolonged absence from once familiar places – the clumsiness of trying to find just the right place to pitch and glide like so many ungainly ducks sweeping in from the sky? Was the feeling an indefinable, unsettling sense of the old adage, ―You can never go home again?‖ I thought of Eugene Gendlin‘s words, ― a feeling is never there for nothing… a feeling is an interaction in some situation…it is a body sense that is unclear 2 in form but more precise than emotions‖ (1997, p.15).