Tasting the Berries: Deep Ecology and Experiential Education
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Tasting the Berries: Deep Ecology and Experiential Education byBert Horwood Gary Snyder (1977) dedicates his little book, The attempts to "taste the berries and greet the bluejays" by Old Ways, to Alan Watts with the remarkable words: examining the synergy when ideas from deep ecology and experiential education are brought together. I will tasting the berries compare the two movements and offer some guiding greeting the bluejays principles which will enable the people in any pro learning and loving the whole terrain gram to learn and love "the whole terrain." Deep ecology and experiential education have This poem is, at the very least, an account of education much in common. Both are products of the late twenti at its simplest and best. Direct experience is central. eth century. Both take the form of a modern rediscov The complete world, including one's self, is the arena. ery and recreation of ancient ideals gradually lost in Learning and loving are linked together with a kind of the materialism and alienation of Western culture. The easy light heartedness. If such thinking and feeling two movements have experienced an increasingly were to be taken seriously (but not too seriously), what powerful impact from the work of women. Both have sort of education might uncomfortable relations result? with their respective One of the problems The special excitement in linking mainstreams; they are inherent in experiential deep ecology with experiential education is somewhat radical and education is that its to see what happens when the values ofone touched with a distinctly modalities are morally disreputable air. flexible. They have no are attached to the instructional These similarities clear intrinsic moral methods ofthe other. spring from the fact that value. This argument has both movements present been developed else- a critical shift in central where (Horwood and Raffan, 1988a) and here I'll only values. In the case of deep ecology, it parts from main assert the claim that an adventure event (for example) stream thought by shifting the centre of its concern like a ropes course, could as easily train powerful ter from human beings to the biosphere. In big words, it rorist teams, as it trains high performance management moves from anthropocentrism to biocentrism. Deep teams or promotes healing in a wounded personality. ecology also goes beyond science as the best, or only, The special excitement in linking deep ecology with way of knowing. Thought is taken to include feelings experiential education is to see what happens when and spirituality, the entire range of mentality. the values of one are attached to the instructional Experiential education, likewise, shifts concern from methods of the other. what teachers can teach from their experiences to what Joseph Meeker (1980) says that tragedies end in the students could learn from their experiences; in funerals but comedies end in weddings. The path of short, a shift in the centre of concern from teacher to survival with joy is through the comic. This article student. Like deep ecology, experiential education tries to see things whole. Just as the experiential education movement seeks Bert Horwood tries to taste the berries and greet the to eliminate those discriminations which exclude peo bluejays while teaching and learning in the Faculty of ple from its processes, so the deep ecology movement Education at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, seeks to remove discriminations which would put one Canada, K7L 3N6. species of life above another in terms of value and Volume 14, No.3 / November 1991 23 Downloaded from jee.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on January 19, 2016 if we do not undergo such a transformation. What would experiential programs look like if they were to include the values of deep ecology? There are such programs already in exis tence. Dolores LaChapelle describes one. The Institute for Earth Education programs such as Sunship Earth and ._.~ ~Q"~_"" ."":.~~=~':-f"::-O"""' •.,'.t..; ..*, .. Earthkeepers (Van Matre, _~,""~'>"'~"'M._ .', ....,....:.;. 1990) are other examples. .........,- Rather than provide a specific I:.' ;',.~:~:;;;.{ ':~ program description here, I ',,..~:r,/, : ..,..~.. will give a set of general guid ing principles which any such program must have. It is important to note that I mean to include all forms of experi- Bert Horwood ential education including importance. Respect is a key attitude. Henley (1989, adventure, therapy, work experience, and so on, 1991) shows how students, living in primitive condi because the synergy is general. tions with experienced elders, gain respect for their I have chosen five principles that are convenient knowledge. That respect for the person, in turn, gener and useful, but I do not claim they are absolute. The ates respect for the place and important general learn many connections among them invite other patterns of ing results. organization. The principles are: place, wholeness, There are numerous accounts of deep ecology as a identity, integrity and wildness. system of thought and as a way of life. The best of Place includes both knowledge and feeling about them are cited by Dolores LaChapelle (1991). Her arti one's place, in this case the program site. Whatever the cle is an excellent primer, well suited for experiential educators. The deep ecology literature is strong in its philo The methodological implications sophical development. Its ends and values are clearly ofdeep ecology are highly compatible and powerfully stated. It lacks a matching educational framework for the transmission and inculcation of with experiential methods and the value those values. Conversely, experiential education pos implications ofexperiential education sesses powerful instructional methods which can be are close to the values ofdeep bent to a variety of ends. Most experiential education has served progressive social purposes but its literature ecology, although more restricted to and practice reveals a variable and relatively undevel the human species. oped moral framework. The methodological implications of deep ecology are highly compatible with experiential methods and special goals of the program, participants should know the value implications of experiential education are something about the other inhabitants of the place, close to the values of deep ecology, although more where they come from and go to. What plants and ani restricted to the human species. The logical end for mals are there? How is the land formed? Where is the progressive value-based experiential education is the north star? the sunrise? Where does the drinking water adoption of deep ecology values. Together, there come from and where does it go after it has been would emerge a more powerful way to influence the drunk? Similar questions apply to the food, shelter and transformation of the world toward some set of com materials in use. prehensive, biospherically benign principles. Dolores LaChapelle (1991) speaks of the use she There are two reasons for believing that such a and Rick Medrick make of the concept of "affor transformation is critically needed. First the principles dances." Self-propelled expeditions in remote country are right because they include virtues such as respect, invariably teach people that the terrain affords people wholeness, justice, and community among others. certain opportunities and denies others. For example, Second, the world, and our place in it, will not survive strong head-winds make paddling impossible on an 24 The Journal of Experiential Education Downloaded from jee.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on January 19, 2016 arctic lake and the open tundra offers no shelter for would be matched by times of solitude and indepen pitching tents. But a short distance away there is a dence. Planning would be larded with spontaneity. grove of shin-high willow. Here travellers are afforded The principle of identity is an antidote for the shelter and a place to rest. They gratefully recline alienation which most of us carry to some degree. The under the willows among musk-ox scat and learn to malaise of our dominant Western culture is alienation see the sky through a different screen. from self, society and our fellow creatures. Arne Naess Experiences like this teach participants that the (1985) provides a full development of the concept of world affords people opportunities to climb, to sleep, identification in deep ecology. When persons move to eat. When participants look for what the place from alienation to identity they begin to know them affords, and use the affordances, they live and work in selves and to recognize that they share a common iden the place harmoniously. They force things less. Place tity with other beings, human and non-human. It is the also becomes more personified and less objectified. We difference between a person trying to protect a wild become a little like Schultz's cartoon character, Sally river from a dam and feeling that one is the wild river Brown, who knows that her school building is a person protecting itself. This is an advanced stage of identifi and talks to it regularly. cation known to be achieved by aboriginal people but Such knowledge should promote feelings of reached in the present Western culture by only a few. belonging to the place, of experiencing its hospitality, There was a country woman driving into town first as a guest and later as a full member of the house who noticed a neighbor holding a small pig up into an hold in that place. To feel like a guest leads to different apple tree to reach the apples. On her late return, he behaviour than to feel like an r---------------------------------, invader. To feel owned by the place has very different conse- quences than to feel like an owner. For example, travellers who feel like guests feel less guilt for being in the place. They also take care due to motives of profound gratitude and respect rather than from duty, which is more likely to fail.