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AUTHOR Jickling, Bob, Ed. TITLE A Colloquium on Environment, Ethics, and Education (Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada, July 14-16, 1995). INSTITUTION Yukon Coll., Whitehorse. ISBN ISBN-0-9694150-1-X PUB DATE 1996-00-00 NOTE 170p. AVAILABLE FROM Arts and Science Division, Yukon College, Box 2799, Whitehorse, Yukon Y1A 5K4, Canada. PUB TYPE Collected Works - Proceedings (021) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC07 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Conservation (Environment); *Ecology; Economic Research; Elementary Secondary Education; *Environmental Education; Epistemology; Ethical Instruction; Ethics; Foreign Countries; Futures (of Society); Habitats; Institutional Evaluation; *Interdisciplinary Approach; Learning Activities; *Philosophy; Relationship; Story Telling; *Values Education; Wildlife IDENTIFIERS Canada; *Deep Ecology; Ecopolitics; Environmental Awareness; *Environmental Ethics; Environmental Literacy; Wolves; Yukon (Whitehorse)

ABSTRACT The papers in this proceedings explore two themes: "what environmental ethics can do for teachers," and "what teachers can do for environmental ethics." The papers are: "A Colloquium on Environment, Ethics, and Education: Considering the Context" (Bob Jickling); "Planning for the Future: Workshop Observations and Recommendations" (ColloquiumParticipants); "Welcoming Remarks" (Shirley Adamson, et. al.); "Transferring Wisdom through Storytelling" (Louise Profeit-LeBlanc); "The Role of Socially Evolved Ideals in Environmental Ethics Education in Canada and the Yukon: A Historical Approach Involving the Humanities" (Eugene C. Hargrove); "What Is a Good Way To Teach Children and Young Adults To Respect the Land? (A PanelDiscussion)" (Lucy Wren et. al.); "Relational Modes of Knowing: Learning Process Implications of a Humane and Environmental Ethic" (David Selby); "Sacred Land" (Jim Cheney); "An Unwanted Story" (Martha McMahon); "Environmental Education, Liberatory Education and Place-Sensitive Narrative" (Val Plumwood); "The Role of the University, Scientists, and Educators in Promotion of Environmental Literacy" (John Lemons); "Professionalization and Environmental Education: Are We Guarding against Charlatans or Losing the Passion?" (Marilyn MacDonald); "Environmental Education as Values Education: A Critical Framework" (Pamela Courtenay Hall); "Instead of Environmental Education" (Anthony Weston); "Wolves, Ethics, and Education: Looking at Ethics and Education through the Yukon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan" (Bob Jickling); and "Directions for the Future: Environmental Education in British Columbia" (Rick Kool). (AA)

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BEST COPY AMIABLE A Colloquium on Environment, Ethics, and Education

Proceedings of a colloquium held to explore the themes What environmental ethics can do for teachers What teachers can do for environmental ethics

Hosted at Yukon College Whitehorse, Yukon July 1416, 1995

Edited by Bob Jickling 1996

3 A Colloquium on Environment, Ethics, andEducation is available from:

Arts and Science Division Yukon College Box 2799 Whitehorse, Yukon Y1A 5K4

No part of this publication may be reproduced inany form without the written permission of the publisher. No responsibilityis assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damageto persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Colloquium on Environment, Ethics, and Education (1995 : Yukon College) A Colloquium on Environment, Ethics, and Education : proceedings of a colloquium hostedat Yukon College, Whitehorse, Yukon, July 14-16,1995

Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-9694150-1-X

1. Environmental educationCongresses. 2. Environmental ethicsCongresses. I. Jickling, Bob, 1950- II. Title.

GE5C65 1995 333.7'07 C96-900627-6

Layout Editor: Priscilla Clarkin Printed with vegetable-based inkon 50% recycled paper containing 20% post-consumer waste.

The production and printing of theseproceedings were funded by the Shell Environmental Fund. SHELL ENVIRONMENTAL FUND

Printed in Canada.

4 A Colloquium on Environment, Ethics, and Education July 14 - 16, 1995

was presented by Yukon College Yukon Global Education Project Yukon Development Education Centre Yukon Environmental Education Association Forum Organizing Committee Bob Jickling, Eleanor O'Donovan, Debbie Gohl

Conference Coordinator Val Birss Acknowledgements We Appreciate Advice and Assistance from Carol Geddes, Mary Jane Johnson, Norma Kassi, Shari Buchan, Sandy Hobus Jerry Bradford, Wilmonica Van Bibber, Erik Leslie, Hannah Jickling, Remy Rodden Bob Kuiper, Susan Klassen, Christine Hedgecock, Lindsay Birss, Janel McIntyre Laura McIntyre, John Pattimore, Angela Walkley, Nikki Krocker, Custom Caterers Yukon College Environmental Ethics and Education Students Moderators and Rapporteurs. We would also like to thank the many additional people who helped with billeting and other important tasks. Colloquium Sponsors and Supporters The organizing committee would like to thank the many sponsors, supporters and providers of in-kind services who made this Colloquium on Environment, Ethics, and Education possible: Yukon Global Education Project Yukon Development Education Centre Government of Canada, Yukon Environmental Action Fund Government of Canada, Environmental Partners Fund Shell Environment Fund British Columbia Ministry of Environment, Lands, and Parks Yukon College, Academic Studies Division Yukon College, Women's Studies Program Mr. Charles Alexander The Chawkers Foundation Yukon Women's Directorate Yukon Innovators Yukon Environmental Education Association Parks Canada, Department of Canadian Heritage Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society Yukon ,Yukon Conservation Society City of Whitehorse Guest Speakers, Colloquium Participants, and all other supporters we may have omitted here.

5 Table of Contents

Introduction

A Colloquium on Environment, Ethics, and Education: Considering the Context Bob Jickling, Yukon College

Planning for the Future: Workshop Observations and Recommendations Colloquium Participants 8

Opening Session

Welcoming Remarks Shirley Adamson, Ta'an. Kwach'an First Nation Eleanor O'Donovan, Yukon Global Education Project Bob Jickling, Yukon College 11

Transferring Wisdom through Storytelling Louise Profeit-LeBlanc, Native Heritage Advisor, Yukon Heritage Branch 14

The Role of Socially Evolved Ideals in Environmental Ethics Education in Canada and the Yukon: A Historical Approach Involving the Humanities Eugene C. Hargrove, University of North Texas 20

First Nations Perspectives

What is a good way to teach children and young adults to respect the land? A panel discussion Lucy Wren, Elder, Carcross Tagish First Nation Marge Jackson, Elder, Champagne and Aishihik First Nations Harry Morris, Elder, Teslin Tlingit Council o Carol Geddes, Filmmaker of Tlingit & Southern Tutchone ancestory Daniel Tlen, Yukon Aboriginal Language Services Norma Kassi, Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, International Gwich'in Steering Committee 32

Exploring Relationships

Relational Modes of Knowing: Learning Process Implications of a Humane and Environmental Ethic David Selby, International Institute for Global Education, University of Toronto 49

Sacred Land Jim Cheney, University of WisconsinWaukesha 61 Ecopolitical Dimensions

An Unwanted Story Martha McMahon, University of Victoria 69

Environmental Education, Liberatory Education and Place-Sensitive Narrative Val Plumwood, University of Sydney 76

Looking at Our Institutions

The Role of the University, Scientists, and Educators in Promotion of Environmental Literacy John Lemons, University of New England 90

Professionalization and Environmental Education: Are We Guarding Against Charlatans or Losing the Passion? Marilyn MacDonald, Simon Fraser University 110

What Then of Environmental Ethics?

Environmental Education as Values Education: A Critical Framework Pamela Courtenay Hall, University of British Columbia 142

Instead of Environmental Education Anthony Weston, Elon College 148

Looking to the Future?

Wolves, Ethics, and Education: Looking at Ethics and Education through The Yukon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan Bob Jickling, Yukon College 158

Directions for the Future: Environmental Education in British Columbia Rick Kool, B. C. Ministry of Environment, Lands, and Parks 164

7 A Colloquium on Environment, Ethics, and Education: Considering the Context Bob Jickling, Yukon College

Exactly a year ago A Colloquium on Environment, curriculum initiatives aimed at enabling students' Ethics,and Education was hosted at Yukon understanding of ethicaldimensions of environ- College. Images of this meeting remain vivid. It was mental issues. an exciting time. Risks were taken and questions, Like the Colloquium, the papers gathered here many of them difficult, were asked. Have all the are both timely and relevant. They present both an important perspectives been represented? Is there an invitation and a challenge.They inviteusto appropriate mix of educators and environmental consider new possibilities, new ways of approaching philosophers? Is there a reasonable balance between environmental education and environmental ethics, theory and practice? These risks were soon put aside, and ways to bridge these two fields of inquiry and not because we were necessarilycorrectin our practice. Many readers will find affirmation judgements, but rather because of the exceptional beliefs about environmental ethics and education group of concerned, caring, and dedicated people who which are reinforced. The papers also encourage us gathered in Whitehorse to explore ideas of much to reach into new territory, to examine new ideas, importance. and to take new risks. Other factors contributed to the success of the At the conclusion of the Colloquium, a workshop Colloquium. It was timely. Environmental Ethics is ledtoa number ofobservations andrecom- increasingly seen as a vital new field and many are mendations. These have been assembled and printed looking to this field for insight into environment below. They represent thecombined ideasof values and human relationships with the more- academics, practitioners,formal and non-formal than-human world. educators, and interested citizens; they are broadly TheColloquiumwasalsorelevant.Our based. They, like the papers, reveal that we have institutions are beginning to acknowledge the role much work to do, but more importantly, they also this field has to play in education. For example, the provide directions for this work and many foci for Ministry of Education in the province of British our individual and collective journeys. Columbia has recently published a guide called Finally, I would like to thank my co-hosts, our EnvironmentalConceptsintheClassroom. In it, sponsors, and all of the Colloquium participants for environmentalethicsispresentedasakey the wonderful contributions that they have made. component for environmental education. We also Your presence and efforts were inspiring. have a Yukon example. The recently adopted Yukon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan requires on-going researchin environmentalethicsand Whitehorse, July 1996

Considering the Context 7 Planning for the Future: Workshop Observations and Recommendations Colloquium Participants

What can environmental ethics do for teachers? Teachers are vital to the process. They provide a link between theory and ideas from the field /There can be a large theoretical gap between the of ethics and their students between theory 1 field of environmental ethics and the practical and the reality, or context, of students' lives. world of teachers. The word "ethics" can have Teachers are a vehicle for the transmission of multiple meanings which add tothisgap and ethical ideas, but they must also ensure that generate uncertainty. For some, the word itself can different perspectives are highlighted. raise "red flags" for teachers who do not wish to We must take care not to alienate teachers and be accused of preaching, promoting propaganda, or to value the experience and commitment th a t social engineering. they bring to the field. The workshop questions were designed to explore relationships between education and environmental ethics. In answer to the first question, participants How should environmental ethics be taught? offered the following: There were two general categories of response to this Study of this field can expand teachers' views question. In framing the first category, a question about what exactly constitutes "environmental was posed: "Can environmental ethics be taught, ethics." especially when they are still evolving?" Given an Environmentalethicscanhelptoground evolving sense of ethics, a series of recommendations teachers in their own moral views and their designed to enable environmental practice was put relationship with the environment. This should forward. Itis assumed that new environmental aid their teaching of environmental issues, and ethics will grow out of increasinglycareful,or make them more aware of the moral bases of mindful, practices. their own environmental decisions. The second category acknowledges that environ- Environmental ethics can aid in the integration mental ethics is not a body of content that is taught, of content integrating relationships between but rather a process of reflection and analysis in environmental conceals and ecology, aesthetics, which teachers and students participate.These history, narrative inquiry, etc. recommendations reflectabeliefthatstudents Environmentalethicsprovidesawayto should become involved in this process of inquiry. encourage critical thinking, alternative ways to They also acknowledge that there are political, look at and resolve problems, and analytical pedagogical,and epistemologicalconsiderations tools for investigating current issues. which should be taken into account and roles for Environmental ethics can encourage openness to students who wish to take action as a result of their change in values/ethics withinourselves as enquiries. teachers and enable us to see new opportunities. Of course these two categories are not mutually exclusiveandtheirinteractionprovidesan important area for future consideration. What can teachers do for environmental ethics? To enable environmental practice Teachers play an important role in the lives of young Provide an enabling context where practices and people,guidingtheirintellectualandsocial values can evolve. The structures of schooling development. While they are not the only agents of must start to reflect our evolving values. For change in our society, they are pivotal. They are in a example, creativity, thoughtful discussion and position to lessen the distance, or gap, between the debate are often at odds with authoritarian academic world of environmental ethics and the power structuresfrequently found inpublic lives of their students. Participants recognized that: schools.

8 Planning for the Future 9 Be aware of etiquettein allrelationships: our students, investigate real issues which are respect for colleagues, care for tentative voices, important to those involved. etc. Students need to go outside the classroom and Fosterrespectfornon-humanlifeforms. learn from experience. They need to experience Children naturally love the earth, land, and nature. Cities also provide important animals. Allow these values to flourish. Provide experiences. opportunities for direct experience with the Students need to feel important and useful. For land, the more-than-human world. example, the Green Schools program can provide Teach through example; be an active presence. students with opportunities to be involved with Try to lead a moral life,to exemplify moral environmental projects. Projects can also be fun. values. Be open to looking at nature in new ways An issues focus can be enabling. with a sense of wonderment. We need to empower students and help them to Seek, with students, an understanding of how our realize that they are agents of change. They basic needs are met, and the impact of our may consider preferred versus probable futures existence, in order to develop respect for animals and criticallyanalyse the options. This may and plants. Examine our ecological footprints. involve groupactivities and community thinking. They may wish to act upon their To fosterparticipation inthe process of considered judgements. environmental ethics We need to balance activism with account- Environmental ethics is not a separate subject or ability we need to be accountable and a body of knowledge, but rather a process, "a responsible. Be wary of "one-true-story ethics," thread,"thatpermeatesthefabricof our and carefully consider the role of special interest teaching. Environmental ethics can be part of groups. the process of everyday teaching which will help children become confident in exercising theircriticalthinking abilitiesand making What will be required to achieve this instruction? decisions. Environmental ethicsis not just a matter for There is much to do, and there is such a sense of science. Our value systems are embedded in our urgency! Some asked: "How much time do we have histories and the stories that we tell. Use of left to change our ways?" These recommendations history,literature,and storytellingcan be canprovidesomestartingpointsforfuture morally instructive and enabling. The study of reflections, actions, and research: aesthetics is accessible and has much to reveal about the origins of our values.Art:music, There are a number of structural issues that need poetry, painting, and sculpture have important to be addressed, beginning with schools. Develop roles both contemplative and expressive. a plan to reduce costs and consumption, increase Weneedtochallengestudentsthrough conservation, etc. The school itself should be a discussion and the posing of questions. model for change. Ultimately these challenges will generate a Curricula and class time need to be more open and political dimension. Studentsshouldbe flexible to work on environmental issues and encouraged to examine dominant values, explore tease out ethical dimensions, to participate in alternative perspectives, and consider their own field experiences, to be involved in relationships with nature. participatory or action-oriented projects. We need to acknowledge thatstudents have While the structure of schools and curricula may personal and private ethics which exist at the appear to be long term projects, teachers can intersection of multiple relationships. Ethical begin immediately to affect their own classroom critique needs to be presented as a critique of structures and practices. They can move to bring culture rather than of individuals' beliefs. their teaching environments more into line with Teachers need to be sensitive to the context of their beliefs about environmental practice. their work urban communities are different We need to be open and honest. Educators must from rural communities; southern communities not be afraid to spell out their own values and are different from northern communities. There therationalebehindtheirenvironmental is a contextual element to environmental ethics. ethics. But, at the same time, they need to be It is important to situate ethics in the lives of aware of the sphere of their influence. Their task is not to lead students to a preferred ethic,

Planning for the Future 9 butto encourage students to evaluate participate as researchers can provide a helpful possibilities for themselves. A balance between and collaborativeapproachtoprofessional honesty and potential influence must be found. development. Educators need to examine their own beliefs, and Teachers also expressed a need for support remain open to new possibilities,to make materials,"tools." These included structures, teaching and lifestylechoices which are as frameworks, and/or techniques for dealing with consistent as possible with their moral values. controversial issues. They also expressed a need At the same time, it must be recognized th a t for topical material for in-class use. Background many teachers despair. They despair over the materialabout localcase studies would be stateof theirprofession and theirability, helpful.For example, editedcollectionsof within this profession, to make a difference. newspaper clippings which reflect a range of They need support from each other and from community values would be useful. outside of their profession. Action plans should be developed by networks of The above observations and recommendations teachers who are interested in environmental are a reflection of the thoughts and discussions of education. Teachers need to be wary of action colloquium participants. They represent a moment in plans and guidelines which appear doctrinaire. our journey towards better practices and ever-more- In-service opportunities are critical. Creating an thoughtful enquiries. environment where teachersthemselvescan

10 Planning for the Future Welcoming Remarks

Shirley Adamson, required of you. There are a lot of stories that have Ta'an Kwach'an First Nation information that help us to track the movements of the stars and constellations, that explain why one of When the sun is shining as it is today, we know the front shoulders and arms of the beaver are the daughters of Sun are walking amongst us. shorter than the other. To understand the stories is They travel to earth on the rays of Sun. to understand why we have to treat animals with It happened one time thatone of the Sun's various acts of respect because of the power they daughters travelled to earth and saw a young man hold and different ways that we have to approach that she fell in love with. It happened that the the environment. young man was married, but the love of the Sun's We have a responsibility as individuals to the daughter was strong. She returned to petition her environment andtoothersaround us andto father to allow her to live on earth with the man. humanity. It is a very important responsibility th a t She went back home to her father and said, "I some of us have lost touch with.I think th a t want to stay." conferences such as this will benefit us in getting in "Live on earth, going back and living there?" he touchwithwhatindividuals, raisedwith says, "No, you belong here, he belongs there, he has traditional values, never questioned. Very rarely do got a wife, he has got a family. I can just not have Eldersspeakorshareinformationwithout that." But she cried and she wept and every tear contributing information to someone else. That is from a child's eye, if you are a parent, falls right in how they verify it, by passing on their own personal your heart, but you cannot make life miserable for knowledge. They pass it on because thatis what the ex-wife. "You have to bring this guy to me and I they are, they hold the information for a while will have to lay down some rules as to how you then pass it along. That is how we managed without ought to live together." One of the conditions was the benefit of written language. We were able to that his new son-in-law would not have anything to maintain views knowledge that we gathered and do with his ex-wife. kept over centuries. So the Sun's daughter came to earth and stayed Through all of our teachings we were taught our with us and was relatively happy. But the jealousy responsibilitiestomaintaintheenvironment, that prevailed in the ex-wife's heart just would not because we are maintaining ourselves. Often our let her rest. She strategized constantly to try to get Elders tell us that we are "part of the land, part of this guy. She was successful one time in placing the water." We look atit throughout the years herself in his path going to get water. She jumped differently, and we expect that we are all "part of out of the woods and said what she had to say to the land part of the water," because when the land him, but the Sun, keeping an eye on his daughter suffers, or when the water suffers, our culture suffers would have none of it. He was angry, he called his as well. daughter home and said, "I told you not to have A lot of thestories thatare told belong to anything to do with these people. They hurt your differentpeoplesin theYukon. They do not feelings, they embarrassed you, they embarrassed necessarily belonging to me or my people, but are me and they embarrassed themselves." In his anger, universal stories and they have lessons. I should he began to burn all of creation. give you a little background on aboriginal people in She begged and pleaded, this young woman, the Yukon. We are the original peoples of this because she loved her husband; she loved his Territory. We have always known that from our family. Finally she convinced the Sun to stop, but to stories, our languages, our songs, we all have a this day when archaeologists and other people go need to know that. When we begin to deal with out, they see that layer they see that layer of ash other people who are interested in the history of the when the sun was angry. Yukon, we are finding that what we were listening These stories are told to us as aboriginal people to in the stories and the songs is basically what we as we were growing up. Mind you I heard them in have heard through newer scientific methods. Southern Tutchone and they sound a lot better, but WithinYukon therearevariouslanguage they take days to tell. There are different lessons to groups: we haveSouthernTutchone, Northern learn in these stories and often as we grow up we find Tutchone,Tlingit,Kaska,Han,Loucheux and. different lessons or see the stories differently. Tagish. We are a matrilineal society, so when the Stories like this explain a little bit of what is names and the stories come to us they come through

Welcoming Remarks 11 12 our mothers or grandmothers in our clan. Because my beyond that in order to communicate. I do not speak mother was a Wolf, my grandmother was a Wolf for any other group except the Ta'an Kwach'an and I am a Wolf. In the middle of my creational Council, but I want to acknowledge that we share territory, when I am standing here, I know, without thisterritorywithanotherFirstNation,the a doubt, that off in this way is Takina and off in this Kwanlin Dun who are very closerelativesto way is Sima and off in this way is Nalin. You guys ourselves as well. And their name derives from our know Grey Mountain? Grey Mountain is The Ma name for the water that flows through Miles Canyon which means Rock Mountain. I thought you guys Chu water moving rapidly that's what it is. knew where Sima was, but you gave the ski hill the Many of our Elders this evening are attending a wrong name Golden Horn and Sima. The reason potlatch. On behalf of all the people in this area why we call it Sima is because we get rock there and and Ta'an Kwach'an Elders and the leadership and we use that rock to make the pigment for our paint. Ta'an Kwach'an chief,Ido acknowledge your The direct translation is Red Mountain, however, presence here and your work and hope that over the the English name of Mount Sima means "Mount Red next couple of days that you can get outside. I know Mountain." there is a need for walks and I want you to know that The mountain that you see as you start to go in walking on tracks, you are walking on the trails of towards Haines Junction, as you get close to Takhini, my ancestors, gazing on the same mountains that when you see the Takhini River off to your right as they gazed. You will be drinking the same waters you are driving north. There is a mountain by itself from the same water-ways that they drank in.I known as "look-out," it is Nalin. In the early days hope you will begin to appreciate why we are so that is where we looked out, looked up and down the desperately making every effort to join forces with river when we knew that the Tlingits were coming. everyone to try and preserve what we had, so th a t We said right away to the Champagne-Aishihik we can leave something as good as, if not better than, people who werescatteredthroughouttheir what we had. I hope that it goes well over the next territory, we sent thesignal thatwent on to couple of days. Burwash. To us it was very important and we know the names and we know the history, then we know our responsibility. Eleanor O'Donovan, I am here because I am a member of the Ta'an Yukon Global Education Project Kwach'an. Ta'an is the Southern Tutchone name for what you guys know as Lake Labarge today. It means On behalf of the Global Education Committee of interchangeably "head of the lake" or "flat lake the Yukon Teachers' Association, I would like to place." This is where we come from, Labarge people. welcome allof you to this Environmental Ethics And Mun is the Southern Tutchone name for lake. Colloquium. We are very pleased to see that so many Kwach'an is "the people" as opposed to one person. local educators are interested in thistopic. We We are part of the much larger nations of people would particularlyliketo welcome the many and relationships to the Tagish-Carcross people are presenters who have joined us from southern Canada very strong. Through to Labarge over to Hutshi, and the United States., as well as Australia. It is through that chain of lakes over to Aishihik, up clear from their presence thattheissues to be into Burwash and we all remain Southern Tutchone. discussed are of international importance. We call ourselves Southern Tutchone, but in our own The Global Education Project, which is jointly ways we call ourselves Ta'an. sponsored by the Canadian International Once you start to learn these little things about Development Agency, the Yukon Department of us, whether or not they make sense at this time Education, and the Yukon Teachers' Association, has should not worry you, once you begin to understand as its primary aim the continuing infusion of a global what our life means, why we need certain things, perspective into the curriculum presented in our certain places by certain names, and why we treat public schools. This aim is based on an awareness animals in high degree the way we do, you begin to that as citizens of a small and fragile planet we understand the under-currents to our values. That is need to understand the increasing interconnections what we need from you. We need to startto both within and between economic, environmental understand each other a little more than we have in and social systems. An understanding of these the past. interconnections is essential if our young people are Almost without exception, the original people of to play a positive role in shaping the future. the Yukon speak English. Very few non-aboriginal To bring about a positive future for allliving people speak one of our languages and we have to get things on this planet we need also to help our young

1 2 Welcoming Remarks 13 people examine their attitudes and values so th a t teachers, educators, and other interested citizens. they may critically evaluate their own actions, as We hope that you find it interesting, challenging, well as those of others, as they relate to important and stimulating. issues. This is no easy task for educators. Therefore During an earliervisitto Whitehorse, Gene we welcome this opportunity to open the dialogue on Hargrove pointed to the gap which exists between environmental ethics between academicsin our scholars and practitioners. He said: universities and teachersin our public schools. Sharing insights and debating these issues is a very Although philosophers have produced quite a few theories about environmental ethics,especially important step in our progress in this field. since 1986, there is a large gap between theory and We are anticipating many excellent presen- practice. ... Getting beyond this impasse requires tations and debates over the next few days and considerable interaction between those who make theories and those who make decisions. ... Moral expect that we will all take away new insights to change usually takes place at the level of practice. challenge us to deeper awareness in this important It is, at most, clarified at the level of theory.... area of education. Ultimately, the form environmental ethics takes in any particularplace on thisplanet willbe determined by those who use it rather than those who theorize about it. Bob Jickling, Yukon College Whitehorse, November 1993

GreetGreetings,ings, both to those of you from the Yukon Clearly, muchremainstobedonebefore to those who have traveled to be with us. In environmental ethics shape, and are shaped by, organizing this colloquium, we have enjoyed an practitioners. enthusiastic response fromguests, speakers, We encourage allcolloquium participantsto participants,and many othersconcerned with take advantage of opportunities for interaction. In environment and education issues. For this reason we planning this event we have asked speakers to limit believe that this gathering is timely. their comments to 30 minutes to leave time for There have also been recent initiativesthat discussion. We have arranged for rapporteurs to give prominence to environmental ethics.These record the flavour and detailsof the discussions. include a British Columbia Ministry of Education And a working session isscheduled for Sunday vision statement, Environmental Education Concepts afternoon. You are also encouraged to make the most in the Classroom, and the recently adopted Yukon of breaks,lunches, and Saturday'ssupperfor Wolf Conservation and Management Plan. informal conversations. Interestingly, this Plan requires curriculum initia- Therewillbe gaps betweenthevarious tives aimed at enabling students' understanding of perspectivesthatwillberepresented.We, ethical dimensions of environmental issues. therefore,encourage you tobe patientwhen While environmental ethics has been identified encountering challenges and to seek creative and as an important curricular item, much work remains common understandings about the nature of our before widespread implementation of this ideal can theories and practices. be realized. This colloquium seeks to contribute to Enjoy yourselves and welcome to this colloquium this implementation process by bringing specialists at Yukon College, and thank you for coming. in environmental ethics and education together with

Welcoming Remarks 1 3 Transferring Wisdom through Storytelling Louise Profeit-Leblanc, Native Heritage Advisor, Yukon Heritage Branch

At the beginning of thispresentation,the author forever giving, no matter what. More often a father comments to her audience about theimportance of is more stern and holds back in his giving, but the preparation for speaking, a traditionaltrait of t he mother is always giving, nourishing and caring. The Northern Tutchone. word itself, tends to make it foreign to some people's way of thinking. According to traditionalunder- 'hasof all I noticed on the agenda that an Elder standings the land is not separated from us as human 'has been asked to open thissession with a beings; we are a part of it, and it is an extension of us. prayer. I love going to these gatherings and being And what is "ethics." How is this term being able to touch base with the Elders, for it is they who used in the context of this conference? I'm afraid give the younger generation the go ahead to say that even after I looked it up in the dictionary, i t what we have to say. It is to them that we all owe a still wasn't clear. Over the years in my life and now great sense of gratitude and appreciation. When I even more so, now that I am a grandmother, the true was younger, an Elder from Mayo by the name of meaning of the word has come to mean, that which Lucy Peter took me aside and instructed me in the we do to enoble us. What makes us noble? How do we correct way ofaddressing peopleinalarge carry on our lives so that in the end, we will have gathering. Part of the instruction was to ensure that accomplished what the Creator wanted for us? prayers were offered first.This, she said, would What do I do everyday to prepare myself to become ensure that nobody's feelings got hurt, and th a t that creature which the Creator wants me to be? everyone would leave the meeting with good feel- Ethics has to do with this particular virtue. It also ings towards one another because they had treated has to do with upright living and making moral each other with respect and with good intentions. decisions based on this goal of being noble in our When first being asked to give this presentation, everyday activities. it occured to me that the First Nations voice is not "Education"? Well,I have thought forever heard enough. Itis through thisvoice which about this subject. Having had some bad experiences constantly makes referencetotheland,th a t in the education system that we have today has anything that I will say will begin to make sense. biased my opinion, but hopefully this will not hold Stories of a time of the past connect us with a me back from saying what I think has to be said lifestyle and culture which we no longer are in touch about other means of education.I believe that with. They are the medium through which I will education is how we live our lives and how you live attempt, to make sense of it all. with everything around you. Everything in existence I would like to thank all those people who have teaches us something about life. Even the smallest worked hard to bring us alltogetherin this minute thing in the world, the atom, teaches us a lot. colloquium. Now I know from looking it up in the If you split this atom, you will find the energy of a dictionary what a "colloquium" actually is! I found sun. Think about thisfor a minute. Everything it intriguing that a colloquiam basically means "in around us educates us, how we interact with the or of talk"; in other words, familiar speech or "talk - land, minerals, trees, sky, animals, everything, even speak" if we can coin it as that! A place where our thoughts. Our thoughts too can become a force, for people come to learn by listening and speaking with we are in charge of them. each other about the subject at hand. This was to be an oral presentation, but the Lookingatthetitleofthiscolloquium, coordinator wanted the transcripts printed so that "Environment, Ethics, and Education," thefirst the presentations of the colloquium could become thing that came to mind when reflecting on the word part of a publication. This was difficult but I have "environment," which I'm sure is similar to a lot of managed to get some of my thoughts down on paper, other First Nations people's way of thinking, is that and hopefully the recorders can also tape the stories to which the people are closest to and that is, of which I will be using to compliment my other course, the land. Another way of looking at the comments. environment is to consider it to be like your mother. To begin, it is important for me to preface my If we take care of our mothers in the same way we talk to say that I speak only for myself and not for take care of the land, then we will be in a lot of others. I also speak in honor of my ancestors and trouble! Many First Nations people refer to the land hope that I will do them justice. In the words of one as their mother. Now, as we all know a mother is of my dear Elders who just recently passed away,

14 Louise Profelt-Leblanc 15 "we should live our life just like a story, so tha t primary environment is within each of us. This is our when we go they will tell a good story about us!" first environment to consider, the first environment The Elders from Mayo have always encouraged me for which we should busy ourselves, as it is the only to live right. Live a spiritual life. Once when I was one for which we have total control. How we treat very involved with Indian politics and was getting each other as human beings is usuallly reflected in burnt out, I visited an Elder from Mayo. Lucy Peter how we treat our outer environment. So, if we treat told me at that time that when a person gets "Cho" ourselves well and with respect then this is how we on the end of their name then that depicts your place willeventuallytreatourenvironment.The in your community. It informs others that you have traditional teaching is that we are all one another's acquired a certain amount of lifeexperience and helpers. We are interdependant. If one member of our knowledge, and now itis time for you to give i t community is suffering, then the whole community is away. She always reminded me that I was never to also suffering. If one is flourishing then thistoo think that I was too smart for the Creator, and th a t impacts on the wellness of that community. I should ever bear in mind that He is in charge of Growing up with the traditional teachings has everything. She told me of her husband who was a taught me that the community is not there to serve very small man. "Do you think that he could have our every need, but that we should learn how to killed a bear with his bare hands if he didn't trust serve others. It has often been a shock to see children in the power from God? It's Him. He gives us who do not know that they should be respectful and strength and knowledge." It was then thatshe give up their chair for an older person who has come instructed me to never forget to open meetings with a into a room. Many children today get quite miffed i f prayer. ThisI have learned serves a two-fold we make the suggestion to them that they should do purpose. One, it helps us to tap into that inner such a thing. "They have walked longer that you on strength and higher power, and second, it brings us this earth, and they deserve to rest now" are the together in one spirit to help one another and to words of our Elders. Today the common knowledge of move forward as one.If any of you have the equality of children does not sit right with me. It's opportunity to attend a First Nation's gathering, you not that children don't count or don't have a say, it's will always find this to be the case, and it is usually just that they have to earn their place in society, the Elders who are given the responsibility to open and while they are still young have to develop a the session with a prayer. greater sense of respect and appreciation for their When I first started to work in the schools to Elders. teach students about Yukon legends and mythololgy, Let me now share with you a story which takes the teachers were a littleapprehensiveat my place in the Blackstone River district in northern suggestion of beginning with a prayer. They are Yukon, up the Dempster Highway. Thisis the getting used to it now! So how does all this preamble homeland of the Takudh Gwichin. There are three relate to the subjects we are going to cover this groupings of Gwichin, theTatlitGwichin who weekend?Itis my conclusionthatthemost inhabit the Arctic Red River and Fort McPherson important and the foremost environment which we region of the NWT, the Takudh Gwichin from the should consider and be ever cognizant of, is our own Blackstone and the Vuntat Gwichin from Old Crow. spiritual environment. We are spiritual beings. This Apparently years ago theother two groupings is not just our bodies and minds meeting here, but our always wanted to marry into the Takudh as they spirits. It is important that we get in touch with had skills the other two didn't have. These skills each other on this level and develop some feelings were acquired simply because they had the resources for each other and the topic at hand. Through to develop them. Examples of these would be tools storytellingI have been ableto achievethis for hunting, caribou corrals, toboggans, snowshoes, sensitivityand to aidstudents in determining etc. emotional aspects of the stories and to hear the inner This story is from the Gwichin, and I offer it in meaning of the stories, not just the words. honor of an old friend of mine, Mr. Joe Netro. He Do we ever ask ourselves what we are doing here shared this story with me during a time in my life at this time and why we are with each other today? when I was having a lot of personal problems and The answer can best be described by a great teacher struggles. It was a tough time for me as I was still of our time, Abdu'l Baha, who said, "You are where young and inexperienced. Over a cup of tea while I you are not by your own will, but by the will of the was visiting with him and his wife, Hannah, he Creator,foryour own developmentandthe started to tell me this story. development of those around you." We are all here A long time ago, there was an old man and because we are committed to something, and our woman. This couple lived alone. Now you might

Transferring Wisdom through Storytelling 15 think this unusual in a traditional community, but start off slowly, eating soups and drinking tea first; the reason that they lived alone in their old age later you can eat a little solid foods. So this is what was that the woman was barren and could never they did. They drank the soup, and the husband ate have children. Well, this winter came really fast. a little meat so he could have the strength to go out Everything froze solid, the lakes,the river and the next morning. "Let's put thisone away for there was so much snow that even the berries got tomorrow," the old woman told her husband. She covered up. And the caribou even took a different carefully wrapped the little drumsticks up and put trailthatyearto avoidthestorms of their them away in her food cupboard. homeland. So the people had no meat or fish. There The next morning the old woman awoke a little was nothing. The land was just blowing snow and ice, stronger. As they were offering prayers, she was and the couple was starving. The woman was in thinking about what a good man her husband was worse shape than her husband. Her eyes were and hoping he was going to get something on his hunt sunken, her belly was swollen, and even the soft spot today. Just as he was going out the door, she stopped on the top of her head was sunken in. She was in him. pretty bad shape. Her husband was starving too, but "Hey, you better take these drumsticks here, you he was not in such bad shape. He was very worried need your strength!" about her though. Every morning they would say "No! you better keep it and make more soup, you prayers and beg the Creator to give them some food need it more than me. Look at you!" to tide them over until spring. Everyday the old man They argued about this, but finally the man just would go out hunting and return with nothing. went .without the food. Now on this certain day, the couple had offered It was only a short distance away that he came their prayers, and the old man realized that if he up upon two moose, a cow and her two year old calf. didn't get anything soon his wife was going to die. The old man was excited, but calmed himself to take Her image was firmly implanted in his mind's eye careful aim. He got both of them. He started to clean as he trekked out on the land that day. The wind them, but in his weakened state the only things th a t was howling and blowing over the barren land of he could manage to take home were the kidneys and rock and ice. The only thing that was out there th a t the hearts. These are delicacies for old people and day was a small bird, a chickadee, or what most are usually the first things that are eaten when people refer to as a Canadian Jay or camp robber. they take a moose or a caribou. That's all that was out there, on the land, that day. FPS wife was so happy! She proceeded to Now the man wondered if it was the right thing to o, prepare the kidneys and the heart for cooking. I t to killthis bird for food, because according to smelled so good! She was looking forward to tradition, this bird is the hunter's helper." drinking the broth from thispreparation. Her When I was a young girl, my grandmother would husband was just about to dig in when she said, "Just make me put out chunks of fatout for these a minute, before we eat this food, we better eat this particular birds. She would make me do this in the one." She pulled out the two little drumsticks she fall just before hunting season. "You hear that guy? had put away the night before. "That's him, he He's says, 'Gimmee fat, gimmee fat!' You have to gave up his life for us. He brought us this moose. We feed him so he can bring moose to us. He's our helper got to give thanks and show respect for him." She that guy!" placed the two drumsticks before her husband. They Now this was the same bird and the man is ate them slowly, together, and reflected on their trying to decide what to do, when he remembers his blessings. wife's starving condition. He takes an arrow out of This is the story of good woman. his quiver; the type of arrow which has a blunt So let's take a look at this story. What are the end.This is the kind of arrow head which was used lessons which we can glean from this legend? First of for killing birds. The old mart takes careful aim and all lets look at the couple's relationship. They were takes the bird down. Carefully he places it into his a team, one balancing the other, interdependent. packsack, all the while giving thanks. Quickly he Relying on each other for support, even at the point walks back to his camp to share the good news with of impending death. The husband saw how his wife his wife. was suffering more than he was, so he naturally took "The Creator, he took pity on us today, look up the stronger role to take take of her. The fact that what I have here!" He showed his wife his catch theywerealoneisanotherpoint.Inmost and she, proceeds to clean and prepare the bird for communities ofFirstNation'selderlypeople, cooking. She made soup. It has been said that if you grandmothers and grandfathers usually have their are starving, it is not wise to eat solid foods, but to children take care of them in their old age. Being 16 17 LouiseProfeit- Leblanc alone makes the scenerio even more vunerable, and howeveristofindthat commonroadof the determination of the old couple becomes even understanding and tolerance for each other and to more evident. Their strong spiritual strength and learn how to give up what appears to be so conviction of faith that something good would come important at the moment. This is essential for unity as a result of their suffering is a lesson that we can in the community. Learning how to get along is a all apply to our everyday lives in so many ways. So simple way of putting this point across. We are now this story is an example of how interdependence living in a society in which many cultures are went beyond the human to human but also to the colliding, and all of us have to make moral decisions interdependenceonthe spiritualworldfor about what things to sacrifice. These are interesting assistance. The bird was another levelof this times in which tolive.Not one group totally interdependence. He was their spirit helper. He was understands the other. It will require a lot of work on the bringer of game. He also sacrificed himself to all of our parts to maintain this relationship, and ensure their continued existence. Interestingly the hopefully in the end we willfind thatgreater old man was put into a position of having to make a common good and a united front for the future. decision of whether or not it was wise for him to The next story is one that is very poignant and take the lifeof this special bird because of it's one which just happened to me recently, one in specialrelationshipwithbringing moose and which I learned about the interdependence on a caribou. Sometimes we haveto make decisions whole other level. There is traditionalteaching whichrequire sacrifice.Whenitwillhavea which depicts trees as being partners or friends, one significant impact on the well being of another to the other. Recently I attended a workshop on how individual, then we must make hard decisions.There to make birch bark baskets. This was a privilege, is so much in this story and a lengthy analysis could and I was honored to be taught by an Elder who be developed, but what is the most important is left drove all the way down from Northway, Alaska to to the listeners themselves. Itis within yourself. teach us this endangered artform. During the session The same holds true for the storyteller as well. Each it became apparent thatthereisa wonderful time I tell and hear the story it means something relationship between the birch, willow and spruce. else for me, too. Being such good friends, they are interdependent and When I go to the schools to tell stories and later rely on each other for support and strength. Each one have the students ask questions about these stories, by itself is weak, and is just itself, but when the the first thing I point out to them is that each person three are brought together they become something hears the story as they are meant to hear it. Each totally different, either a basket, a bowl, a canoe, a person sees the scenes in their own way, through babycarrier, a knifecase etc. They become greater their own cultural eyes, and each interpretation is than themselves. correct for that individual. There is a lot of cultural The first sacrifice, if you wish, is the willing information in this story, and generally in a class birch; it sheds its outer bark. The spruce roots are room situationI would go over the instances to what weaves or sews the piece together, and it must clarify for them. For instance, there is the law of not be kept wet or it will crack and break during the eating solid food if you are starving; the special construction. The birch must stay dry to create a well arrows for hunting birds; the taking of the heart; made piece. No drops of water should fall on the and kidneys as the special foods, etc. But the main birch. This shows respect to the birch. The best root element of the story which should be evident is th a t is one which grows wild and freely in a sandy spot. of sacrifice, sacrifice on many levels. Nothing stops it, and it grows long and straight. So what does a story like this have to do with When taking this root from the ground, one should beginning to understand ethics from a First Nations make an offering as it will assist you to create your point of view? To begin with,ethicsisclosely piece. Clean it and keep it safe from damage. The related to morality, to the way we live with each last tree which is related to the basket is the red other and how we interact with all human beings. willow. It has a sweet pure smell, and it has flexible As I mentioned before, ethics is also tied to nobility but strong qualities which allow it to become the and sacrifice. In sacrificing yourself for others, you anchor to the whole piece. By surrounding the piece are sacrificing your own desires, your own needs for with willow, the craftsperson is able to complete the betterment of others. Learning about others' the piece with solidity and form. It pulls it a 11 cultures requires a certain amount of sacrifice as well together. as patience to create better understanding. Wh a t All three of course are dependent on water: the might be ethically acceptable by one group of people birch before it sheds its outer bark, the spruce roots might not be for others and so on. The main goal while being prepared for lacing, and the willow

Transferring Wisdom through Storytelling 1 7

1 prior to being utilized for the basket edgings. It was our efforts to record and preserve them for future also interesting to realize that the birch was made generations. malleable with heat. In the old days they would use The last story I'd like to share is one which is hot charcoals from a campfire, but today we use blow very close to my heart. It takes place between the dryers! These instructions show us how important McQuesten and the Stewart Rivers, the homeland of respect and appreciation of certain qualities are, and the Nacho N'yak Dan, the First Nation which I am how, in order to achieve a greater product in the end, from. We are referred to as the People of the Big we must look to the finer qualities of each one of us, River. The people of those days used to travel tosee how we can becomestrongerbyour extensively and have relatives from the Selkirk, interdependence. This brings me to the final subject Kluane, Han and Vuntat First Nations. There was matter which we are to discuss today and that is of also inter-marriage between the people from over education. As you have heard, the type of education the mountains from the Northwest Territories, from I'm referring to is one which is passed down orally, the Fort Norman region. by word of mouth, and is done by using examples of So this story takes place east of the community everyday life. Skills were taught by doing. which is now referred to as Mayo. There are three I would also like to note that the instructor for little lakes there referred to as Reed Lakes. There the birchbark basket class was so afraid of coming to used to be Northern Tutchone names attachedto giveusthiscourse,particularilywhen she these lakes, but even theoldest person in the discovered that it would be held at the college. She community cannot remember thesenames. The fretted about it for days, but in the end made up her middle lake is of significance as it was named after mind to come anyway. All of her students were so an old woman who was a healer, a medicine woman glad that she did. Her apprehension was that she who lived beside this lake. The story I'll now share thought she was going to be expected to write is in her honor. everything down, and she didn't feel capable of The old man who told this story tried very hard doing this. to remember the old woman's name but explained She came and gave thecourse inavery that the story was so old that the name had been traditionalstyle. She showed us our materials, lost. There was a song that she sang in the story, what we had to work with. Next she showed us how however, and he remembered that. to care for each of the three components; explaining There was thisold lady. She used to stay how to get started and the proceeded to just start between those two Reed lakes, in that middle one. working on her own basket! We watched, got our own That lady was a medicine lady; she could heal supplies and began to do asshewas doing. people. She used to use all kinds of plants to make Watching, listening and doing! Simple! Traditional medicine, for the people. She did not live amongst educational curricula is user-friendly and if resorted the people but lived by herself. When the people to and patiently attended to, could become a vital got sick or needed medicine, they would travel to element of our own educational system today. The that place to see her or get her to come to their camp. most outstanding characteristicof thisstyleof In those days doctors didn't live amongst the people, teachingand learningisthatthelearneris they had to stay clean and not expose themselves to encouraged to always ask questions. all the goings on of the people. She was well known So today we are challenged with many new to everybody in thatpart of the country. Now opportunitiesforlearning,forquestioning and according to the story, this old man's grandfather learning how to be ever vigilent in our attempts to be recollected of the time when he and his family were respectful of our total environment which includes making their way across country, when they decided all living things. Our struggle is to become more to stop and visit the old lady. They discovered th a t mindful, and heedful in how we interact with a 11 she had a small son. living things. This is no small task, and while there My grampa, he said, "We don't ask her where is still time we must take up the work of documenting she get that baby, that's not our business. We just see as many of these stories as possible so the next she love that little boy very much, that's her real generations can learn from them,so thatthe son I guess." knowledge that they contain can be utilized far into The story was that one day that old lady and the distant future. These stories are the foundations her son were walking down on the beach beside that which have been embedded in the territory since the lake and her little son was throwing rocks into the beginning. They have been time-tested and contain water. Here without any warning a giant, jackfish such invaluable information that surely it is worth surfaced and snapped up that boy in his powerful jaws and swam back out into the lake. That old lady

18 Louise Profeit-Leblanc 19 screamed with shock after that jack, but he was over the hill, she opened the bundleand that little already gone with that kid. What is she going to boy he came out. Her son came back to life! do? She calmed herself down and set to work They say he's the ancestor to many of the people chopping down trees with her little stone axe. She up that way. So this is the story.The story is the worked very quickly limbing the trees as they came same for us today. We have only theskeleton now. down. Soon she had enough to make several rafts. It's now up to us to put flesh on that skeleton; to have She wound spruce roots around these logs, wound a sincere conviction and dedicationand be prepared them tightly so that they would be secure. Quickly to suffer a little to build a new life, to breathefresh now she gathered up all the dry brushwhich she air into the old ways so that they work for us in this had limbed from the spruce trees and placed piles of day and age. it on the rafts. Near her camp was a pile of fire- Thank you very much for listening to me this rocks which she also piled on the rafts. She was afternoon. I hope I have been able to give you some moving as fast as she could go, ever aware of her son food for thought and hopefully have given you a being in the stomach of the giant jackfish. different perspectiveon how we can be more Grabbing her flint and a small dump of dried responsible, ethically, educationally and grass,shestartedafire.Quicklynow,she environmentally towards the land which we now all constructed a torch of other dried grasses and 1 i t call home the Yukon. Mussi! each pile of dried spruce on the rafts, setting them afloat on the lake. Soon the whole lake was ablaze and lit up with the burning rafts, the heat of the Notes on contributor burning spruce pitch could be felt even from the shore. The rafts began to bum fiercely and upon LouiseProfeit-LeblancisfromtheNorthern burning, the heated rocks began to drop into the lake Tutchone First Nation whose nation, the Nacho N'y water causing it to come to a boil. The lake was Ak Dun reside in Mayo, Yukon. For the past 10 years, boiling, steaming, when all of a sudden the giant she has worked for the Heritage Branch as their jack surfaced to the top of the lake, boiled, cooked to Native Heritage Advisor. Her primary death! responsibilities include toponymy, oral history, and Now they say that that old woman she had working as a liason between the department of great powers, so powerful that she could actually fly Tourismand YukonFirstNations.An avid over the water. She got a strong willow hookand storyteller herself, she is also the co-founder of the dragged thatfish up onto the shore. Moving as annual International Storytelling Festival which rapidly as her little knife would allow, she cut open was established in 1987. This festival enablesher to the stomach of the fish revealing the contents of the be involved with storytellers from the Yukon and stomach. It was too late,the boy's flesh had abroad. Louise isalso very involved with the already been digested and all that was remaining development of First Nations art and presently sits were his bones. Crying, she gently placed allof as the chairperson for the Society of Yukon Artistsof these tiny bones on a clean moose hide which she NativeAncestry (SYANA).Shehaslectured had layedout on theground. Carefully,she extensively in the Yukon, southern Canada and wrapped these bones ...She took up her rattle and Alaska, on the historyof Yukon First Nations began to sing. Half wailing and chanting the old history utilizing the medium of traditional stories woman sang her songs for three days and nights, not and legends in her presentations. sleeping, not eating or even drinking water. On the fourth morning as the sun was just beginning to rise up

Transferring Wisdom through Storytelling 19 4 The Role of Socially Evolved Ideals in Environmental Ethics Education in Canada and the Yukon: A Historical Approach Involving the Humanities Eugene C. Hargrove, University of North Texas

The problem improvement in the near future in the applicability of environmental ethics research, for it is unrealistic The failure of theory and the role of primary and to expect that philosophers, working on their own, secondary teachers will be able to produce inspiring philosophical Environmental ethics, despite a history as an treatisesthatwillprovide adequate practical applied field within professional philosophy of guidance for the resolution of environmental decision more than twenty years, is not a subject that is easily and policy making or serve as the foundation of a translatable into primary and secondary curricula. new kind of environmental education. Granted, it is There are a number of reasons for this difficulty. The not inconceivable thatsuch a philosophy will most important of these, as I have discussed earlier,' suddenly appear, but it is dangerous simply to wait is that there has been a major shift in the way for such a miracle to occur. To move forward with Western societies have come to think about values. environmental ethics education, therefore, it may be This way of thinking is called economic and is a necessary for the primary and secondary school naive blend of three comparatively recent phil- teachers themselves to lead the way, and then in osophical positions: nineteenth century utilitarian- subsequent interaction with specialists in environ- ism, turn-of-the-century American pragmatism, and mental ethics gradually improve upon these first early twentieth century logical positivism.' The efforts. general problem is that value is now being treated Educators may respond that it is not possible to almost exclusively as being instrumental, subjective, teach environmental ethicsuntil the theoryis emotional, and irrational. Something is valuable i f developed and agreed upon, and that asking them to it benefits humans, or if someone wants or desires i t lead the way places a burden on them for which in order to achieve a feeling of satisfactionor they are not adequately prepared. Teachers may pleasure.Inaccordance with this new perspective, also fear criticism of parents for broaching ethics most value is considered economic. Those values th a t and value issues in the classroom: that they are are not economic, in the technical sense required by indoctrinating rather than teaching. These are not, modem economic theory,areconsideredtobe however, insurmountable problems. noneconomic values and are typicallytranslated imperfectly into weak economic values. Although Indoctrination, religion, and family values this conversion of values into this new form is fully While there are no easy answers to these concerns, i t acceptedin environmental policy and decision ispossibletopursue an approachthatcan making,itfrequently leavesthe environmental reasonably be expected to improve environmental professionals who apply thetechnique witha education without requiring teachers to deal with feeling that something important is missing, and i t the ambiguities and inconsistencies of competing thoroughly confuses ordinary citizens who often find theoriesin environmentalethicsor engagein their basic environmental intuitions in conflict with activitiesthatborderonindoctrination.The economic environmental values. teaching of environmental ethicsappearsto be To counter this valuational schema, environ- difficult in large part because it is treated as a new mentalists have started calling for the recognition of kind of ethics that radically breaks with the past. rights for nature. In response, unable to develop a In accordance with this conception of the subject, theory of rights for nature,' environmental ethicists environmental values are the recent product of the have developed many variantsofintrinsicor thought of a relatively small number of environ- inherent value for nature, none of which to date is mentalists,for example, John Muir and Aldo considered acceptable to environmentalists and their Leopold, who are breaking withand reacting opponents. This focus on the nature of value and its against the past. Viewed this way, there is nothing application to natural objects, systems, plants, and to teach except the professional literature of the animals has remained very theoreticalandis past twenty years together with how the views of therefore not very useful to primary and secondary key figures in the history of the environmental school educators. movement contribute to or anticipate that material. Despite the gravity of the ongoing environ- The prospects brighten, however, if a broader range mental crisis, it is unlikely that there will be much of cultural history is taken into consideration. The

20 The Role of Socially Evolved Ideals in Environmental Ethics Education 21 key figures in the history of environmentalism did the recent economic values are now considered to be not develop their views in complete isolation from traditional, the older values, which actually are theirculturalcontext.Thishistoricalcontext traditional, are treated as radically new values by includesthedevelopmentandevolutionof the opponents of environmentalism and the defen- representational painting (culminating in realistic ders of twentieth century economic practice and landscapepaintingandthedevelopmentof this perversion of history is usually even accepted landscape photography as an art form in the by the environmentalists themselves.) nineteencentury),landscapegardening,nature Theideathatvaluesshouldbetaught poetry and prose, natural history science (including, exclusively in the home is a very ancient view. As in particular, biological and geological survey and AristotlenotedinthefourthcenturyB.C., classificationactivities),and picturesque travel governments almost universally fail to pay attention (now called tourism).' There is virtually unlimited to the moral upbringing of theircitizens,and material available on these subjects and they can be "although the best arrangement would be for the taught in a noncontroversial manner as history regulation of moral matters to be taken over and while at the same time providing students with a properly administered by the community, yet in- better understanding of how their environmental asmuch as the community neglects them it is rightly values arose and what they mean. considered the duty of each of us to help his own There is a real need for such value education. As children and friends along the road to virtue or a t I noted at the beginning of thispaper,in the least to have the will, even though we lack the twentiethcentury,ithasbecome increasingly power, to do this."' In the Middle Ages, it could be difficult to think in terms of values that are not saidthatmoraleducationwasadministered economic. In environmental policyand decision through the community via religious institutions. making, for example, aestheticvalue, whichis However,withthesecularizationofpublic historically a major environmental value, is treated education in the modern period, we have returned for as irrelevant, indeed, unintelligible, until it has the most part to the situation that Aristotle was been converted into economic terms: Through this confronting: parents unable or unwilling to provide conversion, however,itlosesitshistoricalor moral education of a uniform quality, but worried traditionalmeaning and the beauty of nature that teachers in public schools will teach their becomes nothing more than the cost of travel, food, children the wrong values. lodging, and entrance fees. This conversion, as I have Because the idea that ethics is part of religion noted elsewhere,is comparable to thefictional has been with us now for many centuries and the idea efforts of Big Brother's government in Orwell's novel that values should be taught exclusively in the 1984 to eliminate the ability of citizens to think in home has been with us for many thousands of years, moral terms by eliminating the vocabulary th a t these ideasare not likelyto go away in our they need to do so.5 The problem today is not merely lifetimes. There are, however, ways to teach ethics the choice of the appropriate ethical theory, but thatwillreduce potentialconflicts with these more significantly, the basic ability of citizens to beliefs. To begin with, ethical training as public think morally at all. education can be clearly and narrowly aimed a t Because the economic conception of value has furthering the goals of the community thatis, become so well established in public policy, trying to helpingstudents understand generallyaccepted teach alternative environmental values can easily societalvalues.This approach need not be in become a walk through aculturalminefield. competition with religious value education. It can be Teachers are constantly in danger of being accused of treated as complementary.' teaching students inappropriate values. Tradition- Concerning possible conflicts with parents, many allyin Western society value training has been problems can be avoided by teaching at a level of regarded as the province of the home or the church. generality at which there is broad agreement and by The association of ethics with religion is actually a not taking sides on issues where a general consensus historical accident. As the Roman Empire collapsed, has not yet been reached. For example, some years the Catholic Church took over a variety of roles, ago a parent-teacher association in Georgia in the including ethics and value education. Itisthis United States decided thatthechildren in its associationthatisthebasisforfearsabout elementaryschoolneededtoreceivevalue fanaticism among radical environmentalists. As a education, but not trusting the teachers, the members result, the likelihood that teachers will be accused of the PTA arranged for meetings to instruct the of improper value instruction increases when the teachers on what they could and couldn't do. Though value training is presented as new or radical, as a everyone expected a fight, to the amazement of all, break with traditional values. (Ironically, because the parents and teachers quickly found that they Eugene C. Hargrove 21

$4, 22 were in complete agreement. This agreement, though term 'environmental citizenship' is a convenient way unexpected, should not have been. At the level of of describing the ethical obligations that link is generality at which the instruction was to take with other members of the biosphere."' Itis "an place, everyone held the same values. To be sure, ideathatwe haveresponsibilitiesforthe hadtheteacherswanted to dealwithvery environment."' These responsibilities "are rooted in controversial issues, such as abortion, there would the communities to which we belong," which include been considerable disagreement not only between the the family, local and national communities, the teachers and the parents but within each group. community of all human beings, and "a still broader Even such issues, nevertheless, can be addressed i f community, the community of all living things."' both sides were fairly treated, they are presented as matters about which we have not yet reached full agreement, and the resolution of the disagreement Customizing environmental ethics education for the was left open. If a specific answer is advocated by Yukon the teacher with regard to a morally controversial issue, the instruction can easily become ideological A number of environmental ethicists have noted that indoctrination ratherthan moral education.If, the purposes of most environmental laws in the however, the object of the instruction is to help United States are defined, at least in part, in terms students understand what proponents of each side of lists of values as limits on economic value. 16 For are saying, it remains educational, perhaps even a example, the Wilderness Act of 1964, whichis useful contribution to the eventual resolution of the supposed "to assure thatincreasing population, moral issue.' accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas Environmental ethics as environmental citizenship within the United Statesand itspossessions," Much of the stigma attached to ethics can probably includes four values in its definition of wilderness: be avoided by putting ethics, as social ethics, into a scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.' broader context, for example, teaching citizenship The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 instead of morality or ethics. According to Aristotle, (NEPA), which is supposed to impede "the profound for example, ethics and politics (or statecraft) are influencesofpopulationgrowth,high-density two sides of thesame coin:ethicsbeing the urbanization, industrial expansion, resource perspectiveof the individual and politicsthe exploitation, and new and advancing technological perspective of the group.' Citizenship is a word that expansion," calls for the preservation of "important bridges these two perspective quite effectively and historic,cultural, natural aspects of our natural leads naturallyinto appropriateenvironmental heritage," historic, cultural, and natural values, and ethics literature without the religious overtones for the preservation of "esthetically and culturally associated with stewardship. For example, Leopold pleasingsurroundings,"aestheticandcultural uses the term citizen in his famous essay, "The Land values.' Finally, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 Ethic," where he writes that "a land ethic changes issupposedtoprotectendangeredspecies by the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land- preventing"economic growth and development community to plain member and citizen of it."1° untempered by adequate concern and conservation" Likewise, Mark Sagoff has developed a distinction because these species are "of esthetic, ecological, between citizen and consumer and between citizen educational, historical, recreational, and scientific preferences and consumer preferences that provides a value to the Nation and its people."' comparablelinkbetween theindividualand The Yukon Environment Act of 1991isno communityperspectivesinoppositiontothe exception. It lists four values in the first sentence: arbitrary new economic values. Sagoff points out economic, cultural, aesthetic, and spiritual." To be that we are not just consumers of products, but also sure, the Yukon Act differsfrom itsAmerican citizens in communities, and that our preferences as counterparts in that economic value is explicitly citizens can often conflict with and override our listed. However, given that the noneconomic values preferencesasconsumers,thepreferencesth a t are routinely translated in economic terms in the economists survey for policy and decision making." United States,theinclusion of economic value At the practical level, Environment Canada has probably does not in practice make the law weaker, done muchtopromoteasimilaridea of and in theory could make it stronger, since opponents "environmental citizenship," generating a number of of excessive economism could argue that the inclusion short publications that may be useful in primary and of economic value precludes the possibility of the secondary education in the Yukon and elsewhere in other three values (the noneconomic values) being Canada.' According to Environment Canada, "The converted into economic terms an the grounds th a t 22 The Role of Socially Evolved Ideals in Environmental Ethics Education 23 such conversions lead to a situation in which one three, not as a super value that provides the other value,economic,ispromotedexclusivelyby three meaning through a conversion process. To excluding the other three.21 accomplish this task, educators need to teach the Theconspicuouspresenceofenvironmental historical origins of the contemporary conception of values in the purpose statements of environmental environmental value (as a blend of utilitarianism, laws in the United States and Canada provides an pragmatism, and logical positivism). A stress on ideal basis for environmental education. First, the historical origins is needed to overcome the false values, if and when they taught, are nonarbitrary. view that the economic perspective is the factual, No one can complain about these particular values correct way to value the world rather than merely being taught, for they are specified explicitly in one alternative among many. law. Second, there is an important need to teach The manner in which the other three values these values. Environmental values are routinely should be handledis much more difficultto translatedinto weak economic values because determine, especially since these values have to environmental professionals and concerned citizens reflect not only Euro-Canadian but also First Nations have not been taught what these values mean perspectives. Some personal experiences in the within their proper historical context. Teaching the Yukon in 1993, however, have suggested a possible true meanings of these values will eliminate the approach. During my first conference on need to convert (and the excuse for converting) these environmental ethics in the Yukon, "The Forum on values into an aberrant, ahistorical form and permit Northern Protected Areas and Wilderness," I noted these laws finally to be carried out as they were with interest that Ed Shultz in his opening remarks intended by the legislativebodies that enacted invoked cultural, spiritual, and traditional values, them. Third, it bridges the gap between the ethical without making reference to aesthetic value at all. 22 and the political. It provides instruction useful not During the break between sessions, moreover, Shultz only at the policy level but also at the level of the confirmed that the omission had been intentional, individual moral agent. Fourth, it provides primary noting that the Yukon was simply "home." Later, and secondary teachers with a way to approach during one of the workshops I moderated, on "Ethics environmental ethics without having to rely on the and Judgement," I asked the First Nations people (still confusing) theoretical literature. attending thesession ifthey considered nature Because I consider these values to be evolving beautiful. After a long silence, a Euro-Canadian social ideals that vary from society to society, as an commented thatone of my speakers, Lu Johns American I am not in a very good position to provide Penikett, had previously remarked, in criticism of explicitguidance withregardtotheproper aestheticvalue, that"naturewasboringly interpretation of the values listedin the Yukon beautiful." When she confirmed that that was her Environment Act. However, Ican provide some view, the room exploded with additional comments suggestions which may be useful to those interested about the boring nature of natural beauty and, in preparing curricula materials that will help the mirroring my conversation with Shultz, affirmations children in the Yukon grow up with a correct that nature was just home, a place where First understanding of the values that they are expected Nations peoplelived.On thebasisofthese topromoteasenvironmentalprofessionalsor experiences along with a few laterdiscussions, I concerned citizens. have concluded, tentatively at least, that cultural Obviously, the values to be taught, as far as the and spiritual values were included in the purpose Yukon Environment Act is concerned, are economic, statement of the Yukon Environment Act as First cultural,aesthetic,and spiritual.Itmight be Nations values and aestheticvalue as a Euro- objected that economic value does not need to be Canadian value. If this surmise is correct, then i t taught because students will develop an would be most appropriate,in ordertoalign understanding of economic value by other means, environmental ethics education with environmental through other subjects, as they do now, or th a t law in the Yukon, to organize instruction about the economic valueshould not be taughtbecause Euro-Canadian environmental valueperspective economic values frequently encourage poor under the heading of "aesthetic value" and the First environmental practice.I would respond to these Nations perspective under the heading of "cultural objections by arguing that failing to teach economic and spiritual values." value may make it more difficult for students to come Because I have absolutely no expertise with to view economic value in the context of the other regard to the cultural and spiritual values of First three. If economic value is to be deemphasized, so Nations people, I leave curricula development in thatit becomes one of four possible values to be that area to others.' In the balance of this paper, I promoted, it needs to be taught along with the other concentrate on the Euro-American/Euro-Canadian Eugene C. Hargrove 2 3

`-2 tradition that provides the historical context for importation and relentedpermittingplantsas aesthetic value. This tradition is a product of the symbols if they were mentioned in the Bible. As modemperiodandisbasedprimarily cn interest in obtaining plants from North and South representationalthinking. Ifirstdiscussthe America and Asia increased, the prohibitions were American tradition. Then I discuss the similarities eventually ignored and dropped. The display of and differences in the Canadian tradition. Finally, I foreign plantsinthesegardens encouraged an concludewith someobservationsaboutthe interest in natural environments outside of Europe connections between the Canadian and American and a comparative curiosity about local plants. The traditions and the connections of both with the First botanical garden of today reflects both the aesthetic Nations traditions. Because I also do not feel that I perspective of the informal garden and the scientific have any extensive insightinto Euro-Canadian perspectivethataroseoutofthebiological traditions, what follows is intended simply as a classification and collection project carried out in the preliminary guide to the Euro-Canadian perspec- modem period. The scientific and the aesthetic tive, with the expectation that Canadians will have become so intertwined in these gardens th at build on, and perhaps in many respects replace, this scientificinformation providedispartof the reconstruction. aesthetic experience of the visitor. Landscapepaintingisperhapsthemost important of the developments contributing to our Aesthetic value: The Euro-American/Euro- contemporary aestheticperspective.In thelate Canadian perspective Middle Ages artistsbegan experimenting with representationalperspective.Inthebeginning, The common European tradition natural scenery was used simply as a background and In the Middle Ages, the people of Europe were ill- no effort was made to depict real places. The first prepared to think favorably about nature at all. The major artist to be associated with representational basic perspective was Christian and otherworldly. landscapes was Titian. He was followed by two Educated people were taught that love of nature other painters, Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa. would detract from love of God. The standard way of Each came to represent a specific aesthetic quality thinking itself symbolic thinking made the of nature. Rosa became famous for depicting the aesthetic appreciation of nature virtually sublime, the scary or terrifying elements of nature, impossible. When Europeans of that time looked a t which,nevertheless, provided athrillto the an image of a loaf of bread, a fish, or a lamb, they observer. Characteristicof Rosa's paintings and tried to think of an appropriate biblical passage or those who copied his style were stormy skies and story that that image best symbolized. When they jagged and irregular rock formations protruding from looked at mountains, they thought of the wrath of the earth. Claude specialized in more harmonious God at the time of Noah. and pleasing representations of nature. The human In the early modem period, theseattitudes figures were small, giving nature a greater, more began to change as a result of developments in equal status, intense lightsuggested a spiritual landscape gardening, landscape painting, prose and element while highlighting the materiality of the poetry, picturesque travel,and naturalhistory world, and a ruin or castlein the background science. Thefirst of these involved the provided an additional humanizing effect, bringing establishment of the garden as an aesthetic natural the human and the nonhuman closertogether. object. The Catholic Church reluctantly came to Because thesublimeofRosa'spaintingswas approve of gardens as a symbol of the Garden of Eden considered the opposite of the beautiful and the and as a symbol of the afterlife to come?' Later the view that humanly generated art, not nature, was garden became a realm of human domination with beautiful was stillthe accepted position of most the creation of formal gardens in which plants educatedpeople,thelandscapesinClaude's became imperfect materialsto be shaped and paintings were classified as an intermediate point organized into a more perfect form." Finally, the betweenthesublimeandthebeautiful:the formal garden and its philosophy of domination was picturesque. Although such landscapes were not gradually replaced by informal gardens in which truly beautiful, they approached the beautiful as the focus was on the individual plant independent of part of Claude's paintings. Viewed in this way, its relationship with other plants in the garden and these works of art inadvertently lead to a direct on its aesthetic properties in a natural, untrimmed appreciationof natural landscapes as travelers condition. The rise of theinformal garden was noticed similarities between Claude's landscapes related closely to the importation of foreign plants. and landscapes in the real world. To make it easier Initially,the Catholic Church objected to such to appreciate such scenery, travelers viewed natural 24 The Role of Socially Evolved Ideals in Environmental Ethics Education 25 landscapes through a "Claude glass" (a darkened, frequently seen as harmonious, calm, and stable. The lens-shaped mirror framing the landscape in the range of scenery thatis sublime has become so image of a painting, creating the desired effect), limited that ordinary people no longer use the word complete with picture frames and golden brown tint and indeed have not even had a word to express for on the glass to match the color of the varnish on this kind of aesthetic experience since the Hippies Claude's paintings. 26 Eventually they learned to in the1960s alteredand humorized theword appreciatethebeauty of nature without this awesome, which until then had been the popular technical aid. replacement for sublime. The main reason that the Althoughtheappreciationofpicturesque terminology of nature aesthetics is in such bad shape natural landscapes arose out of an appreciation of today is that philosophicalstudy of aesthetics, representational painting, it was actually preceded although havingitsoriginsintheaesthetic by the direct aesthetic appreciation of mountains as experienceofnature,hasbeen narrowed and sublime. European travelers began having sublime refocused as the study of art rather than beauty. experiences in the 1680s.27 Until that time mountains Because science is normally thought of as fact in had been viewed as symbols of the wrath of God. opposition to value today,theroleof natural Suddenly, however, travelers began to feel the history in the development of nature aesthetics is power of God secularly in the mountains themselves almost universally overlooked. It was, however, as as "a delightful Horrour, a terrible Joy."28 In the next importantifnot more importantthanrepre- century, the writings of William Gilpin, who argued sentationalpainting. The ideathatscienceis thatnaturewasnotonlysublimebutalso entirely factual has arisen out of a distinction made picturesque, promoted the joys of picturesque travel by Galileo and popularized by Descartes according and provided a model for the early writings of to which the properties of the natural world are Thoreau. classified as primary (quantifiable properties such The literary side of these developments has its aslength,width,and depth)and secondary origins in the philosophical analysis of the sublime, properties (such as color, taste, smell, sound, and particularlyinreactiontoEdmundBurke's texture). Although physics and chemistry came to be PhilosophicalInquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas associated exclusively with primary properties, on theSublime andtheBeautiful,which was natural history science through its biological and published in 1756, a book that was the chief target geological classification activities remained focused of Gilpin's writings. In addition, it can be regarded on secondary properties, providing a natural link in lightof the writings of a varietyof poets, with and a great deal of interaction between natural culminating with the Romantic poets, as a first historyscience and thehumanities.From the attempt to provide a vocabulary for the aesthetic beginningnaturepoetsrelied on firsthand experience of natural scenery. In the early stages of observation "in the field" and were careful to make picturesque travel, authors merely stated at the end sure thattheirwritings scientificallyaccurate." ofdescriptivepassagesthatthelandscapes The relationship between landscape painting and described were beautiful. Eventually, they cited natural history science was even closer and more lines from their favorite nature poetry. For example, interactive.In order to illustratetheirstudies, MeriwetherLewisoftheLewisandClark scientists took art lessons, providing them with the Expedition, upon reaching the Great Falls of the aesthetic perspective of the artist. Artists, in turn, Missouri, lamented that he did not have "the pen of began to represent nature so carefully that scientists [James] Thomson," England's first major nature poet, frequently thought of them as scientific or "the pencil of SalvatorRosa."' Gradually, illustration.31 The aesthetic dimension of natural travelersdevelopedtheability toproduce history or environmental science is demonstrated descriptive passages that revealed that the scenes endlessly today in natural areas throughout North described were beautiful without having explicitly America each time an interpreter provides park and to say so in the closing line. The nature writings of nature center visitors with scientific information the past two centuries are a direct product of these that enhances their aesthetic experiences. literary developments. These historicalachieve- ments are generally overlooked because our aesthetic The Euro-American tradition appreciationof nature has continued to evolve When I present this aesthetic tradition in public beyond the original terminology. Most of what was lectures,' I illustrate my discussion with landscape once sublime has come to be described as beautiful as paintings from the symbolism of the late Middle we have become more comfortable with the sublime Ages to the scientific realism of the late nineteenth in nature.For example,mountainsthatwere century, passing over the literary quickly since i t originallyviewedasterrifyingare now more does not lend itself to the pictorial, but pausing for a Eugene C. Hargrove 25 26 detailed discussion of the differences between the California landscape photographers, such as C. E. formal and informal garden. An important element Watkins and E. J. Muybridge called the attention of of such a presentation is the fact that American Europe to the beauty and sublimity of Yosemite, and painterswereforcedintopaintingnatural a variety of artists, including Thomas Moran and landscapes, as an alternative to portrait painting, William H. Holmes, and landscape photographers, because they lacked the patron system that freed especially William H. Jackson, accompanied the them from the need to paintfor money. As I major geological surveys in the1860sand1870s. It illustrate through a close examination of the life of culminated with thepublicationof Picturesque Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School, America, edited by the poet William Cullen Bryant, the focus on landscape painting was reluctant on the which documented the beauty of the United States part of the artists but amazingly popular among the across the continent. The impact of these paintings American people. and photographs was so great that virtually every Because he was a poor portrait painter, Cole was place depicted by a major artist is today a national forced to turn to landscape painting in order to park or a national monument. support himself while engaging in more artistic, but less popular painting. Cole himself was disgusted by The Euro-Canadian tradition the popularity of his landscape paintings, feeling TheCanadiantraditionhasbeengenerally thatthepoor tasteoftheAmerican people overlooked and underrated in part because much of prevented him from becoming a better painter.33 the exploration of Canada took place before Canada Although Cole wanted to paint ideal or composed became a country. Although this exploration was paintings, he was forced, against his wishes, to documented in much the same way by artistsin paint reallandscapes because of the American Canada asitwas in theUnitedStates,and obsession withrepresentationsofrealplaces. obviously had thesame impacton Canadian Because hefeltthatsuchpaintingslacked aesthetic perceptions toward nature, itis not as creativity, he complained that the American people closely associated with a sense of national pride. wanted "things not thoughts."34 In contrast, Asher There are even overt and problematic suggestions Durand, who became the leader of Hudson River that the resulting aesthetic vision is not adequately School after Cole's death, took the opposite view Canadian because it was produced by artists looking writing that "the subject of the picture, the material at Canada through foreign (European or American) object or objects from which it is constructed, are the eyes. Obviously these issues need some resolution essential parts of it. If you have no love for them, before a successful environmental value curriculum you can have no genuine feeling for the picture can be designed. which represents them .... Welove Nature and I was not able to find a single book that covered Beauty we admire the artist who renders them in the whole period, and the each of the two books his works ... ."35 In addition, as Novak writes, this that I found to be most useful, for the most part, love of the real was intertwined with national ignored the material covered by the other.' Rees' pride: "In America, if anything, the taste for the Land of Earth andSky:LandscapePainting of real was stimulated by a national predilection for Western Canada presents a dismal picture Canadian the specific and the recognitory and, above all, by painting by concentrating on prairie, "a vast, dry, the scenery that augmented the national pride nearly featureless plain," without mention of the which was, of course, America's own."' mountains of the west coast.38 Reid's Our Own Nationalprideplayedarolefrom the Country Canada,on theother hand, makes no beginning, early in the nineteenth century, as artists mention of the first half of the nineteenth century, began bringing back views of the American West. perhaps because Canada was not yet a country, and This started in the1830swith George Catlin, who focuses on developments after1860in what is now painted landscape between portraitsof Native Quebec and Ontario and, eventually, on the painting Americans, and was followedquickly by Karl of the mountains of the west by those eastern artists, Bodmer, who accompanied Prince Maximilian of sweeping past the prairie withlittlecomment. Neuwied, and by AlfredJacobMiller,who Neitherbook isvery inspiringintone.Reid accompanied William Drummond Stewart of the distractingly concentrates on the personal animosity British Army on his several journeys into the Rocky between Canada's two most important landscape Mountains. It continued as Frederick Church excited painters of the time, Lucius O'Brien and John A. comparative interest in the West with his paintings Frasier. Even worse, Rees treatsallof the late of SouthAmerica,andasAlbertBierstadt, nineteenth century artists he discusses with mild Worthington Whittredge,and othersfrom the contempt not only because they see Canada with HudsonRiver Schooltraveled west.Also, European or American eyes, but also because they

26 The Role of Socially Evolved Ideals in Environmental Ethics Education 27 were paid to produce "the propaganda of theCPR."39 and resolved to follow Catlin's lead by documenting Rees' requirements for a truly Canadian aesthetic the lives, customs, and lands of the First Nations vision are so stringent that only the Group of Seven peoples an the plains and the Pacific coast." In of the early twentieth century fully qualify, and addition, Albert Bierstadt, a German-born American this group of artists comes far too late to be the basis painter of great note, displayed a painting at an for an environmentally useful Canadian conception exhibit in Montreal in 1865, donated a painting to of aestheticvalue. 40 Reidalsosuggests that the Art Association of Montreal in 1878, and painted "national" landscape painting did not arrivein occasionally in eastern Canada in the 1880s.49 As Canada "until the debut of the Group of Seven."' Reid points out, Bierstadt did have an influence over In my view, it is not necessary for the purposes of one important Canadian painter, Lucius O'Brien.5° environmental education to find a purely Canadian These two influences, Catlin on Kane and Bierstadt aesthetic perspective. Whileitis true that the on O'Brien,however,are hardlyadequateto Canadian perspective as it developed during the discredit the authenticity of Canadian landscape nineteenth century is a perspective seen through painting, which, at a minimum, is a parallel and European eyes, the same is true of the American complementary development, and, together with perspective. For example, two of the three earliest American painting, documents the aesthetic reaction western artists that I mentioned above, Alfred Jacob of Europeans to the beauty of North America as a Miller and Karl Bodmer, were Europeans, British whole. and German, respectively. In addition, virtually a 11 The biggest problem isthattheCanadian of the American artists spent a period of time in Pacific Railway played an inordinately important Europe studying before returning to make their names roleinthepromotionofCanadianluminist as landscape painters in the United States. There painting' as part of itspromotion of Western were, nevertheless, differences between the visions Canada and continued to do so long after the of these painters and their European counterparts painting had ceased to be popular. For example, specifically, the subject matter shaped their visions Reid writes: "In the nineties and the first decades of of nature in different ways. For example, American this century, they must have seemed to most of the painters, unable to paint scenes with the castles and informed art audience to have been almost comically ruins required of picturesque painting in Europe, bombastic. Had they not been commissioned by the focused instead on wildness as a unique element th a t CPR, they would not have been painted at all."' In was not found in Europe. Close attention to Canadian response, it is important to note that railroads and painting will likely uncover similar differences. even one California steamboat company engaged in Turning to American influence, itis true th a t similar promotion, but not to the degree that the Canadian painters were aware of the Hudson River CPR did. The main reason for the difference seems to School and some painters, particularly those in be that western expansion took place on a different Quebec, sometimes painted in Vermont and New timescheduleintheUnitedStates,making Hampshire, overlapping with the territory of the aesthetic promotion by business interests largely Hudson River School. They did not, however, travel unnecessarysinceitoccurrednaturallywith to the United States to learn from their American settlement and exploration throughout thefirst counterparts. According to Reid, Canadian art began three-quarters of the century. Because Americans with the "Great Exhibition" in Montreal in 1860, began to have continental aspirations with the which led immediately to the founding of the Art acquisition of theLouisiana Purchase in1804, Association of Montreal by vote of the Canadian Americans were interested in and ready for the Legislaturein Quebec City." TheSocietyof topographical painting that began in the 1830s and Canadian Artists was established in Montreal in they associated it with a sense of national pride. 1867,43 the Ontario Society of Artists in Toronto in Although comparable painting was produced in 1872," the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in what was to become Western Canada during the 1879.45 By 1882 the National Gallery of Canada had same time period,' a similar sense of national pride opened in Ottawa." The artistsinvolved were was not generated in large part because Canada was primarily landscape painters,a mix of French, not yet a nation.In addition, because Western British,Germans,andScots.Althoughthey Canada was run by a fur trade monopoly that was initiallypainted landscapes in Eastern Canada, opposed to settlement,' there was much less interest they moved toward the mountains of the west with in the area until Canada became a country and the the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway.' decision was made to accelerate development. CPR- I have encountered only two explicit mentions of subsidized painting is actually comparable to, and American influence cal the Canadian tradition. Paul contemporary with, government-subsidized painting Kane saw George Catlin's paintings in London in 1843 and photography cal the major geological surveys in

Eugene C. Hargrove 2 7 2S the United States, for example, to Yellowstone, the holds this attitude will be unlikely to be interested Grand Tetons, and the Grand Canyon. To date, the in using luminist painting of the nineteenth century fact that Thomas Moran was employed by the as part of an environmental aestheticseducation government of the United States while painting in program. As Reid himself notes, however, "... none- Yellowstone or the Grand Tetons has never been used theless so it appealed to a broad public in the asan aestheticcriterionforevaluatinghis United States, in Europe and Canada."61 To be frank, paintings. Viewed in thisbroader context, the this problem is not just a problem of the art but also systematic devaluation of the work of Canadian of environmentalism itself, which, to the dismay of artists who were paid by the CPR, which was also a many contemporary environmentalists, was started heavilysubsidized project of the government of in the nineteenth century by the rich, powerful, and Canada, is excessive and extreme. well-educated. Environmentalism as a movement To teach Canadian environmental aesthetics did not have to go through years of ridicule before i t properly, the exploration and scientific study of of came to be accepted. Rather, as nature preservation, Western Canada in the early nineteenth century has it almost spontaneously popped into the heads of to be taken into account. At first glance, one might be people in the position to turn Yosemite, Yellowstone, inclined to say that nothing happened except for and many other parts of the United Statesinto extensivefur trapping and occasional visits by protected areas. Granted, both environmentalism naturalists and artists. Although in official history and landscape painting appealed to the people that theeast and west coasts of Canada were not Reid calls imperialists. Nevertheless, the influence connected until the last spike was driven into the ofthisenvironmentalismandpaintingwas CPR line in 1885, the connection was really made something distinct from that imperialism. It has sometime in 1810 with the discovery of a freight producedawayofthinking,distinctfrom canoe route across the prairieand through the consumerism, thatcauses citizens todayof the western mountains to the Pacific. As Cashman notes: United States and Canada to take photographs of "The traders of Montreal and their western agents natural objects, animals, and plants in protected had leaped the barriers of the Canadian Shield and areas, not to exploit and destroy them, and to care the Rocky Mountains and had strung lines of power about places that they have not and may never and influence from sea to sea.... To the south there visit. To failto recognize that the aestheticsof was no such route across the American half of the these paintings is part ofa majorand continent. Canada had a jump of a full quarter- environmentally beneficialtradition,whichso- century on the United States."' To be sure, this early calledimperialistsofthenineteenthcentury exploration, which is contemporary with the Lewis happened quite contingently to admire along with and Clark expedition in the United States, cannot be manyotherpeople,simplyleads tolost documented by paintings any more than the Lewis opportunities in teaching environmental values. and Clark expedition can. Nevertheless, it can be Exposuretothiskindofpaintingand illustrated,if necessary, by contemporary photo- photography, together with bits of history and graphs and video. With regard to the subsequent material from such relatedfieldsas literature, exploration in the first half of the century, aesthetic natural history science, and landscape gardening, documentation is available through the paintings, can provide students with a clear picture of the drawings, and watercolors of Henry James Warre, historicalbackground upon whichtheirenvi- George E.Finlay,George Seton, R.B.Nevitt, ronmental values and intuitions are actually based, William Armstrong, Peter Rindisbacher, and Henry and making that background explicit, can provide You le Hind." Major early Canadian artists include them as citizens of Canada and the Yukon with the Paul Kane and Frederick Arthur Verner.' They in ability to articulate and critically evaluate those turn were followed by a variety of of illustrators as values and intuitions. well as most of the major artists of the east with the coming of the railway.' Especially important in thisaestheticdocumentationisthelandscape Putting it all together photography of William Notman and those who worked for him, who took advantage of the new The status of visual images photographic technology more fully and system- Although I have focused on painting in my discussion atically than their American counterparts, of aesthetic value, I have done so only because it has influencing Canadian painting very significantly.' played a special role in the development of the Reid highlights still another problem when he aesthetic appreciation of nature, promoting a way of refers to the painting of Bierstadt and Frederick thinkingthathasbeenespeciallyusefulin Church as "Art for Imperialists."" Anyone who protecting nature.Itisthistypeof thinking, 28 The Role of Socially Evolved Ideals in Environmental Ethics Education 29 representationalthinking,incontrasttothe also have a rich aesthetic sense. The difference is symbolic thinking of the Middle Ages,' that makes more political than aesthetic. At an environmental political action about places people have not visited hearing, Euro-Canadians are much more likelyto possible. Symbolic thinking, to be sure, has done make remarks in terms of aesthetic value and less some good. For example, in the United States the likely to invoke cultural and spiritual values. The bald eagle exists today only because it is the symbol First Nations people, in turn, will most likely speak of the country.' Representational images, however, in terms of cultural and spiritualor traditional have had a much broader impact. Paintings and values, omitting reference to aesthetic value as such. photographs of Yosemite and Yellowstone were There is, nevertheless, a good deal of overlap essential to the establishment of those places as between these values. As I have shown in this protected areas. Visual materials today continue to paper, Euro-American aesthetic value is the product provide essential information about and large-scale of three to four centuries of changes in cultural preservationist support for places that people may perspective. In thissense, aestheticvalueisa never visit personally. In all likelihood, this type Western cultural value, and given its centuries-old of thinking is the basis for much of what is called role, a traditional value as well. In addition, close "sense of place." It is because we continue to think attentionto thehistoricaldevelopment of the representationallythathuge number of nature Western conception of natural beauty reveals th a t calendars, magazines, and coffee table book are sold aesthetic value also has its foundations in spiritual annuallybyenvironmentalorganizations.If value.As Marjorie Hope Nicolsonnotes,the representational thinking was ever abandoned by emergence of the sublime involved a direct transfer ordinary people, for example, as a result of ordinary of properties of God to the natural landscape: ."Awe, people finally embracing the abstract expressionist compounded of mingled terror and exultation, once view of aesthetics that has dominated professional reserved for God, passed over in the seventeenth art since the 1890s, it could become very difficult to century first to an expanded cosmos, then from the mustersignificantpoliticalsupportforthe macrocosm to the greatest objects in the geocosm protection of particular places. mountains, ocean, desert."" In the modern period, Landscape painting and photography, never- Westerners moved from a conflict between love of theless, are only one element in a mix of material. God and love of nature to a perspective from which They cannot, and should not,for example, be they could love God through nature. Even though considered a replacement for direct experience of this love of nature eventually became thoroughly nature, which encompasses many elements th a t secularized,itretainsstrong,butlargelyun- cannotbecapturedvisually. Theaesthetic articulated, and perhaps unarticulatable, spiritual appreciationof avisual imagerequiressome elements that are essential to wilderness and other experience with real landscapes in order for the nature experience. observer to be ableto construct arelationship With regard to the cultural and spiritual values through imagination withdepictedlandscape. of the First Nations, the situation seems to be Written and oral descriptions are also important, but reversed. The First Nations peoples quite .obviously work better as a complement to visual images rather have strong aesthetic sensibilitiesthatare used than as an alternative. Visual images are, likewise, extensively in their presentations of cultural and veryusefulinpresentingnaturalhistoryor spiritual values. Just as cultural and spiritual values environmental science, but once again are not a are subsumed within the aesthetic perspective of substitute for direct experience of plants, animals, the Euro-Canadian perspective,aestheticvalue and natural areas. seems to be subsumed withinthecultural and spiritual perspectives of the First Nations people, The relationship of the aesthetic with the cultural where it plays an important though secondary role. and spiritual BecauseIhave stressedrepresentational At the beginning of this paper, I presented anecdotal thinking in my discussion of aestheticvalue,i t evidence for believing thatthe aestheticvalue might be supposed that the narrative approach of listedin the Yukon Environment Act is a Euro- the First Nations people to cultural and spiritual Canadian environmental value that is not shared by values will require teachers to handle aesthetic the First Nations people, who largelyconsider value, on the one hand, and cultural and spiritual nature to be "boringly beautiful." Although this values, on the other, in radically different ways, reaction to aesthetic value clearly provides a basis Making it difficult to relate them to each other in for distinguishing Euro-Canadian and First Nations meaningful ways. This problem is largely illusory. perspectives, it is important not to make too much of Although I stressed representational thinking in my it, for it is quite obvious that First Nations people discussion of aestheticvalue,Ialsopresented

Eugene C. Hargrove 2 9 aesthetic value historically. Such presentation is values forged in that past. They will forget what itself a story or a narrative, and parts of it, when they stand for as both individual citizens and as a fleshedout,forexample,anaccountof the nation of citizens. Preventing such a disaster is,I explorations of David Thompson or Simon Fraser in have tried to suggest here, a manageable one, well the mountains of Western Canada for classroom use, within the means and abilitiesof primary and will also be in narrative mode. Such a narrative secondary teachers. If they are successful, Canada approach is evencompatible with recent will remain not just a community of consumers, but of environmental ethics theory for example, Jim citizens as well. Cheney's conception of "bioregional narrative" or HolmesRolston,III'sconceptionof"storied residence."65 Notes on contributor Representational painting can probably even be used directly to enhance the presentation of the First Eugene C. Hargrove is the founding editor of the Nationsperspectives on cultural and spiritual journalEnvironmental Ethicsandauthorof values. Most artists who went west in the United Foundations of Environmental Ethics (Prentice-Hall, States were extremely interested in and sympathetic 1989). He chairs the Department of Philosophy and to the Native Americans they encountered. Many Religion Studies at the University of North Texas, painted portraits of Native Americans and scenes whichhasthemost comprehensivegraduate from their ordinary lives. As George Horse Capture, program in environmental ethics. Curator of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, has pointed out, KarlBodmer's paintings and the descriptive accounts of Prince Maximilian from the Notes and references 1830s have provided a "window to the past" of "all Eugene C. Hargrove, "Science, Ethics, and the Care of Eco- the prairie peoples," permitting Native Americans systems," in Jun Peepre and Bob Jickling, eds., Northern actuallyto seetheir own past "face-to-face."66 Protected Areas and Wilderness (Whitehorse: Canadian Comparable works of art are available in Canada. Parks and Wilderness Society and Yukon College, 1994), Especially important in this regard is the work of pp. 44-61. 2 Ibid., pp. 50-53. Paul Kane, who once wrote, "The principle object of 3 The chief problem is that rights are traditionally con- my undertaking was to sketchpicturesof the sidered protections of the interests of individuals and principal chiefs, and theiroriginal costumes, to most environmental entities that environmentalists would like to protect (for example, ecosystems and species) are illustratetheirmanners andcustoms, andto aggregates of individuals and relationships that do not representthesceneryofanalmostunknown have identifiable interests that can be protected in any country."' The presentation of such paintings can be straightforward way. See Eugene C. Hargrove, Foundations of Environmental multidimensional, intertwining aesthetic,cultural, Ethics (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1989), and spiritual values and illuminating both the Euro- articularly chaps. 3 & 4. Canadian andFirstNationsperspectivesand Hargrove, Ethics, and the Care of Eco- systems," pp. 47-50, 56-59. traditions. 6 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, bk. 10, chap. 9. In fact, there is a continuing international effort to get the Putting economic value in perspective major religionsthroughouttheworldtopromote environmentaleducationandsoundenvironmental As I noted at the very beginning of this paper, practice. environmentalpolicyanddecisionmakingis 8 Of course,itisalsoimportant to avoid the value currently dominated by economic values because the clarification approach, according to which each person creates his or her values, an approach that promotes a other values have not be taught and have therefore moralrelativismthatisinconsistentwithmoral come to be treated as meaningless. Throughout this education. It is one thing to tell children that everyone can paper, I have stressed that these values be taught in think whatever they want abouttheissue,moral relativism, and another to admit that it is a difficult issue a historical context. I have done so because these about which we have not yet reached adequate agreement values, and what they mean, can most easily be within the moral community. In the first case, the child is found and most clearly articulated in the actual presented with a view of morality in which a view is okay if someone holds it. In the second case, the child is history of Canada and its peoples, Euro-Canadian presented witha social problem which he or she may and First Nation. If this history is lost, the values someday help resolve. will also be lost. 9 See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, bk. 1, chap. 2 and bk. 10, chap. 9. According to a party slogan in Orwell's 1984, 10 Aldo Leopold, "The Land Ethic," in A Sand County "Who controls the past controls the future; who Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River controls the present controls the past.' The same (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966), p. 240. 11Mark Sagoff, The Economy of the Earth: Philosophy, Law, can be said of Canada. If citizens are permitted (or and the Environment (Cambridge: Cambridge University encouraged) to forget their past, they will forget the Press, 1988), pp. 7-8, 92-94.

30 The Role of Socially Evolved Ideals in Environmental Ethics Education 31 12 See, for example, Environment Canada, A Primer on For a longer discussion of Cole, see nry discussion in Environmental Citizenship: The Environmental Foundations of EnvironmentalEthics,pp. 97-98,and CitizenshipSeries (Ottawa: Ministerof Supply and Barbara Novak, American Painting inthe Nineteenth Services Canada, 1993). A version of the book is Century: Realism, Idealism, and the American Experience available on the World Wide Web at (New York: Praeger, 1969), chap. 3. http: / /atlenu.bed.ns.doe.ca/udo/primerl.html. 34 Novak, American Painting, p. 70. 13 Ibid., Q1.7. "Common Sense in Art," The Crayon 1 (1855): 81. Quoted 14Ibid., Q1.8. in Novak, American Painting, p. 62. 15 Ibid., Q1.9. 36 Ibid., p. 91. 16 For example, Mark Sagoff, Holmes Rolston, III, and Bryan 37Ronald Rees, Land of Earth and Sky: Landscape Painting of G. Norton. Western Canada (Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie 17 Public Law 88-577, in U.S., Statutes at Large 78 (3 Books, 1984) and Dennis Reid, Our Own Country Canada: September 1964), pp. 890-91. Being an Account of the National Aspirationsof the 18 Public Law 91-190, in U.S., Statutes at Large 83 (1 January Principal Landscape Artistsin Montreal and Toronto, 1970), p. 852. 1860-1890 (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1979). 19Public Law 93-205, in U.S., Statutes at Large 87 (28 38 Rees, Land of Earth and Sky, p. 1. December 1973), p. 884. 39Ibid.,p. 27. 20 Environment Act, Statutes of the Yukon 1991 (29 May 40 Ibid.,pp. 36-41. 1991), p. 9. 41 Reid, Our Own Country Canada, p. 438. 21 When environmentalists successfully challenged the ap- 42 Reid, Our Own Country Canada,pp. 14-17. plication of a California timber law on the grounds that `13Ibid., p101-03. economic value was not one of the values promoted by the 44 Ibid.,pp.p. 199-202. law, the state legislature added economic value to the law. Ibid., pp. 281-82. Environmentalists are now challenging the new practice 46 Ibid., p. 289. of promoting economic value and ignoring the other values Ibid., chap. 13. (personal communication with Sharon Duggan). " Rees, Land of Earth and Sky, p. 12. 71 Ed Shulz, "Opening Remarks," in Peepre and Jickling, 49Reid, Our Own Country Canada, pp. 292-93. Northern Protected Areas and Wilderness, p. 43. 5°Ibid., pp. 295, 3 18, 325. The creation of First Nations curricula materials for 51 This term was invented by John I. H. Baur, "American primary and secondary schools was discussed in the Luminism," Perspectives LISA, no. 9 (Autumn, 1954): 90- session on "Environmental Ethics and Education" in 98, and was not applied to the artists during their own "Forum on Northern Protected Areas and Wilderness" in lifetimes. I see no reason not to use the term for their 1993, and in the "Forum Summary" Norma Kassi stated Canadian counterparts. that teachers should "learn the true history of [the Yukon] 52 Reid, Our Own Country Canada,p. 437. and begin with the FirstNationspeople andthe Rees, Land of Earth and Sky, pp. 3-15. knowledge they have and implement that knowledge into 54 Tony Cashman, An Illustrated History of Western Canada the education system" and that many First Nations people (Edmonton: M. G. Hurtig, 1971), p. 65. are willing to participate in introducing their perspective Ibid., p. 34. into the education system. Norma Kassi, "Summary 56 See "Likeness of a New Land: Topographers in the Can- Forum," in Peepre and Jickling, Northern Protected Areas adian North West," in Rees, Land of Earth and Sky, pp. 3- and Wilderness, pp. 372-73. 10. 24 See Kenneth Clark, Landscape into Art (New York: Harper See "The West as Romantic Wilderness: The Art of Paul & Row, 1976), chap. 1 ("The Landscape of Symbols"). Kane and Frederick Verner," ibid., pp. 11-15. 58 25See Hargrove, Foundations of Environmental Ethics, pp. 81- See "The West as a Frontier Settlement: Special Artists 84, for a fuller discussion of this matter. from the Illustrated Press,"ibid., pp. 16-26. For the 26Clark, Landscape into Art, p. 178. activities of artists of comparable stature to those in the 27 See Majorie Hope Nicolson, Mountain Gloom and Moun- Hudson River School, see Reid, Our Own Country Canada. tain Glory: The Development of the Aestheticsof the 'Reid, Our Own Country Canada, pp. 28-44. Infinite (New York: Norton, 1959), especially chap. 7. 60 Ibid., p. 295. 28 Ibid.,p. 277. 61Ibid. 'Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Original Journals of Lewis and 62 See J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (Garden Clark Expedition (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1904), p. 149. City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1954), pp. 202-05. The remark was written on 13 June 1805. 63 See Sagoff, Economy of the Earth, pp. 132-35, for an ap- 'See Nicolson, Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory, p-). 20- plication of symbolism in environmental ethics theory. 21, 347-48, and Myra Reynolds, The Treatment of Nature ba Nicolson, Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory,p. 143. in English Poetry (New York: Gordian Press, 1966), pp. 65 Jim Cheney, "Postmodern Environmental Ethics: Ethics as 327, 335. Biogregional Narrative," Environmental Ethics 11 (1989): 31For example, William H. Brewer, a botanist, wrote of a 117-34; Holmes Rolston, III, Environmental Ethics: Duties painting by Pratt called "The Garden of Eden" that it was and Values in the Natural World (Philadelphia: Temple interesting in a botanical sense as well as others." University Press, 1988), chap. 9 ("Down to Earth: Person 1848 Diary, p. 15, in Box 8/Folder 208, William FL in Natural History"). Brewer Papers, Yale Historical Manuscript Collection, " Introduction, Laserdisk, Views of a Vanishing Frontier, A Yale University. Similarly, of Goat Island of Niagara Film by Craig B. Fisher and Helen Ashton, Osprey Falls, he wrote that it was "Interesting alike to the Productions, Metropolitan Museum of Art Home Video painter, poet and man of science. But comment is needless." Collection (Chicago: HomeVision, 1988), frames 490-4475. 1851-1852 Diary, p. 6, in Box 8/Folder 208, Brewer According to Dennis Hastings, Omaha Tribe Historian, Papers. these paintings have frequently helped his tribe preserve 32For example, "The Role of Socially Evolved Ideals in traditionsand evenreconstructelementsoftheir Environmental Ethics Education: A Historical Approach traditions that had become lost (frames 32195-33040): involvingtheSciencesandtheHumanities,"in "They [also] provide a measurement of how much has been "Environment, Ethics, and Education," Yukon College, lost from the [Omaha] culture." July 14, 1995. 67 Quoted in Rees, Land of Earth and Sky, p. 12. 68Orwell, 1984, p. 109.

Eugene C. Hargrove 31 BEST COPY AV's ILA 3 2 What is a good way to teach children and young adults to respect the land? A panel discussion Lucy Wren, Elder, Carcross Tagish First Nation Marge Jackson, Elder, Champagne and Aishihik First Nations Harry Morris, Elder, Teslin Tlingit Council Carol Geddes, Filmmaker of Tlingit and Southern Tutchone ancestry Daniel Tlen, Yukon Aboriginal Language Services Norma Kassi, Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, International Gwich'in Steering Committee

Moderator:Bob Jickling, Yukon College

Harry Morris [Tlingit opening prayer] what they are, different stories, and I think that i t is because we are operating with such totally Bob tickling I would like to introduce the members of differentparadigmsthatwe haveso much the panel. Daniel lien of the Yukon Territorial difficulty talking about these kinds of issues. Right Government Aboriginal Language Services;Lucy now, one of thethingsthatmakes me grow Wren from the Carcross Tagish First Nation; Marge impatient, and sometimes almost despairing, is that Jackson from theChampagneAishihikFirst people are presuming to understand a First Nations Nations; Carol Geddes and Harry Morris from the paradigm a First Nations way at looking at issues Teslin Tlingit Council; and Norma Kassi from the like environmental ethics. In fact, we are not really Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation. there yet. I am thinking from the point of view of someone Carol Geddes When I was asked to come and help on who is of the first generation of aboriginal people this panel, Bob and I talked about the question of who are thinking about this in two ways. I was born "environmental ethics." The more I thought about it, in the bush and lived that way during my first the less clear my thoughts became. I think when we years. I was living in a hunting culture in the bush, first started to talk I had, more of a handle on it, in but I am also of the generation where we had to go to fact, than I do now. Thth is good because at least I school. We had to stay in school. In many ways I am now am beginning to understand the source of my thinking in both paradigms, and this is also a source confusion about the term "environmental ethics." of confusion for me: thatIwouldb_ e ableto I would like to tell you a small story about a understand environmental ethics within the context very great lady in the Yukon. Her name is Mrs. of narrative as the way First Nations people were Annie Ned. This illustrates, in a way, what bothers taught about the environment. We would never have me about thinking about environmental ethics in the a subject called environmental ethics; it is simply way we do today. Mrs. Annie Ned, some years ago, part of the story. When you are a child you first about seven or eight years ago, was taken to a hear the animal mother story, about how animal scientific conference in Kluane National Park. She mother gave the animals to the world, and how was with Julie Cruikshank, an anthropologist who people have to consider this as a gift from the has done an a lot of work in the Yukon. I am sure animal mother; and if we do not take care of the that most of you know her name. Well, Mrs. Ned animals, then the animal mother will start to take listened to all of the scientists giving their ideas the animals back. We see that happening now. That about physical events in the park: what sort of isthecontextwithwhichweunderstand things happened in the park, the geography of the environmentalethics,withinthatnarrative, park, and various other subjects. Mrs. Ned just very within the storytelling. quietly listened to this all day. Then as they were On the other hand there is allthe scientific leaving that evening, as they were walking to the knowledge that we also learned in school, the car, Julie said to Mrs. Ned, "How did you like the differentstoriesas Mrs. Ned said,thenew conference?" paradigm. Too many people say, well let's take Mrs. Ned said to her, "Theytelldifferent lessons from First Nations people, let us find out stories than we do." some of their rules, and let us try and adopt some of Thisis very, very important, in factitis those rules. Let us try to look at it the same way profoundly important that we hear that.That is that First Nations people do. But it is not something

3 2 A panel discussion 33 that you can understand through rules. It has got to Morris, I am from the Teslin Tlingit clan. It is a big be through the kind of consciousness that growing up, honour for me to be here and to share what I have to understanding the narratives can bring to you. That speak of. is where it is very, very difficult, because people On the first panel here it says what is a good have become so far removed from understanding way to teach children and the young Elders to these kinds of things in a narrative kind of way. The respect the land. To respect the land, first of all I paradigm that is used now really has nothing to do will speak of it concerning me: to respect the land with narrative, because narrative is considered too you have to respect yourself first and show respect to soft, or just not scientific. I think that the way First the land. The Creator has taught us to respect our Nations people understand this is really the way land. That is the Mother land. We have to teach our everybody needs to go. I think that the situation is young generations to respect the land, to respect getting desperate. I think that we need to do the themselves, to respect the land and whatever is an hard work and it is very hard work. When we listen the land animals. When we are raising them up is to First Nations people, for me, I have lived in both the time to start teaching your children how to cultures all of my life, and I have gone to the Elders, respect the land. As I was growing up I was taught but I have a lot of difficulty because of all the years not to abuse the timber. Not to abuse it is to respect that I went to white schools. There is a lot that I do it. I was taught not to shoot at animals. Respect i t not understand about what the Elders are saying. I and only take it as you need it. The same goes for the have to be very, very careful about the way I try to timber, trees, everything. understand. I know ifitis that difficult for me, When I was growing up my Elders were my growing up in two cultures, then it must be very teachers, they were the ones that taught me things. difficult for other people. I would just caution you When I was growing up, say eight or nine years old, that it is not easy it is incredibly important, but i t they told me you have to learn both ways. You have is not easy. to learn how to read and write. This way you will One of the biggest issues is learning how to never be stuck, and you have to learn your Indian understand in a different kind of way. Where the way. You have to know your history, you have to things that the Elders say are made equal and, this know your background, you have to know where you is really very hard. Sometimes an Elder says one came from. If you know this, you will respect what is thing and you go away and think about it for a long, around you, your environment. long time. Finally, finally it starts to become clear When I was about ten or fifteen I often told my to you and at that point you go back to the Elder and Elders, my uncle, I grew up mostly with my uncle, he say, "What did that mean when you said this?" If told me you have to know your history, your Indian you are really interested they are willing to help ways, this way you willnever be stuck. My you. Many people, when they are talking to the grandfather told me the same thing. You have to Elders, want to hear things in a certain kind of way. know how to read and write. The most important They want it packaged up, they want it to be like in part is to know how to read and write. Do not let a text book or something o.k. here it is, here is the none of them go. Hold your Indian way with your knowledge. It is not like that and that is why it is right hand and hold [white man's] way with your such a serious undertaking to begin to understand lefthand. You will be travellingaround this what First Nations people are really saying. country, you will know your both and you will never What has been happening recently is like in the be stuck. film Lion King where Simba says, "Father, why do In those days it was new to me. I often think we kill the antelope?" and the father says, "Son, we that the white man way is the most important part. are all part of the great circle of life." But at the You have to give up your Indian way and learn the same time that he is saying that, the other values white man way, it is a lot better. I was thinking like in the film are things like patriarchy, hierarchy of this at about eight years old. I was grumbling back animals and some other really negative kinds of at my uncle that he was teaching me how to run my issues that come up there. Too often we are looking life. My grandfather heard me grumbling back and at that. We are just saying things without really he says, "I am going to put you in jail. This way you understanding what we are saying about the great are going to learn. I am going to punish you." He put circle of life. We are not doing the kind of serious me up in the attic. He put me up in the attic without work that we need to do. a drink of water, without food, for the whole day. It was in the month of July and they were long days. Harry Morris First of allI would like to introduce That is how he punished me. He said you are going myself to everyone of you here. My name is Harry to learn not to talk back to your Elders. You are going

What is a good way to teach children and young adults to respect the land? 33 to learn to respect your Elders. So I guess the most know is that it is very worthwhile to try and do the important part is to respect your Elders, to respect work. the land and to respect yourself and everything t ha t is around you. Thank you. Question Do you consider Elderstobe sources of knowledge? Question Could you comment on how you feel about white men and women asking First Nations people Carol Geddes Yes, most of them are. Most people of for knowledge? Harry's generation, and the other two Elders here, are absolute encyclopedias of knowledge about these Norma Kassi He asked you if you think it is strange kinds of issues. I know what you are saying just as that white people are coming to us for knowledge to resource people, but it takes a whole shifting of the understand First Nations people and what we know paradigm. You have to start turning things in your about the land and the environment. Do you think i t own mind, listening in a different kind of way, is strange? experiencing it in a different kind of way. It is so different from going to a classroom and hearing Harry Morris No, it is not that strange, itis not somebody repeat a lot of facts. This is a different strange. We appreciate very much the chance to story and we have to listen to that story in a totally pass on the knowledge. We appreciate the chance to different kind of way. I do not know where to tell share what we know. people to begin on that but do begin.

Carol Geddes I think that it is a natural evolution Norma Kassi Before we go an I have to ask Harry that people are looking to indigenous people across some of those questions too so that he could answer the world to help find some answers. Again,I them.There were lotsofquestionsbut most reiterate what I said before, that people have to be important was, how can white people learn from us? extremely careful about looking at in a shallow kind How can they learn from us about all the things we of way. Itis not as though we can bundle the know about our land and environment, how can they knowledge and say, "Here it is." It is going to take a learn? lotof work and alotofdifferentkindof commitment. Everything has to change. People can Harry Morris I was thinking that I will explain the not keep working the way they do. They can not Elders and I calledit in my own way, a lack of keep consuming the way they do. It is not something communication. Most of the Elders know the way, that you just say there is a big circle of life, because but they never speak about it. They never tried to it is all so meaningless. I think it is more dangerous teach the younger generation. My biggest concern than when we were not listened to, personally. now isto put things an a tape recorder. In our traditional way of life, we would never have a Question How can we, non-native people, be a part document, we never wrote the history of things of First Nations knowledge? down. Therefore I call it a lack of communication, i t mostly comes from being handeddown from Carol Geddes I have been going through that for a generations. Those that wanted to learn are the ones very long time, trying to understand and going that have it in their heads, what they were taught through my own struggles about that. That is why i t and a lot of it they never passed iton. Before is very good for me to be a part of this forum, because anymore of our Elders leave us, I would like to see i t it really made me think a lot harder. And as I said, start with the young. I call her [Norma] a "paper my confusion increased. I can not put anybody on a word," a "modem Indian."Everything we are particular kind of road; all I can do is caution that i t putting down, she puts it on paper. It would be nice i f is very difficult and very complicated. It will take a now we started to put our traditional ways on paper. lot of study, and that is by interacting more with In this way, if you want to look up the Indian way, traditional First Nations people. God only knows you will just look it up on the paper. If you want to that we have an enormous number of First Nations hear it on a tape, you just buy yourself a tape and put people who do not know about this issue and who do it on. not practice environmental ethics in a lot of ways. It is knowing where to go for the real sources and Question Should Elders go into the schools to share listening hard and watching hard and trying to do our history with the students? the work. There are even books. It is hard for me to answer that because I do not know precisely, allI Carol Geddes One of the problems that has been is

3 4 A panel discussion 35 that it has always been on the terms of the school. to learn something, I had to go and work in the bush An Elder will sometimes come into a school and i t for it. In other words I had to pack water for the will be all set up for the advantage of the school. An Elder, chop wood and then wait until they were Elder is sitting there and they think of things in a ready. Then they will tell you. The point is th a t different way. Somebody might asktoo many this knowledge is not free. The knowledge is there, questions all at once and that is not the way a lot of Elders are prepared to shareit,but you need the Elders are comfortable. They would rather be commitment. The other point is that not everyone is involved in something they are doing on the land or a seeker of knowledge and not everyone is a teacher in their own homes. If we think about different ways of knowledge. I think those are very special focuses. to engage the Elders, different ways to get t ha t If you really want to learn, I suggest that you try to knowledge, that is more fruitful. It takes patience know what it is that you want to learn, and at the and takes a lot of commitment to learning in tha t same time you treat an Elder with humility. If you way. Just inviting someone to a school gives youall put yourself in front of an Elder to have them teach the advantages. The Elders are not used to teaching you, they are in a very vulnerable position. Youneed that way, so how do we think about different ways to have that humility as well. of doing that this is a very important question. Lucy Wren We used to listen to what our Elders told Question Would you consider having Elders in t h e us to do all of the time. We got to have respect for classroom a type of cultural learning exchange? people, we have to have respect for the Elders. No matter which of the Elders need water, wood, things Daniel Tlen I would like to make the point that it is or food, all we want to know is stories and they like said when a student is ready, a teacher will arrive. that.We alwaysfinishedeverything and in The converse is also true, when the teacher is ready evening time they told us stories. How to live, not the student will arrive. likenow-a-days. The troubleisnow,Iteach Another point that I want to make, as Carol just (language) in school for many years and I know just said, is that you have to be committed to learning. the way kids are growing up in the school, their Again to reinforce what Carol said, you need to be parents at home should teach the kids. That is the really serious about seeking knowledge from Elders. way they taught us since we were little. We knew to Eldersare more than happytosharetheir listen to our Elders, to our parents, but now-a-days, knowledge.Ithinkitiscultural because not the young people do not try to teach the little ones. everybody likes to do that, not everybody in the That is why they do not listen to you now. world. I tell them stories and I talk to them at school, In the Yukon, native Elders have been trained but they do not realize that they should listen to since childhood to tell their stories. They are not what Elders tell them. If I talk to their parents and afraid to tell you about themselves or what their tell them to teach like this, they say they do not life was like thirty or forty years ago. They like want to lick them, they do not want to be mean to doing that, that is the way they were trained, that their kids. I say I love my kids, but I scared them to is the way they were brought up. However, when get them to listen to me. Now they are all grown up you seek knowledge, it does not fall into your lap. In and I have no trouble with them. I raised them since other words it is not easy, you have to be committed they were small and now today, they all listen to to new ideas and committed to the idea of learning me. something. You have to be aware that you need to be I try to tell this to young parents, but they do not patient. Sometimes, because of the way you ask your listen. That is all I got to say. question, the answer you get may not be what you want to hear, or what you think you want to hear, Question What of theloss of your language and but the answer is in there somewhere. The nugget children not understanding? Where should language you are looking for is in there somewhere. A lot of be taught? In the school? the time it depends on whether you asked the question correctly, whether what you want to know Lucy Wren The students in school understand lots, is the right thing to be asking. It is also important to they are doing good, but as soon as they go home the remember that it is fine to have the Elders there parents do not understand the language. It has got to to be taught, to learn, but it is not free. The Elder is start at home, it is the only way that the language like a trained professional of this society. is going to come back. From my own experience as a kid in Burwash when ever I wanted to hear stories, when I wanted

What is a good way to teach children and young adults to respect the land? 3 5 Question How do you feel about teaching classes in brothers and sisters. That is the child's aunts and your language? uncles on the mother's side. The aunt and uncle then assume the teacher role for that child. They teach Lucy Wren Yes, they tried to teach through night the child what they need to know. In the old days, school for the parents in Carcross. The first time lots if you were a man then you had to know how to hunt. of people came, but pretty soon only two or three When I was seven yearsold, theRussians came and usually only one came. You cannot do blasted a satellite into space and it was a big thing. anything no matter what you do. When the Americans walked on the moon that was pretty amazing, and now space shuttles are a way of Question In your lifetime you had to work hard, d o life. When our kids grow up they will have a you thing it is easier for children now? completely differentset of expectations.Space travel is something that they live with, something Lucy Wren Now that the kids are grown up now-a- that they take for granted, while issues of the days they are not worried about packing wood, or environment, being closely connected to the land, is water and things because the wood isready, not something that is of big concern to kids. What is everything is ready. They do not have to pack of concern to them is the whole issue of global anything. All they want to learn is to walk around environment, that is a big issue for kids. How do we town and sit around and watch TV, that is all. A teach them that now? We can only do a certain long time ago we were very ready to help old amount withintheschool system. The school people. We had to get our own wood, our own water, systems are not working that well.I think th a t help them go trapping, set fish nets under the ice. A Westernsocietywillbegoingthroughan long time ago we had to help do everything. That is educational revolution here soon if not already.I how we were raised. think we are going through the initial stages of it.I think we are going to have to rethink our whole way Question Therespect foranimalsexpressedin of educating kids and try to impart some of the Native culture is wonderful. Nothing of the animal things that are important to us, issues of respect for is wasted. Can you comment on this? self and issues of the environment. Lucy Wren Yes, they used to tell us that, like moose Marge Jackson What Lucy said, we do the same and all of the animals killed, they did not throw thing. We say uncle and auntie and girls look after the bones away, they put them away and then used their niece, and the men look after their nephew. If them for something. They used to tell us not to cut he does not listen to his mom, he is given to his littletrees down, you were not supposed to. Those uncle. At this time [today] you cannot spank any trees have got to grow, then you have wood for a fire kids. If you spank them, it is to learn. My kids listen to live, to keep warm. If you bugger-up those trees, to me because I spank them. you have nothing, they used to tell us when we were Sometimes I go up to the village here and little kids. kids fight. They did not do that a long time ago. The way you watch that: our mother got to pay for it. I Daniel Tlen Just to add a little bit to what you said, just want you to know how we used to do it before. the traditional way in the Yukon for teaching We have got to pay. childrenisthis:The aunts and uncles on your We have different clans, the Crow Clan and the mother's side are the teachers for your children. Wolf Clan. We have to talk to kids and spank kids, That is the general way in which teaching and if they do not listen to you then give them to your learning was assigned. The reason for that is because sister to teach them. That is the way it was a long most all Yukon natives have a matrilineal structure time ago with kids. to their society. In other words, it is the woman and I was raised by my grandmother until she died. her children that are important. The mother gives She taught me lots. When you travel you have to her clan designation to her children.Itis very watch for everything. Now when people walk they important that the mother teach the children, but do not watch, they just walk until they step on bears. she does not have all of the resources for teaching You have to watch for everything even a little the children. She can teach them what she can in movement in the bush, but now it looks just like a the home, that is normal, all mothers do that, but road. You have to watch where you are going, when when it comes time for the young person to start to toexpectsomething,that istheway my learn different things in theirsociety, then the grandmother taught me. mother will place the children in the hands of her

3 6 37 A panel discussion When we travel we did not stay in one place, we trapping and the snow was deep I could not get back have to go over several mountains. We put food in until daylight. I would set up a little bush camp and caches and in the wintertime we used dog teams. We stay there all night and come back in the morning. just lived off the land. When you stopped some place Wet snow is hard to walk in. for a short while, you put in a fish net. Now-a-days There is a lot of things to learn. Just a corner that if you are hungry for fish you have to go to the store is all we try to teach the kids. The whole thing or and buy it and it costs you lots of money. The old way nothing, but we have to try right, and do it now. The did not cost you money, you just made a net and put i t old people are going. After the old people go, who in. You dry it and go out again to get enough for dog are those kids going to learn from? They are just food. going to learn from books. You have to teach kids Intheolddayspeopleusedtotravel properly in a camp. Last summer we went out there, everywhere by walking. After we used to come back my niece handled it. She took them to the lake and in the fall time and fish some more. I lived at Otter spent the whole day swimming. They did not learn Lake until I was ten years old, then I went and anything. We stayed right there, Mary, me, my son stayed in Klukshu. and Annie his wife, and we did not see any kids a 11 At this time we cannot take anything from the day. If they kill a moose, they have to cut it up land, we are scared thatitis polluted. Up the while the kids are down at the lake. Who are we Haines Road we cannot pick any berries now. We going to teach? We have nobody to teach. That is cannot eat anything from up that way because of the why old people have to teach kids, lots of kids too, spraying on top of the traplines. We checked them but if they keep them away from us we cannot do about two years ago and they are poisoned because of anything. You have to give the kids to the old spraying. It lands somewhere. Then after it dries, i t people to look after and to talk to the kids. It is the goes up in the air again and lands some other place, only way they are going to learn. that is why we have to be careful what we eat. We I used to teach in the school too. Lots of my cannot pick any berries up that way. We have to go students talk Indian to me, even white kids talk to somewhere up the Aishihik Road, especially up the me in the store. Mary Jane Jim she was along side of summit. We used to get all kinds of berries, but now me and said "That white kid he spoke to me, but I do everything is polluted. not understand what he is talking about." The kids Right here too at Laberge we cannot eat any fish that want to learn, will learn, but those that do not because everything is polluted. Before the highway care for it will not learn. Before the kids used to we could eat fish anywhere, we could set up our tents listen to the Elders, but now it is like they just do not anywhere, we were not scared at all. We could pick care. berries anywhere, but not now. We have to go a long I thought I would teach them how to set a trap. ways off of the road before we pick berries. Even the Not one of those kids would dig the hole for me, I wood we cannot use close to the pipeline. did it myself. I tried asking those kids, but they did Talk about kids in the school. They go home and not want to do it.I said to my niece not to bother talk Indian to the parents, but they cannot answer helping us if they did not want to. them. Maybe they say it wrong, they do not know Even medicine, we know a lot of medicine for the difference. The language has to be written down everything, which we can teach the kids. If I told the same as the English language but it will still be you to start right now, that kind of medicine is good, said wrong. The only way to learn is to put it on TV that kind of medicine is good, but you are not going to and tape recorders. They have to be there when know for what kind of medicine. The only way is to they teach it. When I talk I am there and walking put it on the TV, where to dig, show a picture of with them, I go with them. When you go to people what kind of plant, then people are going to know. you ask what they are doing. What it is used for, for arthritis, for a lot of things, My step dad taught us lots about how to hunt like your stomach. We know a lot about these moose. This time kids do not know what to say, things. We got taught from when we were small, when to say, and where there is no wind. It was that is how we know things. What he [Daniel] said, pretty hard the way we were taught. We did not I packed lots of water, I packed lots of wood for shoot moose out of a car or anything, we had to go stories. We did not have any comics, we did not walk in the bush and walk a long ways up the have anything to read. The only kind we have is mountains, anywhere. the old-timers stories, that is why I know. Now i f Now it is too far for me to go to Porter Creek. I t kids go to this movie they have to pay ten dollars, used to be a long ways to get a moose and we would that is the way it is. They are going to have to pay camp out. A lot of times when I was hunting or a lot of money to catch something from me.

What Is a good way to teach children and young adults to respect the land? 37 At that time we used to have to pay to get a talking about the environment. When I was a kid story. They used to tell us the stories at night time. I going to school as a teenager I knew everything, but know a lot of stories, but I have forgotten many. I you really cannot see beyond a couple of feet of know one word and I try asking a lot of people, but yourself. The world rotates around you. When I was they know nothing about it. It has been a long time sixteen I did not want to be in school any more. My since my grandmother died. She died in 1929. She uncle told me that when I turned sixteen I could walk told me the stories and I still remember them. I did up to the teacher's desk, put that book on her desk, not put them down in a book or paper, I just listened. and I could walk out of the school and never turn back. That was not a very good thing to tell me Question For teachingkids,you needallday, because I wanted to leave school. I was the kind of schools are not like that. Your time is all cut up. As a person that said, "What good is school? What is teacher,should I fightthis"cutting up" of school the good of learning medieval history? How is that time? Is it better to havethe whole day thanto going to help me in my life? Let me out of here." teach reading at nine, then math at ten ? On the other hand, key people in my life encouraged me to stay in school. They just told me Daniel Tlen In school kids learn writing for one hour, that I was doing good and to stay in school. Just numbers for one hour, go play in the gym for one hour, simple encouragement is all it is, words encouraging it is broken up all day. It is not just teaching one class somebody. It has a tremendous amount of power, so i f all day. we encourage our youth to be more mindful of the environment, thatis a good place to start. Kids Marge Jackson You should use one day to learn one really have a different learning style these days. thing, not too many things. They cannot learn that You cannot just send them to their aunt or unde for way. If you teach five different kinds in one day. the day and get the aunt or uncle to teach them to What way are they going to learn more? They have hunt, or show them where to pick berries, or show to learn something more. If you want to teach kids, them how to tan a moose hide. You cannot do that teach just one thing on one day and not too many anymore, times have changed. Learning styles and things, then they can learn that way. expectations of youth have changed. Another important thing to look at is, what are Daniel Tlen What is a good way to teach children theexpectationsof youth today?Imentioned and young adults to respect the land? A good way is previously, that young people are very concerned by example, but I guess if you do not know how, then with the global environment. We should encourage you cannot show by example. The first thing you that concern, but at the same time they have a have to do is to learn to respect the land yourself, different learning style. We have to use television, then you can live by your own beliefs and you are we use the computer, we have to use interactive along the way to show young people how to respect television now. The technology is here, the learning nature. styleshavechanged,cultureshavechanged, Harry Morris said something thatis pretty cultures are blending. Some parts of society do not important. He said that before you can learn to make sense, are in open conflict with other aspects of respect the land, you haveto learn to respect society thatareconcerned withenvironmental yourself. That is very important. It follows thati f issues. you do not respect yourself, then you are not going to So on the one hand in our society we can have respect others, and others includes your environment, trans-national corporations raping the earth, but a t what is outside of you. the same time the home base for thesetrans- What is a good way to teach? From my personal national corporations can be a democracy like experience, I remember when I was going to school, I Canada or a republic like the USA. They can go think the single most important aspect, or element, around the world raping the world, but have a nice or technique, or whatever you want to callit, that home environment where they can live, where they helped me get through school, was encouragement have all the amenities of modern technology. from others. It does not sound like much and it does We have to meet the kids at their learning style not seem like much to say that you have to encourage and basically that is television and computers now- people,students, young people, but in reality a-days. On the other hand, having said that, if we encouragement is a tremendously powerful device for really want to learn about environmental issues, teaching. The unique thing about it is that it is such which is a global issue, we also need to go out and a simple thing to do, so simple to encourage others. experience nature first hand. What is it that we are talking about? We are

3 8 A panel discussion 39 I talked earlier about how space shuttles are a Scientists become experts of a very small aspect of way of life now, we even have a coupleof Canadians the world. Then they know very littleabout the who went up into space. On the flip side of all that 99% of the world that is out there. Science then has technology, it is unfortunate that we have to use a 11 to find a way to balance its abilityto focus very of that technology that tremendously biases our intently on a given subject and at the same time i t interaction with the environment, in order to teach needs to be able to have the big context in order to kids about the environment and protecting it. It is a place that very small, special bit of knowledge. The dilemma. scientific world view makes us very critical about Being on the land and experiencing nature you everything in general and places a tremendous have to be alone. When you are out there you have amount of legitimacy in what it has uncovered. That to have all of your wits about you, otherwise you die bit of knowledge that science has uncovered becomes very quickly. It is interesting how we have alove revered. for nature and we feel very strong about protecting Science then is materialistic. The science that the environment, but if you are not prepared for th a t helped humans to develop the technology becomes environment out there, you are dead. You die within very biased. It biases our perception of nature,and a matter of days. Anything can happen. the technology itself is biased against nature, even This is one of the things not mentioned earlier though the things that come from science, come from today, but one of the things that is very important to nature and everything you see in here comes from the teach young people about safety. Teach them about ground. Yet we like to think that humans made this. how accidents can happen and how you have to be Humans did not make this, they did not create the prepared in order to overcome accidents that happen wood or create the basic things that help to make to you, or to others that are with you. Anything can plastic.Everything comes from theground and happen in the bush. everything has to go back to the ground eventually. Remember last summer a lady got lost on the This whole building in 10 thousand years will be a river here. Once she climbed up in a tree looking layer of dirt. around for her friends, she fell and broke her back. While science is a tremendous tool for uncovering She was laying there over night and they found her things about nature, it is very limited because it does the next day. Anything like that can happen and i f not allow you to see past the empirical method. On you do not know what to expect, you are putting the First Nations side of this, they did not have the yourself in a very dangerous situation. technology or scientific method at their disposal; Young natives like me, (when I was growing up, theFirst Nations people here were primarily it is amazing how things filtered through when we concerned with making a living on the land. The were only concerned about playing), we actually people on the coast, Vancouver Island or Prince learned a lot about safety. A lot of learning about Rupert, had a different lifestyle where food was safety is being aware and how accidents can happen veryreadilyavailable. Theydevelopeda to you and learning how to be careful; learning how tremendous form of art and a sophisticated forms of not to do something without thinking about it before clan structures. The natives of the Yukon are the you do it. opposite, they spent their whole time making a There are a number of ways that we can develop living and didn't have very much time for art; they awareness about nature, about the land. couldn't carry around things they made. In fact, I would like to talk a little about how Indians what distinguished the Athapaskan Indians was around here and other parts of North America and their ability to live on the land with just a few other parts of the world have a different world tools. They didn't need very much, they had their view, different than the world view that Western pack-sack, bow and arrow, some sort of knife to cut people have or non-indigenous people might have. I and a few tools, and that was all they needed to am talking about the shamanic view of the world make a living. On the other hand, the Inuit had to which is completely different than the Western have dogs and dog teams, they had more technology view of the world. to carry with them. In the West, the culture that comes out of Greece We like to think of space as being out there, but and Rome and Europe in general was put over here, space is right here. It's this ground we're walking and has adopted a very materialistic view of the on, it's that sunset you see in the evening. We are in world. By that I mean they practice the empirical outer space, this is space and you get more of a sense methods of science. of that when you go up North above the treeline Scienceblinkersthescientisttolooka t because there you are in outer space. You have to something in a very magnified, focused manner. carry your environment like the space man. Rick

What is a good way to teach children and young adults to respect the land? 39 40 Kool was making that analogy and saying that different ways, many different people. I brought maybe this is a good metaphor that we can use with knowledge from people who I have worked with the youth. You have to carry your own environment when I have travelled.I have brought knowledge with you and be self-sufficient by yourself. It's not from ancestors who I was raised with on my lands. like being on a mountain where you have ropes. And I thought if I tried to summarize this, maybe What does the Indian have if he doesn't have that is what people will talk about on the panel. the technology to build things like lights and vents? Well we did, we did talk about a lot of stuff He has a perception of the world that is profoundly that I tried to bring into this summary. If you will different from the Western person. His or her just bear with me, I am going to go through what perception of the world comes from the spirits and some of the people have said this morning. science does not recognize the spirits. Science does Carol Geddes was the first speaker and she not recognize the spirit allies that humans can take. talked about how difficult it is to learn from the In modern times it sounds anachronistic to talk indigenous world if you do not understand a lot of about shamanism but if you want to understand how things about our people, that you must liveit.I Indians think,you havetounderstand what think a lot of the difficulty occurs because we have shamanismisabout. You havetopersonally our languages, and a lot of our culture, and a lot of our experience it.It's that experience that gives you traditions are within our languages. different insight into nature and it gives you the I know from how I was raised, and being taught insight that everything in nature is connected. That one language in the beginning of my life has now everything in nature has a spirit and therefore you made it a lot easier for me to understand things. respect the spirit in the tree, rock, the river, the Understand the indigenous beliefs and shamanism mountain, the clouds or the weather. They believe and things like that which were brought here that; and, it's a different way of believing in and today. looking at the world. Harry Morris talked about respecting yourself. A meteorologist might tell you that there are To respect the land, you must respect the Creator. low and high pressures and that's what makes the Respect the little tree because it has every right to wind. Whereas, an Indian will tell you that the live just like us. And you have to learn the white spirit is in the wind, that you can talk to that spirit man's ways to make a balance, to create balance in and it will help you with the weather. It's not your life. You have to know both ways, carry the uncommon for nativesto changetheweather Indian way in your right hand, white man's way in patterns. For example, if a big rain cloud is coming to your left hand, that is what he said. Now I am you this way, you can do something to make it go beginning to see the balance in myself when I heard around you. that this morning. They talked about punishment. We heard two Elders talk about punishment. How we used to get Summary spanked and how he was put alone in an attic without water and food, to respect that everything Norma Kassi I know that a lot of you were welcomed is connected to the environment. Everything in our yesterday by the traditional people of this land, life is connected to the plants, the animals, the bird- the Ta'an Kwach'an and the Kwanlin Dun people life, the fish-life and everything. and I would just like to extend a welcome to the Marge Jackson talkedabout spanking and I people who came from as far away as Australia and remember when I was growing up, the respect for the Europe and places like that. Welcome to the Yukon. red willow. If we did wrong mostly breaking This morning at seven o'clock I wrote down a natural laws, disrespecting of animals, disrespecting whole bunch of stuff modern Indian and I feel our fellow brothers and sisters, particularly Elders, kind of embarrassed because in our culture when we someone older than us if we showed disrespect, write things down while our Elders speak itis then we had to go out and get our own willow. Ifwe really disrespectful.I thought ifI wrote things stole or if we lied, we were taught to go out and get down before I came here maybe Harry will not give our own willow. me heck or old people will not give me heck. "You are going to get a spanking now boy,you did Anyway, Itriedto think about what the wrong." respected Elders in the Tlingit people and the So I would go out and pick a good dry longone Southern Tutchone people and Tagish people and that would break easy ifI got hit.I tried a 11 Gwitchin people would talk about today and I tried different kinds of ways, but that is no good. to summarize that. I brought knowledge from many

4 0 A panel discussion 41 "You put that in the stove. You have got to bum Storytellerstoo, thereare very few chosen that one." storytellers in our nations, that are chosen, that So I go back out and get a big one, so if I am going have the very special ability to tell stories. Those to get hit they would not hit me with that one. I are the ones that we tend to listen to very carefully. know, because they are going to break something. We have to work hard for what we get. We have to "No that is no good neither." pack wood connected to the environment. We give Then I know which willow I have to get because the Elders fire. We have to get water for them. We that willow is put on top of the tent for us to look a t pack water for them to get our stories. That is a 11 all of the time. The connection to the red willow of connected to the environment, then you deserve it. respect that we had at that time was that skinny You use a lot of humility and things like that to long willow and if you got that on the bum, boy that listen. really hurts, you remember that one. So all of that is Lucy Wren talked about thelanguage, how to learn respect. I know I got that when we showed important it is and how difficult it is to learn Indian disrespect to animals, to plants, to things around me ways if you do not understand the language. I find and if I told lies. that very difficult if I cannot hear my language very We haveto look atindigenous knowledge well. Then I find lots of things missing that I cannot extremely carefully. We are afraid as indigenous learn. Today she talked about life being too easy people to share some of our stuff because itis so and somebody raised that question. All we do is powerful, it is so intricate. Talk about shamanism watch TV and things likethat. How can our and spirituality, we are afraid of it because we children learn and carry on our way of life, if life is have been mocked. We have been laughed at. We made too easy for them? have been abused because of things we have shared. Daniel Tlen brought up that woman were the People have disrespected it and that is what we -are most powerful teachers in our system, which is very afraid of a lot of times. true. I know in the Gwitchin we really respect the How can white people learn from us? Those were women and we really listen to them. We go to our some of the questions. Basically listen, we need to aunties on our mother's side and our uncles and they listen. We had an old person talking over there are the ones that teach our children as they grow today and she spoke very low, way down here and older. The younger the children, theolder the the first thing that we wanted to do was to bring in a people they can connect with. microphone. The next thing we wanted to do was to Marge Jackson talked about the environment and make noise and cut her off and say could you speak how everything has to be respected. How when they up? At home when we go to our Elders we talk and used to travel lots, they used to walk carefully. You listen to them this close. We do not even look them do not just walk over any plants, you walk on the in the eye, they talk to us that close. That is how we ancient trails. You watch your step and in life we are get the energy, that is how we hear our stories. That taught to watch our step. is how we are taught to listen and use our ears. Shetalkedaboutthepersistentorganic And talk about lots of patience with our Elders, I pollutants that are in her country. How bad it is now remember having to go to Elders and sit down in front thatshe cannot even go out and pick berries of them and having to listen to them. We walk in wherever they want. I call that the silent killer. It their house and they know what you have done was left behind and is coming into the arctic, the already. You come in there and sometimes they will persistent organic pollutants that are now showing just be quiet for two hours, not say a word to you. In up in our food "chain. It is devastating to indigenous the mean time you are just stewing up inside, and you people all over the world and here in the Yukon. In are hurting, and all kinds of things are happening our fish and in our waters. and that is what you are supposed to do. And that is Again she talked about letting the old people called patience. Then after this long period you take care of the kids. The kids need to connect with finally get it and all of your feelings begin to come Elders. out. Daniel lien made a reallyinteresting point Daniel Tlen raised something very interesting, about encouragement. Teachers need to encourage when a student is ready the teacher will arrive. Our people. There is one of my teachers sitting out here. I Elders will not share things with us unless we are remember when I was ten years old or maybe even ready. If we are going to go to them and ask questions younger, eight years old when she came to our and not listen, they are not going to tell us very village. We had teachers that tried to Christianize much. If you do not listen, then you are not ready yet; us, tried to assimilate us, tried to change our whole they can sense that. way of thinking, but we had this one teacher come to

What is a good way to teach children and young adults to respect the land? 41 BEST COPY AVAILABLE 42 our village, her name is Mary. She is sitting back from outside except what the missionaries brought there. She took us girls and she taught us to look a t in and gave us. We used the caribou skins for our ourselves as women, because we were always living blankets and parkas and pants. The bones were used hard on the land. She taught us how to make for tools and the hides were made into spring and cookies. She welcomed us into her house, she summer and all kinds of seasonal clothing. Babiche encouraged all the good things that we could learn and rope were made from the skins. Dog teams were about the white people, their ways and the things used for transportation. The insides of the caribou that they have that we could use. I will never forget too were used. The caribou would eat moss and th a t thatbecause she playedavitalrolein my moss is the stuff we use now to make tea with to upbringing. She welcomed me and she encouraged treat cancer. The Tlingit people use that too. We me, that sort of thing is so important. Do not think have all kinds of similar beliefs as you will hear. that you are bad because you can only understand The red willow we use for poles and that is your language, or you have an accent, that sort of what the caribou eat as well, the buds of the red stuff. She encouraged the womanness inside of me, willows. People wonder, "Where did those people that you are more than welcome in this society. She in the arctic get their vegetables?" Well, we got did a lot of that and I respect her for that. Daniel them from the insides of the caribou. The food that brought thathome when hesaidthattoo. they ate. The sage that they ate, we use it now for Encouraging young people and all of their skills in pains, for childbearing. We made tea from it, and them and all of their good stuff. we use that for pain. Another different caribou moss, Daniel and Carol talked about science, how i t and the spruce that the caribou eat too, we use now tried to control and how it took away from the for asthma and congestion or breathing things. All of holistic point of view of indigenous thinking. that came from the caribou as people of the arctic. If you will just bear with me, the summary I told For soap, we did not have much laundry, but my you about I would like to give itto you. These Mother broke up the bones and melted grease and oil teachings and perspectives are not my own, they from the caribou meat and we mixed it with ashes come from other people, they come from friends and and we got our soap. knowledge of people living in one place for untold The bones of the caribou were ground up and th a t generations. I was raised in Vuntut Gwitchin, we are is what we fed our babies. Mother with breast milk called Caribou People of the Lakes. My Indian name fed the babies with bottles. Women drank a lot of is Gwatla Ashi which means "One who travels far that and that is how the babies were raised. with really messy toboggan and torn clothes, but her In that time too we lived with natural laws. food, his food my grandfather, his food was Laws that we talked about today. Laws with which good." That is my Indian name and in allof our there was no debate. We just could not debate these Indian world, a lot of us have Indian names. It means laws. Understanding of these laws, and familiarity that we have a connection and a partner in the spirit with our surroundings our environment was as world thatwillguides us in our endeavours, familiar as our mothers' faces. It was just everyday wherever we go in the future. That is part of our life. We had to live by these laws. We had no word culture, one of our ways. for wilderness. I guess the nearest word we could find I was raised in Old Crow Flats, a place where to wild in our language is freedom. That is universal there are thousands and thousands of lakes, where amongst indigenous people. Our lands did not become it is very safe and very secure. That is where I was wild until other people came in and said they were raised and only one language was spoken which was wild. We did not think like that. Within inherent Gwitchin. From the time I was born and even before, rules of obligation, our lands did not become wild I was taught a lot of things.I really value that until others came and made them that way. These today. We lived with the animals and the birds. places were places of peace and security. We trapped, we hunted, and we worked with the Animals were our kin, our relatives and we elements to survive, sometimes in seventy below communicated with them like we did with our weather. We talked about that today, you have got human brothers and sisters. From the smallest of to respect that, respect the elements. insects to the largest of animals, bears, moose, The caribou is the very essence of our life, our caribou, we then as equals. On a scale, we were on survival on the land. We use everything off the the bottom of the scale when we talk about respect caribou. Clothes, we had clothes from it.I had for animals. When we took from them, we paid. We caribouskinjacketsandcaribouskinpants, gave thanks, we celebrated. The birds ate the moccasins, everything like that. That is the kind of insects, other bigger birds ate the smaller birds and clothes we had. We did not have very many clothes it goes on and on. We eat the caribou and moose and 42 43 A panel discussion BEST COPY AVAILABLE other animals lived off each other as well. We are a star lives. It is the place of the red people. Later on part of that animal world, part of that cycle. We as I travelled around to different places that I began had every right to live that way, because that was to put their interpretations together and these are our environment. some of the different interpretations I found from We had to respect. We talked a lot about other places around the world, and I try to connect respect. We were taught that when animals were them back to the Gwitchin and whatI have near us we did not look them in the eye, you do not do learned. that. If you do not need them, then you let them go The south brings the summer and makes things by. We were not even aloud to talk about them. We grow. That is the land of the yellow people. The do not talk about animals, like we do not say, "Gee west is where the great thunder comes from and the that moose was real beautiful, and it had big great rains and that was the black people. The horns," that sort of thing. It is so disrespectful to do powerful north with the strong, cleansing winds was that because they hear us. They are there. They are the power of the white people. Then there are the listening to us. That is how we believe there is a four elements that we talk about, that we can not spiritual connection. The animals' energy is always live without. The water, the fire, the air and the with us on the land and everywhere we talk, so we earth.Itis very simple, we cannot live without do not even talk about them. those things. In the Indian world everyone believed I have seen consequences of things that happen that. No matter where you go, to the Maoris, they to people disrespecting these natural laws. The will say the same thing. It is believed that each mouse is going to be one of the most powerful race of people had a responsibility and a duty to animals, smallest animal in the world and in the care for these elements. We know full well that a lot Indian world is going to be the most powerful animal of us have given up on our responsibilities. The great one day,to be respected. Now look whatis waters were to be cared for by the black people, the happening to our mice now. We have a problem. fire the yellow people, the air the white people That is allstarting to show up now. Our Elders and the earth by the red people. All of us had these taught us that a long time ago and now things are responsibilities we believe from the beginning of starting to surface. time. A lot of our stories come from those. We had a tremendous amount of animals. We We really worship the sun. People ask us what have lots and lots of caribou thatstill come and do you mean by spiritual connection to the earth? visit us every year, but these are going to end. The Well we can not live without the sun. We worship fish will end. Birds will end. Those are some of our the sun, we give thanks for him everyday. We call strong philosophies of our people, if we do not start him the Grandfather, because he is very old. The doing something about them now, they will end real moon is our Grandmother. We respect the moon as soon. very connected to the Mother and the women of the We live in domination and we feel the need to world. We give thanks to them all of the time, we dominate allof the time.If we cannot control say thank you every time we see them. We have to. something then we destroy it. That has happened to The moon, we believe, walks a spiritual path many animals, and human life, and the lessons we and isgiven thatresponsibilityto walk the learn continue. As indigenous people we are not spiritual path. She is the head woman and the asking for pity, all we need is to be listened to, to be head of allmothers of allthe nations, of a 11 partners, to make decisions for the future, to be grandmothers.Everytwentyeightdaysshe partners in making those. We believe that the completes her journey and she renews herself. All Creator, the great energy, put every race of people negative stuff is outcast, and allthe new stuff is here with a responsibility.I used to hear my rejuvenated again. That is sacredness of all women grandmothers and grandfathers talk about, "The and that is why we respect our women, we respect yellow people and the brown people, when I was our mothers and our grandmothers. That is why we living out on the land I did not see them, but now I have the law of the women being the most powerful, sure see that." because without the women there is no life. When We believethateveryone hasdifferences, we are in our time as women, we are most powerful profound differences that have to be respected and and we are to be respected. Also I guess when we are thatevery race of peopleareindigenousto in our time we do not want people to mess with us somewhere. because we are too strong. That is the time when we The number four is very sacred in our culture. We need to shed our tears and express our emotions and have the four directions: east, south, north, west of to be leftalone to do our own thing and to be the globe. The east brings light where the morning understood

What is a good way to teach children and young adults to respect the land? 43 BEST COPY AVAILABLE 44 and respected for that. That is the earth and that is Question Can you tellus about the"respect"t ha t how we treat the earth. First Nations have for nature? We do not go near our men during that time because we have very powerful powers. We stay Daniel Tlen If you think that nature is alive not away from them and that sacred law has been inanimate, if you think that there are spirits in the broken a lotof times. As a result thereisa moose and the caribou and the fish, the gophers and tremendous amount of disconnection and consequences the rabbits, the sheep, then you have a respect for able to provide adequately. Over the years women those animals and those things,thetrees, the havebeen excluded and thishascreatedan water. It engenders a respect. Of course there are a imbalance in the competitive nature of men. It is lot of native people who were never taught that, or different now, we have to be up-front in making never figured that out for themselves, that do not decisions, particularly about mother earth because have the same view that I do, for example. I am just we understand her better. We know the pain she is telling you this, because if you do not understand going through. We understand the pain it is to give where the native person is coming from, then it is birth and to renew life. We understand that kind of very difficult to teach young people about care and stuff,so women reallyhaveto be up-front in respect for nature. environmental work grandmothers. Native people developed all kinds of practices I had lots of opportunities in my life time, and a to show their care and respect for nature. I do not lot of what I learned came from my Elders. I have know how you can do that in the Western world chosen a lot of different paths along my life time. I without having experienced it. For example, back triedto experience other paths and placesof home where I come from, if you kill a moose, what confusion where I chose to go the alcohol route and you do is you make a fire when you start butchering. all that kind of stuff, but I always ran away. I was You make tea, like at home, you put on a kettle. So an elected politiciantoo.I experienced decision when you are in the bush and you have moose, you making over fancy steaks and fancy dinners, closed put on a fire and you put on some tea. Then you start door decision making, and promises made and to butcher up the moose, but before you start to do unkept, but I ran away from that too. that what I was taught to do you cut out the Another thing that I ran away from, which our eyes of the moose and you stab them with the knife, panel talked a lot about today, was the educational then you throw them in the fire and you bum them. system. A lot of my teachers are sitting here today Among the Tlingits, when you kill a bear, you do the and they know about me running away from school. same thing, you take the eyes out, but you dig a hole All of the false history that was trying to be taught underneath a tree and put the eyes down and cover to our people, and myself, I ran away from that.I them up. Why do they do that? My grandmother did not want it. I did not understand it. If it did not told me the reason you do that to the eyes of moose, fit with what I was taught in the beginning when I for example, is so that the moose does not see what was being raised, I did not think it was good enough you are doing to its body. He does not see you cutting for me to carry around in my head to boggle up my it up and butchering it. mind. Then there was the residential school and I had one of my students ask how did the Indians that did a number on us, and we ran away from th a t figure thatout? Why did they do that?Did too. someone do that first then did people start to copy We talked about science today. How science has them? I told them another story about that.For just broken things up and focused on one thing, like example we have tremendous respect for bears. That Daniel put it. That played a big number on the way does not mean that you should not pack a gun in the our people think. The ways of conservation of our bush just because you respect bears. I know lots of own people, how to respect animals, how to look environmentalists who like to hike around in the after them in our environment. We have to look a t bush just for the pure enjoyment of it.It is good to them again. Just let them be. Do not try to control enjoy the bush, but it is not good to be killed by a them. Do not try to manage them. Just let them be bear. That is not enjoyment of the bush when you are the way they are, because they are not pets and being killed by a bear, right? So if a person packs a they are not there to be managed. We really differ rifle around in the bush, it should not be a problem. with some of the scientific methods. Packing a gun in the bush is just common sense because I hope that I have captured a lot of what has you are just taking a precautionary measure. been said here today. If you have questions, the In Alaska last week there were two hikers who panel is open for more questions, thank you. came upon a bear eating a moose and the bear killed those two people, just like that. The bear did not

44 A panel discussion BEST COPY MUM 45 know; he was eating his meat and thought th a t really lost, a lot of traditional experience and home they were going to take it away from him. He does experience, but I was also encouraged to learn by my not know you and he does not care for you either, grandmother. She said, "Make sure you do well in really, when he has got a moose. Those are the kind school and learn about the white man's ways of experiences that help you to have respect for because you are going to need to know those different nature. ways in order to do well in the world." Maybe I can This is why native people do things in different use that same council and say that itis probably ways, because they see the world in a different way. useful, and even wise, to learn about the Indians' Physically we all see the world the same way. We ways and to develop a different world view. If you all have eyes and ears, we all have the five senses, learn about the native world view, it does not have but I think what distinguishes indigenous people, to be incompatible with the technological view of who view the world from a shamanistic point of the world, or the scientific view of the world. They view, is that they feel that everything is connected are not the same thing clearly, but maybe they are in the universe. When you go and take the moose, parallel things, they can co-exist side by side. To that moose was there for you. When you take the make a long answer short, just being grateful for the salmon, that salmon was there for you. That is why things we can get from the SuperStoret'M or things you respect that moose or that salmon. Even though we can get from BeaverLumberTM. Just being you have to kill them, you still have to respect appreciative about it because everything comes from them. nature. If we engender that kind of respect for There is another pair of concepts that are hard things, then I think that will help our personal to understand when you put them side by side. You attitude toward the world. I started off by saying respect the moose, but you killit. Respect does not that teaching by example is probably one of the mean that you let the moose go, or you let the wolf most powerful ways of teaching young people. If we go, or you let the caribou go, that is not respect. It are respectful of the environment and of things, then shows some kind of a concern, respect is when you use we can teach young people to be respectful also. I t your resources to their fullest extent and you are does not mean that they are going to learn, but a t appreciative about it. least we can try to teach them. One of my grandfathers, Albert Isaac, he was quite an old man, but he hunted as long as he could. Carol Geddes It became clear with a couple of He was bothered by a game warden up by Burwash comments this morning, I think Marge mentioned (that is where I am from). The game warden I guess that how it is very difficult to discipline children was telling Grampa Isaac that he shot a moose out now. Something that we arereallyhaving to of season. My Grampa Isaac got very upset and said, struggle with in First Nations communities is how "What is the matter with you white man, when you we make consistent teaching of children from the take moose, you just take the horns and one hind ways that the Elders would like to teach them and quarter. When Indians take moose the only thing we the way that schools encourage children to learn. I leave behind is the shit and the guts." think there has been made mention several times That is part of the respect, when you take today about children being spanked, and I would something and you use it all and you share it and you really like to put that in perspective. I do not think are thankful for it, that is respect. I think that is that it is always the case. Please do not get the idea all I would like to say for now, thank you. thatwe arereally,reallybigoncorporal punishment, that we are constantly whipping the Question How do we show respect in our daily lives? kids or something, because certainly in my family, we were very rarely spanked. We were punished a Daniel Tien Even when you go to the supermarket to lot in different kinds of ways for allkinds of buy ribs, or carrots, vegetables,itis important to transgressions. Now what is happening to a lot of thank the beef and to thank the vegetables and to children is their parents were people who were in thank thepig.Ioften thinkabout a remark mission school and who missed out on a lotof somebody made that Canadians are so polite they training from the Elders. There is a lot of confusion even thank the elevator. That is not polite, that is on how to raise the children and there is, because of just respect. I thank the elevator too when it takes the various traumas that people have suffered, a me downstairs or upstairs. I think that is an Indian tendency sometimes to indulge ourselves. So this has way to thank things in the world. When I was a kid created a very serious tension between Elders and I was taken away from my home and raised up in a people parenting children.It is one that we are residential school and hostels for twelve years. I struggling with very hard. There is constant talk

What is a good way to teach children and young adults to respect the land? 45

A about it at general assemblies and meetings about need council from Elders I bring them something. how do we deal with this very serious problem. I Bring them food, bring them tobacco, bring them a think it is very important that we are talking about nice handkerchief, bring something to pay for what it. There has been some wonderful examples of th a t you are going to get. If they choose to, then they will turning around in recent years. give it to you. We had a general assembly at Teslin amongst Elders last year where some children broke into a Question How would you explaintheconcept o f tent and stole things. It was incredibly heartening to "respect," or the meaning of "respect"? see what happened after that. What happened was that the Elders decided to call the children forth Daniel Tlen Respect is an English word as we know and it was almost like a small court that they held, it, probably from some Latin derivative, but the where they made those children accountable in front same concept does apply in native culture. The idea of the whole assembly. Elders got up and spoke. It of respect is quite different because for one thing the was profound. It was an absolutely fabulous thing West has a patriarchalhistory.Ifyou take that happened. It really recalled a very ancient Judaism, for example, (there is a very strong under system. It was so fortunate in many ways that those currentinCanadiansociety),theyhavea children broke into the tent and took these things patriarchy which goes back several thousand years. from these people who were just travelling through. In Europe you have the different monarchies, so that The children stole things from them, treats and tha t the social structure which callsfor respect was kind of thing. The visitors were called for. They between superiors and inferiors. Where as in the were apologized to on the part of the entire nation, native culture, we have the same concept of respect, then the children had to go around and take a butitdoesnotcomefromsuperior/inferior collection from everyone at the gathering and then relationships.Well maybe itdoes, because as they had to present it to the people who were humans we feel humiliated and humble by nature transgressed against.It was reallya marvellous and so we have to respect her. I do not know if tha t thing that happened. So there are times like th a t is the way it really is, but the concept of respect still where people talked about it for a long time is in the native culture. That respect is manifested in afterwards because it was incredibly reinforcing. We many different ways, ways in which customs have do have some return to those kinds of values, but it is developed. How you treat moose, or how you treat at present very frustratingto theElders that bear, or how you treat medicine plants. I think the children are not being disciplined and not being concept of respect is there. taught the same kinds of ways as before. Carol Geddes I think that we have to be very Norma Kassi I am just going to pose that question to careful how we use it [ "respect" . I think we use it in our Elder here to see what he does with it. a very obedient sense. I think that something that is They asked us how long time ago when you had very important from a First Nations perspective is to pack wood and pack water before Elders tell us that we understand it.I asked a similar question of stories and give us council. Now-a-days we do not someone who knows the Tlingit language very well. pack wood and we do not pack water, because it is Apparentlyitdoes not haveaveryprecise all there, so how do we get Elders to talk to us and to definition in translation the way itis used in teach us? English. It is more like awareness. It is more like knowledge and that is a very important distinction, Harry Morris The way I look at itis to do the because it is not like a moral law, it is more like traditional way is to take them out camping. You something thatisjustapartof your whole have more of a lifestyle and that is where you get awareness. It is not something that is abstract at all. the chance to communicate with them. One Elder told me that before you are a certain age, (she was trying to describe how you were not Norma Kassi We do that a lot in our culture now-a- punished foracertaintransgression), you are days. We have our assemblies, our meetings, we take thought to be what she called "not smart." It is only the Elders to the camps with us. They love doing when you get smart that you can then be held that, it is their surroundings, that is where they get accountable for the things that you do. What she a lot of peace and quiet and are able to tellus meant by that, I believe, is the same kind of thing, different things and teach us. It is environmental as getting a certain kind of awareness. And so I think well in terms of getting information from Elders. there is a real subtle difference between the English Now-a-days we go to their homes. In Old Crow, if I

4 6 A panel discussion 47 translation and what the indigenous languages Question And how do you show respect for the plant meant by that word. world?

Question How would you describe"respect" for Daniel Tlen It is the same for medicine plants or nature in your language/culture? food plants. When you take a plant you should leave something to thank them. Leave something Norma Kassi When I think about it in my language, there to show that plant spirit that you are sincere when I try to translate it in my language, it means about killing that plant in order to live. "tied to animals." You have to take care of them, you have to walk with respect and you have to treat Marge Jackson ... them well. You do not just squish out that spider because that spider could have lived thousands of Daniel Tlen She is talking about a plant called years before you have. They are caretakers of your False Hellebore. It grows up on alpine meadows and environment and you look after that thing. There is is a very strong plant. It is a very powerful medicine a purpose for it. You have to rethink situations plant. She told you about how you are supposed to before you do anything. Think about the whole treat it. I know the same thing happened to another thing about whatever you are going to do before you person in Carcross. They went to get some False do it or say it. Think about it real good before you Hellebore on a mountain and they just pulled it out say it. When it is translated there is a whole big any old way and put it in their packsack. She said story that goes with it. that it rained and thundered and hailed and snowed For people, we always respect people as our and everything. It shows you how powerful plants brothers and sisters. We take care of people as our are. Plants are very powerful, insects too. They are brothers and sisters, particularly older people. They powerful spirits. That is why if you do not know demand respect. They have to be respected. They about it, it is best just to leave it alone, because it is have to be taken care of and re-looked at and re- like opening Pandora's box. If you do not know what valued and be a part of us. Without them we could you are doing, you can expose yourself to very serious not survive. problems. So that is why they respect those things.

Daniel Tlen I would like to relate a little short story Harry Morris When you take a plant, say you are along those lines. Elijah Smith, who was a very taking a plant for any purpose, say for medicine, strong native leader in the Yukon, had a chat with before you do it you have to talk to the plant. Like me one time. We were talking about spiritual things, Daniel and the Elder over here were explaining to we talked about respect for animals that we killed. you, we believe in the spirit of everything. We He said, "You know I have been thinking about believe that the tree has a spirit, the flowers, the thatfor a long time and you know theonly leaves everything has a spirit. The water has a difference between me and the moose is that I have spirit. The Elders have taught us from generation to fire .. ." generation what has been taught to us. They tell us So what does that say to me? It said to me that what medicine is to be used for certain kinds of he had a tremendous amount of respect for the moose sickness. Say you have TB, or you have cancer, or and even viewed the moose almost as an equal to some kind of arthritis, you name it and the Elders himself in terms of his soul, his awareness, his would know what kind of plant to use. But before you spirit. take the plant you have to put tobacco. Tobacco has I want to make the point that in stories, the old a powerful spirit, therefore you take a cigarette or stories, they always say thata long time ago any kind of tobacco and you leave it with the _plant. humans and animals were the same. They were You tell it what you are taking it for. You are not treated as equals, they were on par with one abusing it, you are using it to help you. another. I think they illustrate the way that native people do have a respect for animals in a sense tha t Question [about respect for animals] they are like people. If you shoot a moose or a caribou, or a sheep, it is just like killing a person, Daniel Tlen It is not only important to know what to except that sheep or moose or caribou was there for do, but what not to do. About animals, what you are you to use to stay alive. That animal was there for not supposed to do is joke or laugh or think about you to use so we use it respectfully. That is the way animals. You are not supposed to be funny or make they came. funny remarks, or try to put them down or be disrespectful.

What is a good way to teach children and young adults to respect the land? 47 r' One of the most powerful animals in this part of protects us. It is torn, it is being polluted, the hole is the country, of course, is the bear. It is probably getting bigger. We disrespect the animal lifeon understandable why we have so much respect for earth and now we are running out of food. We do not them, because theyare so awesome. They are have enough food. It is very easy to find disrespect fearless and can be very dangerous. We also we were if you look at it in that context. taught to talk to the bear. You never know really Like Daniel said, you do not ever laugh a t what to do when you face a bear in the bush, but the animals. Like I said earlier, we do not even look a t Indians were taught to talk to the bear, talk out loud our animals. They are just there, we do not even talk and tell him what you are doing, "Look, I am just about them because they could hear us. That is what passing through your country, I am just trying to we believe. Now people take pictures of them, make a living. I will leave your gophers alone if you collar them and treat them like pets, like something leave me alone." that is beautiful. It just does not fit, whereas we So we are taught not to make fun of animals. treat them as something that is higher than us, that Never, never, never do you make funny stories about is to be left alone and taken only when it is needed. bears, you are taught to be serious. When you go in A lot of our own people have gotten away from that. the bush he will get you for that.You are not We talk about controlling animals for our own good. supposed to make fun of them. You are not supposed We have done that. I take full responsibility as an to talk about them in any bad way at all. indigenous person for that, because our people have Even fish, there are stories about that. Some kid done that. We have grave consequences as a result. was making fun of fish and he fell in the water and We try to manage animals, we should be managing the fish took him away and he lost his parents. ourselves. After a long time he came back like the salmon four year cycle. Things like that, what not to do, are Daniel Tlen Can I tell a little story just to wrap up? important. My grandmother is still alive, she lives in Burwash. In the Western world have we have very little In the early seventies there were some astronauts respect for animals and nature in general, so we are that the local priest, Father Huijbers, brought from very flippant about nature in the Western world. Anchorage and Fairbanks to Burwash, then they Kids are flippant about things without knowing, were to come to Whitehorse. So I was in a restaurant so that is why you teach them not to do that. with my grandmother in Burwash and the priest introducedtheastronauttome andto my Question Whatabout ranches and domesticating grandmother. Father Huijbers said, "This is the man animals? who flew to the moon and walked around on the moon." My grandmother tore a strip off of him. Daniel Tlen Itis so difficult to ranch. The only She said, "What are you guys doing fooling animals people have are horses. I do not think that around, walking around up there? You changed the is an issue. weather, the weather is no good now." Here I was, just a teenager, I was holding the Norma Kassi Some of what I was taught [about] astronaut in awe and here my grandmother just tore disrespecting things were, for instance, the caribou a strip off him, she had no respect. To her it was a herd that comes to our lands. The first caribou that very real thing. She was very concerned that we come are usually the oldest of the leaders. They had tampered with changing the weather patterns have done that for thousands of years. They led the on the earth. To her that was a form of disrespect. herd to the calving area to calve. Our people never took those. They let them go by and then we took Bob Jickling First of allI would like to thank our the next bunch. We only took a few from that bunch Elders and other panelists for sharing their stories. I and then let that bunch go. I talked about natural think we will all have to go and think about what laws, if you do not respect those, then the caribou those stories mean along side our stories, and try to will not come back next year. Much like the salmon. generate some more possibilities and perhaps return Our women do not swim during the time when the to hear more stories. Thank you all very much, massi salmon come, we stay out of the water, because that cho. salmon may not come back the next time. We have all of these spiritual laws that are connected. Then we look at it in a global context. We talked about how we disrespect well, just look at the air. We shot a rocket up through the ozone, the shell th a t

48 A panel discussion 49 Relational Modes of Knowing: Learning Process Implications of a Humaneand Environmental Ethic David Selby, International Institute for GlobalEducation, University of Toronto

Human-animal relationships, animal liberation, Interconnectedness animal rights and welfare, the similarities and Under this heading the learner acquires an differences between humans and animals these are understanding of systems, of how phenomena and issues at the heart of the field of humane education. events are bound up in complex, dynamic andmulti- Proponents of the field, however, have ambitions that layered relational webs; of how natural and human- go far beyond considerationof humanity's made systems interact; of how human decisions and relationship to non-human animals, seeing their work actions often adversely affect other animals and the as contributing towards the promotionof peace and natural environment and then rebound with justice within and between societies and responsible detrimental, sometimes disastrous, consequences for planetary citizenship. In recent writings,' I have human communities; of the consequent need for explored the overlap and tensions between humane sustainable, humane and ecologically-friendly (SHE') education and thefieldsof development, lifestyles; of how the well-being of future generations environmental, human rights and peace education. In is also deeply dependent upon the choices we make this paper, I consider the processive implications of and the actions we take; of how people are part of humane education. nature and share much in common with non-human animals. Under this heading, too, the learner comes to understand how her health, well-being and sense Goals of humane education of self both influence, and are influenced by, the condition of the planet. An overview of the academic and professional literature on humane education' suggests that the Values/perspectives field embraces four broad learning goals: the Under this heading the learner comes to realize that nurturing of a biophilic (life-loving and life-affirming she, like others, has her own particular perspective ethic);consciousnessofinterconnectedness; that has been shaped by factors such as age, class, sensitization to values and perspectives; and a creed, culture, ethnicity, gender, ideology, language, proactive commitment to democratic principles and location, nationality and race. She recognizes that her processes. understanding of animal-related, environmental and other issues will be significantly extended through Biophilic ethic openness and receptivity to other perspectives,that Under this heading falls the cultivation of kindness such receptivity can be profoundly liberating in its and compassion towards human beings and non- challenge to previously unexamined assumptions. human animals, respect for the inherent value of She understands that underpinning any perspective natural environments and all living things, a concern (including her own) is a value system which to maintain biological and cultural diversity, a demands examination and clarification, and that the reverence for the beauty of the Earth, its people and challenge of different perspectives will often also other life forms, and an outright rejection of all forms involve a values challenge and, perhaps, a values ofcruelty,exploitationandoppression. modification. Also embraced by this heading is the Encompassed, too, are: self-esteem building; a complementary development of critical discernment commitment to developing individual potential in its with regard to values, beliefs, perspectives and the complimentary bodily, emotional, intellectual and media. spiritual dimensions; and a readiness to see learning as a journey without fixed or final destination in Democratic principles and processes which challenge, uncertainty and risk are inevitable Under this heading the learner commits to (and, although sometimes only in retrospect, democratic values such as respect for reasoning; welcome) features of any process of personal growth acceptanceof diversityinideas,opinions, and transformation. perspectives and practices; concern for the welfare of others; peaceful and creative resolution of conflict; and fairness, equity, justice and freedom. She also embraces a conception of citizenship that is multi- layered (local through bio-regional to global), that

Relational Modes of Knowing 49 50 encompasses the notions of intergenerational equity intrinsic value, central to the humane educator's and accountability, that is active and participatory, perception of all living things, likewise calls for an that no longer leaves animals and nature outside honouring of the insights, experiences, perspectives, society's "circle of compassion." In preparing for skills and qualities which individual learners bring to active citizenship, the learner acquires the confidence, the classroom. mindset, insights and skills necessary for effective The humane teacher's commitment to ecological and responsible change advocacy and change agency. principles also has processive as well as contentual This paper will argue that the realization of these ramifications. Drawing upon those principles, the goals calls for forms of interactive, experiential and teacher will seek to create a classroom in which the action-oriented learning to be given prominence concept of interdependence is enshrined within co- within warm, open and democratic learning operative learning situations and in which a diversity environments. (ecology) of teaching and learning approaches are offered. Valuable insights into the question of congruence The medium is the message between medium and message in the humane classroom are offered by the field of political Marshall McLuhan's dictum, "the medium is the education. Political educators refer to learning about, message," provides some valuable insights when learning for and learning in (or through). Learning applied to the classroom. Picture a classroom in about is a knowledge-oriented process concerned which a peace educator, concerned to foster peaceful with the assimilation of facts, concepts, data and attitudes and allegiance to democratic, peaceful, evidence. Characteristically, it involves a vertical or change processes, lectures to her class on examples of top-downwards relationship between teacher and non-violent change movements in contemporary class. As an exclusive approach to realising the goals history. The occasion is marked by absence of any of humane education, dissonance between topic and information/opinion flow between those present. In process will almost certainly arise in that humane such a learning situation, the praiseworthy nature of issues will be addressed using teaching techniques the topic notwithstanding, the teacher's goal (and, and classroom dynamics that fall short of the perhaps, her credibility) is undermined by a critical humane. Learning for places the emphasis on skills disharmony between medium and message. Or, put acquisition. Hence, learning for a humane world will another way, two contradictory messages, one overt, involve, for instance, developing skills in com- one covert, are received by the students: the overt munication, co-operation, decision-making, empathy, (the content of the lecture) saying that peace-oriented negotiation and change advocacy/agency. In the values matter very much, the covert (the uni- process, knowledge goals remain in place but lose directional and non-participatory nature of the their primacy. As skills are only developed by session) signalling that peace-oriented values matter practising them, the classroom inevitably becomes very little. The intentions of the teacher are likely to more participatory. In consequence, there will be be more effectively realised if the medium is greater harmony between "medium" and "message." constructed so as to synthesize with, and reinforce, Learning in or through humaneness takes matters an the overt message(s) of the learning program. important stage further. The knowledge and skills Similarly, the humane classroom necessitates a elements remain but, in addition, the precepts and harmonization of "message" and "medium." If some values of humane education are reinforced through of the principle "messages" of humane education the climate and environment of the classroom. There concern compassion, kindness, harmony, justice and are high levels of participation, interaction and equal consideration, then these need to be reflected in dialogue. A premium is placed upon caring, sharing, the climate, ethos and quality of relationships evident trusting relationships; on genuineness. The classroom in the classroom. In practice this means a range of is a kind place; it is "a friendly classroom for a small concrete things such as emphasis on dialogue planet."' Both the overt and covert curriculum between the students themselves and between promote and reinforce humaneness. students and teacher, a valuing of the contribution all can make to the learning process, co-operative learning, a decentralization of sources of power, Classrooms of affirmation decision-making and initiative-taking within the learning community, and sustained commitment to "Self-esteem," says Nathaniel Branden, "is the esteem-building and group-bonding processes within reputation we acquire with ourselves."5 For Dennis learning programs. The concept of inherentor Lawrence it is the individual's evaluation of the

50 David Selby 51 discrepancy between their self-image (what the found to be linked, in high school students, with a person is) and their ideal self (what the personwould preparedness to take action if faced with challenge or like to be). For a child, that evaluation will crucially crisis, as against an attitude of resignation, despair or depend on how significant adults in her life react to expectation that someone else will confront the her level of achievement. Support spiked with "an problem.' optimum amount of pressure just enough to cause In the field of animal companionship studies, the child to care but not too much so that he/she there is an abundance of research literature on the becomes distressed" will help maintain a high self- therapeutic and esteem-building effects of close esteem whilst overanxiousness or overzealousness on contact with animals, especially pets. Children who the part of the adult will breed a sense of failure that are shy, isolate or aggressive, who have suffered easily becomes generalized (low self-esteem). abuse or neglect, who are disruptive or tend to Teachers are, thus, in a pivotal position to influence truant, or who have learning difficulties, can be level of esteem positively or negatively.' Theirs is a positively helped through caring, and being heavy responsibility. responsible for, an animal.' The opportunity for non- There is a vast body of research evidence threatening, non-judgmental, non-verbal, yet highly demonstrating a positive correlation between self- tactile, companionship can be vital in helping a child esteem and achievement. The child enjoying high regain a sense of self-worth and the ability to relate self-esteem is likely to be socially and academically more easily to others. Teachers at West Humber confident. She will have retained an eagerness for Collegiate School, a high school in Etobicoke, new learning and new challenges. The child with low Toronto, testify to the very positive effect of self-esteem will lack confidence and will tend to shy introducing a range of pets into the school: reported away from social and learning opportunities in the cases of conflict and vandalism declined markedly expectation of failure or humiliation.' Jack Canfield and a greater sense of community become evident and Harold Wells have developed "the poker chip across the student body." At Westmount Public theory of learning" to explain the "extensive and School in London, Ontario, the three 1994-5 grade 7 overwhelming evidence" that cognitive learning classes went through a process similar to that increases when self-esteem increases: learning is a described in the activity Animals are for always risk-taking business, the more poker chips (the higher (ApPeildix 1) during the first two months of the the self-esteem) a student has, the more prepared she school year, involving parents, veterinarians and is to take chances, to risk setback and failure.' representatives of humane organizations in their If the student with high self-esteem is likely to regular sharing circle sessions as they moved achieve more and be a more confident risk-taker in towards a decision on whether or not they should her learning, she will also probably be more altruistic have pets in class. The consultative and decision- and positive towards others.' Negative self-image is making process, and subsequent-presence of pets in likely to be displaced into negative attitudes and each classroom with all the attendant delights and behaviours to other people in the near and wider responsibilities, appears to have had a pronounced community. Priscilla Prutzman et al. argue that "poor positive effect. The self-esteem, confidence and self-image is at the root of many conflicts that exist in articulateness of some students rose dramatically; school today," on the grounds that it is difficult to group cohesion was high as classes exercised self- feel positive about others if we cannot feel positive discipline in accordance with their Caring checklists about ourselves.10 A body of research on primary-age and with codes of class rights and responsibilities children, adolescents and adults indicates that that were also democratically negotiated; unsolicited positive self-esteem correlates strongly with indi- concern for human and non-human victims of cruelty cators of pro-social adjustment such as caring, and oppression was frequently voiced in sharing generosity and sharing.' Strong links have also been circle throughout the year.' identified between commitment to democratic values The animal companionship approach is not and processes and level of self-esteem. Edward Cell without its attendant drawbacks and dangers. First, it postulates that "perhaps the dominant factor in is logistically and physically impossible to provide sapping our courage to stand against injustice is the animal companionship forall those students erosion of our sense of worth. The more we question suffering from low self-esteem. Second, it is in our worth the more easily we are controlled."' essence an anthropocentric and instrumentalist Barbara Schubert and Marlene Bird write: "A good approach with a rationale primarily based upon the self-image and a feeling of self-worth renders one practical and emotional benefits for people rather capable of self-determination... akeystone of a true than animals. As such, teachers need to be aware of democratic society."' High self-esteem has also been the "messages" students might be subliminally

Relational Modes of Knowing 51 52 receiving. Third, there is the related and ever-present general codes stating positions on altruism, risk of the animals not being treated as well as they aggression and morality in simple explicit should be. terms.' A more generally viable approach is to build "classrooms of affirmation" in which, in a conscious Role modelling by significant adults, they stress, and sustained way, students are encouraged to is of critical significance in fostering empathy for identify and acknowledge the strengths and people and animals. "The parent (teacher) who contribution of others. This, it is suggested, will have conveys his moral values as principles only, but does positive spin-offs not only for students' attitudes to not translate these into real, caring actions, self, each other, and other people, but also towards accomplishes a limited kind of learning in the child. animals and nature. Characteristics displayed by Generalized altruism appears to be best learned from students with an affirmative sense of self and others parents (teachers) who both inculcate the principles would include: and show realaltruismintheir everyday interactions' (my parentheses). Or, put another way, the ability to assess realistically both the adults need to walk their talk. strengths and weaknesses of their own work, A major problem in building classrooms of the ability to recognise the worth of others, and affirmation is often teachers' own lack of self-esteem. give affirming feedback to classmates, Self-esteem, it has been suggested, is linked to the ability to accept constructive criticism and preparedness to take risks. Teachers with low self- suggestions in an open-minded manner, esteem often lack the confidence to experiment with without becoming overly defensive, new forms of teaching, learning and classroom the ability to work co-operatively in a group, relationship; they do not readily accede to the accepting the contributions of each member devolution of power implicit in facilitation of without needing to dominate or impose one's participatory learning processes. Level of self-esteem, ideas on others, and it has also been suggested, directly affects whether the ability to react reasonably and assertively in we view others positively or negatively. Teachers conflict situations, without relying on physical with low self-esteem often tend towards a and verbal aggression.' conservative, or minimalist, view of students' willingness to learn, intrinsic motivation, capacity for Carolyn Zahn-Waxler et al. are critical of theories self-direction and self-organization. As students of child personality that depict young children as (whose self-esteem has not been nurtured) revert to egocentric, demanding and hedonistic. Such theories, forms of guerrilla warfare in an effort to subvert a they maintain, tend to draw on material collected in dehumanized learning situation, that view will seem interview, a situation where young children appear confirmed. "Without teachers themselves being disadvantaged in that they cannot put into words confident and having high self-esteem," writes theiractsof caring, senseof justice, and Lawrence, "they are not easily going to be able to understanding of moral issues. Children's early enhance the self-esteem of the children in their empathetic proclivities, they suggest, can be built care./121 upon and reinforced by learning programs that give The humane, esteem-building teacheris active recognition to the universality of basic accepting, genuine and empathetic. She is non- emotions amongst human beings and other judgmental and always accepting of the student's mammalian species and, also, offer clear messages personality (whilst not necessarily always approving about the importance of care and compassion. of her behaviour); she is a "real person" and does not Learning designed to foster empathetic and humane hide behind a professional "mask"; she is able to attitudes and behaviours would include: appreciate what it feels like to be the other person and looks and listens for the feelings and meanings warm and accepting relationships between behind what the student does and says.' students and teacher, learning materials realistically portraying feelings and distress, Classrooms of interdependence opportunities for children to have direct experience of helping, Co-operative learning structures accord closely with explicit explanations about the feelings and the aims and philosophy of humane education. First, circumstances of human and animal victims, and they are built upon a recognition of the intrinsic worth of each learner and a valuing of everybody'S

52 David Selby contribution to the learning process. Second, they children in diverse areas of England indicates that involve a "winners all" approach to learning and, as ethnicity will significantly drop in importance as a such,helpreinforceself-esteem,whereas factor in friendship choice if the children are individualistic and, especially, competitive learning consistently placed in "contexts of neutral and can result in a devaluing of students whoachieve mutual dependency," i.e. in group situations where less. Third, they provide fruitful contexts for the co-operation is needed to achieve a particular goal.' sharing of feelings, opinions and perspectives and The centrality of effective communication (including are, thus, effective in promoting empathetic attitudes listening) skills to co-operative learning situations and sensitivity towards others. Co-operative learning also, it appears, has pro-social spin-offs; research has also been found to be more efficacious than suggesting that there is a direct linkage between, on individualistic or competitive approaches the greater the one hand, positive attitudes to self and to others, the degree of conceptual learning involved. including those in distress, and on the other hand, the Additionally, it has been found that higher order ability to express thoughts and feelings clearly, and skills development will take place in co-operative to listen carefully and actively." The humancentric learning situations in which the task undertaken nature of the research cited here notwithstanding, generates controversy or conflict of ideas, opinions there are good reasons for surmising that the pro- and theories (as compared with individualistic study social attitudes nurtured by co-operative learning of controversy, or a group task based on a non- will also manifest themselves in more humane and controversial issue)." Such conclusions would seem compassionate attitudes towards animals and nature. to be of great significance for humane education given the complexity, controversiality and value- laden nature of many of the issues falling under its Agitating the comfortable umbrella. Regular immersion in co-operative learning The most productive learning contexts are contexts also allows students to experience the class manifested by a delicate and tensile balance between not as a collection of disconnected individuals, but as comfortability and challenge. The well-affirmed an interrelated system in which the actions and input learning group is better able to creatively handle a of each member affect, and are affected by, the challenge to its individual and collective values and actions and input of others. Through co-operative perspectives; members will be more open, honest and activities, students can, from an early age, gain forthright with regard to their opinions; there will be concrete experience of the highly complex idea of a greater readiness to work through conflicts of interdependence,a key concept in humane opinion. Should the level of challenge become over- education. A lived experience of classroom intense or unsafe, the need will arise for further interdependencies can provide the bedrock for an esteem-building and group-bonding. The role of the internalised understanding of interdependencies teacher combines a comforting of the agitated and an between humans and animals, within ecosystems, agitating of the comfortable. and between forms of prejudice, discrimination and It is, without question, the case that a lecture by a oppression (such as racism, sexism and speciesism).24 teacher can provide the requisite agitation and Sixth, there is a growing body of evidence linking should be a learning strategy sparingly and co-operative learning with altruistic and caring judiciously employed amidst a range of other attitudes to others. David and Roger Johnson have approaches. The challenge to prevailing values, found that co-operative learning experiences, perspectives and paradigms is, however, most compared with individualistic and competitive effectively and economically achieved on a regular situations, promote more positive, relationships basis through forms of interactive and experiential between ethnic majority and ethnic minority learning. Where do we draw the line? (Appendix 2) is a students: the interdependence of group participants representative example of a discussion activity where working towards a common goal tending to result in students, working individually or in pairs, are asked interpersonal attraction which, in turn, enhances the to determine their personal position on an animal- self-esteem of all participants.' The Johnson brothers related, environmental or other issue (usually by also claim that differences of all kinds, whether to do ranking, clustering or sequencing cards or pictures) with ethnicity, gender, class or handicap, are before moving into larger groups (say fours, then positively respected and valued in co-operative eights) and, finally, a class debriefing session. Even in group structures if they are perceived as resources a seemingly monocultural group, where one which can help the group accomplish a variety of perspective might seem to obtain, students will goals.' Alfred Davey's research with primary school experience a succession of challenges as they are

Relational Modes of Knowing 53 5 asked to explain, justify and, if possible, reach sentences, events, situations, plants, animals, etc., consensus around their respective viewpoints in are to be understood by analysing them and successively larger arenas. The comfortability of reducing them to their separate parts; individual or small group work gives way to the the ability to think logically, "apply" reason and challenge of large group work, a challenge that is organize what is learned sequentially is prized more readily faced in the confidence bred of what has whilst the ability to respond intuitively and from gone before. the heart is of less consequence; Forms of experiential learning appropriate for the whatever connections are discerned between classroom include simulation games (mirroring or different phenomena areofsecondary reconstructing real events or situations on a importance; classroomscale),roleplays, and so-called the learner is separate from what is studied and experiential units (which seek to provide a group- observed and, for that reason, complete generated, hence original, experience within an objectivity is achievable; artificially-constructed framework). Fertile contexts outer-directed learning (focusing on externalities) for practising communication, negotiation, decision- is valued more than inner-directed learning making, problem-solving and other skills, they also (focusing on self, self-in-the-world, personal offer tremendous scope for subsequent mutual growth and transformation); exploration of attitudes, perspectives and values. the ability to control really matters (whether it is They can provide for students an emotional "slap on control by teacher of her class, "mastery" by the the face"; a sudden awareness of their assumptions student of her learning brief, or organization of and limited worldview that, sensitively debriefed knowledge into tidy categories, compartments and carefully nurtured, can stimulate the intellect and hierarchies); and into accommodating new insights and perspectives. certain knowing is preferable to hesitancy, What's your smell? (Appendix 3) and Selling mother provisionality and uncertainty. (Appendix 4) are examples of such activities. Learning processes in which interactive and Humane education, concerned with fostering experiential learning figure prominently provide dynamic compassion for all life and respect and students with constant multi-directional challenges to reverence for the planet, calls for an alternative their attitudes, perspectives, values and mindsets; epistemology, one that accords at least equal they thereby contribute significantlytothe prominence to relational and affective modes of development of higher order skills such as problem- knowing. Rosemary Radford Ruether has argued that solving and lateral, divergent and creative thinking. rationalist and linear modes of knowing are Mirroring the cycles, processes, diversity and flows "ecologically dysfunctional," that outcomes of the of the natural world and, thus, essentially ecological, compartmentalist mindset have been our alienation they also serve as both an embodiment and from the actual world, our exploitation of animals, celebration of the unending nature of learning. To our project of devastating and seeking to dominate acknowledge "that there are always multiple nature (because it is not us.)3° She calls for "a new perspectives and multiple vantage points," observes form of human intelligence" moving beyond "the Maxine Green, "is to recognize that no accounting, linear, dichotomized, alienated consciousness disciplinary or otherwise, can ever be finished or characteristic of the "left-brain" mode seen in complete. There is always more. There is always masculinist scientific epistemology."31"Our possibility."' They are, it is submitted, essential intelligence is a special, intense form of... radical features of the humane classroom in which students energy, but it is not without continuity with other are called upon to radically reappraise humanity's (life) forms; it is the self-conscious or 'thinking relationship with, and treatment of, animals and dimension' of the radial energy of matter. We must nature. respond to a 'thou-ness' in all beings. This is not romanticism or an anthropomorphic animism that sees 'dryads in trees,' although there is truth in the Relational modes of knowing animist view... We respond not just as 'I to it,' but as 'I to thou,' to the spirit, the life energy that lies in Thetheoryofknowingorepistemology every being in its own form of existence."32 Josephine underpinning mainstream formal education can be Donovan concurs: "What is needed is a more describedas compartmentalist. The current 'disordered' (if order means hierarchical dominance) curriculum of most classrooms carries some relational mode that does not rearrange the context to important subliminal messages: fit a master paradigm but sees, accepts, and respects

54 David Selby 55 the environment."' Douglas Sloan calls for a valuing landscape is rapidly disappearing (and) can only of insight that "penetrates beyond the fixities and impoverish our mental landscapes as well. People particulars of the given to an underlying wholeness who do not know the ground on which they stand that is the source of all genuine knowledge."' miss one of the elements of good thinking which is The nurturing of relational modes of knowing, of the capacity to distinguish between health and ecological responsiveness, calls for a wide and varied disease in natural systems and their relation to health range of learning approaches that fostersensitivity, and disease in human ones.' The activity, allow feelings to be aired, shared and valued, that Environmental audit (Appendix 5), provides an promote, to recall Sara Ruddick, an attitude of additional means, beyond immersion in nature, of "attentive love" to all beings and entities.' In demonstrating to students the importance of practical terms, this will involve the use of guided intimately-known natural settings for human identity fantasy and visualization techniques, multi-sensory and well-being. Participating in schoolyard learning that calls upon the senses of smell, taste and naturalization projects, involving the planting of touch as well as hearing and seeing, movement and indigenous species, can provide a vital bridge dance, drama and role play, meditation and between the classroom and the natural world. relaxation. A culture of attunement to the voice of Second, students' knowledge of animal-related self, others and planet, thus nurtured, is a and environmental issues is less likely to remain at an prerequisite of an internalized, humane ethic. inert level if they can acquire personal experience of those issues in the field. "Few members of a junior high school class," says Alan Bowd, "presented with Letting the outside world in, letting the inside literature and a lecture on the cruelty of battery hen world out farming will act to change battery hen farming, although they may express a negative attitude This paper has focused upon humane and toward the practice. Consider, however, a group environmental learning within the four walls of the which visits such a facility, examines alternative egg- classroom. Reasonably so, I would maintain, for that producing arrangements, and in this context is is where most students are required to play out their required to stop eating battery eggs for a week as formal education. We should never forget, however, part of a project . .Their knowledge is less likely to that those walls manifest what John Livingston calls remain inert, and will be accessed and applied to "the terrible dreary sameness and homogeneity of the relevant situations outside the classroom context human physical environment"' and that an essential (such as choosing, perhaps, not to eat egg dishes in part of the humane educator's task is to breach the restaurants)."39 divide that separates the classroom from the outside Third, if a central aim of the humane classroom is world. to foster dynamic compassion for humans, animals In the first place, students need immersion and nature, it is close to inevitable that, as students experience in the natural world if they are to be become more deeply aware of the dissonances, helped to understand how ecosystems work, to look injustices, inequities and cruelties to be found in our upon nature with awe and reverence and to relationships to each other, to other living creatures internalize that deep sense of connection that comes and to the environment, some will begin to ask what with what Paul Shepard calls "ecological thinking." they can do, individually and collectively, to help "Ecological thinking," he writes, "requires a kind of bring about a better world. An essential quality of the vision across boundaries. The epidermis of the skin is humane teacher is the ability to give life and scope to ecologically like a pond surface or a forest soil, not a students' questings and their readiness to help effect shell so much as a delicate interpenetration. It reveals change; to recognize and respond to what Roger Hart the self enobled and extended ... as partof the land- callsthe"subtle indicatorsof energy and scape and the ecosystem, because the beauty and compassion" in young people." Opportunities for complexity of nature are continuous with ourselves ... practical involvement in projects and initiatives to we must affirm that the world is a being, a part of our effect change, with ongoing critical reflection back in own body."37 It is neither practical nor necessary that the classroom, are essential if young people are to immersion in the natural world take place within develop the confidence and competence for active pristine nature, powerful and transformative though and responsible citizenship. A sample of school- that can be. To develop a special relationship and based action projects in the UK, as documented by identification with a place close by can be the humane organizations, is offered as Appendix 6. The essential step in a process of reconnection with potential hazards for both teacher and school in nature. "This kind of intimate knowledge of our

Relational Modes of Knowing 55 56 giving scope for socially critical and transformative publications include Earthrights, Education as if the action are not difficult to see. Planet Really Mattered, with Sue Greig and Graham But being a humane teacher is altogether a risky Pike, (World Wildlife Fund/Kogan Page, 1987), business. In Petals of Blood by novelist Ngugi wa Greenprints for Changing Schools, with Sue Greig and Thiong'o, a teacher at a village school takes his Graham Pike, (World Wildlife Fund/Kogan Page, students out of the classroom for their botany lesson. 1989), and Earth Kind. A Teacher's Handbook on Humane His aim is to give them a hands-on experience of Education (Trentham, 1995). flowers. He teaches them the names of the flowers and their constituent parts, and feels proud to be imparting hard, factual information. But the dynamic Notes and references of the lesson changes, and his self-satisfaction falls away, as the children offer vivid poetic metaphors to ' Selby, D., "Humane education: the Ultima Thule of global education," Green teacher, no. 39, June-September, 1994, 9- describe the flowers ("petals of blood") and ask 17; "Humane education: the Ultima Thule of global unanswerable questions about why God allows education: part two," Green teacher, no. 40, October- beauty to be destroyed by letting worms eat some of November 1994, 23-31. 2 See, for instance, the publications and classroom flowers and about humankind, law, God and nature. materials of the National Association for Humane and Environmental Education (67 Salem Road, East Haddam, Man ... law ... God ... nature: he had never CT 06423, USA); Paterson, D., & Palmer, M., The status of thought deeply about these things, and he swore animals. Ethics, education and welfare, Humane Education that he would never again take the children to the Foundation/C.A.B. International, 1989; Sheehan, K., & fields. Enclosed in the four walls he was master, Waidner, M., Earthchild. Stories, activities, experiments and aloof, dispensing knowledge to a concentration of ideas about living lightly on Planet Earth, Tulsa, Council faces looking up at him. There he could avoid Oak Books, 1991; and Walters, J.L. & Hamilton, L., being drawn in. But out in the fields, outside the Integrating environmental education into the curriculum walls, he felt insecure.' painlessly, Bloomington, National Educational Service, 1992. See also, my Earthkind. A teachers' handbook on humane education, Trentham, 1995. For the humane educator, the challenge, both inside 3 James Robertsonwrites of the SHE (Sane, Humane, and outside the classroom, is to take risks, to Ecological) future, arguing that many of those calling for celebrate life in all its insecurity and uncertainty. a radical change of direction towards decentralization, ecologicalconcern andconvivial,supportive "Education," writes Robin Richardson, "should be relationships regard converging world crises as helping to change the world, to make it less essentially a crisis of masculine exploitative values. I oppressive and stifling, less unequal, and should be borrow, and stretch, his idea. See Robertson, J., The sane helping to build, on the contrary, greater equality and alternative, James Robertson (Spring Cottage, 9 New Road, Ironbridge, Shropshire, UK) 1983, 22-3. justice, greater and wider access to life and unfolding. The phrase is borrowed from Prutzman, P., Burger, M.L., We believe these things, and we believe too that Bodenhamer, G., and Stern, L., The friendly classroom for a small planet, New Jersey, Avery, 1978. learning should be through firsthand experience, Branden, N., Honoring the self, J.R. Tarcher, 1983, cited in through immersion in living and confusing reality, Marilyn Ferguson's book of pragmagic, Pocket Books, 1990, and through passionate reflection, argument and 81. 6 Lawrence, D., Enhancingself-esteem in the classroom, Paul dialogue: it cannot be, and must not be limited to Chapman, 1988, 2-6. placescalledclassrooms,nortodidactic 7 Ibid., ix, 6. instructionby teachers, and deferential note-taking by 8 Canfield, J., & Wells, A.C., 100 ways to enhance self-concept in the classroom, Prentice Hall, 1976, 7. learners."' 9 Lawrence, D., op. cit., 24. 10 Prutzman, P., et al., op. cit., 35. uMussen, P., & Eisenberg-Berg, N., Roots of caring, sharing Notes on contributor and helping, San Francisco, Freeman, 1977. 'Cell, E., Learning to learn from experience, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1984, 24. David Edward Selby is Professor of Education and 13 Schubert, B., & Bird, M., Self-image, Reflections & Images Co-Director of the International Institute for Global (6607 Northridge Drive, San Tose, California, 96120, USA), 1979, ii. Education at the University of Toronto, Ontario. He 14 Haste, H., "Everybody's scared but life goes on: was previously (1982-92) Director of the Centre for coping, defense and action in the face of nuclear threat," Global Education at he University of York, England. Journal of adolescence, cited in Fountain, S., Learning together. Global education 4-7, Stanley Thornes /World He is an international authority on global, environ- Wide Fund for Nature UK/Centre for Global Education, mental, humane, and human rights education. 1990, 5. Professor Selby has lectured and facilitated Ormerod, E., "Humane education," Journal of the Society for Companion Animal Studies, Spring 1990, vol. 2, no. 2, 9. workshops and seminars on global education around 16I am indebted to Heather Goodson, Environmental the world. He has also written extensively on global Coordinator, West Humber Collegiate, 1675 Martin Grove Road, Etobicoke, Ontario M9V 3S3, for giving me education and other educational issues, his the opportunity to tour the school and talk to staff.

56 David Selby 57 17 The work of the three teachers, Anne Marie Fitzgerald, Appendix 1 Jackie Fitzsimmons and Steve Rathbar, will be featured Animals are for always in Green School/Global School (Umbrella Press, 1996), the published outcome of the 1993-6 Ontario Green Schools Project conducted by the International Institute for Suitable for Elementary/intermediate Global Education, Faculty of Education, University of Time needed Up to 4 hours for initial stages Toronto. Resources Information books, leaflets, and, if available, 18Fountain, S., op. cit., 6. video material about pets Zahn-Waxler, C., Hollenbeck, B., & Radke-Yarrow, M., Procedure Working in groups of four, students discuss their "Teaching to be kind: learnin,g, to be caring the origins preferred choice of class pet, using the reference material of altruism and empathy," Humane education newsletter, available to identify pets' needs and to determine the vol. 1, no. 2, summer 1990, 9. appropriateness of various suggestions for pets made by 20 Zahn-Waxler, C., Hollenbeck, B., & Radke-Yarrow, M., group members. They reflect upon class members' ability "The origins of empathy and altruism" in Fox, M.W., & to fulfill the needs of the various pets under discussion Mickley, K.D., Animal welfare science 1984, Nijhoff, 1984, during term, weekend and vacation time. Each group 34. reports on its choice of pet and the reasons for the choice 21 Lawrence, D. op. cit., 44. (the inappropriateness of other choices considered can also " Ibid., 22. be explained). A group is, of course, at liberty to make the 23 Johnson, D.W., & Johnson, R.T., "The socialization and case for no class pet. A shortlist of pets is drawn up from achievement crisis: are co-operative learning experiences group recommendations (the shortlist to include any "no the solution?" in Bickman, L., ed., Appliedsocial pet" recommendations) and the shortlist put to the vote. If psychology annual 4, Beverley Hills, Sage, 1983, 145-7. the vote is for a particular pet, the class discusses the caring 24Fountain, S., & Selby, D., "Global education in the attitudes and behaviours needed to ensure their pet would primary school," Aspects of education (Journal of the be contented and safe. A Caring checklist is drawn up, and Institute of Education, University of Hull, U.K.), no. 38, signed by each student, to acknowledge that they subscribe 1988, 36. to the guidelines it contains. The case for a pet is then put 25 Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R.T., &. Maruyama, G., to the school authorities, to parents and to others deserving "Interdependence and interpersonal attraction among a say in the decision (i.e. a local veterinarian, the school heterogeneous and homogeneous individuals," Review of janitors), the students explaining the process of reflection educational research, 52, 1983, 5-54. and discussion in which they have been engaged and the Johnson, D.W. & Johnson, R.T., Learning together and alone: contents of their Caring checklist. Should interested parties co-operation, competition and individualization, Prentice- be in agreement, the classroom is made ready to greet the Hall, 1975, 195-6. pet and a petcare schedule drawn up. From time to time, 27 Davey, A., Learning to be prejudiced. Growing up in multi- students are asked to review the checklist and to ask ethnic Britain, Edward Arnold, 1983. themselves whether it needs amending and whether they " Musson, P., & Eisenberg-Berg, N., op.cit. are abiding by its guidelines. 29 Greene, M., "Education, art and mastery: toward the Potential An activity encouraging students to think spheres of freedom," in Dialects of freedom, New York, through the ramifications of responsible pet ownership. It Teachers College Press, 1988, 338-9. is important that students be asked to squarely confront the 30 Ruether, R.R., Sexism and god talk. Towards a feminist question of the appropriateness of the chosen pet given that theology, Boston, Beacon, 1983, 89-90. the classroom is primarily a place of work and study; also 31Cited in Donovan, J., "Animal rights and feminist theory" the question of having any pet at all given weekends and in Gaard, G., ed., Ecofeminism. Women, animals and nature, vacations and the fact that they will move on through the Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1993, 181. school during the expected lifetime of the pet. Will the 32Ruether,-R.R., op. cit., 87. classroom sometimes be too noisy for a pet? Are class 33 Donovan, J., op. cit., 181. members comfortable with the idea of keeping a pet in a 34 Sloan, D., ed., Towards the recovery of wholeness. Knowledge, cage? The rights of others to a say, in some cases an education and human values, New York, Teachers' College emphatic say, in any decision-making process surrounding Press, 1981, 2. pet acquisition by the class also need underlining. Any 'Cited in Donovan, J., op. cit., 183. school board guidelines on keeping pets in schools should 36Livingston, J.A., Rogue primate. An exploration of human be brought to the students' attention as should the advice domestication, Key Porter, 1994, 33. offered in humane society manuals. A decision not to 3' Cited in Seed, J., et. al., Thinking like a mountain, Heretic proceed with a pet does not negate from the value of the Books, 1988, 9. process of discussion, reflection and consultation and the 38 Orr, D.W., Ecological literacy: education and the transition to higher level of sensitivity to pets' needs likely to result. In a postmodern d, 1992, 86. determining their position on the class pet proposal, school 39 Bowd, A., "The uctioynaldilemma" in Paterson, D., & teaching and non-teaching staff and parents should be Palmer, M., op. cit., 56. asked to place in the decisional balance our new 40 Hart, R.A., Children's participation. From tokenism to understandings of the way responsibility for pets can citizenship, Florence, Italy, UNICEF International Child enhance individual students sense of self-worth. Development Centre Innocenti Essay no. 4, 1992, 17. ''' This description of, and passage from, Petals of blood is taken from Richardson, R., -Daring to be a teacher, Trentham, 1990, 4-5. 42Richardson,R., op. cit., 5.

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Relational Modes of Knowing 57

(7) Li, Appendix 2 Using the strip of paper, the statement of use they can most readily accept is placed as close to the (+) sign as they Where do we draw the line? feel appropriate, the statement they find it hardest to accept as close to the (-) sign as they deem fit. Other statements are placed in preferred order and with appropriate spacing Suitable for Secondary (see Variation 1 for suggestions for between the two (see Fig. 2 by way of example). Following elementary use) the colour code provided by the teacher, one marker is Time needed 45 minutes used to draw a thick double line at the point where the Resources A set of twelve statements and a long strip of student would personally draw the line in terms of use of paper for each student, each strip having a pencilled animals; i.e. uses to the (+) side of the line are the ones they straight line along its length with a plus (+) sign at one end condone, uses to the (-) side are ones they reject. The and a minus (-) sign at the other (see Fig. 1). A pot of paste proportion of line to the (+) side of the double line is and a set of three markers for each four students (sets coloured in using the second felt pen; the proportion of line should contain the same colours). An additional strip and to the (-) side usmg the third felt pen. It is entirely possible set of statements for each group. for the student to put all the statements of use to one side of the double lines. Having completed their individual task, students come together in their fours to explain and discuss Using animals for scientific Hunting and trapping fur their placings and where they each drew the line. After experiments to test whether animals so their skins can be discussion, each group tries to negotiate a consensus using cosmetics and toiletries used to make fur coats and a new strip of paper and set of statements. If the students (perfumes, aftershaves, hats. find this impossible, they should use the paper to prepare a lipsticks, shampoos etc.) are presentation laying out the differences of- opinion which safe for human use. presented a stumbling block to their completion of the task. Reporting back and plenary debriefing follows the group work. Keeping wild animals in zoos, Using animals for military aquaria and aviaries for experiments to test the effects purposes of amusement and of new weapons of chemical, (-) education. gas and biological warfare. -E1-0-0-E1-0-EH-111-0-0-070-0

Intensive rearing of animals Using animals in scientific inside factory farms for experiments to find cures for Figure 2 eventual slaughter and human diseases such as AIDS consumption as food. and cancer. Potential This activity is likely to generate lively discussion and to reveal some strong differences of opinion around the use of animals. It will help students clarify their own Using animals as beasts of Using specifically-bred and thoughts, feelings and values whilst alerting them to a burden for riding and pulling purpose-trained dogs to assist range of other opinions and _perspectives. The debriefing carts, carriages and ploughs. disabled people. will tend to revolve around the differing viewpoints as to where the line should be drawn and the various orderings of the statements. On what grounds did students find some Hunting animals for pleasure Using specially-bred and uses of animals more/less acceptable than others? Where the thrill of the chase and freshly-killed animals for did they draw the double line and why? Was their decision catch. dissection purposes in school made on moral, pragmatic or other grounds? Did their biology lessons. thinking change when they encountered the views of others? Were they able to achieve consensus? If so, on what basis? If not, why not? Might the line have been drawn Rearing of animals in free- Using animalS in television differently depending on the specific circumstances range conditions (open yards, commercials as a means of surrounding each case? Does the decision depend upon the fields) for eventual slaughter promoting products. animal or type of animal in question? Might people of and consumption as food. different age groups, cultures or countries have drawn the line elsewhere? It is also important to ask students to reflect upon whether their personal behaviours and patterns of Statements consumption accord with the decisions they made as to where the line should be drawn and, if not, what they might do to achieve greater congruency. This challenge might best be confronted by first asking students to return to their groups for further reflection prior to a second debriefing period. Where do we draw the Tine? can provide a (-) (+) springboard for research into the issues raised. Following research, the activity can usefully be repeated (sufficient time being set aside for what is likely to be an animated and challenging debriefing session). Variations 1. The activity can be attempted with Figure 1 elementary students using duly simplified statements; alternatively, a set of statements on the treatment of pets Procedure Random groups of four are formed. Students are and domestic animals can be used. 2. Where do we draw the first asked to work individually, their task being to read line? can be used as a vehicle for considering categories of and reflect upon the twelve statements and to decide which action/protest against animal abuse. uses of animals they can personally accept and which they cannot.

58 David Selby Appendix 3 The land is my other. Like a human mother, the land gives What's your smell? us protection, enjoyment and provides for our needs economic, social, religious. We have a human relationship Suitable for Elementary/secondary with the land: Mother-daughter, son. When the land is Time needed 10 minutes taken from us or destroyed, we feel hurt because we belong Resources Five bottles of different aromatherapy oils (i.e. to the land and we are part of it. rose, citron, lavender, mango, peppermint) and an open space. Djiniyini Gondarra, Australian Aboriginal Procedure Students stand silently in a circle with their eyes closed, holding out their hands. A droplet of one of the oils is placed in everyone's palm so that the five oils are distributed randomly yet equally around the circle (it helps the distribution of the oils if students grip their hands together as a signal when they have been given some oil). Mother any time and so if I became blind today I would see With eyes still closed, students then rub the oil between all and every part of her. The grass and trees are her hair. their hands and take in its smell. Opening their eyes, but The rocks are her bones, the soft warm soil her flesh, the still avoiding speaking, they try to form groups according rivers her blood. The gentle rains of spring are her tears. to shared smell. And I listen to her in the gentle mountain breeze that bends Potential This activity, sometimes called Co-operative Sniffs, the bough of the spruce and the cedar. I hear the song. So provides a memorable co-operative learning and non- great is our beautiful Mother that the mountains are only verbal communication experience. A lot of laughter and wrinkles on her face. From the beginning of time she gave some unease can result from the sole reliance on the of herself to all of life. And when I think of these two, when sense of smell. These reactions can be used to trigger class I think of our Father and our Mother, then I think of how it discussion. How did it feel having to smell each other's is with human families because it's the father and mother of palms? Why the laughter? Why did some students feel all things. uneasy? How important is smell to human beings relative to other senses? To which animals does smell matter most? Tsonakwa, Native American Why? What would it do to the way we perceive the world, what benefits and disbenefits would there be, it smell was a human being's most highly developed sense? Potential The activity could be used in a variety of Extension Having formed groups, students are taken to a curriculum areas to help students understand different large indoor room where particular areas, at some distance relationships that cultures can have to the land and the from each other, have been scent marked using the five potential for conflict over land in culture contact situations oils. Each group's task is to find its own territory. This as occurred, for example, in North America and Australia offers students an experiential introduction to the concept and is occurring in Brazil. of animal territoriality. Economics students might compare terms used to Source Extension devised by Merebeth Switzer of Learning classify "land" in contemporary Western societies i.e. Alternatives, Portland, Ontario, Canada. "asset,"investment," "factor of production," "resource" and compare these with the kinship metaphors used in many hunter-gatherer and horticulturalist societies. Appendix 4 Historians might reflect on how the prevailing Selling mother metaphors for "land" evolved and whether negotiation without conflict was possible in specific culture conflict Suitable for Secondary situations. Time needed 15 minutes (role play 5, debriefing 10) Language not only reflects people's perceptions but it Resources None also channels those perceptions. G. Lakoff and M. Johnson Procedure Participants form pairs ready for simultaneous (Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago Press, 1980) role plays. Without stating the purpose, the facilitator provide a range of examples of the way metaphors affect explains the two roles. our everyday behaviour. Language teachers might Participant A acts as herself but the exercise assumes encourage students to suggest and evaluate other that her mother is alive and well. Participant B has a influential metaphors in their lives. virtually unlimited supply of valueless currency (i.e. To promote environmental awareness students might Monopoly money). B desperately wants to buy A's mother. reflect upon what sort of metaphors for land society needs Participants role play the attempted purchase for one if the environment is to remain capable of sustaining life. minute. The facilitator "freezes" the action and puts the "spotlight" on a single pair, who continue for half a minute longer to highlight the frustration and absurdity of the Appendix 5 interaction. A and B then swap roles and repeat the Environmental audit process. The debriefing might begin by considering how As Suitable for Secondary felt. Participants will probably use words like "ridiculous," Time needed A block of time out of school and one or two "offended,' "didn"t make sense." From Bs, accounts of in-class sessions. frustration, attempts to deceive or perhaps become Resources Notepads and pencils (and, possibly, a loaded aggressive may be elicited. Were any transactions cassette tape recorder for each pair of students). completed? How close did the negotiations come to Procedure Working in pairs, students go out of school to conclusion? The facilitator might then try to elicit the question adult members of the community about a purpose of the activity i.e. to suggest that "mother" favourite place from childhood. What kind of place was it? might be a metaphor for land or read either or both the Why was the place meaningful to them? What do they Djiniyini Gondarra and Tsonakwa quotations. recall especially about it? Having obtained a picture of the place and its childhood significance, the students ask about the place described as it is today. Is it the same? If not, how has it changed? Is it cleaner, quieter, less crowded? Is it still Relational Modes of Knowing 59

60 BEST COPY AVAILABLE recognisable? Does it have the same meaning? How does Holding a Veggie Pledge week to alert school and the person feel about what has happened to the place? community to the benefits (for animals and humans) of When the class convenes, pairs report on their findings and vegetarianism and to encourage people to give up meat- discussion follows. eating. Potential This activity is a potentially powerful way of Mounting a campaign against a circus appearing in the helping students understand a distinctive human locality by means of poster displays and leafleting in experience of the modern age the experience of loss, school; persuading friends and family not to attend; most notably of nature. It is this experience, perhaps more holding group sessions for writing letters of protest to than any other, that has given riseto modern the local- council, local newspapers and local radio; environmentalism, and itis rooted in the seemingly inviting representatives of animal welfare groups to inescapable urbanisation of the planet. How many of the speak in school; petitioning the local council not to allow adults questioned cited natural environments as their the circus to return; asking shopkeepers not to display favourite place? What does this say about our needs as circus posters and explaining why. human beings? How many registered a sense of loss at the Mounting a weekly vigil outside the psychology school alteration or destruction of that place? of a well-known university toprotest against Extension Students go on guided tours of favourite places psychological experiments on cats. that have changed in the company of the adults concerned. Organizing a poster protest against using animals to test The class takes photographs of the places and records the cosmetics (and attracting local press coverage). adults' comments. The photographs and transcribed Participating in local radio phone-ins on animal-related comments are displayed in a public place in the school: issues, either as panel members or callers. Undertaking work experience or voluntary work at a local kennels, animal rescue centre or veterinarian's. Appendix 6 Writing letters of protest to cosmetics firms still testing their products on animals; visiting local cosmetics shops School-based action projects to explain the cruelty of cosmetics tests to shop managers and to ask them to adopt a "cruelty-free" policy. Campaigning and petitioning to stop dissection in Writing to local newspapers and petitioning the Spanish school. Embassy about bullfighting; also urging boycotts of Campaigning to replace all battery eggs used in school Spanish holidays and goods, especially those directly meals with free-range eggs. associated with bullfighting (i.e. certain brands of Compiling, publishing and selling an animal sherry). rights /vegetarian guide to the city in which the school is Writing to elected parliamentary representatives in situated. support of the CITES 1989 ban on the ivory trade at a Conducting frog and toad watches from February to time when six African nations were calling for the ban to April to protect amphibians heading en masse for their be lifted (Spring, 1992). breeding ponds from death on the roads.

60 David Selby Sacred Land Jim Cheney, Universityof WisconsinWaukesha

Prologue: The journey north talks too loudly, its posture is wrong, its movement harsh and graceless; it does not know what to see and it hears nothing. Its presence brings a stunning AsA s I flew north along the Coast Range of British confusion heard deafeningly in a growing circle of toward Whitehorse in the Yukon silence created by a confused and disordered Territory,' the awesome presence ofthisland animate universe.' overwhelmed not so much my ability to describe i t but rather my desire to describe it. Language in this At one time I had a language, or the possibility awesome country was, for me, mainly a language of of one, a mode of perception at any rate, a home silence, long, deep pools of silence, like the lakes of within, or defined by, the more-than-human a this watery and mountainous land. Words, when delicateand ceremonial world, which,though theycame, were not so much descriptionsas delicate, was more substantial and more robust than ethicallyconsidered responses to a world that, the rarified academic vocabularies I have come to demanded mindfulnessmindful behavior, but also inhabit. On the banks and in the waters of the St. mindfulnessintherealmsofperception and Croix River I was graced with its presence, my words language.' I was reminded with renewed force of spoke it,' my perception was infused with it. veracity of Nietzsche's claim that "All experiences It should have happened that my knowledge, are moral experiences, even in the realm of sense my language, my perception continued to grow and perception."' mature with that gracious and thoughtful river. But Language, when well-wrought and mindful, I was somehow pulled away from its thoughtfulness, gracious, is at once a distillation of experience and attracted to the glittering gems, the disconnected the creation of a delicate and ceremonial world, a discourses of the university. They were beautiful, to human world withinthelargerand defining besure,thesehumanfabrications,intricate, dimensions of a more-than-human world. Com- alluring; but they were not ethicallyconsidered menting on the autobiographical narrative of Iron responses to a world that demanded mindfulness, Teeth, a Northern Cheyenne woman, Peter Nabokov they did not speak theSt.Croix, they did not says that "her testimony seemed to exemplify how a articulate a "knowing with"' that arose in mindful lifetimeof taking spoken words as seriously as conversation with the more-than-human context of breaking horses or scraping hides might economize my life.Even this way of stating the matter the memory toward some transcendent narrative supposes a greater distinction between myself and clarity."' The second feature of well-wrought and the river than I experienced at the time, and a mindful language the creation of a delicate and greater "nouning" of the world, as it were. ceremonial world is touched on in Henry Sharp's My return to the St. Croix was a long time coming comments on Chipewyan language: and was seemingly the result of a gathering of fortuitous accidents. In any case, the return is far July 24 brought an unwelcome surprise in the from complete; language and perception have not yet form of a [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] visit.. returnedinanyfullwaytotheir We are now conditioned to accept that the symbols, earlier ideas, and language of alien cultures are ways of conversation with the more-than-human.' I dream knowing the environment within which they dwell, of an education designed to deepen rather than sever but we have conveniently managed to subordinate those conversations. the significance of that understanding to our quest for objectivity. These thing are not passive ways I only began to realize, fully and consciously, as I of perceiving a determined positivist reality but a flew north and was swept up in the dynamics of a mode of interaction shared between the dene and fine conference that unfolded with grace, power, and their environment. All animate life interacts and, to a greater or lesser degree, affects the life and delicate mindfulness, thatstories thesubject, behavior of allother animate forms. In their really, of my paper are actions, practices within, deliberate and splendid isolation, the Chipewyan interact with alllife in accordance with their and generative of, ceremonial (cultural)worlds. understanding, and the animate universe responds. Currenteducationalpracticeemphasizesthe White Canada does not come silently and openly information content of language and story and hence into the bush in search of understanding or communion, it sojourns briefly in the full glory of an understanding of language as mirror of the world. its colonial power to exploit and regulate all But language is primarily action, it is generative of animate being and foremost of all, the dene. It comes the worlds within which we live,breathe, and asserting aclashing causalcertaintyinthe fundamentalist exercise of the power of its belief. It have our being, our identity.' In this sense, at least,

Sacred Land 6 1 62 matters of etiquette and comportment come to the meaningfully proceed. I pointed to the practice of fore rather than issues of Truth, as this term has First Nations people who do begin in this way, but been understood in the West.' We must take care this pointing did not proceed from a set of stories what worlds we generate. that clearly defined a world. All too often the Diamond Jenness reports a Carrier Indian of the implicit assumption underlying our discussions of Bulkley River as saying: "The white man writes educational policy is that we can profitably discuss everything down in a book so that it might not be these matters without defining and locating the forgotten; but our ancestors married the animals, world (the stories) within which our discussions learned their ways, and passed on the knowledge proceed. We speak as though from no world at all; from one generationto another."' Whatdoes and we presumptuously speak for all worlds. "knowledge" mean here? Carrier Indians passed I would liketo recommend that,as envi- down the means of creating,or recreating, the ronmentalethicistsandeducators,we recent worlds, the ceremonial worlds, within which the immigrantsbegintoexplicitly discoverand ancestors lived the stories, the ceremonies, the acknowledge the stories within which we think rituals. They passed down modes of action, which about environmental ethics and education. Only when written down come to be understood as then can we begin to tell (and live within) better information. The white man wants to know what stories, stories that lead us away from the human beliefs are encoded in the utterances of First Nations centeredness that defines Western culture. Only then people, he wants to treat these utterances as mirrors can we begin to live "in the presence of the more- of Indian worlds. Buttheutterancesfunction than-human .. toawake and go to sleep with it, to primarily to produce these worlds. The white man is take its rhythms and cycles for the rhythms and concerned with ontology, correct descriptions of First cycles of [our own lives], until the two finally merge Nations worlds. The Indian, on the other hand, is into one stream" as Anthony Weston has so concerned with right relationship to those beings eloquently put it in his recent book, Back to Earth, that populate the ceremonial world, is concerned making use of David Abram's fine term, "more-than- with mindfulness and grace. human," in referring to non-human nature!' It is in light of these thoughts that I would like Inthismatterofstorytelling,we recent the following remarks to be understood, informed, as immigrants need edification that is, moral and it were, by my journey north. (dare I say it?) religious instruction. This we can find,I believe,in thecultural worlds of First Nations peoples. The stories thatdefineFirst Introduction Nations cultures intertwine the sacred, the natural, and the personal (as Robert Redfield has noted"); An Elder telling Papago origin stories at a meeting they mediate the paradoxes of existence." The real about educationalprogramsforFirstNations world is a ceremonial world in which animals are peoples constructs a world in which discussion can kin, food and knowledge come as gifts from powers meaningfully proceed;" a Hopi traditionalist beyond us, and the human role in the scheme of beginshisargument for why Hopichildren things is ceremonial. If we were to refractour shouldn't attend white schools by "speaking within thought concerning environmental ethics through the framework of the Hopi origin saga and its the lens of such worlds, we would come to understand prophecies."' that environmental ethicsisreallya religious In contrast, although we recent immigrants to concern. That is to say, environmental ethics would thiscontinent know thattheoriesaredeeply be understood as concerned with our relationship to a (though implicitly) shaped by personal and cultural world understood as more-than-human and as values and that these values are deeply (though enjoining a certain kind of mindfulness that can be again implicitly) shaped by stories carried and called "walking in a sacred manner." propagated by thestoriesthatdefineus as My point, here,is similar to that made by individuals and define the cultures within which Annette Baier in her critique of the types of moral we live and come to understand ourselves this theories usually constructed by men in Western understanding is not often (or often enough) reflected culture. She argued that theories of rights, for ex- in our educational policy and practice; nor isi t ample, cannot effectively be put into practice unless reflected in our meta-level analyses of educational they are built upon a very different kind of moral policy and practice. My paper is no exception. I did infrastructure within the culture a moral infra- not begin with an origin myth; I did not first invoke structureofdefiningrelationshipsamong the a world within which discussion might members of the moral community held together by 62 63 Jim Cheney an ethic of care based on warranted trust, founded, This has not always been so and is even now not ultimately, on love? We can augment Annette so for many First Nations peoples. The deepest Baler's analysis and move closer to the worlds of sources of personal and cultural identity were once FirstNations peoples by drawing on the (as they are even now for some) the ecological and psychiatrist Robert Coles' work cn what he calls geological landscapes that shape and sustain us. "the callof stories." Coles argues thatmental This, and our present loss, are given voice in what healing cannot properly begin until individuals tell are surely Scott Momaday's most memorable words: theirstories,givetheirlivesnarrativeform. However useful the categories and concepts of the East of my grandmother's house the sun rises out of the plain. Once in hislifea man oughtto discipline of psychology might be to the psychi- concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth, I atrist and, in fact, they are often disabling, both believe. He ought to give himself up to a particular to psychiatrist and patient, according to Coles landscape in his experience, to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell the fundamental understanding of self which makes upon it. He ought to imagine that he touches it with health possible is a narrative achievement.' The his hands at every season and listens to the sounds "ceremonials" of psychiatric practice are effective that are made upon it. He ought to imagine the creatures there and all the faintest motions of the only in relation to the individual's "myth of origin": wind. He ought to recollect the glare of noon and Similarly, an abstract environmental ethic must be all the colors of the dawn and dusk." grounded in a community-based ethic of care; and thisethicmust, inturn, be grounded inthe These unbroken landscapes are characterized by community's narrative understanding of itself. My their integrity. As Barry Lopez put it:"The. . . suggestion is that we recent immigrants refract our landscape is organized according to principles or reflection on environmental ethicsthrough the laws or tendencies beyond human control.Itis narrative understandings of self and culture of First understood to contain an integrity that is beyond Nations peoples. human analysis and unimpeachable."' It is this integrity, beyond human analysis and unimpeachable, that marks the land as sacred for Sacred land most First Nationspeoples. The "sacred"(for example, the Lakota wakanLanka,thegreat The Kiowa writer N. Scott Momaday says, "It seems mysterious) is the more-than-human quality of the to me that in a certain sense we are all made of world, not a being transcendent to the world. words, that our most essential being consists in In this sense of "sacred," evolutionary biology language. It is the element in which we think and and ecosystem ecology can provide recent immigrants dream and act, in which we live our daily lives. with perhaps our deepest and most sacred myths of There is no way in which we can exist apart from origin, for they portray the world as more-than- the morality of a verbal dimension."' human and evoke a deep, inclusive, and sacred sense We are all made of words; and we have our of kinship with the world around us. Nature's existence within stories, the sacred and profane complexity, its generosity, and its communicative stories that constitute our cultural and personal ability' make itpossible for us to once again identities.For recent immigrants, most of these experience the deep unity of thepersonal, the stories (these actions that create and sustain our sacred, and the natural. worlds) touch cn our biologicaland ecological But all this is quite abstract, and although i t existence only incidentally.But our existenceis might satisfy the theologian that lurks in the heart deeply ecological, and our cultural identities should of the evolutionary biologist, and although it may reflect this. come to capture the imagination of the theolog ia11,24 Conrad Aiken adds a dimension to Momaday's this abstract argument from evolutionary biology thought that we are all made of words in the only doesn't speak to us of the particularitiesof our two lines of his poetry that I know: homes, our places on earth. Within many First Nations cultures, myths of origin and other stories The landscape and the language are the same. And we ourselves are language and are land." are ceremonial creations and renewals of worlds thattieculturalidentity toveryspecific The landscapes that shape the identities of recent landscapes. Barry Lopez writes: immigrants are mostly human landscapes, however, Among the Navajo and, as far as I know, many landscapesofhumancultureandhumanly other native peoples, the land is thought to exhibit transformed nature broken landscapes that mirror a sacred order. That order is the basis of ritual. our own brokenness. The rituals themselves reveal the power in that order. Art, architecture, vocabulary, and costume, Sacred Land 63 Ed as well as ritual, are derived from the perceived To what end? Out on the bog a crane, ping natural order of the universe from observations some luckless frog, springs his ungainly h into and meditations on the exterior landscape. An the air and flails the morning sun with mighty indigenous philosophy...may also be derived from a wings. The tamaracks re-echo with his bugled people's continuous attentivenessto boththe certitude. He seems to know. obvious...andineffable...orders ofthelocal Our ability to perceive qualityin nature landscape. Each individual, further, undertakes to begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through orderhisinterior[psychological]landscape successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet according to the exterior landscape. To succeed in uncaptured by language. The quality of cranes lies, this means to achieve a balanced state of mental I think, in this higher gamut, as yet beyond the reach health. of words. I think of the Navajo for a specific reason. A- This much, though, can be said: our ap- mong the various sung ceremonies of this people ... preciation of the crane grows with the slow is one called Beautyway. In the Navajo view, the unraveling of earthly history. His tribe, we now elementsofone'sinterior life one's know, stems out of the remote Eocene. The other psychological makeup and moral bearing are members of the fauna in which he originated are subject to apersistent principle ofdisarray. long since entombed within the hills. When we hear Beautyway is, in part, a spiritual invocation of the his call we hear no mere bird. He is the symbol of order of the exterior universe, that irreducible, our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of holy complexity that manifests itself as all things millennia which underlies and conditions the daily changing through time ... . The purposeof this affairs of birds and men. invocation is to create in the individual who is the And so they live and have their being these subject of the Beautyway ceremony that same order, cranes not in the constricted present, but in the to make the individual again a reflection of the wider reaches of evolutionary time. Their annual myriad enduring relationships of the landscape. return is the ticking of the geologic clock. Upon the I believe story functions in a similar way. A place of their return they confer apeculiar story draws on relationshipsinthe exterior distinction. Amid the endless mediocrity of the landscape and projects them onto the interior commonplace, a crane marsh holds a paleon- landscape. The purpose of storytelling is to achieve tological patent of nobility, won in the march of harmony between the two landscapes, to use all the eons ... The sadness discernible in some marshes elements of story...in a harmonious way to arises, perhaps, from their once having harbored reproducethe harmony ofthelandinthe cranes. Now theystand humbled,adriftin individual's interior. Inherent in story is the power history.' to reorder a stateof psychological confusion through contact with the pervasive truth of those relationships we call "land."' This story helps define me and my neighbors in southeastern Wisconsin,in relationshipto the Recent immigrants,too, havesuchstories, geologic and ecosystemiclegacyofthelast stories that define us in relationship to the land. Wisconsin Ice, as a prairie/wetland people. The One such tale is Aldo Leopold's "Marshland Elegy," elegy also haunts us it is a story of loss. This fits in his A Sand County Almanac: our recent immigrant religious temper as a post- neolithic culture, with its religions of alienation A dawn wind stirs on the great marsh. With almost and redemption. imperceptible slowness it rolls a bank of fog across the wide morass. Like the white ghost of a glacier It is a fair question whether our religions of loss the mists advance, riding over phalanxesof and redemption are in some way tied to the mutual tamarack, sliding across bogmeadows heavy with estrangement of the natural, the personal, and the dew. A single silence hangs from horizon to horizon. sacred in post-neolithic cultures. Qut of some far recess of the sky a tinkling of I think of spirituality as, in part, a particular little bells falls soft upon the listening land. Then kind of epistemological relationship to the world; again silence ...... At last a glintof sun reveals the approach thatis,I think of spiritualityas a particular of a great echelon of birds. On motionless wing they understanding of what knowledge is and of the way emerge from the lifting mists, sweep a final arc of in which knowledge is constituted. A wholesale sky, and settle in clangorous descending spirals to their feeding grounds. A new day has begun on the despiritualization of the natural world occurred, I crane marsh. believe, when we in the West began to understand A sense of time lies thick and heavy on such a knowledge both as representation of the structure of place. Yearly since the ice age it has awakened each spring to the clangor of cranes. The peat layers that the world and as a human construct that is, when comprise the bog are laid down in the basin of an we lost faith in knowledge as power and practice ancient lake. The cranes stand, as it were, upon the and in the natural world as active agent in the sodden pages of their own history. These peats are the compressed remains of the mosses that dogged genesis of knowledge, when we ceased viewing the pools, of the tamaracks that spread over the knowledge as a gift conferred upon us by the more- moss, of the cranes that bugled over the tamaracks than-human world. On an older understanding, our since the retreat of the ice sheet. An endless caravan of generations has built of its own bones human part in the construction of knowledge is, in its this bridge into the future, this habitat where the mostessentialaspect,toprepareourselves oncoming host again may live and breed and die.

64 Jim Cheney spiritually (ethically) forthereceptionof deep, inclusive, and sacred sense of kinship with the knowledge, power. world around us. This sense of the sacred and our We in the West are beginning to understand that kinshipwitheverythinginour worldalong knowledge has an ethical component. Knowledge, I evolutionary and ecosystemic axes brings with i t have said, is contextual -- itis situated within an etiquette, a sense of reciprocity, respect, and stories, world-creating stories, myths really, within attentiveness that leads to a new epistemological which we exist and have our identity. Objectivity relationship to the natural world, a sense of the comes only when we invite all the participants of natural world as active agent in the co-creation of these worlds into the generation of knowledge. We knowledge, knowledge grounded in etiquette. have learned this in the study of other human An etiquette of knowledge acquisition, and of cultures. We must now come to understand that this knowledge itself,providesus witha way of is also the case with respect to knowledge of the understanding objectivity that bypasses the false more-than-human world. The dominant conception dilemma of choosing between a conception of value- of objectivity in the West has been one which, in free science and an anything goes adherence to effect, defines objective knowledge as knowledge compelling stories. This epistemology is neither that enables domination or control of the object of modern nor postmodern; it is, to use Robin Ridington's knowledge. Such knowledge is, of course, highly term, "neo-premodern."' selective, defining objective knowledge in relation to I would like to think that, should we recent im- the instrumental ends of the knowledge producer, migrants once again come to experience genuinely and breeds a skewed perception and conceptual experience the sacred order of the land th a t organization of the world. In contrast, research in might define us culturally and personally, that the human sciences, at least in certain quarters, has redemption, in one of its aspects at least, would be produced a conceptionofobjectivity that closer to hand than it has been in the redemptive understands an objective account to be one which the religions of the West and the Orient, precisely researcherandpersonorpersonsresearched because thesacred would be closertohand. mutually agree to and mutually construct and take Alienation would not be experienced as a cosmic responsibility for, an account which is mutually sundering of God and his people, but rather as it is empowering, particularly with respect to the person fortheNavajo,accordingto BarryLopez,a or persons researched. The story of our human place "persistent principleofdisarray"checked by within the more-than-human world must also be co- ceremonies of renewal that once again "make the constructed, withthemore-than-human world individual... areflection of the myriad enduring playing an active role the main role, really in relationships of the landscape." the construction of knowledge. The acquisition of As an example of such ceremonial renewal and knowledge and hence knowledge and objectivity regeneration, I want to speak about some of the themselves has an ethical component. prairie restoration project my family is involved First Nations peoples' understandings of the with attheWatervillePrairie,University of unity of the sacred, the natural, and the personal Wisconsin Biological Field Station. can helpusappreciatethesedimensionsof In 1978 Fran and I returned to Wisconsin from a knowledge. For many First Nations peoples, more- year an a salt marsh on Long Island Sound to two than-human nature is personal and kin, and humans important and enduring changes in our lives: the are bound to the more-than-human in a reciprocal adoption of our son, Carlos, and our involvement in gift exchange economy. Knowledge is an empowering the Waterville Prairie restoration project. gift from the more-than-human that (in the words Twice in the Autumn late September and late of Evelyn Fox Keller) "simultaneously reflects and October we gather with other friends of the field affirms our connection to [the] world."' stationto gatherseeds from remnants of the Do we in the West have stories that have the tallgrass prairies that covered significant portions potential to articulate the natural as the sacred, to of southeastern Wisconsin before the plow. In April, afford us an understanding of the more-than-human we bum the prairie, something formerly accom- as active agent in the construction of knowledge and plished by natural wildfires and fires deliberately thereby help us articulate the ethical dimension of set by First Nations peoples to prevent the en- objectivity? Yes, we do: the stories told by evol- croachment of forests, thereby keeping the land open utionary biology and ecosystem ecology, as I have for game. Our prairie bums accomplish several said, can provide us with our deepest and most things: they prevent the spread of forests onto the sacred myths of origin, for they can portray the prairie, as I have said; they set back the growth of world around us as more-than-human and evoke a cool-weather European grasses and forbs, providing

Sacred Land 65

'ate' the native prairie species a place in the sun; they study the mining proposals, critique the environmental impactreports,challengethesloppy release nutrients into the soil; and they warm the assumptions of the corporations, and stand up to soil, encouraging the warm-weather native grasses certain county officials who would sell out the and forbs. In May, we plant new sections of prairie, inhabitants and hand over the whole area to any glamorous project. It is hard, unpaid, frustrating setting out seedlings and raking seeds into the rich work for people who already have to work full prairie soil. time to support their families. The same work goes The activities of these four days have become on with forestry issues exposing the scandalous favoritism shown the timber industry by our important ceremonials in our lives. The scale of this nearby national forest, asits managers try to restoration project is ceremonial, it is culturally and pacify the public with sweet words and frivolous personally regenerative. These are world-renewal statistics.Anylightlypopulatedareawith "resources"isexploitedlikea Third World ceremonies in some measure they define and country, even within the United States. We are shape our community, our world and they are defending our own space, andwe are .trying to healing ceremonies, in the Navajo sense they protect the commons. More than the logic of self- interest inspires this: a true and selfless love of the realign us with a landscape that in some measure land is the source of the undaunted spirit of ny defines us personally. Our relationship to this place neighbors. is a defining relationship. It is a powerful place of There's no rush about calling things sacred. I think we should be patient, and give the land a lot intersection for Fran's work as artist, my work as of time to tell us or the people of the future. The cry teacher and our personal, family, and community of a Flicker, the funny urgent chatter of a Grey lives.It is a place that orients us, morally and Squirrel, the acorn whack on a barn roof are spiritually, in this world. The Waterville Prairie is signs enough' at the ceremonial center of my work as teacher and Here I think of images nested in Fran's baskets environmental ethicist. The prairie ceremonials are and necklaces:31 Autumn sky and Big Bluestem; enactments of fundamental principlesof moral Summer Cooper's Hawks nested in thewoods; attentiveness to allthatexists.' The biological Canada Geese flying in low; Autumn seed gathering myths of origin of which I have spoken give broad these, too, are signs enough. philosophical direction and content to these acts of More than one First Nations tradition relates mindfulness. that our human purpose in this world is to tell I would like to share some reflections concerning stories. The animal and plant people decided tha t sacred land by the poet Gary Snyder, whose chosen they would provide what we humans need so that place on earth is on the west slope of the Sierra we may tellthestories needed to create and Nevada range in northern California.I appreciate continually renew this sacred world. This tradition his remarks because they strike the right tone, I is the source of a recent Winter Solstice message Fran think, for recent immigrants. They articulate nicely and I sent to friends and family: the sense of the word "sacred" as I have been using it. The stories we tell during the great sweep of holidays from Halloween through the Solstice These foothill ridges are not striking in any special season give courage to the sun for its northward way, no postcard scenery, but ... the fact that ny journey, cheer the animals, and hearten the humans neighbors and I and allof our children have who sometimes despair of having any purpose in learned so much by taking our place in these Sierra this world and are heartened to know that the foothills logged-over land now come back, more-than-humansaroundthecampfire(the burned-over land recovering, considered worthless animals, the shaggy Autumn prairie, Scuppemong for decades begins to make this land a teacher to Creek) like to listen to the stories we tell. We us. It is the place on earth we work with, struggle promise to tell them often and well. with, and where we stick out the summers and winters. It has shown us a little of its beauty. And sacred? One could indulge in a bit of Our stories of theland,themore-than-human woo-woo and say, yes, there are newly discovered dimension of our being, should be true sacraments sacred places in our reinhabited landscape. I know my children (like kids everywhere) have some outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual secret spots in the woods. There is a local hill grace. The notion of the sacred gives way here to the where many people walk for the view, the broad notion of sacramental practice. My concern is not night sky, moon-viewing, and to blow a conch at dawn on Bodhi Day. There are miles of mined-over with an understanding of the sacred as object of gravels where we have heldceremoniesto knowledge,faith, oradoration, butwith apologize for the stripping of trees and soil and to sacramental practice, walking in a sacred manner.' help speed the plant-succession recovery. There are some deep groves where people got married. Even this much connection with the place is enough to inspire the local community to hold on: renewed gold mining and stepped -up logging press in on us. People volunteer to be on committees to

66 Jim Cheney 67 8 "'Knowing with' is a rendering of Heraclitus' notion of Notes on contributor logos (reason) as always being related to phusis (nature, environment/context). The relation between logos and Jim Cheney teachesenvironmentalethicsand phusis is such that the origin of n-ty knowing is never American Indian philosophies at the University of exclusively in me, but in something other than me This is expressed in language by the presence of the word xunos WisconsinWaukesha and has published a number (together, with, common, shared) whenever logosis of articles in these areas. He is currently working an invoked." These words are those of Irene Klaver, in a book on environmental ethics, tentatively titled correspondence and in her thoughtful and perceptive paper,"TheImplicitPracticeofEnvironmental Philosophyon theRocks, with Tom Birch,Ir Philosophy," in Lester Embree and Don Marietta, Klaver, and Anthony Weston. He is the recipient of editors, Environmental Philosophy and Environmental aRockefellerFoundation VisitingHumanities Activism (Lanhan, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995): 67-79. Fellowshipto workth theNativePhilosophy 9 Following the Yukon Colloquium I had the great good Project at Lakehead University in Ontario during fortune to participate in the Zen Lite V Yellow Lake- Jimcallsthetallgrassprairiesof Yellow Peak Conference. Experiences undergone and 1996-97. shared at Zen Lite V have given ire hope that such a southeastern Wisconsin and themountains and return is indeed possible. My thanks and gratitude to deserts of Idaho his homes; most recently, he has Cold Mountain Birch, Deer Clover, Daddy Longlegs, fallen in love with the Yukon. and, as emblems of the more-than-human world (that never gets lost in its appearings and disappearings), the mountain goats on the snow cornice high above Yellow Lake. Notes and references The words "I promise ...," like a handshake, function as a ceremonial action and can proceed effectively only within a ceremonial world, a world we create with our 1 This journey was to deliver an earlier version of this actions, including our verbal actions and our stories. paper at the "Environment, Ethics, and Education Again, I am reminded of the Northern Tutchone term, tli Colloquium,"YukonCollege,Whitehorse,Yukon an oh, "responsibly true." See note 3, above. Territory, 14-16 July, 1995. I want to thank Bob Jicicling 12 Diamond Jenness, "The Carrier Indians of the Bulkley (the colloquium convener), fellowparticipants, and River," Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 133 those in attendance for a remarkable sojourn into the (Washington, 1943), p. 540. North country for what proved to be thefinest 13 Sam Gill, The Trees Stood Deep Rooted," in Gill, Native conference I have ever attended. An earlier version of American Religious Action: A Performance Approach to this paper was presented at a showing of Fran Cheney's Religion (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, baskets and necklaces at Plymouth Church, Milwaukee, 1987), p. 17. Wisconsin. 14 Nabokov, "Present Memories, Past History," pp. 148-9. 2 Sean Kane, author of Wisdom of the Mythtellers, once 15 Anthony Weston, BacktoEarth:Tomorrow'sEnvi- describedconversationswith thepoetRobert ronmentalism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, Bringhurst, who lives in this land, as consisting largely 1994) p. 143. of deep pools of silence. 16 Redfield, however, uses the terms "God, Nature, and Louise Profeit- LeBlanc (Northern Tutchone), Native Man," respectively. Robert Redfield, The Primitive HeritageAdvisor,YukonHeritageBranch, in World and Its Transformation (Ithaca: Cornell University conversation with a student at the Yukon colloquium Press, 1953), chapter 4. and with me a month later, as I was revising this paper, 17 Annette C. Baier, "What Do Women Want in a Moral used a Northern Tutchonetetut,tli an oh Iklee-ah-no], Theory," Nous 19 (1985): 53-63. that she translated as "correctly true," "responsibly 18 Robert Coles, The Call of Stories: Teaching and the Moral true" (a "responsible truth"), "true to what you believe Imagination (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989), in," "what is good for you and the community," and chapter 1. "rings true for everybody's well-being." Here we have a 19 N. Scott Momaday, "The Man Made of Words," in Indian conception of truth that has an ethical dimension. This is Voices:TheFirstConvocationof AmericanIndian what we need, I think, a conception of objectivity or Scholars -(San Francisco: The Indian Historian Press, truth closely tied to ethical notions of responsibility, 1970),p.49. well-being, and community, a conception that is both 20 ConradAiken, quoted in Edith Cobb, The Ecology of mindful and gracious, that insists that matters of truth ImaginationinChildhood(NewYork:Columbia are matters of comportment. This Northern Tutchone University Press, 1977), p. 67. term, tli an oh, comes to ire as a fine gift. My thanks to 21 N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain (New Louise Profeit-LeBlanc. York: Ballantine Books, 1970), p. 113. I retain the first 4 Frederick Nietzsche, The Gay Science, §114. sentence of the section, usually dropped when quoted. 5 Peter Nabokov, "Present Memories, Past History," in Lopez, "Landscape and Narrative,in Lopez, Crossing Calvin Martin, ed., The American Indian and the Problem Open Ground (New York: Random House, 1988), p. 66. of History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. "Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not 147. partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?" Henry 6 Henry S. Sharp, The Transformation of Bigfoot: Maleness, David Thoreau, paragraph 17 of "Solitude," in Walden. Power, and Belief among the Chipewyan (Washington 24 "I suspect that the real moral thinkers endup, wherever D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988), pp. 144-5. they may start, in botany." Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Sharp imports something of his own Western animate- Tinker. Creek (New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1974), p. inarumate distinction into his discussion. 7 115. "My words spoke [the St. Croix]." Irene Klaver, at the 23 Lopez, "Landscape and Narrative," pp. 67-8. The stories Zen Lite V Yellow Lake-Yellow Peak Conference (see of other cultures meditate on human relations to more- note 9, below), observed that the various colors of the than-human nature in other ways. Haida culture, as I Indian Paintbrush are a function of the varying mineral understand it through the work of Sean Kane, meditates composition of the soil. "They speak the soil," she said. Sacred Land BEST COPY AVAILABLE 67

6O) on the relationship of the daily affairs of humans to the Ridington uses the term "neo-premodem" to describe the larger (ecological, we would say) patterns and powers work of FirstNations novelist, Tom King. Robin that enfold them and the differences between these Ridington, "Coyote's Cannon: Sharing Stories with enfolding patterns and our daily affairs the ways in Thomas King,"presentedatthe"Theorizingthe which these patterns can put our human activities to Americanist Tradition" conference at the University of their own uses, the dangers invoked when we humans Western Ontario, June, 1995. attempt to put these enfolding patterns to our own use. zv On the notion of moral attentivenessto all that exists, There are striking differences between agricultural, see Thomas H. Birch, "Moral Considerability and horticultural, and hunting peoples with respect to their Universal Consideration," EnvironmentalEthics15 understanding of the relationship between humans and (1993): 313-32. more-than-human nature. Sean Kane, Wisdom of the 3° Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild (San Francisco: Mythtellers (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, North Point Press, 1990), pp. 95-6. 1994). See note 1, above. 26 Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac(New York: 32 Tom Birch and Anthony Weston remindedme, at the Zen Ballantine Books, 1970), pp. 101-3. Lite IV Mountain Meadow Conference, of the priority of 27 Evelyn Fox Keller, Reflectionson Gender and Science an epistemology based on etiquette over ontology. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 166.

68 6 9 Jim Cheney An Unwanted Story Martha McMahon, University of Victoria

The charactersin the followingstory,including play, exposing knowledge (a modern hero) as having Sarah, the co-narrator, are fictional,but the parts a morally ambiguous character. Its message is th a t they play are not. These characters could be you, me, environmental education needs to start not simply by or anyone. Perhaps they are. teachingbetterenvironmentalethics,but by exposing the hidden ethicalmessages that come 1....vet, me be clear at the outset. I did not want to embedded in existing knowledge. rite this story. I would have preferred to write Modern ideas about education give a heroic role a more ecofeminist story: one that expresses the to the "power of knowledge" in a moral struggle voices of marginal or oppressed people (Cheney, against ignorance. It is reassuring to have faith in 1994; Warren, 1994). Privilege is largely taken for education. It gives us hope for a better future. And i t granted by the characters in my story, although, a t gives me a job. It therefore came as a shock to me to times Sarah (and I) try to make it visible. Important learn from Sarah last summer that knowledge, as characters, such as the original inhabitants of the well as ignorance, can be partof thecause of area in which the story is set are also invisible in environmental destruction. the story: they are significantly absent. And the InthefollowingstoryI explainwhy topic logging seems closer to the conceals of environmental educators need to develop a better deep ecology than ecological feminism. (Tzeporah understanding of the relationship between power Berman would not agree.) andknowledge.DrawingonFoucault(1980), The story takes place in a setting of great feminists Nancy Fraser (1989) and Joan Scott (1988) natural beauty, where "protecting the environment" see knowledge (or what is produced as knowledge in is often justified by appealing to the aesthetic value our society,) not as a corrective to ignorance, but as of the environment to local residents or tourists. Few the practiceofpower.Foucaultlikensthe question the privilege and history surrounding this dissemination of power in the modem stateto a relationship with nature. Thus my story deals with "capillary," whereby power is widely dispersed and conflict among therelativelyprivileged rather disseminatedthroughmultiplediscoursesand than with issues of social justice with which knowledge processes. These discourses, Fraser (1989, ecological feminists are more comfortable. 18) explains, work by defining the micropractices of But there I am. Or here I am, speaking from near everyday behaviour so that "power touches people's thecentre rather than themargins of power. lives more fundamentallythrough theirsocial Ecofeminists recognize the epistemic advantage of practices than through their beliefs." That is, our those at the margins of society. But what about actions, including our interactions with our natural challenges to authority from within? Val Plumwood environment, are shaped by "the practices of power" (1994) argues that environmental consciousness is a in ways of which we are quite oblivious. I am not disruptive consciousness. Can ecological feminism talking about abstract socialforces, determining challenge authority from within the centre rather social structures, or some invisible hand. Rather I am than from the margins?' If it can, then surely part of talkingabout how environmentallydestructive itsrole must be to be disruptive of comfortable practices are produced and reproduced in everyday selves, of culturally constructed characters and the life because of the way power works in modem easy tales that these characterstellinside and societies. outside of school. Powerin modem societiesoperatesmore And although the characters in my story may be pervasivelythrough knowledgethanthrough fictional, I do not believe that the story I tell about repression and coercion. Joan Scott (1988, 2) defines power is. knowledge broadly:

Knowledge refers not onlytoideasbutto institutions and structures, everyday practices as Knowledge and power: Powerful knowledge well as specialized rituals all of which constitute social relationships. Knowledge isa way of My story about Sarah and myself is also a story ordering the world; .. . it is inseparable from social about power and knowledge. It carries a message organization. about how power works through everyday and expert knowledge. My story is a counter-morality

An Unwanted Story 6 9 "I U Thus not only is knowledge deeply implicated in Stories,public andprivate,carryethical power relations, but power relations are embedded in messages, often contradictory ones. These stories knowledge. For Dorothy Smith (1990), knowledge, frame our actions and identities in moral terms. For thatisto say culturallydominant knowledge, example, everyday talk of private property among operates as a kind of ideological practice: it carries Sarah's neighbours is a moral discourse. Property in it (and is part of) the social relationshipsof claims are not simply power claims: they are more ruling. As a feminist sociologist, Smith (1990, 4) often represented in terms of entitlements, earnings, shows how such knowledge is an ideological practice or past hard work, rather than, for example, as "that subdues the livedactualitiesof people's being matters of theft or historical chance. experiencetothediscoursesofruling."The I had been writing a paper on environmental ideological practice of objectivityin particular, ethics and education in the troubled summer of Smith explains (1990, 31), converts people from Sarah's story. But that changed. I lost the thread of subjects to objects of investigation. my academic story and became unsettled, disturbed, Even more pervasive (and more relevant for this distracted and captured by Sarah's experiences. It paper) are the ideological practices of knowledge seemed to me that for all my academic talk and that convert nature into an object of knowledge and reading on environmental and ecofeminist issues, I control. And this kind of ideological knowledge of really was not able to respond usefully to the local nature has become centralto thepracticesof world around me. And so I want to talkabout political power in modem society (Merchant, 1980). environment, ethicsand education outsidethe The social, economic and political arrangements of classroom, not in some hypothetical or exotic place, modemsocieties,withtheirformsofmass but in the local places where we live. Let me give an production and consumption, are predicated on the excerpt from Sarah'saccount written in of the domination of nature. What is less visible is hoW summer of 1995. everyday social relationships, of race, class and gender, also carry in them a "ruling relationship" with nature. That is, the domination of nature is From Sarah's story assumed in social relationships of modem societies andisthusreproducedthroughoursocial I have a habit of saying that I am very lucky to live interactions. The domination of nature is not a by- where I do. But perhaps it would be more truthful to product,butapervasive,takenforgranted, say that I am privileged to live here, and I live here constituent of social relationships. because I am privileged.I sometimes wonder if in It is not surprising, therefore, that for feminist working with myneighbours to resistt he teachers like bell hooks (1994), the key to liberatory "development"of thisremotearea,am I being education isnot thecommunication of cultural ecologicallyresponsible,or am I protecting my knowledge. Rather it is the practice of teaching to privilege? transgress:2 that is, teaching to question the power This summer, a couple escaping what they call relations in expert ways of thinking about things and the social and environmental toxicity of Vancouver in everyday ways of doing things. Environmental (his words) recently purchased the 7 acres of land educators should aim at no less. next to where I live. About an acre of this area was a meadow and the rest was heavilytreed woodlands. Her occupation is that of a holistichealer his The beginning occupationisin environmentalrestoration.They decided to cut and clear the woodlands, selling a 11 On the edge of the piece of land cal which Sarah the trees for lumber. Many of the people who live lives there is a tree with two trunks. I have seen it. near by were angry. My new neighbours said they One trunk is cut. The other trunk still stands. The one wanted, or rather needed, the money to build a guest trunk is cut because itis on her new neighbours' cabin and a house. They spoke of their love for t he property. The other trunk stands because itis an environmentandcommitment tothe idea of hers? The severed tree embodies contested social neighbourhood and community as they explained to claims on nature in the wonderfully beautiful, out of me why they could not leave even some of the trees. the way place in which Sarah lives. These claims The environmentalrestorer assured me thatthe are grounded in dominant cultural discourses such as environment would be better than before he arrived those on economics or property rights, but also in the by thetime he had finishedhis work.This h e personal stories she and her neighbours tell to make communicated to me in a language of a certain kind of sense of their actions and their lives, and why they ecological science of amounts of biomass and water live in this remote and inaccessible place. quality and so on. He spoke of his commitment to 7 0 Martha McMahon growing organicallyon some of thelandhe ha s mental ethical decision making happens by default. cleared. It happens "by-the-way"to our making other The restorer and healer located their behaviour decisions and to our being engaged in courses of action in a plethoraof ethicalpositions concern for the that appear to have little to do with our articulated environment, their repugnance at the destruction of environmental values. the natural world around them, an awareness tha t Indeed, if we were to listen to what people say things cannot go on likethis.They also invoked rather than looking at what they do, we would find ethicalconcerns for their children indeed, they grounds for optimism. Sociologicalsurveys and were doing what they were doing in part for their opinion polls tell us that, in recent decades, there children. My new neighboursseethemselvesa s has been a shift in social values towards a more eco- taking a big risk in pursuing their alternative social centric ethic. It appears that everyone is now "for and environmental values. They have come to live in the environment." Isn't this good news? poverty, he told me. They see their decisions and Perhaps not, for our consciously held actions as moral ones and environmentally ethical environmental values do not guide conduct in any ones they would have preferred, they said, not to simpleordirectway (Deutscher,Pestello & havehad tocutallthetrees,but financial Pestello, 1993). Most of our everyday behaviour is circumstances dictated and they will "make up" for not framed by those valuesor shaped by an it. awarenessofthepotentialconsequencesthis Financial pressure is an extremelypersuasive behaviour will have for the environment. We do not justificationinthe1990s, whether invokedby usually know thefullrange of environmental individuals,corporations or governments. Economic outcomes of the actions in which we engage. And realitiesare beyond question. My new neighbours when values are invoked, we think and talk in terms placed their individual actions in a broader moral of the values in the actor's intentions rather than story thatcarries strong themes of eco-centric and the values that are realized in the consequences of community centred ethical values and a rejection of his or her actions.' How can this be? Does it mean modern society.In terms of environmentalethics, that ethics haven't much to do with anything more they are "educated." They see others as the problem than making one person feel good and another person which they are attempting to escape. look bad? The sociologists among us would say that,of course, behaviour is institutionally determined not Teacher's notes: On ethics and actions individuallychosen and thatethicsfunction rhetorically,as accounts to legitimate behaviour If,as educators, we want toquestion people's rather than to regulate it. everyday stories and actions from a new grounds of The more moralistic among us might condude ecological ethics, then we must understand that the that people are simply hypocritical or lack moral words and worlds we are questioning are already fibre (a favourite explanation of the nuns who morally constituted. educated me as a child). The more sophisticated I'll come back to Sarah, her neighbours and the mightaddthat people are unrepentently severed tree in a moment. First, I want to talk about anthropocentric. And economists might argue that what I think I have learned from the experience people usually operate within an ethic of self- Sarah shared with me. interest, so let's get real."Can't change human From Sarah's story I have learned that much of nature, or economic realities,"they'd muse so the subject matter of environmental ethics comes what we need is a fullcost accounting for our packaged under other names and is talked about on consumer choices and individual preferences that other terms. Popular meanings of property, of what puts allthose environmental externalitiesright itis to be an adult, to be a parent,to be an there on the price tag. The market place can do what individual, beliefs about the nature of society or the ethical education cannot. direction of social change (for example, stories th a t All these explanations have some appeal. But show that the world is falling apart, crime is out of they are notgood enough analyses, and they provide control,or whatever)allcarryimplicitand poorguidestothoseofusconcernedwith powerful environmental messages. We acquire these environmental ethics and education and who wonder unspoken ethical messages and values "by-the-way" if education can make a "difference." as we acquire and construct other cultural stories and rhetorics. If thisis so, then much, if not most, ethical education isimplicit.Similarly,much environ- An Unwanted Story 71 72 From my story From Sarah's story

Two local events disturbed Sarah's summer of 1995 As I writethisstoryI hearthedroneoft he and led me to question what environment, ethics and chainsaws andlog-movingequipment int he education might mean outside the classroom. First background. It swirls in my window and teases me was a local dispute over a rezoning application. withits indifferenceas itrollsover me without Paradise Hydro (Pd. Hydro) sought to rezone for leaving a mark.I hatethe sounds. Some oft he industrial use an area that is in the watershed of one spaces between my words are filled with my trips to of the few wetlands in the area where Sarah lives. the woods beside my house to see whatthey are Here, among other uses, they could store their cutting now. I can't stop looking. I can't say what I treated poles and so forth. The local conservancy, see. When I do speak I can only again caution the neighbours and adjacent organic farmers opposed the loggers not to cut beyond thelegalpropertyline. rezoningatapublichearing.Theyfeared That is the line that counts, the conceptual boundary contaminated run off. They learned to talk about that has physical and legal consequences so razor copper chromium arsenic and parts per million. sharp a concept that it can cut between twin trunks of The second event of that summer to shift the a single tree. The machines seem unstoppable.I am focus of my academic story on environment, ethics reminded of film footageof a war wheresilent, and education was thearrivalof Sarah's new scarfed women watchtheconquering army drive neighbours and their decision to log and clear the through their villages. land beside where she lived. At this point, Sarah's But the machines do stop for coffee, for lunch, story overwhelmed mine. and again at 5 each evening. These machines ha ve The first event of Sarah's summer drew my human rhythms. At night it is quiet again and when attention to the power of scientific discourse in local I go to the woods the deer are back, browsing on t he political decision making, and to how very hard it is undergrowthas thoughtheydon't know.For a for many ordinary people to talk publicly about moment I even found myself thinking thatthe deer environmental issues. And the second event drew my were irresponsible in their carefree attitude. attention to the power of the discourse of property Where will they and I go? I realize my home rights and its amazing power to transform the very and their home, whatever their many meanings to us landscape. temporary inhabitants, cannot resist being reduced to Sarahand many ofherneighbours were property to conceptual boundaries enclosing black disturbed by their experiences when they tried to holes that swallow all meaning but their pencil thin speak out on environmental issues. Like Sarah, lines. I realizeI have no home in the world either. several of her neighbours found that, in the context Home is somewhere one belongs. But when accepted of the prevailing ways of thinking about and talking knowledgeinsiststhathomeis somewheretha t about things, their own public speech was in constant belongs to me, then where do I belong? And where d o danger of being reduced to a kind of babble. Whereas thedeerbelong?Unlikethedeer,somewhere they spoke in terms of caution, uncertainty, lack of "belongs to me": I own property. Like the deer, I am trust and experience, the framing of public debate in not able to ask the cutting machine to stop. How can I terms of privileged proof, precision and legality. ask it to, beg it to, or make it stop? And decision makers framed theirjob as one of separating emotion from fact. At the same time, Sarah was surprised to From my story discover that the dominant discourses of science and property were often privately questioned. Although The two events, the rezoning application and the these discourses carry authority, she concluded, they arrival of Sarah's new neighbours, brought home to did not have a monopoly on truth, virtue or merit me the limits of environmental education. First, the among many of her neighbours. She discovered rezoning discussions showed that many actions that cracks in the authority of these discourses. have environmental significance are couched neither From Sarah's story, it seems to me that some of in environmental nor ethical terms when publicly the power of dominant discourses comes from the fact discussed. At best environment is added on as a risk that, whatever their personal reservations, most factor to be managed or costed. In Sarah's story, local people findithard to publicly question these people challenged "the authorities' (political and discourses, and find iteven harder to articulate scientific) framing of the rezoning issue. But they alternatives. Certainly Sarah did. It seemed as i f accomplished this largely by being unruly, noisy and there was no public language with which to speak disruptive rather than by exposing and questioning differently. the power relations in dominant discourses. While 72 Martha McMahon 73 unruliness allowed an energetic group to stop a From Sarah's story particular development, by itselfit did littleto change the ways in which most development and People where I live cannot easily raise the questions zoning decisions are made.It may even have or frame the public debate in terms that would allow hardened the resolve of the "authorities" not to serious discussion on how we are to live locally and allow such 'irrational' debates to get out of hand in globally.But I don't regardthisinabilityas our future. personal failing. We are hemmed in by our terms, our Second, even when environmental values are taken for granted categories, our stock of everyday articulated,as in thecase of Sarahand her and expert knowledge. For to question environmental ecologically minded new neighbours who clear cut, practiceschallengesexisting socialrelationships. thesevaluesmaybesoopentomultiple And existing social relationships are precisely what interpretation thatthey can be consistent with mustbequestionedifweare tounderstand almost any course of action. In neither of these two environmental destruction. "A man has a right to d o cases would (conventional) environmental education what he likeson his own property,"a long time have helped lead to better outcomes. It was an resident of the island tells me. He disapproves of my unsettling summer for Sarah and myself. new neighbour's actions but defends his right to do it. Itwould be easytodismiss Sarah'snew Iknowacademics useconceptslike anthro- neighbours as hypocritical and as bad folk,as pocentricism to explain environmental destruction. having the wrong environmental ethicalstance, But what does that mean locally? What everyday perhaps. But this isn't much of an analysis. meanings are embeddedin the meaning of "man," First, Sarah's new neighbours have many of the "individual,""rights,"and"property"thatw e "right" ethical values. That is, they have the right cannot effectivelychallengedestructiveenviron- attitudes in their minds. They say eco-centric things. mental practices. Yet, it seems to me that to think of ethics in terms of One the one hand, I don't want to talk about attitudes orideas, asbeingpsychological these events. After all,thereis no real message in phenomenaratherthansocialandpolitical my story. (Other than Martha's written subtitles) practices, is to encourage what Donna Haraway there isn't a beginning or end to my story. It isn't even (1991)callsa "view from nowhere" decon- agoodstory.There isneitherresolutionnor textualizedideasthathavelocallydisastrous character development.(I cannot say I am older but consequences. The difference, as bell hooks' (1994) wiser.) On the other hand, I can't stop trying to talk. points out, is critical for those who see education as a I havetalkedto my neighbours, talkedto public liberatory practice. Certainly the transformation of officials,talkedto local politicians,talkedto my ethical consciousness is important, hooks explains. friends. I have conversations in my dreams; I wake But ethical consciousness for social change must be during thenightbabblingtomyselfand some talked about in terms of what it means for our imaginaryaudience.Anditisbabblingint h e everyday actions, both for we who teach and those biblical sense of the absence of a shared language in we teach.For teachersespecially,thismeans whichto speak and be understood.I am resentful reflectingon how we ourselves participatein that,to be heard,I must speak a language (and in relationshipsof inequalityand domination, of ways) that someone like I cannot speak. And what nature or other humans, through what we produce about the deer, what language must they talk? and teach as knowledge. Contextualized environmental consciousness requires constant self-reflection. Buthowreflective is theframingof Teacher's notes: On reclaiming words environmental ethics in school and outside? Often issues are framed primarily in terms of conservation Popular conceptsofscientificfacts,gendered and preservation, as my talk of trees might appear individuals, a man and his property, (or a company to be. But this framing is far too restrictive. It limits and theirs) carry consequences for relationships to the possibility for critical self and public reflection nature though they appear to be environmentally on the complex roots of environmental problems and neutral, legal and political concepts.' Carmen (1994) is thus inadequate for social change. A reflective describes this power of dominant meanings as being a analysis of local environmental issues where Sarah formofcolonization:colonizationofhuman lives would go beyond trees to the gender, class and subjectivity and of mind. We cannot reallytalk race relations that invisibly sustain our lives and about nature and the environment until we challenge homes. It would show how deeply and perversely these dominant meanings. Is there any way we can environmental ethics and the practices of power are open up for question these key certainties of self, connected. property and dominant knowledge that guide our An Unwanted Story 73 74 individual and collective relationships with the about publiceducationasa wayof addressing natural world? environmental problems. I don't havethis faithin Reclaiming language isn't simply a word-game. public education. Perhaps you "educators" can he 1 p It involves a process of pointing out the invisible by making the social relationshipsthat uphold our implications of taken for granted meanings. Outside realitiesvisible,because they are often invisible. the classroom, speech is heard for its multiple and (You educators don't have a good track record here.) local significance. Challenging taken for granted It is this kind of "education" that will allow myself meanings can hurt some, make others angry, offer and my neighbours to see the ways in which our local political resources to yet others.6 issues are connected to thetheoreticaland global The challenge Of subversive agency in education, issues educators so like to talk about. Carmen (1994) concludes, is to release people from the shadows of invisibility and a culture of political silences which prevents them from taking part in My story the positive transformations of their societies. For Donna Haraway(1991),this"making visible" If, taking Sarah's advice, I see my teaching in the makes us all responsible for what we see or know: class room as teaching to transgress (hooks, 1994), to vision and knowledge are no longer accepted as transgress the conceptual practices of power (Smith, passive. Inthe process,peoplereconstruct 1990), and to criticallyreflect on those cultural themselves as citizens in new ways, as authors of stories we tell about self, nature and society which knowledge. The individualisno longer"the give our actions meaning, how does that connect to consumer" or abstract bearer of property-like rights social change outside the class room? Rather than vis-a-vis nature or others but comes to recognize his starting by building new ethical theories, perhaps, or her own voice in the stories she or he tells about as an educator, my first responsibility is to show the world. This kind of knowledge means taking how domination in social and natural worlds works responsibilityforthemultipleconsequencesof through (existing) theory and practice. speech and action rather than claiming authority. The models of liberatory education in which this kind of approach fits has been focused around marginal groups and the empowerment of oppressed Sarah's comments on my story persons. Their refusal to take on the identity of victimhasbeencentraltomarginalgroups' In questioning dominantmeanings,suchast he educationforliberation.What ofliberatory meanings of property,I thinkitistoo easy for education at the centre? Perhaps, for educators, someone like you who makes her living in academia coming to see one's own investment in relationships to be critical of the notion of property rights, and to of domination and coming to realize that one can see them only asaconservativediscourse.You withdraw tacitconsent is the key to liberatory academics, after all make your living from a kind of education at the centre: liberatory for teacher and culturalproperty,from akindof monopolyon student. legitimateknowledge.To many of theworking If those who are marginal demand the right to people where I live, property rights represent w ha t invent their future, then the privileged too must face theyseeasone of their fewprotectionsfrom their responsibility in how it is shaped. I don't yet domination from what they feeltobet he know what this means for me in practice. I do know dominating practicesof abureaucraticstate(in thatthe questioning of such culturallycentral which educated people like you fit well) and a very concepts as self, the individual, or property rights harsh economic world. They see property as their cannot simply be an abstract one, or one done, as protection, perhapsin the way you have always Sarah reminded me, from a position of academic seen your education as your protection. Surely I need privilege.8 not remind you of how importantthestruggleto regain some kind of ownership relationshipto land is for indigenous people or peasants! So I think you Concluding teacher's notes must be careful that your analysis does not confuse the very different meanings of property. There is no Environmental education must not be treated as an easy or neat way from outside my neighbourhood to "add on" to existing educational practices. Rather, it say what issues should be taken up and how this must be inserted into existing disciplines, whether should be done.' Local discussions of environmental they be economics, sociology, English literature or ethics need to be grounded in therealitiesof t he physics, in ways that throw into relief the basic people whose lives are involved. People talk a lot assumptions the discipline makes about nature, and 74 Martha McMahon 75 the relationship between society and nature, and Notes on contributor thus thevery way itconceptualizesitsown problematic. The division of disciplines in schools Martha McMahon receivedherundergraduate and universities, and the separation of the stories degree in sociology and economics from University we tell in school and the stories we telloutside College, Dublin, Ireland, and her doctorate from school makes it difficult to have those reflective McMaster University, Ontario, Canada. She is an publicdiscussionsthatwould bepartofa assistant professor in the department of sociology a t transformative, ethical,environmental education. the University of Victoria where she teaches in the For now, I think that education, or much that passes areas of gender, women and the environment, and for education, is still more part of the problem than qualitativemethods.Sheistheauthorof part of the solution. Engendering Motherhood, published by Guilford Press (1995).

Notes References Challenges to power from within the centre conjures up images of a coup d'etat or circulation of elites. Feminists Carmen, Raff. 1994. The logic of economics vs. the dynamics seektoexposeanddismantleoppressivepower of culture: daring to (re)invent the common future. In relationships rather than take over power, even m the Wendy Harcourt (Ed.) Feminist perspective on sustainable name of a ' good cause." development, 60-74. London and New Jersey: Zed Press. 2 hooks clearly acknowledges her debt to Paulo Freire. Cheney, Jim 1994. Ecoferninism and the reconstruction of 3 Post script: Because the clear cutting on the edge of the environmental ethics.In K. Warren (ed.)Ecological woods left them suddenly exposed, this tree and four feminism, 158-178. New York: Routledge. others near it were blown down in the strong winds of Deutcher, I., Pestello, F., & Pestello, F. 1993. Sentiments and winter 95. acts. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. 4 For example, we live in a racist society yet only a minority Frazer, Nancy. 1989. Unruly practices: power, discourse and would acknowledge acting in a racist way or holding genderincontemporarysocialtheory.Minnesota: racist or white supremacist views. We live in a society Minnesota University Press. characterized by rhetorical commitments to equality and Foucault,Michel. 1980. InColin Gordon (Ed.), democracy, yet inequality is increasing, and many feel Knowledge/power: selected interviews and other writings democracy to be decreasing. We live in a society where the 1972-1977. Bury St Edmonds: St Edmundsbury Press. majority of people say they value "the environment," yet Hanson,Lorelei.1995.Turningrivalsintoallies. there is ongoing environmental destruction. Alternatives 21(3):26-31. 5 According to Carmen (1994, 65), it is the apparent political Haraway, Donna. 1991. Situated knowledges: The science neutrality of these terms which fosters the illusion of questioninfeminism and theprivilegeofpartial. objectivity by which ethical judgement is frustrated. perspectives.. In D. Haraway, Simians,cyborgsand 6 Challenging dominant meanings of ownership is a political women.. New York: Routledge. as well as symbolic process. On Tuesday July 11, 1995, hooks, bell.1994. Teaching totransgress. New York: Mohawks walked to remember the 1990 Oka crisis. In a Routledge. radio interview,the mayor of Oka describedthe Merchant, Carolyn. 1980. The death of nature: Women, Mohawks as nomads who had no real claim to the land. ecology and the scientificrevolution. San Francisco: Harper "We have Legal Title to the land (he said) and I cannot & Row understand why they say they were robbed." According Plumwood, Val. 1994. The ecopolitics debate and the to the Globe and Mail (Wednesday July 12, 1995), non- politics of nature. In K. Warren (Ed.), Ecological feminism, native residents arranged a mock funeral to protest what 64-87. New York: Routledge. they say the crisis cost them in real estate values, peace Salleh, Ariel. 1995. Nature, woman, labor, capital: Living of mind, and safety. withthedeepestcontradiction.CapitalismNature 7 Sarah's comments remind me of Lorelei Hanson's (1995) Socialism 6 (1):21-39. study of the Wise Use Anti- Environmental Movement in Scott, Joan. 1988. Gender and the politics of history. New Western Canada and the US. Lorelei Hanson argues that York: Columbia University Press. the movement's success was partly due to Smith, Dorothy. 1990. The conceptual practices of power: A environmentalists' unreflective framing of opposition to feminist sociology of knowledge. Toronto: University of current land use and existing property rights. This framing Toronto Press. so violated the everyday lived experiences of those who Warren,. Karen. 1994. Toward an ecofeminist peace politics. worked on the land and in resource extraction industries In K. Warren (Ed.), Ecological Feminism, 179-199. New that they were easily mobilized by powerful corporate York: Routledge. anti-environmental interests. 8Salleh (1994, 38) describes the strategic tightrope those who challenge dominant conceptual practices often walk. On the issue of individual rights, for example, ecofeminism zigzags a course between a) establishing the liberal ri&hts of women as individuals to speak while b) at the same time deconstructing the validation of those rights and c) demonstrating how people can live differently with nature and each other.

An Unwanted Story 75 78 Environmental Education, Liberatory Education and Place-Sensitive Narrative Val Plumwood, University of Sydney

Environmental education and ecological denial that the ecological crisis is not just, or even primarily, a crisis of numbers and technology, but rather a crisis Reports from all over the world confirm the of rationality and morality. Ecological denial is a growing degradation of global ecosystems highly disfunctional response to the crisis which can caused by human impact on the biosphere, only deepen it. intensifying dramatically over the last fifty years There is plainly a need for a major reassessment since the institution of the postwar economic regimes of our culture and where it is headed. Prospects for of growth and development. Both greenhouse effects real change are, notoriously, defeated by the short and accelerating ozone loss are now confirmed, and it time frame and relative inflexibility of political and is estimated that human activity consumes as much economic institutions and decision-making which are as 40% of the net photosynthetic product of the earth, unable to bring key framework social structures into a pattern which has been doubling every 25 to 30 question. "Environmental education" seems to offer years. In the 1990s we produce as much in two weeks the best longer term framework in which to as was produced in an entire year in 1900 (George, problematise our present course and undertake the 1993). As David Orr puts it: "The truth is that many major institutional reassessment and preparation for things on which our future health and prosperity change that is required. Environmental education depend are in dire jeopardy: climate stability, the could play a leading role in this reassessment and in resilience and productivity of natural systems, the generating constructive responses which look beauty of the natural world, and biological diversity" forward to a better time. Before it can play this role, it (1994, 7). The often invoked term "sustainability" must deal with the contemporary limitations on its tends to obscure the seriousness of the situation; effectiveness created by the dominant dualistic clearly no culture which sets in motion massive models of knowledge and by the associated processes of biospheric degradation which it has science/humanities split. Existing practices of formal normalised, and which it cannot respond to or correct environmental education are often disappointingly can hope to survive for very long. The crisis of the narrow in focus, especially at the tertiary level, and coming century will challenge all our social capacities usually fail to bring scientific knowledge into balance for ethical and political organisation, for rationality, with critical social thought or to provide a good imagination, and social correctiveness. environment for action for social change. It is a matter of common observation that the In the second section, I show why effective necessary social change which might begin to reduce environmental education must break out of the this impact and begin the construction of a dominant objectivist models of knowledge in which sustainable society has not been occurring. These it is presently contained. I shall suggest that the problems are not being addressed because of the creation ofeffective and criticalforms of growing entrenchment, in the present deeply environmental education require a challenge to the conservative age, of institutions whose first priority is dualistic organisation of knowledge within the to save the woridviews and social structures which empires of our intellectual establishments, and generate ecological destruction and to represent them especially to the objectivist paradigm. In the third as unchangeable. These woridviews block the only section, I argue that environmental education can obvious and satisfactory routes to meeting ecological find more useful parallels in the methods and aims of crises in ways consistent with maintaining a humane liberatory education than those of objectivist social order, and tend instead to direct efforts into scientific education. Critical environmental education two alternative disfunctional reactions. They focus parallels the other forms of liberatory education effort, first, into hopes for technological solutions which emerged from the activist movements of the which leave damaging social institutions un- '60s and '70s women's studies and anticolonial challenged and which often have further damaging studies in requiring alternativeknowledge side effects; and second, they divert energy into the paradigms which can integrate personal, experiential, strategy of ecological denial. "Ecological denial" is political and theoretical understandings. I suggest the response to the crisis in which the bulk of the that we can pursue this parallel further with other social effort and energy is put not into dealing with forms of liberatory education and think of critical the problem but rather into denying that it exists. environmental education as challenging anthro- Contemporary ecological denial adds to the evidence centrism in terms which parallel the way critical race

76 Val Plumwood 7 7 and gender education challenges eurocentrism and from activism. Not only environmental education androcentrism. In the fourth and fifth section I show itself, butall these latter areas suffer as a how place-sensitive narrative and other educational consequence. First, both environmental philosophy, strategies can challenge anthrocentric perceptions and critical environmental thought informed by the and forms of identity. humanities and by philosophy, suffer because, as areas beyond the classical canon, they are regarded as marginal and secondary within their parent Dualism in the formal knowledge paradigm philosophy and the humanitiesdisciplines themselves, but rarely find an alternative home I shall focus my remarks on environmental education within the special units set up to "handle" the in the institutional context mainly on Australia, the environmental problem. These special units, like case with which I am most familiar. In Australia, a lot science culture generally, also tend to marginalise of resources are going into environmental education, critical environmental thought because they retain a but the result, I think, is on the whole disappointing. version of the positivist approach to knowledge in Disciplinary division and the dualisation of which the alternative to "hard" scientific education is knowledge constructs environmental education as a seen as "soft" spirituality. Positivism insists that second class form of knowledge, and rarely allows it questions of value, and indeed anything other than the opportunity to address fully the key social science, are "soft," areas where no claims to expertise elements in the creation of environmental problems. can be made and one opinion is as good as another. Since the dominant paradigm of scientific neutrality Unless they fall under the "hard" category of and value-freedom renders philosophical and social economics, so this thinking runs, the areas omitted critique unwelcome or illegitimate (Harding, 1991), from scientific environmental studies are mushy, and the placementofenvironmental education thus do not require real attention, or qualifications predominantly within this dominant paradigm and training in critical humanities disciplines; they serves to mute the important corrective challenge are appropriately handled, if handled at all, by any critical environmental thought poses to present forms engineer or zoologist with a passing interest in of social organisation and to the dominant version of "deep" environmental spirituality. One effect of the our relationship with nature. These structures uncritical acceptance of the positivist "hard/soft" disempower environmental education and prevent it dualism, and the associated religion/science false from addressing the main problems we have to face. dichotomy, has been to set many environmental Australian environmental education has been education facilities up as tiny countercultural situated squarely within the dominant paradigm of enclaves within the academy, at their best places of scientific education, the favoured disciplinary good fellowship and good intentions, but often location being geography.Sometimes several lacking the basis for, and even hostile to, careful scientific disciplines are gathered together to create a philosophical and social critique. The critical forms of larger "resource management" or "environmental environmental education tend to be left out in the studies" program, which may take up several cold, marginalised from both sides, as it were. existing areas likeforestry and agriculture; The second casualty of this way of organising sometimes there is an attempt to expand the menu by knowledge is the prospect of ecologically-motivated the provision of some minor non-science, most social change. The placement of environmental commonly, a "spiritual" ingredient as a garnish for education within science studies creates an objectivist the basic scientific fare. But these modifications climate which is chilly for activism and social change usually representthelimitofintegrative work in the environmental area. Activist staff and adventurousness. Few programs have attempted to students often .find that commitment to critical carry integration further to give serious or equal thought which challenges the status quo is regarded weight to critical forms of knowledge situated in the as suspect, as compromising their objectivity and humanities. Those which have attempted such scholarship. Objectivism is a key element in making integration have often been seen as illegitimate and the education system hostile to the kind of social lost support (for example the Human Sciences change commitments neededtomeetthe Program at ANU) or have had to accept relocation environmental crisis. Recent feminist, philosophical within one or other of the knowledge polarities to and other critiques of The Enlightenment have cast survive. much light on the dubious origins of the modern This dualistic treatment of environmental scientific concept of objectivity as disengagement education in the institutions tends to divorce assumed in the objectivist paradigm. The concept of mainstream environmental education from critical scientific disengagement proves to be a powerful social thought, from environmental philosophy, and

Environmental Education, Liberatory Education,and Place-Sensitive Narrative 77

pt lr constituting and normative mythology for science, Impartiality, neutrality and disengagement by and perhaps the one which most strongly marks definition exclude relationships of care, sympathy science out as a masculinist activity. There is now a and engagement with the fate of what is known, great deal of work which shows that the ideology constructing connection is seen as a source of failure accords poorly with actual scientific practice and and error, and the object known is seen as alien to the scientific discovery (Kuhn, 1962; Feyerabend, 1975; knower. They imply the closure of the knower to the Latour and Woolgar, 1979; Merchant, 1981, 1989; other, for the knower is construed as one who can Johnson, 1987; Haraway, 1989). But the ideology of change the other to make it conform to desire but objectivity has its uses, as we shall see, one of them who cannot be themselves changed by this other being the facilitation of control by privileged social (Benjamin,1988).The other can be known groups, and the ideology shows no sign of completely, and in the absence of consent weakening. The concept of scientific objectivity knowledge can be wrung from it, as a form of power which demands from the researcher a perspective over it. The withholding of recognition and respect free of social engagement demands the exclusion of (which are forms of engagement), and the adoption considerations which have to be left out or put aside of basic non-ethical stance towards the world, leaves as corrupting in order to achieve a properly objective the field for mechanism and instrumentalism judgement. Objectivity is usually seen as excluding towards the object of study. The ruling out of care the emotional, the bodily, the particular, the personal, and respect as foundations for the knowledge and of course especially the "political." relationship dictates an instrumentalising politics in We can begin an historical account of objectivism which what is known becomes a means to the with Descartes' concept of objectivity, since the knower's ends, whether through direct manipulation distinction is of modern construction, although built or through simply figuring in the knower's schemes on top of classical foundations. The Cartesian knower as a "case," an experimental or observational means as "thinking substance" is treated as without body, tointellectualor academic gratificationor unlocated, his knowledge not limited by a bodily advancement. The mechan-istic stance is expressed in perspective; the body is backgrounded and denied in the treatment of nature as lifeless, homogeneous and the Cartesian account of achievement and identity. passive and in the negation of nature as agent. Thus As with the early Plato, identity is divorced from the objectivist forms of science not only cannot challenge, but body, interpreted, as in the Phaedo, as a hindrance to are actually major supports for, the anthrocentric knowledge. As Susan Bordo shows, the ideal of worldview that environmental education must aim to knowledge as freedom from doubt and as objectivity disrupt.' is also interpreted as freedom from the body and its In the absence of care and respect for what is deceptions, weaknesses and hindrances, its personal studied and of responsibility to those who will be and emotional ties (Bordo, 1987, 89; Flax, 1985, 27). In affected by it, it is inevitable that the knowledge Cartesianism, as in earlier rationalism, the excluded relation is constructed as one in which the known is and inferiorised contrast of "pure" thought is merely a means to the knower's ends or to the ends feminine but also includes much more than the of power which they, in the absence of respect and feminine. Its contrasts now include not only care, will come to serve. The presence of an animality and the body itself, but also material instrumentalising politics is particularly clear when reality, practical activity, change, the emotions, those known are threatened, and especially when sympathy, and subjectivity. These features are drawn they are threatened as a direct result of what has been together in the new concept of objectivity: interpreted learnt about them. The politics of the disengaged oppositionally as pure thought, objectivity involves anthropologist who does not care whether the setting aside "all distractions and passions which indigenous people studied are harmed by his work obscure thinking" (Bordo, 1987, 27). As Evelyn Fox illustrates this clearly, as does the politics of the Keller points out, the insistence on such a concept of natural scientist whose work opens the way for impartiality imposes a rigid barrier between subject destructive exploitation of the items studied. Power and object which renders suspect recognition of is what rushes into the vacuum of disengagement; relationships of sympathy and continuity with what the fully "impartial" knower can easily be one whose is known (Fox Keller, 1985). It involves not just skills are for sale to the highest bidder, who will bend separation but hyperseparation between knower and their administrative, research and pedagogical known which construes sharing and connection as energies to wherever the power, prestige and hindrances to knowledge, the object known as alien funding is. Disengagement then carries a politics, to the knower, and the knowledge relation as power. although it is a paradoxical politics in which an of neutrality is used to conceal a commitment to power. 78 79 Val Plumwood Although the ideology of objectivism continues disengagement in practice translates as the demand to dominate in our institutions, especially in science, that there be no visible engagement. more recent and sophisticated understandings of a The term "false universalism" is widely used to more mature science and of epistemology give us describe claims which are presented as appearing many good reasons now to reject all these stories from a universal perspective, but which in fact aboutdisengagement.Forexamplethe conceal assumptions about the world which proceed subjective/objective distinction has proved to be not from a certain identity or position in it. Feminism and nearly as hard as empiricism and scientism assume. some forms of postmodernism have mounted a Studies of science have shown that "objective" strong critique of "false universalism" and shown science involves interpretation, myth, image and that it works to exclude marginalised perspectives by metaphor, in ways not dispensable or detachable and establishing concealed, normative identities which that it is difficult to draw as sharp a boundary as are Western, white, elite, and male The demand for often supposed between "hard" Western science and the presentation of work in terms of a neutral, the explanatory systems of other times and cultures impartial, universal perspective which does not own (Marglin and Marglin, 1990). Philosophers of science to any particular engagements or responsibility to have pointed out that apparently "hard," objective any knowledge community (Addelson,1993) observation does not play the determining role in operates in the same way as false universalism, that scientific theory the mythology gives it (Feyerabend, is, it operates selectively to exclude marginalised but 1975; Kuhn, 1962). Observable data is rarely not privileged perspectives. As Iris Marion Young privileged over theory in the way this mythology points out in the case of the universalised citizen suggests; observation is often (some would say (1989, 257): always) theory-dependent, and a great deal of what passes as science involves a "bootstrap" methodology In a society where some groups are privileged while others are oppressed, insisting that as . in which "Nature" is required to play a dual role as citizens persons should leave behind their both "external" confirmer and "internal" construct of particular affiliations and experiences to adopt a scientific theories (Latour, 1987). At the same time, general point of view serves only to reinforce that privilege; for the perspectives and interests of the there are good reasons to reject the account of "soft" privileged will tend to dominate this unified areas like value as "subjective" in the sense of being public, marginalising and silencing those of other arbitrary and not open to reason or to better and groups. worse judgement.' The "soft" areas are much harder and the "hard" areas much softer than the original The call for neutrality tends to exclude affiliation dualism and the standard accounts suggest. to marginalised but not to privileged groups or to The objective .knower must not only deny all power.Itdoes this especially by marking relationship to, and care for, what they know, but marginalised perspectives but not privileged also deny any elements which would "locate" them, perspectives as "political" or "biased." Just as the or their perspective, and present themselves and their appearance of neutrality usually hides the treatment knowledge as absolute and transcending location. of the male perspective as the unmarked norm, in The limits and social shaping of knowledge imposed terms of which any explicitly female one is marked as by the knower's identity and their cultural or disruptive or out of order, so the perspectives of personal "slant" or "set" are disappeared in the power are usually left unmarked. They can appear as presentation of such a knowledge as emerging from a "history," "expertise," or perhaps "reality," and universal perspective, or as transcending perspective, represent the invisible, unspoken norm in terms of as "the view-from-nowhere" (Haraway, 1991). One which others can be marked as "political" departures. does not have to be an extreme epistemological (This marking is often enshrined in disciplinary relativist to reject these sorts of accounts of terminology, for example, in the contrast between the knowledge which disappear the knower. All viable discipline of "political economy" and the unqualified and current epistemological theories have had to "economics"). Work by those who challenge the concede that the knower is active not only in seeking status quo, but not by those with official, and selecting observational input but in constructing conservative, privileged or instrumental approaches knowledge, that knowledge is a social activity, not to it, can be presented by this marking strategy as the passive and "neutral" reception of raw, "pure" inordinately "political" or "biased," even though all observational data by presocial individuals. The these positions involve political commitments of impossibilityof unlocated and disengaged various kinds. Objectivity can thus be represented as knowledge means that the demand for objectivity as the property of those who support the status quo, and the lack of it as a quality of those who oppose it.

Environmental Education, Liberatory Education and Place-Sensitive Narrative 79 Objectivism sets up a climate of political quietism multicausal in its manifestation as the contemporary which affects the entire academy and the whole environmental backlash movement. But it is also a conception of scholarship, such that any work which background epistemological condition to modernity, is explicitly engaged and open about its politics or expressing of a certain kind of insensitivity to activist commitment is likely to be considered ecological relationships and priorities which indicates doubtfully "scholarly." Situating environmental a profound, historically traceable cultural distortion education within the regime of normal science allows of knowledge and reason (Plumwood, 1993). If one of thedominant objectivist paradigm of scientific the failures it signals is a failure of rationality and neutrality and value-freedom to dominate and render associated failure of social and political institutions to illegitimate both philosophical and social critique and develop an adequate response, an urgent need of the any but the mildest forms of activism. This outcome times must be for good philosophical and social is no doubt a major reason for the preference for this analysis and education which can show the reasons regime of organisation by conservative forces within for the blindness to our present peril and trace its the university. While science studies remain strongly historical and cultural roots in our societies. The under the influence of objectivism, science cannot be overwhelming emphasis on accumulating more a good place to locate an environmental education knowledge of the scientific facts or of technological discipline which must have as its primary goal that of alternatives will not show us how to turn teaching people to care for their environment and environmental degradation around or how to understand their embeddedness within it. encourage people to care, at both the local and global It is increasingly apparent on other grounds that level. For that, we need a critical focus on the social the science domination of environmental education and cultural aspects of the problem, together with leaves out the key area of critical analysis and forms of knowledge which foster care, engagement, prevents it addressing the real problems. Over the and responsibility as knowledge makers to last three decades since the rise of environment communities of knowers and known. movements in many countries, a great deal of information has been gathered about the increasingly degraded state of the global environment, about the Alternatives to the dualistic knowledge paradigm: rate of deterioration, and about its main causes. At The personal and the local the same time, much information has been generated about the alternative technologies we can adopt to There is much more involved in challenging the avoid these impacts. Although doubtless there are dualistic knowledge forms which now disempower many important additions still to be made to this environmental education than just adding more knowledge,' I think we have now a general idea of philosophy and social theory to the existing mix. the types of technological and economic alternatives Humanities and social studies have their own forms we would need to put into place to avoid further of objectivism, in which prestige inheres in being destruction of the global ecosphere upon which all "hard" in relation to someone else's "softer" area, ourlives depend. The objectivist form of and these forms also work to marginalise social environmental education I have been discussing can change commitments. The rationalist institutional transmit and even expand this kind of knowledge, paradigm and context in both science and humanities but it will not help us explore the social forms that oppose the abstract knowledge of rationalist best foster our ecological survival. Nor does it help us education to the emotional, the narrative, the understand why our societies are doing so poorly in particular/personal, the local and the experiential, so implementing the changes ecological rationality that the normal institutional model of knowledge is indicates. Not only does the dominant form of both depersonalised and "deplaced" (Orr, 1992). environmental education allow objectivism to create These features make it especially unfriendly to a knowledge climate hostile to social change work, it indigenous forms of knowledge and learning, and rarely addresses even the major academic questions inhibit the development of alternative ways of surrounding the creation of the ethical and social relating to nature. To counter these narrowing forms conditions for a sustainable culture. of reason/nature dualism, environmental education One crucial area present forms of environmental must transform its objectivist and rationalist elements education do not address (except in the barest to adopt features we usually associate with cultural economistic terms) is the concept of ecological critique, literary studies, and liberatory education. rationality itself, and the origins of its opposite, As we have seen, the objectivist paradigm is ecological irrationality and ecological denial. unable to mount a challenge to and even supports Ecological denial ishistorically variable and anthrocentrism. The account of anthrocentrism I 80 Si Val Plumwood discuss below suggests a counter-hegemonic teaching at an earlier stage of our lives, as experiential and model which has much less in common with pre-institutional. A richer concept of education as scientific education than it has with cultural critique involving reflection on, and interpretation of, and with "teaching to transgress" (hooks, 1995), experience treats it as a lifelong process which bursts teaching which aims to disrupt a colonising the bounds of formal education and permeates all our worldview and to create and affirm a different set of life spaces. In my own life, I often tend to feel that I relationships, experiences and forms of knowledge. If have learnt far more from various not formally what is involved in countering hegemonic centrism is scheduled experiences and events which have come the reconstruction of aset of colonisation my way than from all the formal, planned relationships based around identity formation and educational programs someone has carefully and the suppression of certain kinds of experience, it is deliberately slotted me into. Where I have been able reasonable to suppose that there will be useful to benefit from these formal sources, it is largely parallels with other liberatory educational practices, because the informal part of my life has created the that, just as the structure of anthrocentrism parallels right spaces for this formal knowledge to inhabit. The that of androcentrism and eurocentrism, so may personal and experiential contexts which formed my some of the methods of undoing it. own life commitments to environmental philosophy Many liberatory educationists have emphasised and activism were largely pre-institutional. The main the importance of the sphere of personal experience space in which much of my own environmental in alternative liberatory contexts which aim to education was gained was the rich and rewarding disrupt oppressions of class, race and gender (Freire, "school of the bush." 1972; hooks, 1995). They have shown that the A letter from well-educated Northern Territory articulation of personal experience is a crucial friends who tell me that they have chosen to send learning resource for the oppressed who are their child to "the school of the bush" with routinely insulted, ignored or downgraded in neighbouring Aboriginal children rather than dominant styles of education which aim to create through formal schooling reminds me of my own universal forms of knowledge and interchangeability years of education in that same school, and prompts or uniformity of educational product. These dualistic me to seek out the core of my own environmental anduniversalising models are the educational commitment in that experience. I was born in a expression of dualistic models of oppositional reason hessian shack in the bush as the daughter of rural as abstraction in opposition to particularity, of reason poor parents with just a few years education between as disembodied and impartial in opposition to the them. They had taken on the deprivation and concrete and the bodily, and of particular deviations unceasing labour of clearing and establishing a tiny from the "universal" model as illegitimate. These truck farm on the poor sandstone hills to the north of models also support insensitivity to ecological Sydney in the Great Depression, as an alternative to relationships and relationships to place. the abject misery and passive dispossession of poor Most of us inquire, ponder and learn effortlessly urban life. My parents' preoccupation with survival when oriented to and motivated by personal left me lots of opportunity from the youngest age to experience, fired by a unquenchable curiosity about explore the fringing forest of an exciting and why the things life sends our way work out as they extremely rich natural area; our little place adjoined do. This experiential foundation for learning "from what is now Kuringai Chase National Park, one of life" is abundant, equally available to us all, and the best wildflower areas in eastern Australia. My normally requires little or no coercion to motivate us formal education took the form of "correspondence to inquire into and draw on it. We all want to school," with my generous but overworked mother understand our own story, why the love light or the as teacher, but the bush was my real school, and heavy hand fell on us, and not some other. In all provided most of my friends and many of my most these respects the informal "school of experience" importantdevelopmentalandeducational contrasts rather markedly with the kinds of highly experiences. organised, formal "universal" educational resources I am keenly aware of the double-sided nature of available to most of us, which are scarce, accessible the formal schooling I was later to experience, of its differentially to privileged groups, and often combined oppressive and liberatory aspects. As a emphasise discipline and coercion. poor girl, I was almost always the outsider in an Of course it is important to work to improve educational context which denied and devalued both environmental education in the institutional context my class and my gender experience; but at the same (Orr, 1992), but most of the crucial lessons regarding time, getting an education and both I and my the possibilities of our relationship to nature appear parents had to struggle hard for my right to it

Environmental Education, Liberatory Education.and Place-Sensitive Narrative 81 82 provided a rare route to a kind of respect and dignity school were there so that each student could realise normally denied to a girl of my class, and sadly their best. Unless you were a bright girl, of course, missing from my mother's life. Although I remain and you soon found out that such ideals of equality deeply ambivalent about the formal education and excellence somehow didn't apply to you, that system in which I have spent so much of my life, I instead of being rewarded you would often be subtly feel that I benefited unequivocally from the "school punished, especially if you excelled in the wrong of the bush" as a liberatory educational context. The areas, such as science, by ridicule or by the bush was a lively and frequently sensational learning withdrawal of support or love. You found out one environment, one which accepted me as I was and way or the other (in my case, from the lips of the provided a refuge from the tensions and constraints principal himself) that if you were a girl, high marks of an oppressively structured social life. The bush were a problem: that if you were going to succeed as offered opportunities for friendship and adventure, a female, to succeed in the sphere of love, then you for a rich set of imaginative and real meetings with would actually have to fail in your academic diverse others from bull-ants to echidnas, and for self performance: that any victories, especially where as well as other knowledge all (seemingly) they involved outperforming male students, would unstructured by relations of power and domination. be bought at a very heavy price. Girls had to adopt In both my past and present political context, the many different ways to deal with this knowledge, bush was and remains a wondrous sphere of freedom within the framework of two broad strategies to and healing. rebel or to conform, to renounce the need for love, or The large impact of false universalism in the to mutilate our lives for it. No, if you were a girl, you formal education system can be illustrated by a small learnt that yours was not the subjectivity the story about a leaf. Eventually I was uprooted from institution had in mind when it spoke of opportunity the bush and sent over a long daily distance to the and excellence. Our education was "colonising" big primary school in a leafy suburb on the posh because it allowed space for the expression of only North Shore occupied by solicitors and accountants, the dominant group's experience, treating only their carefully planted with the deciduous English trees kind of subjectivity as real. which expressed their colonial inheritance and class But it was scarcely possible to tell such stories, to aspirations. When autumn came around, our new articulate such wounding experience freely in biology teacher asked us each to bring in a leaf, a red personal or emotional terms; school was certainly not leaf, she said, "from home." For the occupants of the a place where girls were able to share and reflect on neatly Anglicised streets, where the imported trees such widespread experiences. Certain kinds of were now turning brilliant colours, this was rather personal experience were valued, others were not, easy. For me, the request was something of a puzzle, and if you wanted to survive you had to learn to be and I sought high and low. The natural sclerophyll sensitive to the difference. Where the value of the bushland in which our little farm stood provided no personal is recognised in these dominant forms in such winter-deciduous plants, but there was a small universalising education, it is often very selectively but steady supply of aging leaves from the great chosen, rewarded and used. It is precisely those eucalyptus, a few of which retained some spots and forms of experience associated with dominant groups streaks of brilliant colour for a day or two before which tend to be recognised, the others being reverting to the normal leathery brown of their final counted as "irrelevant," "disturbing" or illegitimate. phase. Perhaps this was what the teacher wanted? Or alternatively, it is precisely because admitting Well, of course, it wasn't. My contribution, the wrong certain kinds of experience threatens certain ways of kind of red leaf, brought a low mark and belittling establishing and normalising dominance that remarks. The real "lesson" we learnt was one about experience has to be so carefully downgraded and whose "homes" and experiences were the wrong controlled. The eager, participatory learning it could kind and whose were not, who should be quiet and provideissubordinated to colonising and who should not, and simultaneously, which land- universalising models which silence some forms of scapes should be admired, and which passed over in knowledge and constitute them as subordinate. silence, viewed as mere "scrub," the utilitarian back- Liberatory theorists have shown how the ground to life in the privileged deciduous suburbs. container models and banking models support non- Falseuniversality imposed patternsof participatory and elitist models of teaching in which dominance which could hide their poisoned fruit learning is conceived as a monological, one-way beneath some very noble ideals, for example the idea process (Freire, 1972). Clearly the social context in that all the students equally were to be encouraged which these models are preferred is one which and rewarded to excel, that all the resources of the legitimates inequality and dominance. The exclusive

82 83 Val Plumwood preferencefortheabstract,theoreticaland the narrative mode. For environmental education as a universalising model and the demotion of the local, form of liberatory education, there is a related moral. the personal and the experiential has a similar origin. The sphere of the particular and of personal The functionality of these abstract, universalising experience which is devalued in institutional and approaches is that they deny the relevance of the universalising models is crucially important in student's experience not just in the interests of establishing ecologically-sensitive relationships to downgrading experience in general, but in the place. It is here especially that we should seek ways interests of presenting certain otherkinds of to disrupt the colonising narrative defining experience as universal, that is, it has a colonising anthrocentric relations to place and to nature as the functionality. The denial of the value of each person's only possibility. experience provides a way to superimpose certain dominant experiences as universal; the political force of the disembodied voice is that it provides a way to Decolonising the mind: Anthrocentrism and impose a set of dominant voices. The dominance of environmental education these privileged models is potentially disrupted by the presentation of "different" experience, which is Ecological denial as a background condition results why experiential presentation must be made so from certain ways of treating human identity and problematic and be so carefully controlled. human relationship to nature which are deeply I am far from suggesting that education can embedded in Western culture and highly resistant to simply consist in the narration of personal change. For 25 centuries or more, Western civilisation experience, or that there is no role for abstraction or has seen nature as another to be colonised, the for formal education as a vehicle for developing background to the truly human life, this being collective knowledge. Collective education makes defined in opposition to and "outside of" nature. knowledge communities in terms of shared patterns More recently nature has been seen as a commodity of meaning, common structures for interpreting and or potential commodity,a set of replaceable, guiding experience. It can establish fruitful and interchangeable units answering to human demand creative ways for these communities to combine and lacking limits which might inhibit that demand. reason, reflection and experience. But the dominant To combat this mindset, we need not only to educational systems have done much more than this, foreground our failure to take action on ecological they have deeply marginalised the sphere of personal degradation at the analysis, research and educational experience we need to mobilise for joyful, policy level, but also to trace and counter these participatory and eager learning experiences and left colonising and commodity attitudes at the level of the personal sources of ecological insensitivity environmental education for everyday life. In the unchallenged. To sum up, in the context of colonising context of this hegemonic model, environmental education, experience can have liberatory educational education should understand itself as a subversive potential in several ways: discipline aimed, like anti-colonial and feminist education, at unmasking and overpowering a form of it is subversive in its potentiality to disrupt sites hegemonic centrism, the anthrocentric form, which of privilege built on false universalism; can be understood as parallel structureto it draws on fundamental resources which are eurocentrism and androcentrism. A program to fully and equally accessible as wellsprings of challenge anthrocentrism needs to aim at more motivation and engagement; specific objectives than the vaguely specified the personal is the site of concrete, sensory, program of "boundary crossings" and "disruption" emotional and bodily experience many of the which figures in many forms of postmodernism, and spheres devalued and denied by reason-nature to pay attention to reconstructing particular aspects dualism = the place where "differences" cannot of coloniser identities and to the knowledge relation be pushed aside as irrelevant. associated with these identities. The critique of androcentrism as a focus for These features help to explain why personal women's studies is oriented not just to providing a narrative has been a particularly important resource framework for articulating women's experience but for oppressed groups in decolonising education also one which critiques dominant masculine (hooks, 1995), and why educational systems whose identities and the forms of culture which express underlying objectives include the establishment and them. Understanding the ways in which such maintenance of various kinds of privilege structure in colonising identities are opened to the (self) critical a deep hostility to and distrust of the personal and gaze can provide some helpful parallels for a similar

Environmental Education, Liberatory Education and Place-Sensitive Narrative 83

Rel critical enterprise in relation to the dominant education, and show how we can change systems of culture's construction of human identity. As the distribution, accounting, perception, and planning so preliminary to opening up the possibility of new as to acknowledge and allow for nature's needs and kinds of relationship, the coloniser must acquire a limits. certain critical attitude towards his or her own Countering homogenisation involves bringing identity, and a corresponding attitude of openness about an ecological understanding of nature's and attentiveness ("listening") to the other precluded amazing diversity. Incorporation can be countered by by the colonising relationship. Anticolonial education creating an understanding of nature's own complex disrupts the coloniser's radical exclusion of the other, order, and of the developmental story of nature. the conception of radical, natural difference between Environmental education can counter instrumen- colonising self and colonised other which naturalises talism and the orientation to control by establishing radical inequality and the double standard of access some humility and sensitivity to nature's creativity to consideration, so as to establish a basis for seeing and agency, and by stressing uncertainty and the the other in the same kinds of ethical terms as the extent of what we don't know. Instrumental relations self. to nature can be countered in various ways: for Anticolonial education must aim to disrupt the example, by promoting alternative caring and colonising consciousness's idea that these others are attentiveness modes of relationship to the land, by "all the same," its homogenising insensitivity to the learning about non-instrumental models in other diversity of the other's kinds and expressions. cultures, and by generating local earth stories which Because it defines the other entirely in relation to self, can place local relationships with nature in a more as an absence of self or as periphery to self as centre, storied and less instrumental framework. Critiquing the colonising consciousness views the other's anthrocentrism is sometimes presented as an optional difference as a lack or as the ground of inferiority, "spiritual" extra in environmental education, but if and denies or neglects dependency on this other and we understand anthrocentrism in the way I have the other's order and limit ( Plumwood, 1993, 1996). It suggested here, it is clear that countering it must be aims to incorporate the other, recognising them only at the heart of any good environmental education, as a form of the self, and instrumentalises them by whether the concept is introduced explicitly or not. denying or subordinating their agency. Ecological It should be noted that the account I have given denial is compounded of these elements of here, which posits anthrocentrism as parallel to other contemporary consciousness in relation to nature, forms of hegemonic centrism,' is at variance with the producing in amplified form the distributive failure understanding of many of the concept's critics and to recognise our crucial dependency on nature and its detractors, as well as some of its advocates. On their contribution in our lives which has been such a account, countering anthrocentrism would push us characteristic feature of the Western tradition. If, as it towards greater degrees of abstraction and seems,all these anthrocentric aspects of the detachment from self and from the personal. On the colonising consciousness appear in contemporary account of anthrocentrism given by critics of the idea attitudes to nature, one of the main aims of a good (for example, Grey, 1993 and Thompson, 1990), environmental education must be to disrupt them. anthrocentrism is like geocentrism. Anthrocentrism Thus environmental education can try to counter results from an excess of localism and a failure to radical exclusion by an emphasis on human entertain a sufficiently universalising framework; it is continuity with non-human nature and by bringing a corruption induced by human particularity, about an understanding of human embeddedness in particular attachments to times and places, to human nature. It can contest dualised conceptions of the perspectives and frames of reference. Overcoming it human and challenge conceptions of human virtue is thought to involve maximising epistemological based on exclusion of characteristics classedas detachment, obliterating anything which speaks of or natural, stressing instead ones which acknowledge from personal experience, and conceiving nature in human care for and relatedness to the natural world. ways as neutral, non-sensory, and impersonal as In the crucial area of countering backgrounding and possible (Grey, 1993). denial, environmental education can raise awareness There are then two conflicting conceptions of of how much we depend on nature, and of how this anthrocentrism and of countering anthrocentrism, denial is expressed, for example by critiquing one associated with a universalising discourse institutions and forms of rationality which fail to demanding the elimination of self and particularity, recognise this dependency on nature, suchas and one which focusses on the colonising conventional economics. It can stress the importance consciousness associated with hegemonic human and value of nature in practical exchanges and centrism. These conflicting accounts are reflected in

84 c5 Val Plumwood opposed ideas of what we might aim to achieve in in mechanism. The narrative is a vital part of the anti- environmental education and how we might go colonial kit: it can suggest and help pass on models of about it. Counter-anthrocentric teaching, on the first human identity and modes of experiencing nature "cosmic" account, would seem to amount to or which enable us to recognise the other in nature as a converge with the kind ofobjectivist, scientific unique presence, as another centre itself, rather than teaching which aimed at maximum impartiality and as an interchangeable member of a class of detachment from its subject matter, and strove to "resources,"orasdescribedintermsof distance from experiential discussion and personal characteristics which present it as periphery for our reference points. Since all valuing must involve centre. Narrative can not only help us to interact non- selecting some states or beings in the world over instrumentally with the particular places in which we others, counter-anthrocentric "cosmic" are situated, it can enable us, via origin stories; to environmental teaching would have to be completely construct identities which are defined in relation to value free (Grey, 1993). Since this is incompatible these places which Cheney (1992) calls "storied with any commitment to environmental health, it is residences." Aboriginal people in Australia draw on hard tosee how any counter-anthrocentric many of these qualities of narrative in their environmental education is possible, and in fact this renditions of the unique qualities of place as "view from nowhere" account is particularly beloved conveyed in Aboriginal Dreaming narratives. (This is of those who denounce the whole idea of just one of the things such narratives convey of anthrocentrism. But the closely related transpersonal course; there are also many other kinds of meaning in and detachment models are not without adherents in the Dreaming stories). These features can be the deep ecology camp who have not, I think, fully mobilised in wider contexts to teach ecological taken in their implications. sensitivity and place-sensitive identity. This"cosmic" prescription for countering Recently I have been able to put some of these anthrocentrism via detachment is deeply problematic ideas about narrative and about anthrocentrism into in its implications for environmental teaching. Its practice via involvement in an intenseforest account concurs in the suppression of the sphere of conservation campaign to save an area of forest near particularity and the personal and converges with the my home which has been scheduled for a round of methods and aims of colonising and universalising logging that threatens many ofits unique reason. The conception of anthrocentrism it is based biodiversity features. My contribution to the on rests on a confusion (or set of confusions) about campaign has involved, among other things, taking the relationship between particularity and selfishness groups of people into the forest to explain to them its (Young, 1989) between epistemological and ethical biodiversity features, and educating the local centredness, and an inadequate analysis of what is community in the unique features of the place and involved in hegemonic centrism in general and the ecological relationships disrupted by logging. The human hegemonic centrism in particular (Plumwood, scientific part of this educational task is handled well 1996). In contrast to the universalising sweep of the by a fellow activist with a bio-science background "cosmic" sense of anthrocentrism, the anti-colonial who talks about the biological roles of old growth account I have outlined points towards ways to forest, the rare fauna for which it is habitat, and so counter anthrocentrism via developing forms of on. This leaves many crucial problems unaddressed narrative identity sensitive to the particularity of self however. and place,exploringalternative modes of One problem I found was that people tended to relationship to the colonising forms which place think of the area not as an ecological whole but in humans at the centre and define nature as lack. terms of the polarised stereotypes of "virgin" and "logged-over" forest, often focussing on discri- minating the virgin "bits" that should be saved from Anthrocentrism and place-sensitive narrative the logged bits that were already "fallen" and had lost all virtue, except as resources, in their eyes. I Narrative provides an important way of generating wanted people to move beyond these unhelpful place-sensitive forms of culture and identity which "virgin/whore" stereotypes to think of the valley as a further these aims by drawing together the personal, diverse ecological whole centring around the river, local and experiential aspects that are devalued or and to be able to meet the delightful presences that ignored in rationalist educational paradigms. The could still be encountered in both the unlogged and narrative form can be mobilised todisrupt the logged-over forest, which I thought also deserved subject/object, centre/periphery perceptions and protection. I also wanted to encourage them to re- definitions, as well as the radical exclusion involved envision the forest as a place of origin, a specially

Environmental Education, Liberatory Education and Place-Sensitive Narrative 85 revelatory "vision" place for this community, rather gathering red bottle-brush flowers, they noticed two dark than as a narrowly economic resource for sawlogs, grey cockatoos coming towards them out of the north, in a and so I wanted to bring out the exciting, magical strange zig-zag flight pattern. As the birds grew close, the features of the place. One of my most useful devices sisters heard them calling, weaving their own names into here is a narrative I wrote myself which, a little bit in the most entrancing and irresistible song they had ever the style of a "dreaming" creation story, links various heard. Soon the Waratah Sisters had fallen deeply in love of the natural features I want people to appreciate. with the singers, the Gang-Gang brothers, and longed to be The story introduces several of the unique features of with them. Because it was the first time they had fallen in this particular place, and explains their origin and love, the sisters did not know that their longing would relationship to one another in an imaginative and pass, and thought they would die from sadness if they were memorable way. We can teach in abstract terms unable to follow their loves. about ecology, but narrative can teach much more, The brothers could not stay with the sisters on the speaking simultaneously aboutlove,death, mountain, for there was nothing suitable for them to eat ecological morality, and biogeographical distribution. there, but urged them to come back with them back to their This story draws on the scientifically established home in a high valley of the mountains to the north, where features of the place, on my personal knowledge and they could all live together. The cockatoos took off, and the relationship to the place, and in various ways on sisters ran swiftly behind, but they were slower than the elements of my own life. There are of course many birds, and just as they came within view of their ways to express and draw upon personal experience destination, the afternoon mist came down, and they lost other than the simple narration of life events. sight of their lovers. The sisters grew tired and sat down to The story's heroines are two waratah "sisters": rest by a place of many beautiful ferns, which Aboriginal waratahs are widely admired as some of Australia's people call Monga, where they had seen the brothers most beautiful and spectacular native plants. I relate disappear into the mist. They were hungry and lost, and this creation narrative to people while guiding them began to entertain some doubts, for the first time, about through the piece of forest in which the logging love. coupe is situated and where the two waratah species As they sat there, it grew dark, and a cold wind stirred are found. The points that I particularly want people the mist. A deep call sounded nearby, and soon the sisters to focus on are that there are two waratahs side by were aware of a presence. Silent wings brushed their side in this forest, a feature found only in this shoulders, and a slow, resonant hooting began a few feet particular place, and that the nearest population of above their heads. The Gang-Gang Brothers had sent a one of these waratahs is 170 kilometres to the south at large and clever friend, the Powerful Owl, to tell them of a place called White Rocks, while the other waratah their whereabouts and work out a way to meet up. Between has its main population in this forest. I also wanted the hoots which kept her in contact with her distant mate, the story to mark, as well as the ferns, the rainforest, the Owl told the sisters that the cockatoo brothers were the river, and the characteristic weather (orographic waiting for them at a point higher up the valley. To reach rain and afternoon sea mist), another remarkable and them, said the Owl, the sisters would have to pass the lair mysterious feature of this place, the extraordinary of a gigantic spider, the Mega-Mygalomorph, who had density and species diversity of mygalomorphs stretched her great web in a funnel-shape right across the (funnel-web spiders). As in many traditional stories, narrowest part of the valley. At the bottom of the funnel, in mine balances death and love themes, and presents a cool, dark, moist chamber she had constructed, the love, or at least the capacity for generation, mighty Mega-Mygalomorph watched and waited. (symbolised by the colour red) as the ultimately From the spinnerets at the bottom of her velvety grey triumphant explanatory force driving both human belly, the Mega-Mygalomorph extruded a pearly substance and non-human distribution. Here is the story. which solidified to form the glistening coils she wove into her intricate, silky web. So far, she had been able, to catch The Waratah Sisters and the Mega-Mygalomorph all the creatures that tried to move through the valley, except for the owls and the cockatoo brothers, who knew Once there were two Waratah Sisters living in the South, how to fly above the web. The Mega-Mygalomorph had six nestling beneath their mother, a large White Rock. The intelligent eyes, eight black legs, and a huge flat thorax like White Rock took good care of her daughters, and they grew a big shiny black hearse. She saw and heard every up strong and content at her side on their breezy mountain movement in the valley, liked her food fresh, and had never overlooking the sea. The sisters were very happy in each spared any creature. The Mega-Mygalomorph was doing other's company, and so whenever a suitor courtedone of well, daily growing bigger, while the teeming creatures of them, they turned away, and remained together. Butone yesteryear grew ever sparser, and the valley was silent. late spring morning, when the Waratah Sisters were out The spider was not so much deliberately cruelas

86 Si Val PI umwood indifferent, and a bit arrogant. The Mega-Mygalomorph snake or crocodile bites) you will see on its underside two never gave any thought to the sufferings of the creatures little red patches, that are what is left of the marinade who fell into her trap, nor did she ever try to communicate pouches. And that is also why both the Gang-Gang with them. The Mega-Mygalomorph thought that the Brothers and the Waratah Sisters have glorious red heads. creatures she caught were nothing but meat, too primitive The Gang-Gang Brothers and the Waratah Sisters have to communicate, and that for their stupidity they deserved since passed on to other loves, but the Waratah Sisters to be eaten. from the south still live in the Monga forest, side by side. The Powerful Owl explained that the great spider had And every spring they unfold their wonderful, glowing red a weak point, however: just at the top of her belly, on the heads, as a reminder of the great passion that once moved underside, were two large red pouches which contained a them there. red jelly. The spider used this substance as a kind of marinade to flavour and tenderise her victims and make This story, like many traditional mythic stories, them edible. Without it, there would only be a few kinds of may seematfirstglanceto be blatantly creatures she could eat, and she would not be able to cause anthropomorphic, presenting non-humans in what nearly so much damage. The pouches were the key to the we often like to claim, mistakenly in my view, as the Mega-Mygalomorph's growing power. What the sisters exclusively human terms of intentional description.5 must do to get past the spider's lair, said the owl, was to In terms of my own sense of engagement with nature creep up to the great creature when she was sleepingoff as both a child and an adult, what seems to me one of her enormous meals, and empty these pouches.Then particularly important in encouraging such they would be able to pass safely through the web to the engagement in others is providing a sense of beings embrace of their lovers, and the valley would be safe again in nature as "alive," as beings at the centre of their for them, for their children, and for all the other creatures own narratives, rather than at the periphery of ours. which had once lived there in great numbers. The brothers Narrative enables them to be understood as would help them, and were waiting in a tree by the lair. appearing in their own stories, possibly, but not The Waratah Sisters set off into the rainforest, necessarily, as the main narrators or subjects, but wondering at the wealth of delicate ferns and mosses that primarily as storied beings, where the story is about covered every surface, at the dim, green light and the them, not in some disguised, Disney way really about almost unbroken leafy roof over their heads. Ahead through us as humans. Theorists of colonisation note that the the trees, like a swirling silver mist, they could see the colonising consciousness regards Aborigines, for great funnel-shaped web, and soon they saw the huge example, as objects of study rather than as subjects of spider herself, spread out on her back dozing, with her legs and creators of their own stories (Longley, 1992), and in the air and the red pouches clearly showing. With great that the bias of anthropology is towards features of courage, they rushed forward, and seized the pouches. At cultural groups rather than the details of individual the same moment, the Gang-Gang brothers swooped down lives. Treating others in the natural world as from their high perch to hold the pouches open. Together individual storied beings counters this subject/object they emptied the first pouch without trouble, but half way dualism and provides access to richer descriptions of through emptying the second, the spider shifted position, them which recognise them as active shapers of their and the Gang-Gang Brothers and the Waratah Sisters got lives and possessors of their own interests, directions, the red jelly all over their heads. But almost immediately and intentional dispositions. Conceiving nature as the spider began to dry up and shrink, and soon she was a active, as agent (not, of course, necessarily as moral dried out husk that broke into a thousand tiny pieces an agent), and therefore as more than an instrument for inch or two long, and scattered about in the forest. As she our ends, goes together with conceivingit dried up, the coils of the great web that issued from her intentionally and ethically. spinnerets began to liquefy again, and flowed together in a Seen in this way, narrative treating them as crystal clear stream of water that ran onto the ground and "subjects of their own lives" by no means implies wound its way through the fern forest as the Mongarlowe anthropomorphism in any damaging sense. Rather it River. involves recognising other earth beings as "telling a So the Waratah Sisters were able to pass through the story," which may be a developmental story about web, and join the Gang-Gang Brothers in their place of the earth, or in the case of plants and animals, may be desire beyond. The pieces of the great spider became the a story in which they appear as agents for amazingly dense population of mygalomorphs that exists themselves, as choosers on their own behalf or on in the Monga forest today, the trap-doors and funnel-webs behalf of their species, as possessors and developers that live there under the ground. And if you turn over one of their ownintentional states, and so on. The of these funnel-web spiders today (be very careful how particular dispossession effected by Cartesianism, you do it, because their bites kill more people than either which has gone to form, quite mistakenly as I have

Environmental Education, Liberatory Education and Place-Sensitive Narrative 87

;, argued (Plumwood, 1993), our conceptions of what The spiders had to be given a role in any adequate constitutes legitimate "scientific" discourse, is the creation story for this place, and leaving them out appropriation for the exclusive use of humans of would be akin to censorship, a form of self- mind-like attributes, and the eviction of nature from imposition which betrayed a colonising orientation. It this same terrain. It is a crucial part of an ethical and would be a (potentially dangerous) denial of those anti-anthrocentric stance toward nature to restore confronting features that did not fit the romantic some of this vocabulary of intentionality, both as part postcard fantasy of the forest, the erasure of the death of the enterprise of subverting ethical dualism, and as theme reducing the love theme to a saccharine a way to subvert the dualism of our own identities. fantasy. As a biodiversity activist, I was concerned Thus, a story like this can be useful in a number about demonising spiders (an. all-too-common of ways in countering anthrocentrism and the approach), and so tried to focus the negative role colonising consciousness that is expressed in the attributed the spider and dislike aroused in the treatment of nature in impoverished mechanistic audience not upon spiderhood, but upon further terms. In order to establish an openness to the other features of the spider I hypothesised indifference and to different possibilities for relationship, we must and arrogance in the treatment of other species, and disrupt the closed mind which posits the other as the the ecological destruction of the valley. Since these homogenised occupant of a radically different, characteristics are in fact, at the present time, instrumentalised place. "Childlike" narratives of this primarily the characteristics not of spiders, but of a kind can help to open people to the richer particular culture of humans, this was actually a possibilities for diverse meetings such places subtle way of turning the tables on the usual anthro- represent, possibilities they may have long ago closed centric assumption of human moral superiority. off as part of attaining adult identity. Such narratives The story gives the group a strong focus on the can establish and pass on models of human identity, other's diversity and on appreciating this biodiversity knowledge and modes of experiencing nature which as a source of joy and richness in our lives. But of enable us to recognise others in nature as unique course this story is just an opening part of a larger narrative presences, as at the centre of their own discussion in which the group I lead into the forest narratives and lives, rather than at the periphery of tries to understand the other's complex order, ours as servants or chattels. As we have seen, a key (represented in the colonising framework as element in subverting anthrocentrism is being able to disorder), as expressed in the ecosystems of the grasp others in nature as centres in their own right, forest, and tries to focus on the other's limits (for a rather than as interchangeable members of a class of change) rather than on our own needs. Discussion of "resources" or as described in terms of characteristics our own needs cannot be entirely neglected, of which represent them just in relation to us. This can course, but these needs must not be allowed to usually be done much more swiftly and elegantly in determine our entire focus, as they do in the metaphor than through philosophical critique. And colonising instrumental "resource" framework. We such narratives can incorporate and build in, rather try to become conscious of and view with gratitude than simply ignoring or replacing, meticulous the many services the other performs for us, taken for scientific observation, in this case drawn from granted in the colonising framework. We try to ornithology, spider identifying features,and understand our reliance on the other's health and botanical distribution. The fabulous character of this flourishing (for example, our reliance on the health of particular narrative functions to draw attention to the the river and the rainforest), a dependency denied mysteriousness of the real story of how the elements and backgrounded in the colonising framework. A of this place were assembled, which we can only more complete discussion would pursue these guess at, and thus to establish both humility and questions ina more formal and systematic wonder. framework which translated them from questions of There was some local opinion in favour of individual consciousness to questions of societal leaving the mygalomorph spiders (which are recognition and redistribution. It would also take up understandably unpopular in Australia) completely the question of how our normal lives outside the out of our educational effort on behalf of the forest, as forest environment contribute to the loss of this place something best not mentioned in the political context most of us have now begun to see as much a unique of saving the forest. I resisted this as unacceptably and vital element in our lives as our other loved ones, anthrocentric,taking the view that the spider and which we would now similarly risk our safety to biodiversity was one of the most powerful and defend. And this we may still need to do. significant features of the forest, and that we should not be confined to what was politically expedient.

88 Val Plumwood C Notes Cheney, Jim 1992. Nature and the theorising of difference. Contemporary philosophy x111(1), pp. 1-12. Feyerabend, Paul. 1975. Against method. Verso. 1 On the concept of anthrocentrism as parallel to Flax, Jane. 1983. Political philosophy and the patriarchal androcentrism and eurocentrism see Plumwood, 1993 unconscious. In M. Hintikka & S. Harding (Eds.), and 1996. Discovering reality. Dordrecht: Reidel, 245-281. 2 Thus although ethical judgement must allow for different Flax,Jane.1985.Mother-daughter relationships: evaluations by different evaluators (since each person's Psychodynamics, politics and philosophy. In Hester conversation with the world will be different), it does not Eisenstein and Alice Jardine(Eds.), The future of difference. follow that itis arbitrary, capricious or that all New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 20-40. judgements are of equal merit. Evaluations as Fox Keller, Evelyn. 1985. Reflections on gender and science. relationships between the evaluated item and the valuer London: Yale University Press. can in turn be evaluated, for example, in terms of how Freire, Paolo. 1972. Pegagogy of the oppressed. Penguin. deeply and fully the evaluated item is "grasped," George, Susan. 1993. The debt boomerang. London: Pluto. listened or attended to, and how deeply and fully it calls Grey, William. 1993. Anthropocentrism and deep ecology. forth a response from within the evaluating self, as well Australasian Journal of Philosophy 71 (4) 463-475. as by various other criteria. hooks, bell.1995. Teaching to transgress. New York: 3 This is not to deny that research in these areas is Routledge. underfunded, especially compared with the first Haraway, Donna. 1991. Situated knowledges. In Simians, category, and is presently subject to even more cutting. cyborgs and women: The reinvention of nature. London: Free In the contemporary USA, for example, ecological denial Association Books. has led to loss of research funding for alternative energy Harding, Sandra. 1986. The science question in feminism. research and other key environmental research Ithaca: Cornell University Press. programs. This outcome is hardly consistent with Harding, Sandra. 1991. Whose science? Whose knowledge? ecological rationality and gives us further reason to be Milton Keynes: Open University Press. concerned about our prospects for survival. Johnson, Mark. 1987. The body in the mind. Chicago: On hegemonic centrism, see Plumwood, 1996. University of Chicago Press. 5 I would argue that, although the story involves attribut- Kuhn, Thomas. 1962. The structure of scientific revolutions. ing to the narrative subjects, the waratahs, the intentional Chicago: University of Chicago Press. description of a higher order than is usually warranted, Latour, Bruno. 1987. Science in action. Cambridge, MA: intentional description as such is not inapplicable to Harvard University Press. them. Latour, Bruno & Woolgar, Steve. 1979. Laboratory life. Beverly Hills: Sage. Longley, Ka teryna Olijnyk.1992. Autobiographical storytelling by Australian Aboriginal women. In S. Smith Notes on contributor and J. Watson (Eds.), De/Colonising the subject. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 370-383. Val Plumwoodis a philosopher and eco-activist who Marglin, Prederique Apffel & Marglin, Stephen. 1990. Dominating knowledges: development, culture and resistance. has worked on issues of forest preservation in Oxford: Clarendon Press. Australia for over 25 years. She is the author of Merchant, Carolyn. 1981. The death of nature. London: Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (Rout ledge, 1993) Wildwood House. Merchant, Carolyn. 1989. Ecological revolutions: Nature, which brings feminist theory and post-colonial gender and science in New England. Chapel Hill: University theory to bear on environmental philosophy. She has of North Carolina Press. also authored numerous papers on feminist ecology, Orr, David. 1992. Ecological literacy: Education and the transition to a postmodern world. Albany: State University feminist philosophy, and feminist logic. of New York Press. Orr, David. 1994. Earth in mind. Albany: State University of New York Press. Plumwood, Val. 1993. Feminism and the mastery of nature. References London: Routledge. Plumwood, Val. 1996. Androcentrism and anthrocentrism: Addelson, Kathryn Pyne. 1993 Knower doers and their Parallels and politics. Ethics and the Environment: (2) Fall. moral problems. In Linda Alcoff & Elizabeth Potter Thompson, Janna. 1990. A refutation of environmental (Eds.), Feminist epistemology. London: Rout ledge. ethics. Environmental Ethics 12, 147-160. Benjamin, Jessica. 1988. The bonds of love. London: Virago. Young, Iris Marion. 1989. Polity and group difference: A Bordo, Susan R. 1987. The flight to objectivity: Essays on critique of the idea of universal citizenship. Ethics, 99. Cartesianism and culture. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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Environmental Education, Liberatory Education and Place-Sensitive Narrative 89

0 tr.n The Role of the University, Scientists, and Educators in Promotion of Environmental Literacy John Lemons, University of New England

Our Common Future, prepared for the United One of the most important and largest global Nations bytheWorldCommissionan environmental conferences to address worldwide Environment and Development (1987),concluded environmental and development issues was the that rapid deterioration of the global environment United Nations Conference on Environment and is threatening life an earth. The threatsto the Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro, global environment combined with other problems Brazil, June 3-14, 1992. Planning for UNCED began in confronting humans are made more ominous when one 1990. Over 175 nations were represented at UNCED, considers that they are occurring with a current with over 100 heads of statein attendance.In human population of approximately5.6 billion addition, UNCED was attended by 1500 officially people. Because the human population may grow to accredited nongovernmental organizations. 10 billion people by the year 2030, Our Common Two internationalenvironmental conventions Future concluded that urgent and decisive political were opened for signature at UNCED: (1) the. United action is necessary to prevent and mitigate more Nations Framework Convention cn Climate Change widespread environmental destruction. and (2) the Convention on Biological Diversity. In Importantly, Our Common Future also focused addition, UNCED producedtheAuthoritative world attentionon the need to linkeconomic StatementofForestPrinciplesandtheRio developmentandenvironmentalprotectionby Declaration on Environment and Development. This explaining how some forms of development problems latter declaration contains 27 norms for state and erode the environmental resources an which they interstate behavior, many of which had never must be based, and how environmental degradation before been accepted universally. undermines economic development. For instance, Perhaps the most important document produced development that cannot afford to pay for treatment at UNCED was Agenda21, whichcontainsa of sewage creates water pollution, which in turn description of the UNCED preparatory process and limitsfuturedevelopmentoptions.Inmany prior meetings and conventionsleadingup to developing countries, in the absence of appropriate UNCED, and proposals to guide international action assistance from developed nations, depletion of inthefieldofenvironmentandsustainable many natural resources is the only means that many development well into the 21st century (Johnson, people have eitherto survive or to eliminate 1993; Lemons and Brown, 1995a). The document poverty. Consequently, Our Common Future focuses on four main themes: (1) social and economic concluded that poverty is a major cause and effect of dimensions of sustainable development, (2) conserva- global environmental problems and thatthereis tion and management of resources and development, littlehope of solving them unless, and until, (3) methods for strengthening the role of major members of the international community develop the groups, and (4) means of implementation. Agenda 21 will and means to resolve problems of human was developed for use by governments, development development. agencies, United Nations organizations, and in- To solve the twin problems of environmental dependent sector groups in every area where human degradationandeconomic development,Our activity affects the environment. In fact, under the Common Future recommended a transformation of Agenda 21 agreement, nations of the world are to nations' goals and policies to support sustainable develop plans to implement its recommendations by development throughout the world. This recom- the year 1995. mendation is reinforced by many noted scholars and The international community recognized the world leaders who believethathumanity has crucial role that higher education will have to play reached a pivotal point in history, namely, that to promote sustainable development and environ- present policies that cause environmental mental protection. Section 36.1 of Agenda 21 states deteriorationand deepen economic and social that education, raising of public awareness, and divisions within and among countries can continue, or training are linked to virtually all areas of Agenda new policies can be developed to manage and protect 21.Section36.3statesthatto beeffective, the environment more effectively on a sustainable sustainable development and environmental edu- basis and improve living standards of those in need. cation should be integrated in all disciplines anda t alllevels of education, including the university.

9 0 John Lemons 91 of Thissectionstatesfurtherthatsustainable to them as a basis for the further development development and environmental education should programs that more explicitly focus on thislatter deal with the physical,biological, and socio- theme. economic environment as wellas with human Generally speaking, two educational development. Section 36.5 goes on to stateth a t approaches for dealing with the environment have governments and educational institutionsshould evolved (Weis et al., 1992). One approach focuses on conduct a thorough review of curricula to ensure a thenaturalsciences,whereincoursesmight multidisciplinary approach and that they should emphasize environmental biology, environmental prepare strategies aimed at integratingsustainable chemistry, the earth sciences, or specific resources development and environmental education into a 11 and management problems such as conservation of levels within the next three years. Other sections biodiversity,land use planning, and watershed make substantive recommendations to improve the management, to name a few. The other approach role ofeducation in fostering sustainable focuses on a fewer number of science courses and more development and environmental protection. on the social sciences and humanities,including If the UNCED conference and its documents are courses such as environmental law, politicalecology, to be taken seriously, then it becomes necessaryfor environmentalliterature,environmentalethics, universitiestoassesstheirroleinfurthering environmental economics, planning in developing recommendations to implement sustainable devel- countries, and social change and natural resources. opment and environmental protection(see,e.g., Readers are referred to Disinger and Schoenfeld Lemons, 1995). How might universities respond to (1987) and Lemons (1992)for a more complete recommendations to promote sustainable develop- identification and description of typical courses that ment and environmental protection education? focus on environmental subject matter. A number ofso-calledenvironmentalcom- petencies have been identified to assess students' Environmental literacy knowledge of the environment, including: (1) ability to apply ecological principles to the analysis of During the late 1960s and early 1970s, faculty and environmental issues, including theanalysisof student interest in environmental issues increased. In alternativesolutions to problems; (2)abilityto part, this was due to publication of popular books understand how humans' political, economic, social, such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), Aldo literary, religious, and philosophical traditions and Leopold's A Sand County Almanac (1949), and Paul activities influence the environment; (3) ability to Ehrlich's Population Bomb (1975) and to concerns understand therole of citizenparticipationin raised by conferences such as the 1968 Biosphere solving environmental problems; and (4) ability to Conference in Paris and the 1972 United Nations applyaction-orientedproblem-solvingskillsto Conference on the Human Environment heldin achieveconduct appropriatetoenvironmental Stockholm. The early educational responses of th a t protection. Many of these competencies can be dealt time necessarily had to strive to develop coherent with in a number of different academic disciplines curricula and effective teaching processes, and to (Lemons, 1991). some extentwere experimental.Environmental Becauseenvironmentalproblemstranscend education is now beyond the experimentation stage, different disciplines, both depth of disciplinary although itisstilla new field(Lemons, 1991). knowledgeandbreadthofknowledgeacross While most environmental programs are labeled as disciplines are required for environmental literacy. environmental science, environmentalstudies, Consequently, most environmental programs are: (1) natural resources, fish and wildlife, or the like, only cross-disciplinary, wherein subject matter in one recently have programs begun to be developed with disciplineisviewedfromtheperspectiveof an explicit focus on sustainable development and another; (2) multidisciplinary, wherein the per- environmental protection. However, these are quite spectives and techniques- of several disciplines focus limited in number (Jacobson and Robinson, 1990). on a problem or issue; or (3)interdisciplinary, One of thechallengesconfronted by those wherein attemptsare made tointegratethe wishing to promote education about sustainable theoretical and analytical perspectives of several development and environmental protection isto disciplines into problem-solving (Bryant, 1992). The decidewhattoteach, andwhy. Because problem of deciding what to teachisdifficult, environmental programs are entering their third because there is no easy formula to use to resolve the decade of existence, and because they emphasize question of depth versus breadth of knowledge. In topics relevant to sustainable development and addition, many universities do not have sufficient environmental protection, it seems reasonable to look resources to meet allrequirements ideallyand The Role of the University 91 92 instead seek to match theircurricula to existing community, and farmers; (21) financial resources and strengths.Theproblemofhowtobalance mechanisms; (22)transferof appropriatetech- disciplinary depth versus breadth of subject matter nology; (23) science for sustainable development; and confronts those wishing to develop programs in (24) information for decision makers. A major task of sustainable development and environmental pro- educatorswillbetoextendtheapproaches, tection as well. Regardless of how this problem is linkages, and competencies already established in resolved, the linkages between development and environmental programs to include those necessary to environmental protection must be articulated and deal with the issues of sustainable development and implemented into the curriculum. environmental protection. Intellectually and practically speaking, Given that developing the linkages between establishing these linkages will be difficult for two sustainable development and environmental reasons. First, the meaning of "sustainability" is not protectionimposesadditionalrequirementsfor precise (Shearman,1990). One general meaning interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity, another might be "the continued satisfaction of basic human question that needs to be examined is whether, and needs such as food, water, shelter, as well as higher- to what extent, administrative structures are likely level social and cultural necessities such as security, to foster development of successful programs in freedom, education, employment, and recreation." sustainability and the environment. Another might be the "continued productivity and functioning of ecosystems." Our Common Future defined sustainable development as that which Traditional approaches to promoting "meets the needs of the present without com- environmental literacy promising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Gowdy (1994)discusses three As mentioned previously, environmental programs meanings of sustainability:(1)sustaining inter- provide the basis for a logical extension to issues of generational economic welfare, (2) maximizing the sustainable development and environmental time of existence of the human species, and (3) protection. Recent surveys haveidentifiedand sustaining nature and its diversity. Several organ- discussed the various types of university environ- izations such as the World Conservation Strategy, mental curricula according to educational goals and the World Resources Institute, the Inter-national program structure (Disinger and Schoenfeld, 1987; Institute for Environment and Development, the Weis, 1990; Lemons, 1992). Francis (1992) conven- Ecological Society of America, and the World Bank ientlycategorizedprogramsintofourtypes. regard the term "sustainability" as acceptable but Generally speaking, the primary purpose of all four ill-defined. Regardless of the precise meaning, it is program types is first to serve the needs of their clear that the term has implications for ecological, majors and secondarily to serve the needs of a more social, and economic systems. limited number of students with other majors. Second, in the words of Agenda 21, the linkages The first type are programs that serve as a basis between sustainable development and environmental for contemporary higher education goals, such as protectionmustfocus on: (1) international fostering students' ability:(1) to investigate and cooperation and institutionalarrangements;(2) diagnose problems that are inherently complex and elimination of poverty; (3) change in consumption interdisciplinary and to design possible courses of patterns; (4) protection of human health; (5) human action to deal with such problems; (2)to work settlement development; (6) integration of effectivelywithotherpeoplefromvarious environmental and development decision making; (7) institutions, organizations, and groups for problem- loss of biodiversity; (8) loss of productive dryland; solving;(3)tocommunicateeffectivelywith (9) loss of forests; (10) global warming caused by specialists from other disciplines and to exercise increasesingreenhousegases;(11) lossof leadershipabilities;and (4)to understand and stratospheric ozone due to industrial gases; (12) debate different beliefs, values, and attitudes held pollution of surface and groundwater supplies by by people and to develop a personal ethicfor toxic and hazardous substances; (13) management of dealing with issues. solidwastesandsewage-relatedissues;(14) The second type of program is that designed for management fragile ecosystems; (15) promotion of professional and other specialists. These programs sustainableagriculture; (16) managementof are founded an the belief thatvarious kinds of biotechnology;.(17)theroleofwomen;(18) professional specialists and decision makers must protection of children; (19) the role of indigenous understand and be sensitive to the environmental people;(20)theroleof workers, thebusiness consequences of what they do and that they must community,the scientific andtechnological accept responsibility for the effects of their actions 92 John Lemons 9 3 on the environment. Examples of these typesof among departments; (6) absence of clear criteria for programsinclude law, engineering, business evaluating interdisciplinary teaching and research; management, and medicine. (7) policies of many funding agencies and academic The third type of program is that designed for journals that reject interdisciplinary initiatives; (8) addressing particular environmental issues, such as reluctance of professional programs and schools to those affecting wildlife,biodiversity,pollution, make room in their curriculum for environmental population, or sustainability. Understanding each of issues; and (9) lack of administrative support to these areas requires knowledge and skillsfrom develop and sustain interdisciplinary teaching and diverse disciplines.For example, competency in research. Presently, environmental programs still biodiversity might require: (1) depth of knowledge are confronted by these same constraints, and they in one or more disciplinessuch as taxonomy/ - continueto be debatedwithoutresolutionin systematics, population genetics, ecology, cultural academicjournals,professionalmeetings,and history, ecological and resource economics, natural faculty / administration meetings just as they were 20 resource law, and environmental ethics; (2) skills in years ago (Disinger and Schoenfeld, 1987; Lemons, field/laboratory identificationsof various taxa, 1992; Weis et al.,1992). Much of the debate about quantitative analyses, and use of remote sensing these long-standing constraints has focused on the data and geographic information systems, plus need to evaluate programs' administrative problem-solving and organizationalskills; (3) arrangements to determine how they might be understanding of and commitment to the values and improved in order to overcome theconstraints. ethics that promote conservation of biodiversity and Because programs in sustainable development and a willingness to act on them professionally and environmental protection probably will be derived personally; and (4) understanding of the role of rural from more traditionalenvironmentalprograms, populations and indigenous peoples in retaining administrative arrangementsforthe former biodiversity. programs need to be chosen with care. A fourth type of program is action-oriented. Four types of administrative arrangements in Such a program emphasizes thesubstitution of general use potentiallycan serve as models for environmentally sensitive values and behavior in programs in sustainable development and environ- both individuals and institutionsfor themore mental protection (Weis et al., 1992). These include: environmentally destructive values. Put differently, (1)traditionaldepartmentstatus,(2)interdis- such a program attempts to alter the attitudes and ciplinaryprogramstructurewithcontractual behavior of students so that they are more sensitive arrangementsforteachingresponsibilities,(3) to environmental concerns. interdisciplinary program structure with voluntary The various typesof programs havebeen facultyparticipation,and (4)programs housed evaluatedfortheirefficacy,and thegeneral within existing departments. consensus is that all of the types can achieve the Advantages of traditional department status goalsofpromotingenvironmentalliteracyof are: (1) all major elements of the program are under students, especiallymajors (Weisetal.,1992). the departmental faculty's control; (2) faculty are Unfortunately,amajor problem confronted by clustered ina common physicallocation,thus programs isthatthetotal number of students promoting the type of collegial interaction that is receivingsignificantexposuretoenvironmental important in generating teaching and research ideas; issues is relatively small. (3) a newfaculty member'sprogrammatic Accounts of the formation of environmental responsibilities are within his/her departmental programs in universities some 20 years ago focused on home, thus providing protection when promotion and the constraints to promoting environmental literacy tenure decisions are made; and (4) students have a in a greater number of students (Schoenfeld, 1979). departmental "home" and sense of identification. These include: (1) intellectual problems of balancing Disadvantages of this structure are: (1) it may be breadth and depthof knowledge requiredto difficult toimplementat someinstitutions, understand and solve environmental problems; (2) primarily because of the needs for new faculty and problems of bridging the natural sciences, social facilities in a time of tight budgets, as well as fear sciences, and humanities, including questions regard- of losing some students from existing departments to ing which academic department or discipline has a a new departmental major; (2) this model may be proprietary rightto subject matter;(3)barriers expensive and not cost-effective if it results in the amongdifferent academic departmentsand duplicationwithintheinstitutionoffaculty programs; (4) university rewards of promotion and expertise and courses; and (3) implementation of this tenure thatfosterdisciplinaryasopposedto model mayrelyheavily onsplitfaculty interdisciplinary work; (5) different reward systems appointments, which could be disruptive. The Role of the University 93 PI The advantages of an interdisciplinary program opportunities, available resources, and institutional structurewith contractual arrangementsfor traditions.Any of thearrangementscould be responsibilities include: (1) the program can draw implemented in some fashion at any university, from a wide range of disciplines in a cost-effective regardless of its size or its particular emphasis on manner, because advantage can be taken of existing teaching and research. However, depending on the faculty interests; (2) the curriculum has stability, circumstances at any particular university, certain because the program has control over some of the administrative arrangements may have compar- faculty's teaching responsibilities; and (3) greater atively more advantages in allowing for the success research and teaching innovation may result from of any program. the participation of a diverse group of faculty in a Beyond these and other issues already discussed, single interdisciplinary program. The main dis- some noted scholars are now questioning the ability advantages are: (1) uncertainty as to who controls of universities to respond constructively to many of the budget and decisions on faculty time/space as the challenges in societies, including those described the program grows; and (2) all elements of program in Agenda 21. operation other than teaching, including student advising and administration, must be provided by faculty on top of their full responsibilities in their Reform of the university home departments. This may leadto divided loyalties,greater-than-averageprofessionalre- In his book Ecological Literacy: Education and the sponsibilities, and a risk to faculty during decisions Transition to a Postmodern World, Orr (1992) argues for promotion and tenure. thatuniversities havefailedin theirtaskto An interdisciplinary program based on voluntary promote environmental literacy. He argues further faculty participation has the following advantages: that our modem age may end due to impending (1)itis relatively easy to implement in a cost- environmentalcrises,and in order tosurvive, effective manner, (2) existing courses and resources humanity must go beyond our present age with its can be used in partor wholetosupport the systems of beliefs and practices to develop new curriculum,and(3)itprovidesabasisfor connections among our scientific, ethical, aesthetic, interdisciplinarycooperation.Disadvantagesof and religious world views. Orr addresses the need to this model are: (1) it is fragile because it is strongly transcend present beliefsand practicesinhis dependent upon the personal commitments of the treatment of sustainability, education, and the uses participating director, faculty, department heads, and purposes of knowledge. Throughout his book, he and deans; and (2) it depends on volunteerism and cn struggles with this question: What is important to cooperation among administration and faculty to know, and why? He is strongly critical of educators maintain a coherent program. These factors may be within the modem university because he believes highly variable from year to year. theyfailboth to grapple withthisquestion, A program housed within existing departments consequently failing to realize the contributions of includesadvantagessuchas:(1)itcan be university curricula and practices to environmental implemented at low cost, assuming the presence and degradation, and to understand thatecological use of existing resources; (2) the graduates of the literacy of our citizenry will never be achieved tracks have degrees in traditional disciplines, but unless all education focuses on issues of sustainable with a recognizable course emphasis on environ- development and environmental protection. One way mental subjects; and (3) faculty loyaltiesare not to help accomplish this is to provide such a focus to divided, but rather remain tied directly to home traditional departments and programs. departments. The disadvantages of this model are: In a series of essays on sustainability,Orr (1) it risks lack of coherence and integration, with describes various meanings of "sustainability" and different standards among departments; (2)if the discusses reasons why present cultures do not live in a tracks are dependent on existing courses for breadth, manner that promotes it, ranging from those factors each track is fragile, because faculty members may imposed by the holders of power in our societies and leave or have teaching assignments changed; and (3) therefore theoretically changeable to those factors there is a danger that an environmental program that might be inescapable parts of the human housed within an existing major or department will condition and therefore not so easily changed. Orr not providethetypeofinterdisciplinaryor examines root problems of sustainability, extending multidisciplinaryperspectivethatisvitalin down to our assumptions about science,nature, addressing environmental issues. culture, and human nature. He discusses contrasting Administrative arrangements for programs often approaches to sustainability that encourage a global represent compromises based on historical technocracy and more efficient development and 94 John Lemons alternatives that require an ecologically literate In the third and last section of his book, Orr citizenry that understands global issues and knows analyzes the role of knowledge in problems of how to live virtuously. In another series of essays on sustainable development and environmental sustainability, Orr discusses the fact that unless we protection. He questions whether we can successfully redefine national security to include environmental manage our planet, given the fact that, as judged by threatsto our well-being, and unless we focus the state of the world and the human condition relations among nations awayfrom perpetual today, we have failed to manage ourselves well. He economic growth and competition, we stand little proposes that we design our human enterprises to be hope of achieving a sustainable world. Lastly, Orr congruent with thelimitationsimposed by our emphasizes thatsustainability,citizenship, and ecological world and that we must stop trying to democracy are closely linked and thatchange redesign nature to fit infinite human desires. promoting sustainability therefore can be achieved In his epilogue, Orr asks how virtue is to be only by focusing on issues of participatory democracy taught in an age of shopping malls, MTV television, and the development of an informed citizenry. and a narrow focus on "careerism." He argues for the Orr critiques the role of the university in both importance of university teachers as role models for contributing to and attempting to ameliorate the studentsintheireffortstoliveecologically, problems of sustainable development and sustainably, and virtuously. Students, faculty, and environmental protection. Our universities have administrators within universities not only must provided very little attention to the problems. For teachtheabstractbutalsomustpractice example, problems of sustainability are problems sustainability,stewardship,andparticipatory because they are about the terms and conditions of democracy.Consequently,Orrproposesthat human survival. Despite the fact that almost a 11 universities must be laboratoriesto utilizethe issues of politics,economics, public policy, and creative energies of their members to find ways to ecology willbe affectedby resourcescarcity, shift institutional buying power and practices so as populationgrowth,climatechange,lossof to cause less environmental damage. These things biodiversity, deforestation, ozone depletion, loss of are needed for allstudents, not just those in the soil, and so on, the content of most curricula in ecological or environmental sciences. Will universities, with few notable exceptions, failsto universities rise to the challenge and make literacy deal with these problems adequately. Consequently, about sustainable development and environmental Orr focuses on questions about the earth's limits and protection a focal point for the education of a 11 theirrelevancytothecontent and process of students? Will universities become laboratories or education, and the way in which educators define models for sustainability? Orr says that unless they knowledge and what is important to know. Some of do, the world stands littlechance of solving the Orr's recommendations include a synthesis of the environmental crisis. sciences and thehumanities,abroadeningof Although Orr's case to reform the university is philosophical depth and breadth for all students, perhaps the most eloquent, his voice is not the only greater understanding of ecology and the impacts of one calling for university reform. Bok (1990) and human activities on the earth, and a system of Langenberg (1991) have criticized the failureof education that blends the theoreticalwith the highereducationto become more engagedin practicalor experiential. Most importantly, Orr resolving problems of sustainable development and believesthatuniversitiesmust playamore environmental protection. Sigma Xi(1992) has substantial role in engaging all students to become launched a major agenda for discussion of problems active in fostering societal change; this implies that and prospects for promoting sustainable development facultyandadministratorsrecognizethat a 11 and environmental protection. One of the conclusions education should be about sustainable development stemming from thisagenda isthatuniversities and environmental protection to some degree, and should be more acutely aware of the dimensions of that they therefore should revise their curricula sustainable development and environmental substantially.Orrisacriticofthe modem protection problems. In particular, they must begin to universities because he believes that they commit explore three basic questions: (1) What kind of a sins of omission as well as commission in failing to world do we have? (2) What kind of world should teach the basics about the earth, how it works, the we want? (3) What must we do to get it? Malone consequences of our activities upon it, and possible (1993) argues thatifuniversitiesacton their remedies for the problems we generate. How much of answers to thesequestions, theywillcome to thisis normally included in standard courses in understandthat their responses are more economics, politicalscience, business management, revolutionary than evolutionary, which is to say psychology, philosophy, or even biology?

The Role of the University 9 5 96 that major changes in the structure and function of curricula for an environmentally sustainable future; education will be required. and (7) work with the United Nations and other There are some signs thatatleasta few national and international organizations to promote administrators and faculty are beginning to grapple a worldwide university effort toward a sustainable with the question of whether the overall mission of future. Since this meeting, 157 university presidents universities should be reformed to address problems from 38 countries have signed the declaration. In ofsustainabledevelopment and environmental addition,theConferenceofEuropeanRectors protection. For example, the University of Georgia's representing 490 university rectors endorsed the highest faculty governance body and administration declaration's principles. recently passed a resolution that the university: (1) Recommendations to reform therole of the recognizes the critical importance of environmental university to promote education about sustainable problems in today's world and is committed to development and environmental protection might be environmentalresponsibility; (2) willfoster viewed as unrealistic.However, Malone (1993) environmental studies by establishing an environ- remindsusthatuniversitieshaveundergone mentalliteracyrequirement by addressingen- substantial reform before. For example, more than a vironmental issues throughout the curriculum; (3) century ago a significant number of universities were will emphasize environmental stewardship in its chargedwithaddressingtheapplicationof extension and service activities;(4) will encourage knowledge to meet the agricultural needs of the an interdisciplinary approach to teaching, research, expanding population of the United States. Another and service that strengthens holistic environmental reform occurred in a number of universities th a t appreciation; and (5)willteach environmental responded to Vannevar Bush's proposals for the responsibilitybyits ownexamplethrough establishment of a close relationship between the environmentally sound management and practices government and the university research community. (Knapp, 1993). Perhapsmoresignificantly, 22university presidents from 13 countries convened in Talloires, Professional organizations and France, in 1990 to discuss the role of universities in environmental competency promoting sustainable development and environmental protection (Cortese, 1993). These presidents Recently,severalnationalandinternational developed a number of recommendations and a organizations serving the needs of environmental declaration of principles that they would adopt to professionals have become involved in attempts to make sustainable development and environmental define knowledgeand skills required for protection education and research a more central environmentalcompetency.Dependingonthe goal of their institutions. In particular, they agreed outcomeofsuch involvement,therecouldbe totakethefollowingactions:(1)use every significant implications for environmental science opportunity to raise public, government, industry, and related programs. foundation, and university awareness by publicly The NationalAssociationof Environmental addressingtheurgent needtofosteranen- Professionals (NAEP), is one of the United States' vironmentally sustainable future; (2) encourage a 11 largest organizations serving the needs of those in universities to engage in education, research, policy theenvironmentalprofession;italsohasan formation, and information exchange on population, international membership and program. The NAEP environment, and development to move toward a seekstoprovideitsmembershipandother sustainable future; (3) establish programs to produce professionals in the environmental field, as well as expertise in environmental management, sustainable the interested public, with a means for interaction economic development, population, and related and theopportunity for optimizingsocialand fields to ensure that all university graduates are economic well-being while assuring the achievement environmentally literate and responsible citizens; and maintenance of a healthy ecosystem. The NAEP (4) create programs to develop the capabilityof isan interdisciplinaryprofessionalsocietyof university faculty to teach environmental literacy to persons engaged in all aspects of the environmental all undergraduate, graduate, and professional school process, including scientific research, management, students;(5)set an exampleof environmental administration,planning,engineering,environ- responsibility by establishing programs of resource mentallaw,andeducation.Itsmembersare conservation, recycling, and waste reduction at the employed in the private consulting sector, industry, universities; (6) conveneschooldeansand government, and academia. environmental practitionersto develop research, In an attempt to promote expertise, confidence policy, informationexchangeprograms,and and trust in environmental professionals, NAEP 96 John Lemons Q sponsors an existing voluntary program tocertify the a certification program is thatit would provide competency of environmental professionals. The assurance to people outside of the profession th a t NAEP Certification Program providesthe anyone certified as an environmental professional environmental professional with the opportunity to will have demonstrated his or her expertise in both be judged by a board of peers to possess those special general environmental practice and in one or more qualifications ofeducation,experience, and specializeddisciplines.Italsoisfeltth a t accomplishment to warrant being designated as a profession-wide certification will benefit govern- Certified Environmental Professional. A decision to ment regulators and environmental professionals, grant certificationis based on a reviewof a who now are frustrated by the lack of standards for candidate'seducationalbackground,applicable practice and performance intheenvironmental professional experience, letters of reference, and a profession.In otherwords,regulatorscan use written examination consisting of mandatory and certification as a condition of licensing electiveessayquestionsdesignedtotestthe environmental professionalsto practicein their communication skills and technical expertise of the jurisdictions, and competent environmental candidate. professionals can use their certification as a means of Recently, NAEP has initiated a national effort distinguishingthemselvesfromlessqualified to develop and implement a mandatory competitors. standardized national certification program that The NAEP also is considering the development would be accepted by governmental and private and implementation of two other programs whose sectors (Lemons, 1994). In March 1993, a National goals are to promote competency in environmental Certification Initiative to promote the development professionals. One is an entry level certification and implementation of a mandatory certification program designed for people with lesser amounts of program was sponsored by the NAEP and other experience. The goal of this program is to separate professional environmental organizations, and was those individuals with cursory knowledge of the launchedinWashington,D.C.Hundredsof environmentalprofessionwhopurporttobe environmental professionals expressed interestin qualifiedto treatenvironmental problems from thisproject.Approximately66 percentof the thosewithmoreextensive(butnotexpert) responses to the National Certification Initiative knowledge and experience in the field who had were from the private consulting sector, about 15 passedtheentrylevelcertificationprogram percent were from industry, and about 15 percent requirements. The other is an accreditation program were from government. However, there was little whose purpose would be to promote qualityin representation from academia. In April 1993, the college/universityenvironmentalprograms and NAEP requested that the Environmental Protection courses. This would be achieved by development of Agency recognize the need for the profession to standards approved by an accrediting body for establishaunifiedenvironmentalcertification environmental and related programs at colleges and program and to encourage other organizations to join universities. with it in the mutual pursuit of this objective. More Development of mandatory standardized recently, in June 1994 the NAEP invited selected certificationprograms for environmental profes- university educators to attend a session focusing on sionalsandthedevelopmentofaccreditation certification and accreditation held at its annual standards for college/university academic programs meeting. However, a relativelysmall number of are based on the premise that we know: (1) what educators attended this session. constitutes environmental problems and the nature of TheNationalRegistry ofEnvironmental their solutions, (2) what knowledge and skills are Professionals, the Institute for Environmental Audit- required to solve them, and (3) how to assess ing, the Federation of Environmental Professionals, competencyinunderstandingofenvironmental theInstitutefor ProfessionalEnvironmental problems and their solutions. Given the wide array Practice, and the Air and Waste Management of environmental programs that differ with respect Association are examples of otherprofessional to educational and career goals as well as in their organizations that have interests in or are working emphasis of subject matter, it is not clear whether on developing a mandatory national certification this premise should be used to prescribe specific credential for environmental professionals. requirements for certification and accreditation. Underamandatorynationalcertification In orderfora nationwide mandatory program, an environmental professional would have certification program or accreditation standards for to pass successfully the exams and other qualifying environmental or related programs at colleges and criteria required to be a certified environmental universitiesto be implemented,atleastthree professional in order to practice. A rationale for such questions need to be resolved with care. One question The Role of the University 9 7 9 8 is: Who decides who or what is an "environmental environment often are based on different paradigms, professional"? The question needs to be answered and they define environmental problems and their with some clarity in order to measure competency solutions differently. Consequently, the question of and develop accreditation standards. Decisions need whether and how to develop a national mandatory to be made regarding the level of education and certification program and accrediting standards for experience that an individual must have in order to college and university programs requires a process be called an environmental professional. Issues about that ensures the equal participation of people from whether certain types of responsibilities or work in different employment areas and disciplines so that certain employment areas are required to qualify as competing goals, interests and views are resolved an environmental professional need to be dealt with. fairly. Further, participants in this process should Another problem to be resolved is who decides these be nationally recognized in their fields. issues and on what basis. A second questionis:To whatextent will mandatory certification and accreditation require a Ought scientists and educators advocate shiftin emphasisofsubjectmatter,research for public policies? interestsof faculty,and educational goals and philosophies for the diverse programs already in Ecologists and other environmental scientists as well existence? Practically and philosophically,itis as educators -have important roles to play in shaping difficult for faculty to accept what are perceived to the goals of environmental public policy and in be limitations an their areas of specialization or cn providing information useful for decision making, the commitments to educational goals and philos- especially those that pertain to sustainability and ophies they hold. In addition, some faculty will feel ecological integrity (Westra and Lemons, 1995). A that accreditation will control programs' content and recent president of the Ecological Society of America make programmatic change more difficult. provided numerous examples where ecological facts Potentially,it will be more difficult to obtain played at least a significant role in decision making. the support of faculty and university administrators His examples included theroleof ecology in to accept program changes at some universities as decisionsforgovernmentprogramsconcerning comparedtoothers.Generallyspeaking,the ecosystem and coastal zone management, decisions to tendency of those involved in professional programs regulate pesticides, goals to promote inultispecies has been to focus on the practical knowledge and forests, and the problem of acidprecipitation. skills required for professional competency Similarly, in 1988 the U.S. Environmental Protection primarily, and to focus on the goals of a liberal arts Agency asked scientiststo design a program to education secondarily. Consequently, the curricula of anticipate environmental problems by assessing the professional programs tend to devote more time to nationwide distribution of ecological resources and the needs of the profession at the expense of a trends in theirfuture condition (Gosz, 1992).In liberalarts education. Whilethe emphasis cn response, scientists have developed a statistically professional career training is more accepted at the based sampling grid-based program for Environ- graduate level, still there is the question of exactly mental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) how to balance professional training with liberal wherein thousands of scientists are at work assessing arts goals even at the graduate level. Faculty and the characteristics of seven basic types of ecosystems administratorsatpredominatelyliberalarts (near coastallands, aridlands,inlandsurface institutions may very well be wary of accepting waters, wetlands, agroecosystems, Great Lakes, and standards for their programs imposed by an outside forests)anddevelopingindicatorsforthem. accrediting body serving the needs of a profession. Likewise, other scientists such as, e.g., toxicologists Finally, a third question is: Whether and how develop models and methods so that the harmful to represent diverse interests in deciding questions effects of various chemicals and substances can be about certificationandaccreditation?Environ- predicted and used as a basis for decision making and mental professionals work in the private consulting promulgation of regulatory standards to protect sector, industry, government, environmental organ- human and ecosystem health. izations, and academia. They have been educated in Despite these brief examples of the use of science diverse disciplines such as the naturalsciences, in environmental decision making, I consider in the social sciences, humanities, law, and engineering. following section of this paper: Whether or to what The interests, goals and views of professionals from extent the information and methods of ecology can different employment areas and disciplinesare provide the basis for environmental decision making sometimes different. Their views an the and if so, how? Part of my reason for asking this fundamental relationships between humans and the question stems from a recent study which I directed 9 8 John Lemons 99 concerning the implications of scientific uncertainty species composition, but they are stable in the sense to environmental problem-solving (Lemons, 1996). that species composition can be relatively constant The condusion of this work is that on the whole over time. On the other hand, rocky intertidal ecological theory and more recentlytoxicology regions are relatively diverse, yet highly unstable methods and techniques have so far not been able to since they may be perturbed by a single change in provide either the largely descriptive,scientific species composition (Paine and Levin, 1981). condusionsoftennecessaryforenvironmental Other problems have contributed to the lack of decisions or the normative basis for public policy. predictive power of the diversity-stability hypoth- Following, I discuss several historical examples esis. For example, ecologists have defined and used to illustrate that despite the heuristic power of two of the concepts most basic to ecology "com- ecology, general ecological theory has failedto munity" and "stability" or "balance" in ambiguous provideaprecise,predictivebasisforsound and sometimes inconsistent ways. Not only have environmental policy. Next, I briefly summarize they used different terms to represent the same someoftheimplicationsofuncertaintyto community and stabilityconcepts, but they also environmental problem-solving; namely, thatso- have employed the same terms to stand for different calledscientificandlegalburdenofproof concepts. For example, ecologists have thought of requirements cannot be fulfilled which generally stabilityin terms of:(1)variablesreturning to means thatactivitiesthatpotentiallyaffect initial equilibrium; (2) how fast the variables return environmental or human health likely will continue following a perturbation;(3)thetime thata until such burdens of proof can be met. Because the variable has a particular value; (4) the degree to uncertaintysurrounding environmentalproblems which a variableis changed following a per- makes itdifficult for scientists and educatbrs to turbation; and(5)thevarianceof population speak out in favor of particularpublic policies densities over time. These five meanings suggest a regarding protection of the environment, I conclude conclusion more damaging than that "stability" is a with a discussion of whether scientistsand/or complex term. Not only are the meanings partially educators in their professional roles ought to engage inconsistent, but also they do not all assume the in advocacy for public policy regarding same-state variables or parameters. Because they do environmental decision making. not,theyprovidelittlefoundationevenfor probabilistic or statisticalclaims about stability (Shrader-Frechette and McCoy, 1994). Generalizable theories in ecology Another interesting interaction between general ecology theory and environmental policymaking, One well-known generalizable theory proposed by which also raised questions about the role of general ecologists was known as the "diversity-stability" ecological theory, had to do with one of the longest hypothesis (see, e.g., McIntosh, 1985). Simply put, legal conflicts over environmental policy wherein thehypothesisstatesthatthemore diverse the United States Environmental Protection Agency communities of species are more stable, or that some challenged five New York utilitycompanies to balance of nature is maintained by promoting diverse prove thattheir water withdrawals would not communities of species. For many ecologists, complex adversely affect the Hudson River striped bass trophic systems and diverse communities are more population. After spending tens of millions of dollars stable than less diverse, or simpler, ones. On the researching this problem, scientists still could not basis of the diversity-stability hypothesis, many estimate with any precision the ecological effects of people have argued that decision makers should waterwithdrawalon onlythis onespecies exercise caution in altering ecosystems, so as to (Barnthouse, 1984). protect biological diversity and thus maintain the In themid-1960s, many ecologists urged a dynamic stability or balance of naturally functioning dramatic new approach to ecology, namely, the ecosystems. By the late 1960s and early 1970s this study of functional ecosystems using the methods of hypothesis achieved the status of a proposed truth systems analysis and those of an international or generalizable theory and was used as one of the programofbiologicalresearch called the rationales for the passage of the Endangered Species International Biological Programme (IBP). As one Act in the United States (Commoner, 1971). ecologist put it,this was very likelythe most However, as we know thishypothesis has important event in ecology in the last 30 years. The fallen into disrepute for a number of reasons. For focus of the IBP was "big biology," where trophic example, salt marshes and rocky intertidal regions effects in ecosystems were understood and quantified provide only two counter examples to the diversity- using nutrient cycles, flows of energy and matter, and stability hypothesis. Salt marshes are simple in systems analysis. The difficultywith the IBP, The Role of the University 9 9 100 despite its successes, was that after a decade of statisticalmodels and analysis;(9)statistical many millions of dollars of funding for large-scale, design of manipulative studies; (10) variability in long-term ecosystems studies, itcould provide no mesocosmorotherecosystemsurrogates;(11) precise theories with predictive power. Hence, the extraneous variables; (12) mistakes in accounting for IBP provided littleassistance to scientists who interactions among species or the combined effects of wished to use general ecological theories and their chemicalsorstressors;(13)useof parameter predictions to help justify specific environmental estimates that do not fit actual observations; (14) policies and decisions (McIntosh, 1985). mistakes in computer code of simulation models; (15) Another prominent ecological theory claiming to use of extrapolations from short-term experiments to provide specific predictions of the type often needed long-term conditions, from one community to another, for environmental problem-solving is that of island from one species to others, or from laboratory results biogeography, whichis,however, beset with to fieldconditions;(16)spatialand temporal controversy (see, e.g., Simberloff and Soule, 1986; variability;(17)use ofimplicitor conflicting Noss and Cooperrider,1994).For example,in assumptions, inferences, or judgments about method- disputes over the size and shape of nature reserves ologies and interpretation of data;(18)lackof and the scope of tropical deforestation caused by conceptual clarity about ecological important terms various practices, island biogeography is of little and concepts; and (19) use of generalizable theories help because of at least seven different problem that have not been tested empirically. areas: (1) island biogeographical theory underlying In terms of environmental problem-solving, what current paradigms regarding reserve design has does the conclusion that ecological information and rarely been tested and is dependent primarily upon methods cannot yield reasonably certain predictions ornithological data, on correlations rather than about environmental impactssuggest?Itmight causal explanations, on assumptions about homo- suggest that as scientists we clamor for yet more geneous habitats, and on unsubstantiated turnover funding to do yet more studies to gather yet more rates and extinction rates;(2) factors other than information. However, I thinkthatthiswould thosedominantinislandbiogeography(e.g., ignore a more significant constraint to environmental maximum breeding habitat) often have been shown problem-solving that stems from certain prescrip- to be superior predictors of species number; (3) tions of science and law regarding what is known as islands are disanalogous in important ways with fulfilling burden of proof requirements. nature reserves; (4) corridors between islands have questionable overall value in species preservation in particularcases;(5)island biogeography often Scientific and legal burdens of proof yields predictions that cannot be tested, owing to their imprecision and because of large variance As scientists, we aretrainedtotryto add about species-arearelationships; (6)ecologists provisionally only reasonably certain information to currently are able to determine only which types of our body of knowledgeasopposedtomore reserves contain the most species at present, not speculative knowledge. Some scientists recommend which ones will contain the most species over the that the primary way to improve the utility of the long-term; and (7) reserve shape, as such, may not ecological sciences in decision making is to judge explain variation in species number. The result of every ecological theory on the basis of its ability to controversies surrounding these issues has been so predict (Peters, 1991). Accordingly, one prescription great that about the only definitive thing that can governing traditional scientific methodology is that be saidstemming from islandbiogeographical as scientists we should try to minimize type-I error theoryisthatwhatisbest withrespect to because this is the most conservative course of action preserving species is to have as many and as large in situations of uncertainty and because it reduces the reserves as possible. chances of accepting falsepositiveresults and The sourcesofuncertaintysurrounding the adding them to our body of knowledge. Hence, aforementioned generalizable theories of ecological scientists typically use something like a 95 percent problems included:(1)poor knowledge of the confidence levelasabasisforprovisionally environmentalsystem;(2) largevariationof accepting or rejecting a null hypothesis and thereby variables;(3) use of wrong models and measured reducing speculative thinking. Because scientists are variablesand parameters;(4)unexpected and more interested in avoiding false positives (type-I episodic events; (5) data collection practices;(6) error) rather than false negatives (type-II error), design of laboratory and fieldexperiments and they place a greater burden of proof on the person quality control; (7)variabilityin testor field who postulates some, rather than no, effect. conditions; (8) mistakes in the choiceor use of 100 John Lemons However, this prescription governing burden of avoids the problem of having to show causation as proof requirements in science, combined with the an established fact. Instead, the governmentonly burden of proof requirements in law governing might have to prove that an environmental threat adjudicationof environmentaldisputes,creates might exist. Further, environmental harm might be enormous practicaland ethicalproblems with presumed if the government can show a violation of respect to public policy and decision making. Inthe the standards or regulations. Environmental law United States, prescriptive legal burden of proof also can avoid some admissibilityproblems of requirements exist (I assume that this is the case in uncertain scientific evidence by limiting judicial other countries as well). Because many decisions review of administrativeactionsto therecord about human health and environmental threats must created by theadministrativeagency. In cases be made inthefaceof pervasivescientific where judicial review is from the administrative informationalandmethodologicaluncertainty, record, the court does not call witnesses nor admit legal rules on the use of scientific evidence in court evidence but simply reviews the record of public proceedings may determine when laws that might be comment about the proposed action prepared by the used to protect human and ecosystemic health may administrative agency (but the record can, and does, be enforced or implemented. If rules of evidence include public hearingsand consultation with restrictthe use of scientificevidence incourt scientific experts). Because there are no witnesses or proceedingstothatwhichishighlycertain, evidence heard in such court proceedings, there are enforcingorimplementingthelaws may be fewer problemsofadmissibility ofscientific impossible in matterswherecertainscientific evidence. Inrecordreviewmatters,expert evidence is unavailable. Therefore, rules on the use administratorsmay applyexpertisetodraw of scientific evidence in legal proceedings must be condusions from suspected butnotcompletely understood to be important public policy choices substantiated evidence, relationships between facts about when law may be enforced or implemented. from trends among facts, from theoretical projections In the United States,many environmental of imperfect data, and from probative preliminary actions are governed by the U.S. Supreme Court data not yet certifiable as fact. However, fbr such decisionin Daubert v.Merrell Dow Pharma- condusions to be upheld upon court challenge, ceuticals,Inc.,113S.Ct.2786(1993),which administrators must be able to demonstrate a step- announced the following four pronged analysisto by-step proof of cause and effect. In record review assist courts in determining whether evidence is matters, the agency's actions are afforded deference relevant and reliable: (1) scientific methods used by and must be upheld if they are based upon relevant experts to derive an opinion must be capable of being factors and are not a clearerrorof judgment. tested and capable of being shown to be false,(2) Consequently,incourtreviewof anagency's publication and peer-review of scientific methods administrative record the burden of proof is on those used by experts to derive an opinion strengthens the challenging administrative decisions. To the extent admissibilityof evidence,(3)admissibilityof that a challenge to an administrative decision is evidence is strengthened by the use of methods th a t beset with problems of scientific uncertainty there have a known and low error rate, (4) admissibility will be a great difficulty in meeting the burden of and acceptance of expert opinion will be enhanced i f proof. However, if an agency's decision were made the opinion is based upon methods that have been under conditions of uncertainty then a challenge of accepted generally within the scientific community. thatdecision would have a greater chance of UnderDaubert,evidencethatestablishes a succeeding. reasonable basis for concern about harm but does not Is there a way out of the dilemma posed by the conclusively establish causation is not admissible. A traditional prescriptive scientific and legal norms failure to meet the burden of proof requirements which are designed to reduce speculative thinking under Daubert means that status quo activities and and the addition of speculative knowledge to the practices that might be causing environmental harm body of science and law? Recently, a number of likely will continue. individuals have proposed thatso-called "post- It is true that laws dealing with environmental normal" science methods instead of more traditional matters avoid many of the problems of admissibility or classical scientific methods be used as a basis for in actions by giving the government, through its environmentalproblem-solving(Funtowiczand various agencies, the administrative power: (1) to Ravetz, 1991; Lemons and Brown, 1995b). Others take legal action if it determines that an activity have suggested that concepts of ecological integrity creates a threat to the environment, and (2) to create be used as a basis for the management of public lands standards and regulations thatcan be enforced. because the concepts reflect a more precautionary Through such a grant of power the government approach that takes into account our uncertainty The Role of the University 101. 102 about environmental problems (see, e.g., Lemons and demonstrated even if there had been one (a type-II Junkier in press; Westra and Lemons, 1995). error) (Cranor, 1993). If we were to attempt to minimize type-II error, it would be necessary to calculate the statistical Post-normal science power ofaresearchdesignortestforan environmental problem. In contrast to confidence, The post-normal science approach emphasizes: (1) which is designed to minimize type-I error, power adequate formulation of problems so that data will depends on the magnitude of the hypothesized contribute to public policy goals; (2) that most results change to be detected, the sample variance, the from scientificstudies will not yield reasonably number of replicates, and the significance value. The certain predictions about future consequences of power of a test is the probability of rejecting a null human activitiesand thatmany problemsof hypothesis when it is in fact false and should be protecting environmental resources therefore should rejected. The larger the detected change, the larger be considered to be "trans-science" problems requiring is the power. In situations where the detected research directed toward useful indicators of change changes are relatively small, power can be increased rather than precise predictions; and (3) the need to by increased sampling but this involves additional evaluate and interpret thelogicalassumptions costs, research facilities,and time. Analysisof underlying the empirical beliefs of scientists with a variance in typical environmental problems shows view toward ascertaining more fully the validity of that the number of samples required to give a power scientific claims and theirimplications. While of 0.95 increases rapidly if changes smaller than 50 post-normal science is not easy to characterize,i t percent of the standard deviation are to be detected seeks a broad and integrated view of problems and (Cranor, 1993). If the sample size stays the same the places more emphasis on professional judgment and probability of a type-I error is increased if the intuition and is less bound by analytically derived probabilityofatype-IIerrorisdecreased. empirical facts. Proponents of the application of Consequently, a practical problem is that a desired post-normal scienceto environmental protection emphasis on avoiding type-II error must be balanced maintain thatits claims are more amenable for against other opportunities to use limited scientific practical public policy purposes than the claims of resources to address other environmental problems. predictive science approaches. Post-normal Nevertheless, given the seriousness and urgency of approaches are based more on retroduction and environmentalproblemsitwouldseemth a t conceptual analysis than are hypothesis-deduction scientists should consider being more comfortable methods used in traditional scientific approaches, with recommending actions based on the weight of and by necessity they emphasize explanation and evidence (that is, by striving to reduce type-II error) heuristic understanding of the complexities of nature rather than based primarily an confidence levels rather than predictions. One result of basing decision alone, especially since public policy decisions are not making upon post-normal science is that type-II error based simply upon probabilistic considerations but would be minimized. rather involve making discrete and explicit choices In environmental problems, a type-I error is to among specific alternatives, including those with accept a false positive result, thatis, to condude political and economic ramifications. that harm to resources will result from existing or The question of whether to minimize type-II proposed activities when, in fact, no harm will errorisnotonlyscientific.Shrader-Frechette result. A type-II error is to accept a false negative (1994a) analyzes the reasons why there should be an result, that is, to condude that no harm to resources ethical preference for minimizing type-II error in will result from existing or proposed activities environmental issues (thereby increasing the risk of when, in fact, harm will result. In public policy type-I error) and why the burden of proof for decision making, ifthe datashow thatsome demonstration of no adverse environmental harm environmental factor or perturbation has had an from development or human activitiesshould be effect on an organism or ecological community but placed upon those calling for such development or with, say, only a 70-90 percent confidence, the null activities. Shebaseshercondusionon:(1) hypothesis thatthereis no effectisaccepted. minimizing the chance of not rejecting false null Typically, there is a tendency by decision makers hypotheseswithimportant publicpolicycon- and others to assume not only that there was not sequences is reasonable on the grounds of protecting enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis but the present and future public; (2) the proponents of that there was really no effect when, in fact, the development or activities that potentially threaten experimental design or test was too weak or the data environmental resourcestypicallyreceivemore were too variable or too close for an effect to be benefits from the development or activities than do 102 John Lemons

.") members of the public and, consequently, minimizing convention for setting values of a. When a is 0.20 type-IIerror wouldresultinamore equal there is a 1 in 5 chance of accepting a null hypothesis distributionof benefits andrisks;(3)natural as true when it is false for example, the chance of resources typically need more riskprotection than do saying benzene is not associated with leukemia promoters of development or human activities when in fact it is. When $3 is set at 0.20, the power of because the advocates for protection usually have the test (1-(3) is 0.80, which means that scientists fewerfinancialandscientificresourcesthan have an 80 percent chance of rejecting the null developersorpromotersofactivities th a t hypothesis as false when itis false. Again, the potentially can harm the resources; (4) the public setting of these values for a and p keep the chances ought to have rights to protection against decisions of accepting false positives low and, hence, ensuring that could impose incompensable damages to natural with considerable confidence that results are not the resources; (5) public sovereignty justifiesletting the result of random chance. public decide the fate of development and human If we think of a, p, and 113 as standards of proof, activities thatpotentiallythreatennatural how much should we demand of the methods of resources; and (6) minimizing type-II errorwould science and for what purposes? Let us examine allow enhanced protection of non-human species varioustradeoffsthatwe mightconsiderin that typically receive inadequate consideration in attempting to answer this question. decision making based upon cost-benefit methods. Let us consider the relative risk of a carcinogen Despite what I have said so far, while there are associated with a particular cancer. Relative risk is public policy and ethical reasons for attempting to the ratio of the incidence rate of disease for those minimize type-IIerrorwithrespecttoenvi- exposed to the carcinogen to the incidence rate among ronmental and human healthproblems,there those not exposed. Let us now look atseveral nevertheless are difficult tradeoffs that exist. These tradeoff alternatives. are exemplified nicely by the problemsof conducting toxicological studies as discussed by Cranor (1993). Alternative 1. Assume that we want to discover Cranor asks that we consider some of the whether a particular carcinogen is associated scientific and public policy decisions that must be with a particularcancer. Suppose thatthe made in the field of toxicology regarding human incidence of cancer in the general population is exposure to harmful chemicals. If we assumethat a about 1/10,000, and suppose that being good wise and conscientious epidemiologist with perfect scientists we rely upon the 95 percent confidence evidence but with constrained sample sizes for rule. That is, we want to be sure that when no studyingrelativelyrarehealtheffectsofa association exists between the carcinogen and chemical,thenthispersonfacespotentially cancer,ourstudyshowsthatnonedoes. controversial social policy decisions in order to Consequently, we set a at 0.05. Suppose that we design and use an epidemiological study. If scientists also wish to have very small odds of false uncritically follow classical scientific conventions negatives, so we specify that p should be 0.05. and norms in theirpursuit such as using the 95 Thus, the chances of false positives and false percent confidence rule, contrary to what many negatives are low and equal. Suppose further scientists think they may unwittingly have what is that we regard a relative risk of 3 as a serious called "dirty hands," which refers to the notion risk worth investigatingfor public health that they have embedded within their scientific purposes. Given these stipulations, in order to methodology and results implicit social and public achieve them we would have to study at least policy outcomes and have begged the policy issues a t 135,191 people exposed to the carcinogen, and stake. In other words, in their attempt to make (for the sake of simplicity) an equal number who science rigorous in the sense of not wanting to add are not exposed in order to obtain statistically speculation to the body of scientific knowledge as significant results at a relative risk equal to 3. required by the scientific profession, the regulatory That likely will be prohibitive both practically questions for which the studies are done may be and financially. Thus, a moral consideration, frustrated. the value of the most accurate information for For example, consider again thattypically detecting potential harms (thatis, tests with scientific convention sets the probability of a type-I low and equal chances of type-I and type-II error (a) at 0.05, so that there is a 1 in 20 chance of errors), can enter at the outset of a study. rejecting thenull hypothesis when itistrue. Conventional practice also sets the probability of a Alternative 2. Next, assume everything is the type-II error ((3) between 0.05 and 0.20 when a is 0.05, same as in alternative 1 except $3 and the sample although this convention isless rigid than the size. Suppose we would tolerate a lower p of 0.20, The Role of the University 1 03 so we have only 1 chance in 5 of committing a relative risk equal to 12. Now, we could be only type-IIerror. Given these values, we would 67 percent confident of notincurringfalse have to study at least 77,087 people exposed to positives.Thus, even though we can reach the carcinogen and the same number who are not statisticallysignificant results for a relative exposedforatotalof154,164toobtain risk equal to 12 (higher than the relative risk of statistically significant results with a power of 3 which is the level of concern) by increasing a to 0.80 to detect a relative risk equal to 3. The 0.33, one-third of the time we run the risk of difficulties of following such large groups of mistakenly adding to the stock of scientific people would prevent the most accurate results knowledge. According to classical conventions in even if type-I and type-II errors are not equal. science, results from such studies would not likelybe publishedin reputablescientific Alternative 3. Suppose that we could not study journals, for the chances of type-I errors are too thelargenumbersofpeoplerequiredin large. Thus, we would be tolerating results th a t alternatives1 and 2, but that we could study might be considered somewhat less accurate in 2150 in the exposed and nonexposed groups, order to increase our chances of detecting risks of respectively. Suppose that we also want to be 95 concern. Therefore, such a study would sacrifice percent confident (a = 0.05) of results favoring one kind of accuracy important to the scientific the null hypothesis and 80 percent confident (1- community in order totryto improve the 13) of detecting an elevated risk should it exist. accuracy of the study for public health purposes. What relative risk can we hope to detect? At best, we only could detect a relative risk of 39, or More importantly, what the discussion about the 13 times higherthantheriskpreviously above alternatives demonstrates is that there is a thought "serious" enough to warrantsocial mathematical "tension" between the use of the 95 attention. Put differently, given the values for percent confidence rule and other public policy and a, 13, and N, such a study could not even detect moral concerns we might have. However, it must be the relativerisk of concern with 80 percent understood thatwhetherscientistsinvolvedin confidence, when it exists. Thus, small samples, public policy-oriented research should be committed forced by cost considerations or impracticalities to the 95 percent rule is a normative or policy and a demand for accuracy, mean that such a test question, not a scientific one. And, as the discussion cannot even detect the risks of concern that by of the above alternatives suggests, if scientists use a hypothesis motivated the study. and p values uncriticallyin the design of their studies and thereporting of theirdata,they Alternative 4. We might be able to detect a implicitly will make some important social policy higher relative risk, say, equal to 3.8 by making decisions of which public policy makers or the some tradeoffs. If we kept N and a constant (N = generalpublicnot wellversedinstatistical 2150; a = 0.05), p would have to be correspond- methodology will understand. ingly raised to 0.6, lowering the power of the Problems of meeting burden of proof requirements test 1-0 to 0.4. Because p = 0.6, there is now, becauseofinformationalandmethodological however, a 60 percent probability of mistaking a uncertainty partially might be ameliorated by the toxic substance for a benign substance by chance adoption of a three-valueframe for structuring alone, when in fact the substance is toxic. This theoreticalassumptions pertainingto dataand study now faces two problems. The smallest problem-solving (Shrader-Frechetteand McCoy, relativerisk we could detect among the 2150 1994). Typically, scientists employ what is called a exposed population would be 3.8 which is higher two-value frame meaning that they either reject or than the risk of concern. In addition, we could accept provisionally a null hypothesis. From an detect that only if we were willing to take 60 empirical point of view, rigorously attempting and percent odds of leaving that group exposed to a failingto falsifya precise testable hypothesis possibly harmful carcinogen. Thisisdubious provides one of the strongest criteria for accepting it. both morally and as a matter of public policy. Thus, scientists often try to devise tests for which two mutually exclusive,exhaustivehypotheses Alternative 5. By holding sample size constant, predict conflicting outcomes. Whileusing a two- if we want to be able to detect a relative risk value frame might be appropriate for research that with 80 percent confidence when itexists, we is scientific in a strict sense, it is problematic as a couldincreaseainsteadof P. With a basis for environmental decision making because of commitment to p = 0.20, the resultant a would the aforementioned problems of meeting burden of have to be about 0.33 to enable us to detecta proof requirements. In contrast, it might be worth 104 John Lemons 1n5 considering whether environmental scientists ought decisions scientists make about the methodologies to employ a three-value frame which explicitly and statisticaldesign of theirstudies, and that takesinto account uncertaintyin thesense of thereareethical reasonsforfavoringthe including decision categoriesto accept thenull minimization of type-IIerrorin environmental hypothesis,reject the null hypothesis,or about problem-solving, then thequestion arisesas to which we have inadequate information to make a whether scientists ought to be engaged in "advocacy decision. science," which means using scientific information to For example,scientistscould presenttheir advocate for particular public policy decisions and results in a set of power functions curves. This would defending that stance as rational and ethical rather represent some movement away fromtestsof than merely pointingouttheconsequencesof significance but would stillindicate some of the alternative positions and maintaining a stance of objective limitsto data. A power function curve neutrality. Muchofthefollowingdiscussion would indicate the lower bounds on the relative risk concerningadvocacyisdrawn from Shrader- that could be detected relative to particular values Frechette (1994b). of a. Confidence intervalsindicatethe"actual Certainly, it is possible that if scientists engage magnitude of the effect as well as the precision of in scientific advocacy then it is possible that if too the estimate." Common to such presentations is th a t much bias creeps into scientificscholarshipor they show how the data of a test place limits on commentary that as a society we might lose the what one can infer from them. In addition, the ability to engage in rationale analysis of a situation, concern to display the objective limits of data serves and if this happens then it could lead to a loss of thescientificgoalofunderstanding, butthis some of our autonomy and capacity for free and information is then used in regulatory contexts for informed consent regarding environmental problem- decision making, and those who must make the solving. Further, if scientists in their advocacy are decisions must be able to understand the information proven wrong, this could undermine their credibility and use it. and thus would hurt both the profession and society Lastly, another approach to overcoming some of as a whole. theconstraintsimposed by informationaland On the other hand, the avoidance of advocacy methodological uncertainty in ecology is to have its also can lead to dangerous consequences. For example, focus, insofar as environmental problem-solving is approximately 90 percent of all cancers are thought concerned, be less on discovering general theories and to be environmentally-induced, and about one in four predictive "laws," which as previously discussed persons in the United States will get cancer. Had generally fail to meet burden of proof requirements, more scientists advocated a reduction in the use of and moreon usingdetailednaturalhistory suspected carcinogens, these rates might not have knowledge about one or two taxa in specific case been so high. studies as a basisfor problem-solving. Several The prescription to minimize making type-I studieshaveshownthatreasonablecertain error might be referred to as a form of epistemic information can be obtained when ecological studies objectivity which addresses the objectivity of our do not attempt to predict complex interactions among beliefs.It requires scientists to assess hypotheses many species but rather focus on detailed natural and their practical or scientific consequences with no history information for only one or two taxa for a deliberatebiasormisinterpretation.However, particular problem at a particular time and place. because of the prescription to minimize type-I error, While this may be true, one problem with the the burden of proof is placed upon scientists who approach is that although it may yield reasonably posit an effect from some activity that might affect certain scientificinformation, environmental pro- natural resources. blems are too numerous and often too complex to However, there is another type of objectivity, allow its use (Shrader-Frechette and McCoy, 1994; that might be referred to as ethicalobjectivity, Lemons, 1996). which addresses theobjectivityof researchers' actions.Itrequires more than merely avoiding deliberatebiasormisinterpretation.Rather, Scientists and advocacy ethical objectivity requires us to take into account our obligations to the greater good when we assess the If we accept that environmental problems are serious ethical desirabilityof acting on our beliefin a and there is an urgent need to solve them, th a t particular hypothesis or its consequences. scientificuncertaintyconcerning manyofthe Under conditions of uncertainty, should scientists problems is pervasive, that social and public policy speak out in favor of particular decisions or should implications often are implicitly embedded in the they form allianceswith environmental groups The Role of the University 1 05 1.06 regarding use of natural resources?IfShrader- indefensible or questionable values implicitly gives Frechette (1994a) is correct that under conditions of assent to them; (2) not allethicaland method- uncertainty there are ethical preferences to reduce ological positions are equally defensible and if they type-II error in natural resource decision making, are not, then real objectivity requires one to represent then speaking out or working with other groups with less defensible positions as such;(3)objectivity shared values to promote the public good would be represented as neutrality in the face of possible warranted. significant hazardsor threatsistoserve the There is, of course, a need for scientists to try to interests of those responsible for the threats;(4) conduct their work so thattheyarecredible. objectivity represented as neutrality ignores the fact However, this does not imply that they ought not to thatobjectivityisnegotiatedanddiscovered speak out on public policy issues even in their role as socially through grappling with alternative points scientists. Making errors in science is nothing new. A of view; (5) objectivity represented as neutrality can number of studies have tried to assess whether and sanction ethical relativism and therefore serve the to what extent scientists' credibility is undermined interests of injustice, such as when some scholars by the making of errors. Most of these studies have refused to take a stand against the actions of Nazis concluded that the loss of credibility is positively for the sake of cultural relativity. correlated with deliberate intent to deceive, rather There also are consequentialist arguments in than with error alone. favor of advocacy by scientists whichisth a t Now, if scientists (or educators) are reluctant to without it greater harm to environmental resources speak out because doing so associates them with a or public healthwould result withoutit.For partisan agenda, let us not forget that science itself example, in their advocacy scientists might be able is partisan. It represents a particular set of shared to help prevent or mitigate problems of loss of values regarding systems of belief and ways of biodiversity, global warming, and other types of knowing about the natural world. Funding for science problems. Through this advocacy, they might help is determined by political priorities, the types of to educate the public. Given the fact that there is scientificproblemsstudiedbyacademics is pervasive uncertainty surrounding many environ- determined in part by the politicalagendas of mental problems, advocacy of various positions university promotion and tenure committees, and encourages publicdiscussion and helpsinthe certainly the type of science conducted by scientists understanding and resolution of problems. Again, in in governmental agencies is determined by agendas. the absence of advocacy the interests of the status Considerthat in 1981 the West German quo that is responsible for environmental problems pharmaceutical company Hoechst gave $70 million are continued. to Harvard's Department of Molecular Biology in Saying that objectivity is the same as neutrality exchange for rights to market all discoveries made is the same as saying thatobjectivityrequires in the department and to exclude all funding and treating different ethical or public policy positions research that interfered with Hoechst's proprietary as equal when, in fact, some may be more reasonable position. Jack Whitehead gave $125 millionin than others. However, thefailureto practice exchange for MIT's relinquishing control over patent advocacy can amount to a bias when other strong and rights, finances, hiring, and choice of research at its vested interests are taking a morally dubious stance. biotechnology. center. At many major universities, Scientists in developed nations may have a the majority of funding is from the U.S. Department responsibility to advocate for environmental well- of Defense. If an academic scholar or scientist takes being because as citizens of such nations we have a particular standregardingenvironmental benefited from environmental harm brought about by problems, he/she alreadyis doing so withina our standard of living.Because we have been highlypartisanframework created by special complicit in bringing about environmental harm, we interest groups. Partisan agendas are nothing new to have a responsibility to help reverse it. By virtue of the world of science. the benefits scientists receive from society, they Sometimes,scientistsfearadvocatingfor have an obligation to the public to protect its particularstances becausetheyconfusebeing interests and to serve its welfare. And if such an objective with being neutral (see,e.g., Shrader- obligation is said to exist, then scientists may have Frechette 1994b). Many philosophers of science such an obligation to engage in environmental advocacy. as Thomas Kuhn,MichaelPolanyi,Stephen Finally, I would argue that the more potentially Toulmin, and Paul Feyerabend have demonstrated serious an environmental problem is, the more one how scientific methods are value-laden and th a t ought to engage in advocacy for a conservative objectivity should not be confused with being neutral approach, which is to say erring on the side of the for the following reasons: (1)failureto criticize 106 John Lemons

t3 protection of environmental well-being as opposed to thattheuniversitybecome arolemodel of private interests. sustainable development and environmental Withrespecttothispoint,considerthe protection behavior and practices. Choosing between conclusion of O'Brien (1994). She notes that a few the two approaches forces university educators and years ago a group of scientists were debating at a administratorstodecidewhethersustainable professional scientific meetingwhether the development and environmental protection should be American Fisheries Society should petition the U.S. treated as simply another subject or whether they Fish and Wildlife Service to list numerous salmon should be viewedpotentiallyasintegrative runs as endangered. To petition for the listings would principles leading to a substantial reform of the mean entering into controversies that were already university. ragingoverdams,powergeneration,timber In my view, restricting treatment of sustainable practices, and grazing practices that threatened the development and environmental protection issues to salmon runs. traditional academic departments means that while The scientists at the meeting discussed the harm the needs of majors will be served, the education of that could be done to the public perception of them theentirestudentpopulationinmattersof as objective research scientists if they petitionedfor sustainable development and environmental the listings. They were aware that petitioning for protection will be more limited, as is the present thelistingsmeant takingapositionin the case with respect to environmental literacyfor controversies. nonmajors at most universities. In part, this will be At the same time, they also understood th a t due to the consequences of administrative arrange- they would be taking a side if they did not petition. ments and levels of support provided for programs, They would be taking the side of the status quo: which often are mired in competing university business as usual, standard dam practices, maximal politics. A traditional approach is tantamount to powergeneration,standardtimberpractices, the view that problems of sustainable development standard grazing practices, and continued salmon and environmental protectioncan be overcome extinction. There was no way for these scientists, as primarily by educating experts (i.e., majors) who can a group, not to take sides. provide the specialized knowledge to solve the problems. Such a view is counter to recommendations made in Agenda 21 and by people such as Orr (1992), Conclusion Knapp (1993), and Malone (1993) that an informed citizenry worldwide is a necessary condition for Clearly, the challenge of environmental protection problems of sustainable development and environ- and sustainable development confronts humankind. mental protection to be overcome. These latter After two years of planning, the UNCED was held recommendations argue for reforming the university in Rio de Janeiro in June of 1992. The UNCED so that its primary mission is to promote education culminated in several international conventions and about sustainable development and environmental declarations on the environment, including Agenda protection for all students and to model its behavior 21, which was adopted by theoverwhelming appropriately. majorityof theworld's headsofstatesand Universityfacultyand administratorswill governments. By adopting Agenda 21, nations agreed differ on which approach they favor. In deciding, toimplementitsrecommendationsto promote they must assess whether and to what extent, if any, sustainable development and environmental universities can be said to be fulfilling their role to protection; these focused on increasing environmental educate about matters of sustainable development literacy at all levels of education. and environmentalprotection.Iffacultyand Basically, there are two fundamental administrators believe that universities should be approaches to promoting education about sustainable doing more, then they must further assess whether development and environmental protection. One the future prospects for traditional approaches are approach consists of improving traditional environ- likely to meet the challenges posed by sustainable mental programs for majors, as well as requiring or development andenvironmentalprotection,or offering a limited number of courses focusing on whether substantial reform of theuniversityis sustainable developmentandenviron-mental desirable or feasible. protection for nonmajor students. The other is to At the very least, problems posed by sustainable change the university so that there is significant development and environmental protection warrant infusion of sustainable development and that the university community grapple in a serious environmental protection themes inallor most and comprehensive manner with how to respond to university programs. This approach requires also the problems. Granted, this will not be easy. Those The Role of the University 1 07 1) concerned about the problems must be willing to Agenda21thata precautionary approachbe become involved in a sustained intellectual dialogue adopted for environmental problem-solving. This with theircolleagues withintheuniversity to would mean thatthe burden of proof should be identify and evaluate changes needed to promote shifted to those who advocate activities that might sustainable development and environmental seriously affect the environment or human health to protection,includingassessing administrative demonstrate that the proposed activities will result arrangements for programs. Involvement in the in insignificant harm. That is, given the seriousness politics of the university is necessary, because the and urgencyofenvironmentalproblems,under university is comprised of people with competing conditions of uncertainty it is better to err on the side values, beliefs, programs, and budgets. In part, the of protection of ecosystem and human health. response of the university to problems of sustainable Further, following the obligations to be ethically as development and environmental protection will be well as epistemically objective, scientists ought to based on the ability of people concerned about the playa role in the advocacy of environmental problems to persuade othersthatchanges are problem-solving. Sound science is needed to make needed. informed decisions about the environment but it is not Most faculty members are less than enthusiastic only more science that we need to save a quality about university politics and certainly are loathe to environment, what little of it is left. What we need take more time from teaching and research to become is more people willing to fight for it. more involved politically. But if they do not become more effective in persuading their colleagues from other disciplines as well as administrators about the Notes on contributor need topromotesustainabledevelopment and environmental protection education to meet the John Lemons is a professor in the Department of Life needs of the 21st century and beyond, then who will? SciencesattheUniversityof New England, In additiontotheproblems thatconfront Hiddeford, Maine. He served as Editor-in-Chief of attemptstopromoteenvironmentalliteracy, The Environmental Professional, the official journal pervasive scientific uncertainty poses problems for of theNationalAssociationof Environmental many scientists and educators regarding whether Professionals (NAEP) from 1990 through 1995, and in they ought to adopt a particular public policy stance 1994 he received a Distinguished Service Award regarding environmental problems. Many fear th a t from NAEP for meritorious work. Professor Lemons is they will lose credibility,or that they risk the also a Fellow of the American Association for the veneer of neutrality in the classroom. Advancement of Science. Despitetheheuristicvalueprovidedby Professor Lemons has authored approximately ecology'sinformationandmethods,pervasive one hundred articles on national park management, scientificuncertaintyconstrainsitspredictive conservationissues,high-level nuclearwaste capabilitiesand thereforeinmany instances disposal,climate change, environmental ethics, scientific and legal burden of proof requirements are sustainable development, and related issues. He has notabletobefulfilledwhen dealingwith also produced six books,includingSustainable environmental problems. A consequenceisthat Development: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy by typically the activities and practices that threaten Kluwer Academic Publishers; Scientific Uncertainty environmental amenities are more likely to continue and Environmental Problem-Solving by Blackwell unless and until the burden of proof requirements can Science, Inc.; and Perspectives on Ecological Integrity be met. by Kluwer Academic Publishers. In astrictscientificsense, an emphasis on reducing type-I error minimizes adding speculative information to the body of scientific knowledge. Notes and references

However, .giventhefactthatenvironmental problems are both serious and urgent, consideration Barnthouse,L.W.1984. Populationbiologyinthe courtroom: The Hudson River controversy. BioScience should be given by scientists to form conclusions 34:17-18. based upon the weight of evidence and not just on the Bok, D. 1990.Universitiesand the future of America. confidence about evidence, and therefore attempt to Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. Bryant, B. 1992. Toward a curriculum for environmental reduce type-IIerror when possible. This would programs. The Environmental Professional 14: 293-301. entail the use of what is becoming known as "post- Carson, R. 1962.Silent spring. Boston, Massachusetts: normal" science for environmental problem-solving, Houghton Mifflin. Commoner, B. 1971. The closing circle. New York: Knopf. and also would be consistent with recommendations Cortese, A.D. 1993. Building the intellectual capacity for a from theinternationalcommunity contained in sustainable future. Pages 1-9. In B. Wallace, J. Cairns, Jr., 108 John Lemons 9 & P.A. Dist ler (Eds.), Environmental literacy and beyond. and public policy. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer VirginiaPolytechnic Institute and StateUniversity: Academic Publishers. Blacksburg, Virginia. Lemons, J. & Junkier, K. In press. The role of science and 1 a w Cranor, C. 1993. Regulating toxic substances: A philosophy of in the protection of national park resources. In R.G. science and law. New York: Oxford University Press. Wright (Ed.), National parks and protected areas: Their role Disinger,J. & Schoenfeld, C.(Eds.).1987.Focus on in environmental protection. Cambridge, Massachusetts: environmental studies. The Environmental Professional Blackwell Science, Inc.. 9:185-274. Leopold, A. 1949. A Sand County almanac. New York: Ehrlich, P. 1975. The population bomb. Mattituck, New York: Oxford University Press. River City Press. Malone, T.F. 1993.Is there hope for humanity? In B. Francis, G. 1992. Environmental education in academia: Wallace, J. Cairns, Jr., & P.A. Distler (Eds.), Environmental Escaping the institutional impasse. The Environmental literacyandbeyond. Blacksburg,Virginia:Virginia Professional 14:278-283. Polytechnic Institute and State University. Funtowicz, S.O. & Ravetz, J.R. 1991. A new scientific McIntosh, R.P. 1985. The background of ecology: Concept and methodology for global environmental issues. Pages 137- theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 152. In R. Costanza (Ed.), Ecological economics. New York: Noss, R.F. & Cooperrider, A.Y. 1994. Saving nature's legacy. Columbia University Press. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. Gowdy, J.M. 1994. Progress and environmental Orr, D. 1992. Ecological literacy: Education and the transition sustainability. Environmental Ethics 16:41-56. to a postmodern world. Albany: University of New York Gosz, J. 1992. Review of EPA's Environmental Monitoring Press. and Assessment Program (EMAP). Washington, D.C.: Paine, R.T. & Levin, S.A.1981.Intertidallandscapes: CommitteetoReviewtheEPA's Environmental Disturbanceanddynamicsofpattern.Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Program, EMAP, National Monographs 51:154-178. Research Council. Peters, R.H. 1991. A critique forecology.Cambridge: Jacobson, S.K. & Robinson, J.G. 1990. Training the new Cambridge University Press. conservationist:Cross-disciplinaryeducationinthe Schoenfeld,A.C.1979. Theuniversity-environmental 1990s. Environmental Conservation 17:319-327. movement marriage. Journal of Higher Education 50:290- Johnson, S.P. (Ed.). 1993. The earth summit The United 309. Nations conference on environment and development Shearman, R. 1990. The meaning and ethics of sustainability. (UNCED).London:Graham & Trotman/ Martinus Environmental Management 14:1-8. Nijhoff. Shrader-Frechette, K.S. 1994a. Ethics of scientific research. Knapp, C.B. 1993. Changing course: University policy on Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publisher, Inc. environmental literacy. Pages 11-18. In B. Wallace,J. Shrader-Frechette, K.S. 1994b. An apologia for activism. In Cairns, Jr., & P.A. Distler (Eds.). Environmental literacy F. Ferre and P. Hartel (Eds.), Ethics and environmental and beyond. Blacksburg, Virginia: Virginia Polytechnic policy. Athens: The University of Georgia Press. Institute and State University. Shrader-Frechette, K.S. & McCoy, E.D. 1994. Ecology and Langenberg, D. 1991.Science, slogans, and civicduty. environmentalproblem-solving. The Environmental Science 252:361-363. Professional 16:285-291. Lemons, J. 1991. Structure and function of environmental Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. 1992.Global programmes. The Environmentalist 11:297-311. change and the human prospect:Issuesin population, Lemons, J. (Ed.). 1992. Environmental science and studies science, technology, and equity. North Carolina: Research programs. The Environmental Professional 14:277-375. Triangle Park. Lemons, J. 1994. Certification of environmental Soule, M.E. & Simberloff, D. 1986. What do genetics and professionals and accreditation standards for university ecology tell us about the design of nature reserves? programs. BioScience 44: 475-478. Biological Conservation 35:19-40. Lemons, J. 1995. Sustainable development and environmental Weis, J.S. 1990. The status of undergraduate programs in protection: A perspective on current trends and future environmentalscience.Environmental Seience and options foruniversities.EnvironmentalManagement Technology 24:1116-1121. 19:157-165. Weis, J.S., Lemons, J., Foust, R., Godshalk, G.L., Miller G., & Lemons, J. (Ed.). 1996. Scientific uncertainty and environ- Wenger,R.B.1992. Reportoftheworkshopon mentalproblem-solving. Cambridge,Massachusetts: undergraduate environmentalscienceeducation.The Blackwell Science, Inc.. Environmental Professional 14:363-370. Lemons,J. & D.A. 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The Role of the University 1 09

117. 0 Professionalization and Environmental Education: Are We Guarding Against Charlatans or Losing the Passion? Marilyn MacDonald, Simon Fraser University

To professionalize, or not to professionalize? greater good to be willing to take action and to That is the question: Whether 'tis nobler to muddle along commit theirtime and energy to working with In enthused amateurish quest for some green Grail, others for positive change. And, to be honest, I still Or join th'exalted ranks of experts find it difficult to distinguish between those who That wield their close-caught knowledge reasonably, In staunch defence of naked clients' interests. are mostly altruistic, but who have learned to Should only experts take arms against the world's troubles, explain themselves in the language of the self- And by opposing name and own them? Or, should oriented; and those who are mostly self-interested, The great collective we, Admitting hubris, greed, despair, unrequited caring but who have learned and co-opted the language of And all the thousand lesser sins that flesh is heir to, the other-oriented. Care less; dare instead to embrace life's joyous chance Second, it is both for and against As world's meaning? To live, to wake; To wake, perchance to dream; ay, there's the hope; professionalization,in thatIargue forthose For in that wakening to life what dreams may come strategiesthatwillimprovethe cloutof Of some still-undiscovered country in whose bourn environmental education, and increase the chances We rest, then return, shape-changed, to dance again, Caught up in the aeonic beat, the flickering Protean patterns, that we, as a species, will learn to live sustainably. Th'evolving, playful, sensuous processional of creativity? In particular, we must come to terms with adulthood Thus conscience doth make empassioned lovers of us all, and the ability to love this planet (to borrow from And thus the verdant hue of resolution Endows our every enterprise with great pith and moment, the title of Edward LeLorrain and Terry Nash's 1982 And moves us all to action. National Film Board documentary about social justice activist, Helen Caldicott). So, some aspects of (modified from Hamlet, with apologies to Wm. theidealof professionalizationareuseful Shakespeare,qtd.more accuratelyinOxford learning more about the world around us, devoting Dictionary of Quotations, p. 433) part of a society's resources to the support of study and research, engaging in an ongoing and equitable exchange of practical knowledge, and fostering the The dilemma of having to choose between freedom to concentrate on our own interests and passionate commitment and talents because of that equitable exchange. objective credibility On theother hand,Iargue againstthose strategies that improve the clout of environmental Ut me confess,rightnow,that Iam a education by benefitting the few at the cost of the rofessional, or atleastthatI have spent many. In particular, we must approach with care (in fourteen years in training to be, and eighteen years both the sense of caution and of loving concern) those in working as one. Well, more accurately, I guess aspectsofprofessionalizationthatperpetuate thatshould be working asfive biologist, socialinequalitiesandunsustainablehuman ecologist, teacher, manager, and professor rather activities.So, some aspectsof therealityof than one, a combination resulting from a mixture of professionalization are harmful elitism,the interests, financial accessibility, job openings, and problematization of everyday life, scientism and a serendipity. So, if you are expecting to find an narrow understanding of creativity, to name a few. unbiased argument eitherfororagainstthe To start with, why would I consider myself to be professionalizationofenvironmentaleducation a professional? In terms of post-secondary education (EE), be forewarned that this paper is not any of (which seems to be the hallmark of profession these those things. days), I began in fine arts at a small liberal arts First, it is biased, in thatI was already, and university. However, deciding that I had far more remain, a firm believer in quite a few things, like questions than answers, I switched to science. Major feminism, environmentalism, peaceactivism, biology, minor chemistry, and thesis research critical pedagogies, and informed consent in relation on the biophysics of how intertidal marine algae toscience/technology. Having worked witha cope with the sudden changes in temperature and diversemixtureofprofessionals,volunteers, moisture that are their twice-daily lot. After that activists, and so on, in all of those areas, I am also came graduate school, with a Doctorate in ecology more favourably inclinedto those people who from a large professional-school university for seven were/are involved enough in some aspect of the yearsof research on how some plantspecies, 1 1 0 t Marilyn MacDonald depending an thecircumstances,willgo from Then, from 1980 to 1990, I managed research and collectors'treasuretofarmers'banealmost development contracts for the federal government, in overnight (evolutionarily speaking). suchareas asbiotechnology, environmental Lookingbackatthosetwoeducational monitoring,andalternative energysources. experiences, I now can appreciate their continuing Throughout this period I developed and offered, on influence on my understanding of professionalism. I t anessentiallyvoluntarybasis, coursesand took a while to reach that appreciation, to value workshops on women and science & technology, and what, in many ways, seemed to be diametrically women and environment. These educational efforts, opposed views of that world. for me, provided a counterbalance to the worldviews On the one hand,thesmall,liberalarts that I found in bureaucracy, and in the Master's in experience reading Oedipus Rex as part of a Business Administration that I half-finished. After fourthyearthermodynamicscourse;debating trying, unsuccessfully, to offer a course on sustainable theories of prime numbers late at night with a mix development to middle and upper management in of people from Fine Arts, Home Economics, and the government, I decided to go back to school full- Biology; having a Work-In (volunteering in the time. At the back of my mind was, and stillis, a community) asour contributiontothecampus conviction that we are approaching, if not already radicalism of the 1960s; getting prime ice-time and at, a crossroads in human relationship with our administrative support when we decided to start a surroundings. Given my earlier experiences, learning women's hockey team. to be an environmental educator was fast becoming On the other hand, the big, professional school something that I felt obliged to do. experience being a laboratory demonstrator in a I chose Queen's University's education program, Pre-Medbiologycoursewherethe students one of the few in Canada to offer experiential and sabotaged each other's work, desperate for that outdoor education. After a brief stint of supply and extra quarter mark; developing theprofessional contract teaching,I wound up at Simon Fraser skills ofresearchdesign,fundraising,and University, in the Department of Women's Studies, information control; debating the place of science in teaching science-related courses (science & society with graduate students from Malaysia, technology, health, environment, competition) and Ethiopia,. Ghana, Britain,India, New Zealand, doing research on environmental activism and on Canada, the USA; seeing the Phys. Ed. Department female-friendly science education. trim their budget by cutting out the most expensive Now, as far as I can tell from all of that, and women's team (ice hockey), rather than spreading relying as well on the opinion of reputable sources, I the cutbacks around equally.Its taken another am a professional. I have a university degree (well, twentyyearstodiscerntheinterplay,the three' and a half of them), so the Canadian federal complementarity, the potential for change that such government concurs (StatisticsCanada,1993c).I apparent opposition represents. have had atleastnine yearsof "applicable From 1976 to 1980, I worked as a consultant, professional environmental experience," more than carryingoutenvironmentalimpactanalyses, five years of which was "in a position of responsible biophysical inventories, and all sorts of short-term charge and/or responsible supervision," and I have studies designed to accomplish clients' goals with worked in environmentalplanning,assessment, what we hoped was a minimum of environmental research and education, so the National Association damage. During that time, I took a number of courses of Environmental Professionals is willing to accept in law and business, the most memorable of which that occupational status for -me (Lemons, 1993). I was one in which we developed and distributed a teach,both for Simon FraserUniversityand legal handbook for battered women one of my first privately, about environmental issues, so the North university courses in which there was a direct, American Association of Environmental Educators practical connection to the community around me. It admits me to its group of like-minded professionals was enlightening to watch a disparate collection of (Simmons, Knapp & Young, 1990). individuals whose voiced concerns centred on grade Also,exceptforanunknown numberof point averages become a cohesive group. They environmental activists who are not university- focussed on lobbying the Ministry of Justice and the trained for their work, most of the people I've met police department to support the handbook because who educate about the environment biologists, it came directly from, and spoke to the needs of, the geologists, teachers, lawyers, accountants, women that were being battered. And they got that physicians, landscape architects,writers, artists support at a time that members of parliament found and so on are professionals for the same sorts of such battering uproariously funny. reasons.

Professionalization and Environmental Education 1 1 1 1 2 Yet,timeaftertime,atconferencesand authority to the professions, and in particular meetings, in newsletters and journals, I hear calls for thoseprofessions whichareconsideredto theprofessionalizationof environmental work, combine a science-based epistemology with a including education. That implies that there must be practice thatis essential to everyone's daily something less than professional about what we life; and professionals are doing now. My best guesses for since we can safely assume thatour special what those lapses would encompass include the education fits well with those considerations, breaking of professional ranks through based as it is on knowledges from all legitimate interdisciplinarity,the dependency an grassroots disciplines and vitalas itis to sustainable activism to raise public awareness and acceptance of human existence; then the environment as problematic, and the ruination of it is worthwhile . to adopt for the verifiable legitimacy of professional knowledge professionalization a model based an those through theadditionofaesthetics,emotions, high-status and cognitively-authoritative morality and spirituality. As a result of such lapses, exemplars in order to ensure that our special it is difficult to demonstrate that foundational core education beaswidelypractisedand as of esoteric and vital knowledge which would serve efficacious as possible. as the bedrock of the environmental professions. One argument in favour of the professional- It is this argument that I will critique in this paper izationofenvironmentaleducationmightgo because I consider it to be not only untenable, but a something like this: threat to the achievement of equitable sustainability for human societies. We risk starting Since we (environmental educators) believe that a process in environmental education that will focus many people (including corporations as legal on a true professional ideal of objectivity at the entities) are behaving in ways that are unlikely expenseofpassionaterelationshipwithour to be sustainable in the long run; and surroundings. And, if we do that, then we will have because we believe that many of these people become partoftheproblem,maintaininga are behaving unsustainably because they are worldview of detachment, reductionism, merely profoundly ignorant of environmental competition, hierarchy and rational self-interest. knowledges rather than negligent, dishonest, The following two quotations, combined with malicious or malevolent; and the opening poetic statement, are intended to frame because we believe that our special education, this opposition of choices. by enlightening that profound ignorance, will I really had not been waiting breathlessly for Mr. changethosebehavioursforthebetter, Shawn's [editor, New Yorker magazine] reaction sustainably speaking; and [to the draft of her 1962 Silent Spring], yet once I because we believe that we do have a special had it I knew how very much it meant to me. [I went] into the study and played the Beethoven education,uniqueinitsamalgamationof violin concerto one of my favorites, you know. knowledges from alllegitimatedisciplines And suddenly the tension of four years was broken (including education), which is sufficient and and I let the tears come. I think I let you see last summer what my deeper feelings are about this necessary to achieve sustainability; then when I said I could never again listen happily to a itisworthwhileforustodevelopand thrush song if I had not done all I could. And last promulgate that special education as widely as night the thoughts of allthe birds and other creatures and all the loveliness that is in nature possible; but came to me with such a surge of deep happiness that because we believe that we have an uphill now I had done what I could I had been able to climb ahead of us in trying to enlighten Others complete it and now it had its own life .. (Rachel Carsonqtd.from Brooks,1972;in about ,their environmental ignorance; and MacDonald, 1993; p. 108) because we believe that we can lessen the slope of thatclimb ifthose Others accepted our The core meaning of [professional] life is central to the work situation, and occupational skills are legitimacy/authority, and their ignorance; and regarded as non-transferable the property of a because most, if not allof us, have been in specific community. Charlatanism and quackery situations in our lives where we have had to are, in this sense, a creation of professionalism and not the cause of it. That is to say that periods in accept our ignorance in relation to the state- which it is claimed that charlatanism is rife and sanctioned legitimacy and authority of someone needs to be stamped out are just those periods when else (e.g., teachers, professors, doctors, lawyers, an occupationisattemptingtoestablishor struggling to maintain a monopolistic position. automobile mechanics, plumbers); and (Johnson, 1972; p. 57) because we believe that we live in a society which grants the highest status and cognitive 1 1 2 U3 Marilyn MacDonald This, then, is the heart of the dilemma which accomplishmentforCarsoninandofitself attends the professionalization of environmental (MacDonald, 1993; in prep. a.). education. Will it result in a body of knowledge, a The third aspect of passion is its motivation to training process, a collegial association, a code of action, despite the odds against, or for, success. ethics, and standards of practice that nurture a Without such passion, itis easierto playlife passion for life on Earth? Or will those trappings of safely, to follow the norm, to let someone else be the professions encourage elitism, a view of the responsible to go beyond our reasonable expectations world as a set of problems awaiting solution, and the of duty. So Rachel Carson, dying of cancer, might marginalization of all environmental knowledges have retired to her seaside home to spend her last andrelationships exceptthe immediately days in peace, hoping that someone more powerful remunerative? Or, like most dualisms, is the answer perhaps John Kennedy would take care of somewhereandsometimesinbetweenthose things.' But she didn't, and thus kept intact her deep extremes? happiness in the loveliness of Nature. And so the For me, Rachel Carson is an example of the true awareness raised by Silent Spring resulted inthe professional, committed to both the benefits and the U.S.President'sScientificAdvisory Committee costs of her special knowledge. She felt fully alive Reporton Pesticidesin 1963 which condemned in this world because she had a passion for life m industry and government alike and set out guidelines Earth a reverence for the integrity of the species for the certification of pesticide safety, and rippled that coexist here, a fundamental sense of wonder out to contribute to theformation of the U.S. about the robust fragility and interconnectedness of Environmental Protection Agency and the Canadian things. In the oldest and widest sense of the word, Department of the Environment in 1970, and to the passion is about giving oneself up to some external United Nations Biosphere Conference in 1968 and force, to something which has meaning beyond the Conference on the Human Environment in 1972, and individual interest. So Rachel Carson felt that she so on and on (McCormick, 1989). could take no more joy in her surroundings if she did Interestingly, it is this motivational aspect of not give herself up to their protection, to passing an passion that is most closely linked to the origins of to others thegifts of knowledge thatshe had the term, profession. Both terms entered the English received from Nature. language, or more accurately, reflected the English Also, in a very integral way, passion is about construction of reality, from theological beliefs and readiness, about being prepared to be fully aware. attitudes of the 1200s. That is, passion was derived Rachel Carson's protection of other species was from the Latin word for suffering, and referred to the dependent upon her loving knowledge of marine and sufferingsendured byChristandsubsequent terrestrial ecosystems, and on her ability to portray Christians in holding to their faith. Profession came that loving relationship. Her skills and knowledge from the Latin for a public declaration and referred of biology were based in her childhood spent on a to the vows taken on entering a religious order, and farm, and were strengthened and expanded through soon expanded in meaning to include the actual act of universitytraining, government employment, joining, and the religious order itself. A dedication voluntary research and the authoring of several to public service, then, flowed from passion and was books on marine ecology. To be able to have such evidenced by profession. experiences, to become prepared, took a great deal of By the 1500s (and the beginnings of the European time and energy, but gave as much back in terms of scientific revolution), the meanings of passion and moral, aesthetic and cognitive development. profession had begunto bothsecularizeand We oftenforget thatCarson received her separate. Passion had come to mean any feeling by Bachelor's degree in 1928, a little over fifty years which the human mind was powerfully moved, and after Gracie Lockhart became the first woman in the profession,theoccupationinwhichsomeone British Commonwealth to obtain such a degree. declared themselves to be skilled and Also, Carson finished a Master's degree in aquatic knowledgeable.Inparticular,suchoccupations biology at Johns Hopkins University in 1930, a time involved theapplicationofscienceto human when, in neighbouring Canada, women made up 23.5 affairs, and were epitomized by the three learned percentoffull-timeuniversityundergraduate professionsofdivinity, lawand medicine enrolment, and held twelve of the ninety-eight (Barnhart, 1988; Kimball, 1992; Simpson & Weiner, doctorates that had been granted since 1867; a time 1989). The vestiges of that linkage between passion when, of the total Canadian population, only 0.3 and profession remain with us in the myths and percent were enrolled at university, and 1.8 percent stories that make up the cultural life of particular were working as professionals. To become, and professions. Thus, for my trainingto become a survive as, a professional biologist was a major biologist, the ideal of a scientist was presented in Professionalization and Environmental Education 1 1 3 1.14 biographic sketches of Pasteur, Koch, Darwin, accomplish thatservice. Such a worker brought Einstein, Curie, Leopold, Snow and others scien- objectivity and reason to bear to find universal tists whose desire to wonder empowered their solutions to societal problems, while maintaining willingness to spend their livesin doing so, but the creative flame of genius through a competitive scientists whose passion was inextricably linked to innervigourthat safelyharnessedpassion social reform. (Battersby, 1989; Schiebinger, 1989). Yet most of the critics of Rachel Carson's Silent Yet, this "true professional ideal" is, for all its Spring represented her passion as failure. They apparent historic depth, a relatively recent one. For portrayedherasaspinsterishcharlatan, a example, the term scientist was first proposed in menopausal babbler who put emotional fancies in 1833 as an analogy with artist, to apply to anyone the way of objective scientific progress. That most involved in scientific pursuits from nature writers damning of possibilities thatshe was thus to bird watcherstoself-funded inventors and unprofessional wasusedtoquestionthe experimenters. By theturn of thecentury, this truthfulness of her findings. At the same time, such conceptionofscientisthadnarrowedtothe critics had no particular concern with the bias that professional ideal. The proliferation of state- and mightresultfromtheethical (andlegal) industry-funded programs for research, development requirement for professionals to put theclient's and marketing was accompanied by the growth of interest first. Nor were they much exercised by the societal institutions necessary to produce such professional self-interest in the maintenance of a professional scientists and to exclude the amateurs, monopolistic controlover particularbodiesof volunteers and self-educated (Bynum, Browne & knowledge (MacDonald, 1993). Porter, 1981; Rossiter, 1982, 1995; Shepherd, 1993). It is important to bear in mind that these critics It is also worth noting thatthis professional were appealing to a "true professional ideal" that ideal was, and stillis, not considered to easily had become common sense by the 1930s. This ideal include women, visible minorities, aboriginals, non- grew out of changes accompanying the Western Europeans and other groups marginalized in Western scientific and industrial revolutions, where experts societies (Code, 1991; Harding, 1986, 1993; Longino, became necessary intermediaries between society 1990; Noble, 1992). So, for instance, Herbert Spencer, andtheknowledgesandpracticesofthose who coined the phrase, "survival of the fittest," revolutions. As Douglas and Wildaysky(1982) argued in 1873 that women's physical and mental argued, every societyexists within a fieldof development ended earlier than men's, to leave infinite risks and chances. In order to make sense of them sufficientresourcesforchildbearingand things, societies focus on only a small selection of rearing. Such arrested development meant th a t such possibilities, developing a repertoire of taboos, women exhibited the following: omens, pollutions, rituals and so on, that mark the boundaries between order and chaos,provide . a perceptible falling short in those two faculties, guidelines for social sustainability, and designate intellectual and emotional, which are the latest products of human evolution the power of the specialists who mediate at those boundaries. abstract reasoning and that most abstract of the For knowledge-based societies(as industrial and emotions, the sentiment of justice the sentiment post-industrial societies are termed), those which regulates conduct irrespective of personal attachments and the likes ordislikesfeltfor specialists were, and are, the professionals. The individuals. (qtd. in Newman, 1985; p. 17) rituals, taboos and omens relatedto their vital knowledges health, justice, learning and so on For Spencer, as for many social Darwinists, the are largely constructed by them in dialogue with the only people who did not fall short were upper class, rest of society (Frangsmyr, Heilbron, & Rider, 1990; northern European, fully-abledmen, thenorm Haber, 1991; Hacking, 1990; Kimball, 1992; Stehr, against which all else, human and non-human, was 1994). measured. Such men were naturally suited to the Over the last four or five hundred years, then, intellectual and ethical demands of professional reasonreplacedintuition,naturalcausethe life because they, and only they, had the necessary supernatural, scientific explanation the religious, vigour to subdue passion withreason. Whether and human-controlled progress the order of things through intergroup conflict, familyviolence, or atleastin theory(Bowler,1989). The ideal hostile climate, survival of the fittest had produced professional,themediatorofthe Science- the status quo of industrial Victorian England. To Technology-Economic Growth-Social Progress tamper with that order of things to have women Paradigm, was a highly-trained worker dedicated mimic men, the poor ape the rich, or the lower races to an ethicof publicservice,and sufficiently attempt the achievements of the upper risked the autonomous in knowledge, competency and action to

1 1 4 Marilyn MacDonald 1 2 5 extinction that had been the fate of so many other someone who has moved beyond charlatanismand species (Newman, 1985). the territorial imperative. Thus, for people like Spencer, admitting the abnormal to the professions was constructed as a danger to that abstract reason, that detached and L'embarras des richesses divers neutral consideration of the important and relevant too much choice can seem like a bad thing facts of societal problems. However, as many people have gone to great efforttodemonstrate, the Environmental education is both as old as life on workers in those professions were far from detached Earth, and as new as the early 1970s. In the sense and neutral. As Johnson (1972) argued in the earlier that education is about developing from a latent or quotation, the organization of professions centred potentialstate,orinferringfromavailable around the exclusive ownership of work skills and information (Allen,1990), then engaging in the knowledge, in order to create and maintaina process of educating oneself or others aboutone's monopoly on the sale of their particular labour. The surroundings is a characteristicof living beings, concepts of charlatan and quack were not created a t alongwithrespiration,consumption,growth, random in the 1600s, to be opposed, and give greater reproduction, and ceasing to be. legitimacy, to the meaning of profession. They were From the Escherichiacoli who, learning of to represent the risks that society faced if monopoly nearby amino-acid-rich delicacies, shifts into the were not supported the superficial, pretentious production of the appropriate digesting enzymes; to and fraudulent mimicry of the words of science- the Canis lupus who, watching someone die of based knowledge, without the deeper, vigourous and strychnine poisoning, thereafteravoided sheep virtuous understanding of thetrue professional. carcasses; to the Quercus rubra who, perceiving an Meaning to babble and pratter, imitativeof the increase in damage to its or to its neighbours' leaves, aimless croaking of barnyard fowl, these concepts steps up its levels of tannin; to the Mulier sapiens concretized thedangers to veridical knowledge who, seeing grasses on a garbage pile, envisaged which the unfit represented. horticulture; life has been and is a continual round of Lest we assume that we have outgrown such receiving and transmittinginformation, and of stereotypical thinking, consider that a recent survey developing the schemata, the strategies and actions of women and men in twenty-five countries found involved in gambling for existence. From quantities that the adjectives most often considered applicable of sunlight to measures of biodiversity, we live to men included active,adventurous, dominant, embedded in 5 billion years of a web of coevolving forceful, independent, logical, progressive, strong, and accumulated environmental knowledge unemotional and wise. Those most often considered (MacDonald, 1986). applicable towomen includedaffectionate, However, in the sense that education is about attractive, dependent, dreamy, emotional, fearful, intellectual, moral and social instruction about our sensitive, sentimental, sexy, softhearted, surroundings, especially as a formal and prolonged submissive, superstitious and weak (Williams & process (Allen, 1990), then environmental education Best, 1990, cited in Mackie, 1991). Which set of is still in gestation, at least for humans living in a adjectivesmostcloselymatchesthe "true global village. We have only begun to recognize the professional ideal"? which the likely charlatan? need for it, to formulate its purposes and content, and Beforesearchingforalternativestothe to devise the methods for its promulgation. In fact, argument posed at the beginning of this paper, I will the term, environmentaleducation, isless than explore in some greater depth the meaning of both thirtyyearsold,firstappearingin Western environmental education and professionalization. In academic literature in about 1968 (Schoenfeld & particular, I argue that the failure to realize many Disinger, 1987). of the goals of environmental education, the sheer Since 1968, however, something educational has diversityof EE approaches, and thepotential definitelyhappened. Some combination of the number of EE professionals contribute to a desire to intellectual,moral and socialhasworkedto simplify, to consolidate, and to increase the status of increase human awareness of, and willingness to EE. However, professionalization is not a simple takehealingactionfor,thestate ofthe process,complicatedasitisby our hidden environment. For example,over threehundred understandings of professionalism, and by the thousand people (mostly in the United States) context in which the process is played out. Thus, for celebrated the first Earth Day in April, 1970. Just instance, we may want topursue some New two decades later, an estimated half billion people Environmental Paradigm vision of a professional as in a hundred countries worldwide took part in Earth Day, 1990 (Gregg & Posner, 1990; McCormick, 1989). Professionalization and Environmental Education 1 1 5 1 6 RileyDunlap and othersociologists have competencyincriticalthinkingandvalues suggested that Western societies, as part of this clarification; and an ability to translate all of this environmentalawareness, are undergoing a learningintoeffectiveaction.TheNational fundamental change in the beliefs, attitudes and Association for Environinental Education reflected values that they hold about the world around them. this understanding in its Mission Statement: Such a change a shiftin paradigms is characterized by a replacement of many of the NAAEE maintainsthefollowingguiding common senseunderstandingsofindustrialized principles. Environmental Education should: societieswithconcepts more in keeping with sustainability. A number of terms were used for the consider the environment in its totality na- turalandbuilt;biologicaland physical older paradigm or worldview, including Human phenomena and theirinterrelationswith Exceptionalist, Human Exemptionalist, Dominant social, economic, political, technological, cul- Social, and Western. Each was meant to capture a tural, historical, moral, and aesthetic aspects, particular aspect or outcome of human activity. integrate knowledge from the disciplines across the naturalsciences,socialsciences,and Takenalltogether,theymarked thatolder humanities, paradigm as positivist,reductionist, imperialist, examinethescopeandcomplexityof hegemonic, and obsessively capitalist (Table 1). environmental problems and thus the need to Incontrast,the develop critical thinking and problem-solving New Environmental(or skills and the ability to synthesize data from Ecological) Paradigm would consider human and many fields, non-human values as well as the materialand develop awareness and understanding of global measurableworld, attend to context and problems, issues, and interdependence help- relationship, focus on sustainable community, and ing people to think globally and act locally, seek to tread lightly, to achieve some steady-state consider both short and long term futures on mattersoflocal,national,regional,and economy of reduction, reuse, recycling and rethought international importance, need. As shown in Table 1, consensus would replace relateenvironmental knowledge, problem- conflict,cooperationreplacecompetition,and solving, values and sensitivity at every level, voluntary simplicity replace conspicuous emphasize the role of values, moralityand consumption. It is this new paradigm, or something ethicsinshapingattitudesandactions affecting the environment, very likeit,thatiscentral to environmental stress the need for active citizen participation education. Our present conception of environmental insolvingenvironmentalproblemsand education is the result of an ongoing process of preventing new ones, international cooperation, interwoven with concerns enable learners to play a role in planning their about social justice and the sustainability of life on learningexperiencesandprovidingan opportunityformakingdecisions and Earth. Inthe 1970s, theUnitedNations' accepting their consequences, and Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization be a life-long process should begin at a (UNESCO) and the United Nations' Environment preschoollevel,continuethroughformal Programme (UNEP) sponsored a series of conferences elementary, secondary, and post secondary levels, and utilize non-formal modes for all age to define environmental education. By the early and education levels.(Simmons, Knapp & 1990s,this cooperative effort had produced over Young, 1990; 2nd page, unnumbered) thirty publications an specific aspects of EE. As Marcinkowski et al(1990)summarized: Central to the effectiveness of this environmental education was the development of The ultimate aim of EE is to aid citizensin morally mature humans. As Caduto(1985) becoming environmentally knowledgeableand, pointed above all,skilled and dedicated for working, out: individually and collectively, toward achieving and/ormaintainingadynamicequilibrium environmental education should not be confined to between qualityoflifeand qualityofthe providing the learner with knowledge but should environment.(p. 1) develop environmental attitudes and values which reflect awareness of the surrounding environment Environmental education was expected to be and acceptance of the responsibility for actions to transdisciplinary, holistic and a life-long process. In resolve environmental issues and problems. (p. 2) terms of curriculum, this education would involve a He noted that educators could enhance moral foundation knowledge of ecological concepts suchas educationby knowingthelearner'sstageof energy flow, biogeochemical cycling, evolution, and functioning in moral reasoning, and by challenging homeostasis;an awarenessof human cultural the learner with examples of substantive moral (social, political, economic, psychological) factors dilemmas which permitted the articulation of the related toenvironmentaldecision-making;a natureofthedilemma,theidentificationof 1 1 6 Marilyn MacDonald 4I Premises Within the Worldviews

Human exceptionalist/Exemptionist paradigms (HEP /HEP) (1) humans are exceptions to (or exempt from the laws that regulate) the natural world becausethey have culture; (2)cultural changes can occur faster and to a greater extent than can natural ones; (3) human differences are mostly social and therefore changeable; (4)cultural accumulation is infinite and all problems are soluble.

Dominant social paradigm/dominant Western worldview (DSP/DWW) (1) humans are apart from and above the rest of nature; (2)material growth can go on indefinitely; (3)scientists/technologists can find solutions to any problems; (4) change is progress, progress change; (5)rationality and enlightened self-interest lead, in the long run, to the best allocation of environmental resources.

New environmental/new ecological paradigms (NEP/NEP) (1) humans are one of many species on earth; (2) human purposive action must be understood within a web of cause, effect and feedback; (3)the world is finite, and has a carrying capacity for humans which relates to other species; (4) humans must cooperate to share resources, and avoid individual exploitation (especially of public goods); (5)scientific and technological "solutions" are not absolute because of side-effects, uncertainty and synergistic interactions.

Implicit/Associated Differences Between Major Groups of Proposed Worldviews

DSP/HEP/HEP/DWW NEP/NEP

metaphor frontier, battlefield, machine/clock Birthplace, web, spaceship/mother

carer entrepreneur environmentalist

archetype warrior/hero/father, lady steward, housekeeper bountiful

exhibits autonomy, instrumentality, embeddedness, expressivity, transcendence, rationality, immanence, intuition/empathy, universality, progress particularity, integrity

environment symbolic/cultural or built/human-altered or natural social system-dependent (physical and biological)

characteristic opportunistic, exploitive, boom and community-oriented, bust, anthropocentric, reciprocal/interdependent, steady abundance/depletion, material state, ecocentric, scarcity (diversity), affluence, synchronic competition equality/quality of life, diachronic cooperation

Table 1. Key concepts from environmental sociology about some of the worldviews of humans about their surroundings. (Buttel et al, 1978; Dunlap & Catton, 1979; Dunlap & VanLiere, 1978, 1984; Hsiao, 1986; Pierce et al, 1987; Steger et al, 1989)

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Professionallzation and Environmental Education 1 1 7 alternatives and probable consequences, and the better.Thesolutionsofmodernity insti- development of a framework within whichto tutionalized scientific research and technological decide on how to select the good or right path of development, growth-focussed mass production and action. consumption, bureaucratized government/industry In other words, environmental education was seemed to have become partof theproblems expected to push the boundaries not only of our (Dunlap, Gallup & Gallup, 1992). current knowledge of ecological concepts, but also of While there is no question that we've pushed our understanding of moral maturity and of the theboundariesofourunderstandingofthe nature of thegood. Whetherdeontologicalor environmental good, itis hard to measure the consequentialist, measures of goodness were more and progress we've made towards the full more strongly tied to the sustaining of community, implementation of environmental education. Thus, and the community in consideration was to be the same global poll that found that many people planet-wide and multi-specied. The search for a were concerned about environmental problems also model of moral relationship extended beyond the indicatedthatonly about13percentofthe simplistic market metaphor ofrationalagents respondents were members of groups that worked to bargaining for a basket of social rights on a free and protect the environment, about 57 percent avoided equal basis (e.g., Cahn, 1995; Thomashow, 1995; products which harm the environment, 56 percent Westra, 1994). would be willing to pay higher prices to protect the How successful has environmental education environment, and about 60 percent would choose to been? There is no question that we have pushed the protect the environment even at the risk of slowing boundaries of human understanding of what is good. economic growth.Again,therewas as much More humans thanever before are awareof variation in responses within as between countries environmental problems caused by human activities, grouped by income. In general, then, our worry and and are uncertain of what best to do to ensure a concern about environmental problems have not yet sustainable future (e.g., Brundtland, 1990; been translated into any consistent action (Dunlap, McCormick, 1989; Rogers, 1993). Gallup & Gallup, 1992). In the1992 Health ofthePlanetSurvey This gap between concern and action may be conducted in 24 countries, the Gallup Foundation reflective of a failure to achieve the global goals of reported the following: environmentaleducation.Thesegoals the widespread awareness of the foundational concepts Widely viewed as an elitist issue just two decades of ecology, combined with a better understanding of ago, the state of the environment has become a major concern of citizens throughout the world. People human decision-making, and an education conducive living in both rich and poor nations have come to to moral maturation have received more lip see environmental deteriorationasaserious service than actual support (Moyad, 1990). problem and a growing threat to the health and welfare of humans, and express strong support for As McErlean, Williams and Wittwer(1995) environmentalprotection.(Dunlap,Gallup & noted, most environmental education efforts have Gallup, 1992; p. vi) been concentratedinthenaturalsciencesand engineering, and leaveoutsocial,ethicaland Canada was near the top of the listof worried religious considerations. Also, in a society in which citizenry. About 90 percent of Canadian respondents formal education is largely reserved for the young, were concerned about environmental problems, and EE seems to be aimed at preparing for life well after about 87 percentfelt that environmental the Year 2000 rather than now. Also, EE often seems deterioration would negatively affect the health of to be concentrated at correcting the ignorance of the their children over the next 25 years. young, as if that will be sufficient to prepare them Such concern was equally matched by,for for the complexities of adulthood. Finally, they example, the Philippines(94 percent concerned argued that the low priority given to EE has doomed about environmental problems, 81 percent about the it to insignificance. They prepared an "Environ- effect an theirchildren'shealth),Mexico (83 mental Education Index,"a comparison of the percent, 89 percent respectively), and the United allocation of U.S. national resources amongst various StatesofAmerica (85 percent, 83 percent goals, to emphasize this low priority. Selections respectively). Indeed, there was as much variation from that Index include the following: within as between countries grouped by income. Put another way, for low, middle and high income Bush administration request for mathematics countries alike, nobody was sure which and science education: $1.9 billion; environmental problems were the most serious, who Administrative request for military recruiting (or what) had caused them, or how to make things efforts: $1.9 billion;

1 1 8 Marilyn MacDonald Amount Pentagon spent per day from 1980- Human Resources in the Environment Industry, 1994; 1991 on developing, testing, evaluating, and US EnvironmentalProtectionAgency, 1992). buying new weapons: $400 million; However,theemphasisinsuchnon-formal Percentage of adult population estimated to be education hasbeen on skilldevelopmentfor scientifically literate: 7%; remedial environmental protection. For example, in EPA request forall EE activitiesunder National Environmental Education Act in 1995 and 1996, the Canadian Standards Association, 1992 and percent of EPA budget $13.4 million the Conference Board of Canada, the Environmental and 2/10 of 1%; Managers' Association, the Canadian EPA research grant to University of Michigan EnvironmentalIndustryAssociation,andthe consortium to develop a "national" environmentaleducationcurriculum:$1.2 CanadianInstituteofCharteredAccountants, million; amongst others, all offered workshops on ISO 14000, Federal advertisingsubsidytoGunge, a a 1996setofinternationalstandardsfor Japaneseunderwearmanufacturer: $1.6 Environmental Management/Auditing. The main million. (McErlean,Williams & Wittwer, 1995; p. 264) intent of such standards is to ensure that legislated and corporate environmental requirements are well- MostofthecriticismswhichMcErlean, integrated into corporate planning, reporting and Williams & Wittwer raised against environmental day-to-day practices. They do not address such education in the public schools could also be applied issues as true environmental pricing, thesocial to post-secondary and non-formal EE as well. Thus, justice of global restructuring, or the nonmarket the Canadian Council for Human Resources in the evaluation of whether a business or economic sector Environment Industry compiled alistof post- even ought to exist. secondary environmental training in Canada in Some attention has been paid by corporations 1995/96. Of theovereightthousandcourses and governmentstotransdisciplinarity,values describedinthat list, the majoritywere clarification and moral development. For example, concentrated in thepure and appliednatural the Management Institutefor Environment and sciences,focussingonfoundationalecological Business (MIEB) (Pennell et al, 1991), in its Business concepts,andskilldevelopmentforremedial and environment:aresource guide, compiled a environmental protection (MacDonald, in prep.b.). support network of educators for corporate reference. What about life outside of school and academe? The MIEB included in that network representative At thecorporate and governmental level,the educators from accounting and finance, management, growth in demand for environmental education has marketing, natural resource management, production been a part of a much larger general demand for and operations management, strategic management, environmental goods and services (e.g., pollution and "business-and-society" studies. Out of a list of monitoring and control, environmental research, 195 environmental educators, only 18 (about 9 waste handling). Businesses which produced such percent) taught courses on, or did researchin, goods and services were combined, in the early 1980s, business ethics. into a category termed the Environmental Industries. Finally, there is a third sector of society This new sector of the economy had, and has, a volunteers that provide environmental education tremendous potentialfor growth (Basta, 1992; which is neither state- nor market-sponsored. That Bennett; 1991; Ernst & Young, 1992).By1994, sector, as we will discuss later, represents a major IndustryCanada and Environment Canada source of competition in attempts to professionalize estimated that some 60 to 70 thousand people were environmental education, and is a source especially employed in that sector. They also estimated that: vulnerable to charges of passion-blinded charlatanism. Canada's domestic market for environmental goods At the volunteer level, numerous environmental and services is approximately $11 billion and is expected to grow at 10 percent annually to $22 groups, from the Friends of Clayoquot to Pollution billion by the year 2000 .... Theworld market for Probe and the World Wildlife Fund, have provided the environmental industry is growing rapidly and field trips, educational materials and a range of may reach as much as $600 billion by the year 2000. (pp. 8,9) other resources aimed at increasing public awareness of environmental issues and actions. Thus, if the 1992 For a variety of reasons, including consumer Gallup poll is any indication, there were some 3.3 pressure, legal liability, standards of business, and millionpotentialenvironmentaleducatorsin future-oriented thinking (Petulla, 1987), Canada in 1991 (i.e.,the 12 percent of the total corporations and governments began to invest in population who are -members of environmental environmental education (CanadianCouncil for groups). An unknown percentage of these volunteers would have been professionals, donating their time Professional ization and Environmental Education 1 1 9

6Th -1 4.1 0 and effort either in, or outside of, their area of of the Dominant Social Paradigm, through reaction expertise.However,thepotentialnumberof against it (MacDonald, in prep. a.). volunteers who could contribute to environmental In summary, we have failedto achieve the education is even greater than that 3.3 million. global goalsof environmental education of As Duchesne (1989) revealed, volunteering is an combining foundational ecological concepts with an important part of lifefor most Canadians. In a understanding of human decision-making and moral survey of the period from November, 1986 to maturityinaholistic,transdisciplinaryand October, 1987, she found that about 27 percent of lifelong learning process. Indeed, the environmental Canadians over the age of fifteen (30 percent of education which we have achieved often seems women and 24 percent of men) do volunteer work more firmly rooted in the Western Worldview and with formal volunteer organizations; and about 66 Human Exemptionalist Paradigms than the New percent (69 percent of women and 64 percent of men) Environmental one (see Table 1). Natural sciences do informal volunteering. However, of that work, without social sciences, arts and fine arts; facts and only about 1 to 2 percent was directly identified as theories without moral maturation; classroom and environmental.Yetothertypesofvolunteer computer-based learning without practical in situ organizationsincludehealth, education,law, experience; rational objectivity and problem-solving recreation, religion,arts and culture, and public instead of passionate relationship we have come benefit. If we consider the interdisciplinarityof quite a ways in the last few decades, but not nearly environmental education, then some percentage of far enough. the work done in those organizations should be both Yet it is not just that we have failed to achieve educational and environmentally-related. A similar the global goals of environmental education. The argument could be applied to informal volunteering, diversity of all these educational activities a t in teaching, coaching, solving problems, doing yard theelementary & secondary,post-secondary, work, driving others to appointments, helping the corporate & governmental and conservation levels local community in general, and so on. is in itself often considered a problem. From the While environmental volunteers and activists vantage point of the learner, there must seem to be a seem concerned with allthegoals of effective bewildering array of possibilities for learning about environmental education, thethoroughness and one'ssurroundings. Television documentaries, consistency of such education is often suspect. That magazine exposés, school board evening courses, is, they decide to volunteer from a wide variety of corporation consciousness-raising sessions, activist motivations, ranging from the social through the demonstrations, and allthe formal educational material to the spiritual; they bring to volunteering efforts provide an apparently limitless selection of a diversity of age-, class-, race-, educational- and environmental problems and solutions. ability-relatedexperiences; and theyretaina At the same time, we seem to be building up a set willful control of the hours, the efforts and the of stories that suggest that effective environmental material benefits that they will contribute (Day & change depends on unity and simplicity.So, for Devlin, 1993; Falk, 1992; Fischer & Schaffer, 1993; example, we know that the Montreal Protocol an Wuthnow, 1991). They both provide, and engage in, restrictions to CFCs came about because the ozone a practical and experiential education. experts agreed to talk about their commonalities This kind of cooperative, learner-centred, self- (i.e.,there was substantial disruption of upper directed andintegrated (knowledge,moral atmospheric ozone formation) rather than their consideration and action) opportunity is difficult to differences(i.e.,thevarious estimatesof rate, provide in either a formal or non-formal setting. extent and persistence of disruption) (McCormick, However,sucheducationoftenprovides a 1989). Or we learn that various business associations piecemeal,superficialandoftensingle-issue- argue that their members would be good corporate oriented understanding of environmental concerns environmentalists if there were "one-stop shopping" and relationships. The lack of organized training is, for municipal, provincial and federal environmental in part, an outcome of the very commitment that rules and regulations, and clear proof that such rules attractedactivistsin thefirstplace. Thatis, andregulationssavedmorethantheycost volunteers often join an environmental group to take (Buchholz,Marcus &Post,1992).And such action to bring about a particular good. Given th a t assumptions about unity and simplicity create,or there never seems to be enough time orresources, add to, a demand to establish some coherence and then any demand for structured education for quality control amongst environmental educators. personal benefit seems selfish. Thus, even the However, such coherence and control is made reformers are caught up in the beliefs and attitudes difficult by the very diversity of environmental education. For example, even if we just focuson the 1 20 Marilyn MacDonald 4-1 .1. 4.; existing eighty or so professions in Canada, itis Assuming that this range of abundance in the hard to tell who is actually, or could potentially be, NAAEE isindicativeofthedistributionof anenvironmentaleducator. Forone thing, environmental educators in Canada in general, we environmental educators work in a wide range of can attempt to estimate the size of the pool of contexts. Consider the North American Association potentialprofessionalenvironmentaleducators ofEnvironmentalEducation(NAAEE),whose here. Table 2 illustrates the result. The easiest to mission statement was discussed earlier.It was enumerate are the educators in the formal part of established in the early 1970s as a professional the system, the categories that contain about 40 association to"assist and support the work of percent of the members of NAAEE. Included in individuals and groups engaged in environmental formal education are university professors, post- education, research and service"; and has a diverse secondary teachers andassistants, college and active membership of "environmental instructors, secondary school teachers, elementary professionals" who work inthreeinteractive and kindergarten teachers, guidance counsellors, and sections: school administrators. If environmental education is interdisciplinary, then allof these professionals Non formal education section is composed of could potentially contribute something to such a individuals who work in education centers, zoos, transformative way of understanding. This grouping museums, government agencies and industry. of educational professionals represented, in 1991, Their work often targetsthepublic, youth about 586 thousand people. Of those professional groups, and schools in an informal setting. educators, 343 thousand (or about 59 percent) were women. Environmental studies section is composed of Harder to enumerate are the educators in the individuals who work in highereducation, non-formaland the conservation education including universities and four-year and two- categories, the categories which contain some 59 year community colleges. The Section encourages percentof the NAAEE membership.Potential a broad interdisciplinary approach to natural environmental educators in these categories would resources managementandenvironmental be the assorted consultants who provide their clients problem-solving. with information on the social and natural sciences (categories marked with a single asterisk in Table Elementary and secondary education section is 2).These include policy and program officers, composed of individuals who work in schools, researchers and consultants in healthand social school administration and higher education as issues,naturaland appliedscience,economics, teachers. They are involved in environmental economic development and marketing, education, education in the formal school setting as well as recreation and sports, government and other such inthetrainingofpre-serviceeducators. areas. This grouping represented about 100 thousand (Simmons, Knapp & Young, 1990; 2nd page, professionals (of which 50 thousand, or about 50 unnumbered) percent, were women), bringing the total number of potential professional environmental educators to In support of "the analysis and understanding of 686 thousand (373 thousand, or 54 percent, of whom environmental issues and questions as the basis for were women). effective education, problem-solving, policy - However, if NAAEE's membership distribution making, and management" (Simmons, Knapp & is any indication, we are stillmissing some 780 Young, 1990; 2nd page, unnumbered), the NAAEE has thousandpotentialprofessionalenvironmental published monographs and conference proceedings an educators that is, if 59 percent of those educators suchthings asenvironmentalactivismand are engaged in environmental education outside the international environmental education. It has also formal educational system, and if we assume that sponsored twenty-four annual international the ratio between potential and actual conferences; and is preparing for the twenty-fifth environmental educators is the same in both formal one in San Francisco in 1996, and the twenty-sixth in and non-formal situations. Those missing Vancouver in 1997. professionals could be drawn from such areas as the As indicated in a recent NAAEE survey, its natural and appliedsciences, arts and culture, members were/are involved, in order of descending health, and social issues (categories marked with a abundance, in non-formal (37 percent); elementary double asterisk in Table 2). This grouping, for 1991 in and secondary school (27 percent); conservation (22 Canada, included some 1.2 million professionals, of percent); and post-secondary (13 percent) education which about 579 thousand (48 percent) were women. (McCrea, pers. comm.). Professionalization and Environmental Education 121 1" 2 Professional occupation Total # # Women I # Men

I University professor 42 555 12 130 30425

Post-secondary teacher/assistant 33 795 15 265 18535

College instructor 83 080 41 240 41840

Secondary school teacher 158 395 76 075 82320

Elementary/kindergarten teacher 218 980 179 035 39945

Guidance counsellor 12 525 7 445 5075

School administrator 36 510 11 950 24560

Health/social science consultant* 29 490 16 620 12860

Ec. devel. /marketing consultant* 26 495 11 695 14805

Education consultant* 13 035 7 735 5305

Recreation/sports consultant* 11 115 6 875 4240

Natural/applied science consultant* 9 045 2 590 6455

Economist * 5 370 1 420 3950

Other consultant * 3 660 2 025 1630

Government-unique consultant * 2 040 800 1245

Business and finance** 207 460 83 490 123965 , . Natural/applied scientist** 347 680 64 260 283420

Health professional** 374 325 289 635 84695

Social issues professional** 143 885 62 055 81830 - _ Arts and culture professional** 143 960 79 270 64690

(* and **: not usually considered to be educators; * referring to consultants whose work may contain an educational component; ** referring to other professionals whose work may contain an educational component) Table 2. Potential professional environmental educators in Canada, 1991 according to the 1993 Statistics Canada/Employment and Immigration Canada classification for professional occupations. (Statistics Canada, 1993 a. ,b. ,c.)

In summary, in Canada in 1991, we had a pool of suchprofessionalsto leave their existing potential professional environmental educators in commitments and support systems. formal education, consultancies, andother One such advantage may be theeconomic professionaloccupationsofsome1.8 million potential, discussed earlier,of the environmental professionals, of which about 972 thousand (54 industries.Certainly,government andindustry percent) were women. representatives have put forward market-rational Yet, only a small, and still-unknown fraction of arguments for the unification and standardization of thoseprofessionalshavebecomeinvolvedin business-relatedenvironmentalknowledgeand environmental education. So one of the attractions of practice. They have argued thatsuch quality the professionalization of EE may be to draw these control would increase confidence in the credibility unconverted into the fold. However, EE must be andcapability ofenvironmentalknowledge, perceivedto have some unique advantage,or streamline theprocess of finding a sustainable especially worthwhile contribution, in order for future, and-develop a global environmental industry

122 Marilyn MacDonald 1 3 inwhichCanadawouldbecompetitively - over lay reason. Then we can condone a model of advantaged(Buchholz,Marcus & Post,1992; professional ethics (paternalism) in which it may Fouillard, 1993;IndustryCanada/Environment be notonlymorallyacceptable,but morally Canada, 1994; Gass, 1973). necessary, to lie to someone for their own good (e.g., InNorth America alone,thefederal Ellin, 1982). governments of the United States(for example, I shall, throughout this paper, make reference through the Environmental Protection Agency) and to the origins and meanings of some of the words Canada (for example, through Environment Canada that contribute to this web of beliefs and attitudes, and Industry Canada), and the North American to try to uncover such connections. To begin to get an AssociationforEnvironmentalEducation,the idea of the solidity of the concept of profession in Canadian Council for Human Resources in the everyday discourse, one need go no further than our Environment Industry, the Canadian Environment ascriptions of responsible behaviour. Industries Association, and the NationalAsso- "How professional!" we are wont to rhapsodize, ciation of Environmental Professionals have all when colleagues show up on time, work efficiently proposedsuchcontrolmechanisms.Even the and effectively, remain unflappable under pressure, environmental movement seemed in need of better keep up with their responsibilities, preserve the organization (Petulla, 1987; Snow, 1991). confidentiality of organizational information, and, One such mechanism to control the quality of en- in general, make everyone's jobs easier and more vironmental educators is professionalization that productive by doing their full share. Or, perhaps process through which an occupation acquires the more frequently, "how unprofessional!" we mutter traits or attributes of a profession (Buffington, 1974). when they fail to do so. As an indicator of such And, as mentioned earlier, we need to know more moral strengthsascompetence, trustworthiness, about both the process and the product, before we can supportiveness, benevolence, honesty, diligence, and evaluate any argument about theprofessional- discretion, professional is the only term for a subset ization of environmental education. of occupations which also doubles as a popular conception of the epitome of the virtuous capitalist worker.Incontrast,"how unionist"or"how Professions and professionalization: domestic" failsto evoke thatsame image of The peculiar case of modern knowledge and consistent dedication. trustworthy human capital In Canada in 1867, only about 1 percent of the As a first step, we need to have a deeper definition total human population was considered to work in a of theconcept of professionthanthesimple profession (MacDonald, in prep. a.). However, as reductionism of the federal government's industrialization entered a phase ofmass "occupationwhich requires university-based production, bureaucratic corporations and wide- training" (Statistics Canada, 1993 c.). spread support of research and development, this According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary percentage began to increase. Changes in health (Allen, 1990), a profession is: care,publicwelfare,knowledgeorganization, primary resource management, urban design, and so 1. a vocation or calling, esp. one that involves some on,createdademandforskilledworkers, branch of advanced learning or science (the medical interwoven with a developing sense of national profession).2.a body of people engaged in a profession. 3. a declaration or avowal ... (Middle identity(Laxer,1991; Macdonald, 1991; Zeller, English from Latin profiteri to declare publicly). 1987). The number of professions rose, both as older occupations changed theirstatusandas new It is difficult, living in the 1990s in post-industrial discoveries opened up opportunities for the birth of and presently-restructuring Canada, to consider the new professions (Bohnen, 1975; Witz, 1992). By 1911, professions objectively. The term is emmeshed in a 13 percent of the female and 2 percent of the male; subterranean web of beliefs and attitudes which and by 1961, 16 percent of the female and 8 percent of make up the everyday common sense, the folk the male labour force in Canada were professionals concepts that we, in a knowledge society, hold about (Bohnen, 1975). risk, social stability and functional expertise. Even By 1994, 82 out of a total list of 514 occupations our ideas about such things as truth, reason and were considered by the federal government to be goodness are products of our way of life. They will, professions. This accounted for some 2.6 million paid especially if unexamined, continue to support the workers, representing about 20 percent of the total status quo (Cocks, 1989). For example, suppose we labour force (or 24 percent of the female and 16 believe that scientific truth is superior to personal percent of themalelabourforce).(Statistics truth, and that professional reason has precedence Canada, 1993 a., b., c.). Professionalization and Environmental Education 123 124 The original professions of law, medicine, the this training is centred on young adults (late clergy,andeducationwerestill considered teens to early 30s); professions. They had, over the last century and a a practice whichis essentiallyintellectualin half,been joined by socialworkers, engineers, character: the work of a profession is based on economists, nurses, naturalscientists,librarians, the perception of the world as problematic pharmacists, editors, and so on. In fact (and as composedofproblemsthat arediscrete, mentionedearlier), the whole concept of knowableandcapable ofsolution.The professional has become such a natural part of our professional'sexpertiseliesindiagnosing, post-industrial society, that the federal government advising and directing, relating the professional needed onlyasinglecriterion obligatory body of knowledge to someone's (e.g., buyer, university-level training to distinguish profes- client, patient) particular concerns. Part of the sions from all other occupations and societal roles professional's expertise is the recognition of the (StatisticsCanada, 1993 a.,b.,c.).Yet, when boundaries to her/his knowledge, and of the sociologists first began to study the professions in appropriate professionals to consult when those the early 1900s, that taxonomic task proved much boundaries must be crossed; more difficult. the provision of a unique socialservice: since most people are in a state of ignorance of the The product: A checklist approach to the professions esotericbodyof knowledgeof any given The traits (or attributes) approach to research an profession (including those professionals who the professions was most popular from the 1930s to are outside their area of expertise), and given the 1970s (Pavalko, 1988). Central to this research that the knowledge is important, thereis a was theassumptionthatcertainoccupations substantialcomponentofpublicservicein exhibited common traits because of their exchange professional work. Some professions emphasize function within a particular structure of society the importance of scaling the price for their (Cullen, 1978). For professions, that function was the services to promotea more equitable application of complex knowledge to solve vital availability of these vital services; human problems. It was best fulfilled when the the self-regulation of standards of entrance and buyer of professional services trusted the seller, and exclusion: members of a particular profession the seller respected both the buyer and the other form associations. Through these associations sellers of those services (Abbott, 1988). they develop preadmission selection criteria, What were the taxonomic traitsthought to requisite coursework and practica for initial and arisefrom and promote thatfunction, which in-careertraining,andcertificationand/or separated professions from other occupations and licencing procedures. All of these standards are societal roles? In Professional ethicsin education, put, and kept, in place through negotiation with Rich (1984), reviewing the sociological literature the state. Such standards ensure that only a few from the early 1900s onwards, concluded that these (supply control), or only thebest(quality were: control) enter into, and remain in, a profession; the development of an enforceable professional a highdegreeof generaland systematized code ofethics:professional associations knowledge: variously referred to as esoteric, establish codes of ethics which act as guidelines theoretical,or indeterminate,the chunk of for practitioners, and as protections for the knowledge which is the domain of any given general. public(totheextentthatthe profession is considered to be underlain by some professional association has, and is willing to setofuniversalprinciplesand supporting exercise, disciplinary powers over its evidence,theunderstandingofwhichis membership). The need for such codes arises in constantly being advanced and extended by part because of the gap in power between the research carried out within the profession itself. professional seller of expertise and the client This knowledge is assumed to be important in buyer.Thisgapmayplace a(legally solving the problems of some set of vital human enforceable) higher obligation on the activities; professional to be competent, trustworthy and alongperiod ofspecialized, intellectual discrete, particularly where theclient must training: in order to become proficient in the reveal usually-confidential aspects of practicesofthis considerablechunkof themselvesinordertoreceivethebest knowledge, professionals-in-training are professional service. The codes also may provide obligedtospend many yearsengagedin limits to intra- and inter-professional advanced learning at universities. In most cases, competition, in order to foster the collegiality 124 Marilyn MacDonald necessary for the sharing of new knowledge and moral guidelines; but guidelines which can the adoption of best practices, and to avoid include the good of particular relationships); conflicts of interest.Finally,the codes may, the rightto decide for oneself (i.e., whatever eitherexplicitlyorimplicitly,prioritize range of choices, the moral agent is capable of professional responsibilitiestowards clients, choosing responsibly as an individual, but can do employers, colleagues, and the general public; so in communication with others, and in a context the exercise of a broad range of autonomy: both of interdependence); at an individual level (in professional conduct self-governance (i.e., living one's lifein ways and in the day-to-day scheduling and content of consistent with maintaining personal integrity, work),andatanassociationallevel(in with having an awareness of the sentiments determining and enforcingtheappropriate that move them, and an internal consistency standardsfortrainingandperformance), that integrates all of one's important decisions professionals are considered not only capable of as much as possible. (Pritchard, 1991, pp. 185, self-direction, but obliged to do so. That is, a 186) professional, as an expert trusted to provide the best solution for a client's particular problem, That first sense of autonomy is more or less what should be independent of her/his own subjective is deemed necessary for, and characteristic of, not concerns,andofadministrativeorother justprofessionalbutordinaryhuman moral interference. maturity. It is part of an internal schema, developed through experience with the ways in which any How does all this relate to environmental education given society poses and solves moral dilemmas and professionalization? To start with, educators, (Callahan,1988;Christensen,1984;Crittenden, accordingto Rich(1984),havefewerof the 1990;Garner,1994;MacNiven,1990;Rest & professional traits than do, for example, medical Narvaez, 1994; Simon, 1994).Thus, professional doctors or lawyers. Educators do provide a unique codes of ethics could be considered as guidelines social service (e.g., the socialization of a stratified based on experientially and reasonably determined labour force, and/or of a democratically effective universals peculiar to the particular relationships citizenry [Aronowitz & Giroux, 1991; Ball,1990]), between experts and ignorant people, whether have a practice which is essentially intellectual, affected by the exchange of some consideration (e.g., and require a long period of specialized training in consultancy fees, tax-supported education) or not. order to practice (Britzman, 1991). However, in The test to evaluate those moral guidelines other ways, educators fail to run true to professional whether utilitarian,deontological, relationalor type, sometimes even being classified as incomplete something else for the balance between substance or semi-professionals (e.g., Etzioni, 1969; Sokoloff, and public relations, between altruism and self - 1992). interest, remains to be developed (Harding, 1985; The dubious taxonomic position of educators McDowell, 1972). results from a number of factors,chief amongst The second and third senses of the term are more which is lack of autonomy (Rich, 1984). That is, as a ambiguous, combining both individual development group, they are perceived to be under the control of and context. Thus, the right to decide for oneself non-educators, and to be dependent, to a large extent, includes both theinternalcapabilityto make an factorsotherthantheeducationalin the responsible decisions, and the external freedom to determinationoftheirwork.Itisimportant, act on that decision and to bear its consequences. however, to remember, throughout this discussion of Similarly,self-governancerequiresaninternal autonomy, that a number of critics of the professions commitment to the development of comprehensive regard the claims for its attainment as overstated, if and coherent moral competency, as well as the not mythic (e.g., Anderson, 1992; Carlson, 1988; external freedom to experiment, and to learn from Kultgen, 1982, 1988; Nitzen & Tzur, 1989; Osiel, both the successes and failures of oneself and others. 1984; Rueshemeyer, 1983). For knowledge societies, the context of autonomy As Pritchard (1991) argued, autonomy is related is most often measured in the workplace, and to the concept of moral competence. It requires: separated from the domestic or private. One's work situation is considered central to the development of impartialityin reviewing and justifying moral a public or social morality, to the creation of a principles (i.e.,a detachment from particular framework to explain obligations beyond the self likes, dislikes, biases and commitments in order and family (Wueste, 1994). This conceptualization to reasonably determine universally applicable seems to picture the workplace as the jungle-gym of the soul, where moral dilemmas abound, providing Professionalization and Environmental Education 125 2 complex learning opportunities on all manners of educative case of DSP malaise,to diagnose the hard, role-relatedchoices.Itis thisworkplace symptoms and to recommend/provide the cures, and context which, for the educator, contributes most to a to follow up on theimplemented educational lack of professional autonomy. experience, to ensure its efficacity. Moreover, they The more an educator acts as an employee rather would haveto be ina positionto bear the than a consultant, the more limitedis her/his consequencesoftheir actions ofnegligence, autonomy. That is, an employee would expect to malfeasance, and supererogation in regards to those have a fully-functional workplace provided, to be three aspects of environmental educators' moral given direction on the work to be done, to be maturity (Harding, 1985; Brockett, 1988; Martin & monitored on a day-to-day basis for satisfactory Schinzinger, 1989). performance, and to carry out her/his work in As Rich (1994), Tight (1988) and others have accordance with a relativelyfirmly-definedjob argued, thestrugglefor educationalautonomy description. A consultant would determine the work coalesced around the concept of academic freedom: to be done, carry it out to a standard considered ... the liberty needed to investigate, publish, and adequate by her/his peers, and be evaluated in communicate knowledge in an academic community relation to the delivery of a particular good or without administrative,political,ecclesiastical, service, such as a report or training workshop. So, for and other forms of interference.... Academic freedom is needed in the search for truth, both in example,aconsultant who designsin-service teaching and research, not only on "safe" topics training programs for businesses would be considered but on those whose outcomes are likely to stir to have more autonomy than someone who must widespread controversy ... . [It] refers to five distinct privileges: classroom autonomy for the teach from school-board-controlled lesson plans. teacher, freedom ofinquiryforthescholar, For the profession as a whole, the most visible extramural freedom for the staff members, tenure educatorsarethoseembeddedwithin the protection for the qualified, and academic due bureaucratic system of public schools and post- process for the accused. (pp. 56,57) secondary institutions (as discussed in the preceding Thus, for university professors, autonomy was section).Thus, even thoughthemajorityof tightly linked to competence in research rather than professionals engaged in environmental education in teaching, at least in part becaUse research (and may be outside of that system (as we discussed in the research funding) was a better defence for self- preceding section), the common sense understanding regulation and againstoutsideand non-expert of the environmental educator willbe of some interference. The . pursuit of that autonomy may heteronomous worker, potentiallyprevented by have reinforced a division between post-secondary bureaucratic constraints and parental pressure from and other education (Weaver, 1991). In addition, for providing the best and fullest professional service. publicschoolteachers,academic freedom was Thisunderstanding may limitthesuccessof limited by the legal minority of the students, even if environmental education. educators were purportedly in loco parentis (Rich, Given the explicit importance of moral maturity 1994). as a goal of environmental education, and given its This emphasis on research over teaching, and on commitment to the transformation of society into the the conflation of newly-discovered knowledge with NewEnvironmentalParadigmand a new merit and competence, has created a paradoxical understanding of the nature of thegood, then situation for educators. That is, educators do not professional autonomy is of particular importance to have a unified chunk of general and systematised the success of EE. That is, effective environmental knowledge upon which they agree, or for which educators would have to be skilled in the resolution they have a consistent practice. Many educators are of moral dilemmas in determining their nature, in members of two professions (i.e., education and a outlining and assessing the alternatives, in choosing "home" disciplinesuch aslaw,accountingor thebestcourse,and,whilerecognizingthe biology), and have two bodies of general and relativism beneath that decision, in taking appro- systematized knowledge with which to contend. priate action. In addition, they would have to be Often, educators who are at the leading edge of skilled in the teaching of moral understanding in their"home"profession(e.g.,professorsas knowing and taking into account the developmental, researchers at university) have littleto no formal structural, contextual and practical implications of training in, and receive few academic rewards for both moral argumentation and moral sensitivity in researchon orpublicationin,pedagogyand relation to the particular cases of their students. androgogy (Weaver, 1986). Finally, they would have to be in a position of Thus, an ecologist researching the bioenergetics sufficient freedom from bureaucratic, administrative of tidal marshes is expected to know about energy orothercontroltoexamineeachparticular flow. S/he is often not aware of the "universal 126 Marilyn MacDonald principlesand underlying evidence"of adult achievement of that workplace autonomy. Assuming education (e.g., Cross, 1988) when teaching a fourth that the earlier-discussed attributes are sufficient year biology course, or presenting an Environmental and necessary, then the following changes could Impact Assessment to a provincial review board. make environ-mental education truly professional: Taking Weaver's (1991) analysis into consideration, one might even expect resistance on the part of the 1.a unifiedbody of generaland systematized ecologist to being considered a teacher, since such a knowledge: given the core goals of designation could leadtolessautonomy and environmental education, this body of academic freedom. knowledge would have to interweave Within this melange of institutional context, foundationalconceptsofecology,scientific client needs, professional diversity, and disputed theories about decision-making (including moral domainsofknowledge,educatorshavehad issues), and the principles of pedagogy and difficulty in establishing effective and consistent androgogy (all within a cross-cultural codes of ethics. As Rich (1994) noted, this difficulty perspective).Only peoplewiththeright is fundamental: training (see 2. below) could contribute to the growth of this body of knowledge. Is the teacher's central ethical obligation to the individual student, the class as a whole, or to Unidisciplinary professionals could not use this school board policies? ... Is the professor'scentral body of knowledge directly, but could refer their ethical obligation to his or her discipline,to clients to the appropriate source. This system of students, or to the employing institution? (p. 47) referral could be based on existing professional The universality of such principles as academic models. Environmental educators, as freedom, informed consent, and confidentialityis professionals, would be responsiblefor the limited by such divided loyalty. Also, it should be interpretation, verification and control of folk or noted that Rich (1994), like most other researchers common environmental knowledges (where "folk concerned with the education profession, failed to or common" would applytoanythingnot include those educators who function outside of the professional); public system (e.g.,withincorporations). Their 2.a long periodof specializedtraining,with ethical concerns would add yet more diversity to any certification and licensing: professional schools overarching professional code. Given the current would have to be created at the university trends toward the privatization of education, these level,toprovideenvironmentaleducation concerns may merit greater attention in the future. through some combination of cross Finally,environmentaleducators,withan departmental, cross-faculty and new obligation beyond the human species, would have appointments.Theseacademicswouldbe even greater difficulty in the establishment of a responsible for the teaching and research needed code of ethics. Such a code would have to maintain to develop and transmittheEE body of both the fiduciary relationship expected between a knowledge (see1.above).In keeping with professional and her/his client, and a congruency academic standards, university environmental between professional practice and the universal educators would require four degrees principles flowing from the interdisciplinary EE (baccalaureate in combined science/arts; body of knowledge.Professionaldilemmas baccalaureateineducation;masters;and whistle blowing versus trustworthiness, pro bono doctorate). The evaluation of their performance volunteering versus collegial responsibility, high- would be based on a combination of scholarly technologyheroicsversuslow-technologyem- productivity (80 percent), teaching (10 percent), powerment, having a life outside of work versus and community service (10 percent), in keeping dedication, being clear about what is known and not withtheimplicitpractices ofexisting known versus taking care of distraught clients 'professional schools. would all become more complex in a world where oak trees had rights, or where humans annually For work outside the university, environmental acknowledged in public a kinship listof beings educators would require only thefirsttwo whom they had used and/or helped. degrees. In allcases, association-determined What that all boils down to is that educators, in certifications (both general and specialist), and attempting to be considered more professional, provincial, federal and international licensing would be likely to focus on autonomy as a desired (based on successful completion of a period of end. And, if thatis the case, then they would practical experience and international probably turn to professional exemplars, such as examinations) would be required. These would medicineandthelaw,asmodelsforthe bedevelopedandadministeredbythe Professionalization and Environmental Education 127 128 Association of Environmental Educators (see 4. Now that we have a clearer ideaof the below). Only people withthisspecialized attributes of a truly professional environmental trainingwouldbeallowed to practice educator, we can return to the question of whether environmentaleducation.Theycouldnot environmentaleducationwouldsurvive such facilitatethe development of environmental professionalization. knowledge competenciesoutside of the profession (see 4. below); The process: Professions and the power of exclusive 3.clarification oftheuniquesocial service, knowledge particularly its intellectual practice: So far, we have seen that environmental education, environmental educationisaimedatthe in its fullest sense, is an interactive combination of establishmentof a holisticand sustainable the natural and social sciences, and of formal and relationshipbetweenhumanityandthe non-formal educational institutions, focussed biosphere. To truly provide that unique service, equally on moral, affective, aesthetic and cognitive environmental educators would have to reach development, allframed withinthecontext of agreement on the prerequisites for sustainability. However, we have also seen that sustainability,and theframeworkwithin most of the goals of such a transformative education which such prerequisites could be achieved. have yet to be achieved. Although many humans Such a framework would have to take into are now worried about the state of their surround- accounttheparamount importanceofthe ings, we have yet to be moved to consistent and fiduciary relationship between the professional effective action, to replace the present Dominant/ and her/his client (see 4. below). Because the Human Exemptionalist /Western Worldview with serviceisunique and vital,and given the some New Environmental/Ecological Paradigm. economicdisparity amongstpeople,some We have touched briefly on the diversity of allowance would have to be made to ensure efforts in environmental education, from grassroots, equitable availability(e.g. streetfront clinics, through public school, university, and industry, to pro bono cases, environmental aid). The practice international government. We also have some idea of existing professions in this regard could be of thehuge potentialnumber ofprofessional used for reference; environmental educators in Canada alone, some 4.control of standards of entrance and exclusion, 1.8 million professionals (over half of whom are enforcement of a code of ethics, and verification women) who havediffering,and sometimes of thenecessary levelof autonomy: a global opposing, knowledge bases and loyalties. We can Association of Environmental Educators, only estimate the equally huge potential number of through state- and internationally-supported not-professionals the3.3millionormore profes-sional schools, and a system of licensing volunteers and activists (over half of whom are and certification(see2.above), would be women) who are concerned about environmental responsible for the surveillance of professionals protection,and who engageineducationof and other people.Such surveillance would themselves and others as part of that protection. confirmthatonlyEEprofessionalswere And we also have some idea of how that diversity practicing environmental education, and th a t and those potentials act as stimuli for a callto people (both corporate and otherwise) were professionalizeenvironmentaleducation,even consulting EE professionals for expert advice an though many such educatorsareprofessionals the environmental consequences of everyday already. life. A single code of ethics would be required to That is, we have evidence for a strong demand clearlyprioritizeamongst EEprofessional (for example, the creation, and forecast economic responsi-bilities to clients, colleagues, growth, of the Environmental Industries sector). We employers, family, human interest groups, and also have evidence of the continued marginalization other species. This code of ethics would be in of environmentaleducation(forexample,the sufficient detail to apply to the full variety of Environmental Education Index discussed earlier, or EE contexts, and to offer substantive guidance, the large number of professionals who identify as especially in relation to the maintenance of neither environmental professionals nor educators). autonomy. Mechanisms of enforcement, including Therefore,it may seem that we environmental censure, decertification, awards for professionals/educators must be doing something achievement, and economic retaliation would be wrong, missing some opportunity for change. applied appropriatelythrough a Review The finalquestions to consider, in trying to Board established by the Association. evaluate whether environmental education will surviveprofessionalization,havetodo with 128 Marilyn MacDonald 1 ifa group of environmental sometimes control subordinate to another group. context. Thatis, Jurisdictionalboundariesareperpetuallyin educators in Canada in the 1990s were to attempt to dispute, both in local practice and in national professionalize, what barriers would they have to claims ... Thus an effective historical sociology of professions ... mustplace these disputes in a larger surmount? Who would become the charlatans and context, considering the system of professions as a quacks whose empty babbling would serve by whole. (Abbott, 1988; pp. 1, 2) contrast to justify their professionalism? Could they achievean autonomy comparabletothatof For Canada in the 1990s, that professional system is medicineandlaw? Couldtheir new-won already under a number of challenges (Menzies, professional autonomy coexist with an educational 1996; Spender, 1996), including: imperative to promote in oneself and others the moral maturity to live sustainably? thedisappearanceofprotectedniches:as The actual process of professionalization is a governmentspendingdeclinesonhealth, complex one. It depends not only on the desires of the education, research/development, monitor- workers in an occupationtobe perceivedas ing/enforcement and other parts of the social professionals, but on the social context in which that safety net, the percentage of the population particular occupation is located (Figure 1). that can be supported as true professionals For instance, we have already considered the should also decline, unless private spending can trait of professional knowledge thatit be a compensate. In addition, globalization of trade definable body of knowledge accepted by profes- will, through the mobility of production, bring sional and laityalike as esoteric, indeterminate, into contact systems of professionals which had complex and essential. We touched briefly on some previously operated in relative isolation, and of the difficulties encountered in trying to bring which must now engage intheprocess of togetherboth knowledge and people from a establishinga new and globalsystemof numberof different disciplines. That is, competitive equilibrium; environmental educators have not only to convince the proletarianization of professional skills and each other and the general public that they (or we) knowledge:theadvancesbeingmadein have a coherent, definable, and unique body of information technologies are likelyto make professional knowledge. They also have to convince professional knowledge availableto anyone professionals from other disciplines of the same with access to a personal computer, a modem, thing, and do so in such a way that"green" and the remote sensing devices necessary to the professionals will join EE, moving away from their communication between client and computer. original professions, and that those professions will From virtual field trips to virtual classrooms, tolerate(atworst) or support(atbest)such professionals will be engaged in a defence of defection. theirknowledge base both externally(e.g., However, as Figure l's model of professional- empowerment of the laity,and swamping by izationshows,such peacefulpoachingseems other economies' mass production and unlikely. Abbott (1988) argued that the profession- marketing) and internally(e.g.,resistance to alization of any one occupation does not occur in long periods of training and specialization, isolation, but rather within the context of a system challenges from supporting occupations which of professionals. In Canada, by the 1990s, that wish to upgrade their status); system consisted of over eighty professions, from the thecarryingcapacityof Earthfor human old and powerful (e.g., medicine, law) to the new societies: the success of professions is intimately and marginal (e.g., social work and librarianship), linked to economic growth. Yet most of the with various permutations and combinations in evidence that is the basis of the environmental between.Inthissystemofprofessions,each professions suggests that we have reached, if not profession has, and is, engaged in an ongoing struggle passed, the limits to such growth. If professions for existence with every other profession, and the are an integral part of a capitalist system, if the scarce resource of knowledge has been divided up chief reason for becoming a professionalis into discrete territories: economic reward, if the capitalism of the DSP cannot be changed into a form appropriate to the By focussing on parallelsinorganizational development, students of the professions lost sight NEP, then the very concept of profession is of a fundamental fact of professional life inter- unstabilized by our approach to the limits of professional competition .... growth. Theprofessions,thatis,makeupan interdependentsystem.Inthissystem,each profession has its activities under various kinds of jurisdiction.Sometimesithasfullcontrol, BEST COPY AVAILAW

Professionalization and Environmental Education 129 13' Shifts within Knowledge Occupational Status + Society Domain scientization of social action knowledge industry authority of experts

Image Competing Claims Building internal schisms Activity otherprofessions supporting occupations designing government client education (formal/nonformal) volunteers/amateurs

Risk Construction Body of Knowledge catastrophic essential unfamiliar exclusive inequitable complex involuntary indeterminate dreaded useful recent unknown to science biased immediate irreversible

Client-Serving Occupation client ignorance, incapacity full disclosure necessary precedence of client's ends Public Recognition guidelines - clear, complete, no substantive, enforced

Mimic Profession Autonomy from Client Employing Organization

no Yes no

Semi-profession True Profession Semi-profession

Potential Formation Stabilization ------. Bureaucratization k-----IIP Proletarianization Absorbtion/ Substitution

Figure 1. A model of professionalization (modified from Forsyth & Danisiewicz, 1985, addingconcepts from knowledge societies [Stehr, 1994], risk construction [Covello & Johnson, 1987], deprofessionalization[Derber, 1992; Torstendahl & Burrage, 1990] and system of professionals [Abbott, 1988]).

130 Marilyn MacDonald JEST COPY AVAILABLE 31 Given these stresses to the professional system, the ways, such educators (and environmental birth and nurturing of an environmental meta- professionals in general) might propose a code of profession becomes questionable. ethics which ensured cooperation amongst normally For Abbott (1988), the system of professionals disparate occupations and disciplines. depends upon thecreation and applicationof That is, the more autonomy achieved in self- knowledge. Theprofessions(havingcorporate governance and the right to decide foroneself about identity and legal being) cooperate as equals (e.g., thecontent and schedulingof theeducational statisticians developing new analyticaltools for experience, the more necessary a strong code of ethics social workers to track educational outcomes for might seem. Such strength would liein clauses elementary school children);form hierarchical aimed at the regulation of specific individual alliances(e.g., nurses and medical doctors); and practices. These clauses would serve to reassure both competeforvacantjurisdictionalspace(e.g., clients (i.e., that the quality of the product of a medical doctors, architects and civil engineers for diverse profession was under control), and workers in public health and urban planning, following the other professions and related occupations (i.e., that invention of clay piping in the early 1800s). the competitive behaviours of what would amount As Abbott envisaged it, new professions could to a meta-profession were under control). However, arise only at the expense of the existing ones, but one might expect, as an accompaniment tothis those existing ones had found and maintained their somewhat paradoxical rise in autonomy and control niche withinthe professional system precisely of the individual, a decline in the orientation in because they were competitive. Thus, this compe- environmental education towards public duty. titive system kept, and keeps, a constant pressure on Asevidenceofcompetitivedisplacement each of its component occupations to defend juris- amongst the professions, Abbott (1983, 1988) referred dictional boundaries. Over the last two hundred to those clauses which deal with interprofessional years, and especially since the early 1900s (marked relationships the agreement to recognize and stay by a proliferation of the professions), and the 1960s within one's own area of competency, and to refer and 1970s (marked by state and other reviews of the one's client to other professionals as required. For authority and regulationof professions), these example, in the code of ethics of the National component professions have elaboratedaset of Association of Environmental Professionals,one guidelines for coexistence. Like Darwin's finches, finds the promise to: whose differing bill sizes preclude an interspecific 4. conduct my analysis,planning, design, and scramble for food, it is the apparent absence of direct review activities primarily in subject areas for which I am qualified and encourage and recognize competition amongst professionals that is supposed theparticipationofotherprofessionalsin to be the best evidence for its tacit presence. interdisciplinary teams wherever practicalto Abbott (1983) suggested that professional codes determineimpacts,defineandevaluateall reasonable alternatives to _proposed actions, and of ethics provide clues to the hidden dynamics of assess short-term versus long-term productivity professionalization by what is omitted as well as by with and without the project or action. what is included, and, in the latter, by what is 5. seek common, adequate, and sound technical intended to be taken seriously as well as by what is grounds for communication with and respect for the mere puffery or preamble. For example, he noted contributions of other professionals in developing thatsuch codes are intended toregulate the and reviewing policies,plans,activities,and rather projects.(Lemons, 1995; Code of Ethicsand performance of individualprofessionals, Standards of Practice for Environmental than that of the aggregate for the profession, even Professionals; fourth page, unnumbered) though both are measurable. Further, the greater As in other codes of ethics (Gorlin, 1990), such the movement towards individualism and autonomy clauses are directed at the maintenance of the in any profession, the lower the status within that professional system. No other occupations except profession of those practitioners whose specialty is professions are considered worthy of such referral. oriented towards a public duty (e.g., public health Except for the general exercise of reasonable care in inmedicine,communitymentalhealth in respect to bystanders, no ethical obligations exist to psychiatry, public defenders in law). honour knowledges other than the professional, or to For environmental educatorsintenton the provide professional information to those unable to attainment of sufficient workplace autonomy to be clients for example, poor humans, or as Stone shift their occupational status from weak or semi- (1987) suggested, trees, sacred places and other profession to true profession, thisregulation of individual educators may seem attractive. Already beings. divided amongst themselves in a number of different Professionalization and Environmental Education 1 31 132 Similarly, the avoidance of conflicts of interest, them, interact with management in relation to work fraud,misrepresentation,andintraprofessional performance and autonomy. For Canada, some idea competitiongenerallymerit morespacein of the size and composition of these two layers is professional codes of ethics than do concerns for the given in Figure 3. protection of anyone, human or otherwise, outside of Second, Abbott (1988) did not include in the the clients-professions matrix of interrelationships system of professionals those people outside the (Bennion, 1969; Gorlin, 1990; Pellegrino et al, 1991). labour force(e.g.,volunteers,activists,family For example, the Code of Ethics of the National members) who nonetheless are affected by, and to a Associationof Environmental Professionals has large extent maintain, that system. I will return to seven clauses (clauses 3 to 6, Ethics; 6, Guidance for this point later in this discussion. practice; and 3 and 4, Encourage development of t h e When we talk about the benefits and costs of the profession) that deal with the former, and a general professionalizationof environmentaleducation, introductory clause and Creed that represent the then, we need to bear in mind the ramifications that latter: such an occupational change will have both within the system of professions directly, and within the Itis [an environmental professional's] duty to interest themselves in public welfare and to be workforce layers above and below. For example, i f ready to apply their special knowledge for the weare designinga workshop on"green benefit of mankind [sic] and their environment... consumerism," in what ways would we acknowledge 1. to recognize and attempt to reconcile societal and and incorporate the lived realities of sales clerks individual human needs with the responsibility for employed at or below the poverty line who sell physical, natural, and cultural systems. products that they consider to be environmentally 2. to promote and develop policies, plans, activities, offensive? In what ways do we acknowledge and and projects that achieve complementary and incorporate the limits to professional expertise to mutual support between natural and man-made [sic], and present and future components of the alter management decision-making? For example, physical, natural, and cultural environment. whistle-blowing is an ongoing ethical dilemma. As currently depicted, it is justifiable only after one has I do not argue here that the Code of Ethics of the first-hand and verified evidence which has been National Association of Environmental brought to all the appropriate levels within the Professionals is either reprehensible or misguided. client's or employer's organization but which has Rather I would conclude that any occupation which been ignored; and furthermore, it must be clear that is being fitted into the mold of profession must adopt the practices are harmful and that the whistle- thelimitationsandresponsibilitiesofthat blowing will be effective in halting that harm (Bok, particular social role, and that, whatever the good 1980). If whistle-blowing is a difficult concept for intentionsofitspractionersto promote social society to live with, what would the reaction be to change, the fiduciary relationship between client educational workshops which demonstrated that a and professional, and the collegial relationships company or branch of thegovernment was so within and between professionals are paramount, in environmentally destructive that it would be in its this society and at this time. own best interests to cease operations? In Figure 2, there is a representation of what In summary to this point, the Abbott's system of professionals would look like for professionalizationofenvironmentaleducation Canada in 1991. Educators are central to this system, would need to be understood as a process considered being responsible for the production of the highly- worthy of support first, by a core group of educators; trained people thatengage in allprofessional second, by the system of professionals within which practice, and for much of the new knowledge that is the newly conceived profession would be embedded the lifeblood of that system. (and probably as a subset of a larger group of However, as Figure 2 illustrates, Abbott's (1988) environmental professionals who would be engaged system of professionals is incomplete. First, he gave in their own interactions to form a profession within littletono attentiontotheinteractionsof that system); third, by the support and management professional occupationsbothupwards and system which in turn surrounds thatsystem of downwards within the stratified labour force. That professionals; and fourth, by the people peripheral is, workers in professional occupations are also tothesesystems(theunpaid).Environmental engaged in contests with those occupations which activists and volunteers, as discussed earlier, can be support theprofessions(e.g.,technicians)over considered to occupy a somewhat anomalous position definitions of the nature, content and control of tha t within this organization, being both at thecore (as supporting work. At the same time, professionals, educators) and the periphery (as an unpaid and either employed in bureaucracies or under contractto willful force unregulated by either state or market). 132 Marilyn MacDonald 13.3 Life Physical Scientists Architects Lawyers Scientists 17 285 Engineers Notaries 22 865 (26%) Urban Planners 53 075 (19%) 168 610 k (27%) (8%) University Artists Policy Research College Mathematicians Writers Consultants Professors Statisticians Recreation- related 100 250 159 435 Computer rtd. 128 215 (50%) (30%) 139 020 (52%) (30%) Librarians Secondary Archivists School Elementary Psychiatrists 15 745 Teachers School Social Workers (78%) 158 395 Teachers 60 725 (48%) 218 980 (70%) Physicians (82%) Surgeons Nurses Accountants Dentists Therapists Auditors Veterinarians 274 580 Other Business 73 295 (92%) Professionals (24%) 207 460 (40%)

Figure 2. The system of professionals in Canada. Total number of workers and percentageof women workers are shown for each category. Following Marshall (1989), occupations are considered to be male-dominatedwhere the percentage of female workers falls below that in the total labour force (e.g., 45% for1991). (Based on Statistics Canada, 1993 a., b., c.)

Itisherethatwe need toconsider the According to Seidman, for knowledge societies implications of risk construction in the strategies of such as Canada in the 1990s, social order in relation professionalization (Figure 1). From client to such risks is maintained: risk,toprofessional conceptionsof acceptable ... throughtechnologies of control such as spatial communication of the safety or danger of alternative separation,time management, confinement, sur- procedures, to a societal willingness to regulate and veillance, and a system of examinations that monitor particular hazards, the riskier something is classify and rank individuals for the purpose of normalizing social behaviour .... Power in[such] to a vital human concern (like health,justice or a disciplinary order is manifested less in the form immortality), and the greater the expertise needed of repression than in the production of subjects or to handle thatrisk,thestronger thecase for social selves who are positioned as objects of normalizing control.. . . Thesetechnologies of professional status (Douglas, 1985; Slayton, 1977). control are interlaced with medical-scientific dis- This may be particularlyapplicabletothe courses; the latter control the movement of bodies, of problemsand desires, identities, and behaviours by contributing identification environmental to their very formation and by imposing on them solutions (Douglas & Wildaysky, 1982; Dunlap & normalizing rules or norms. (1994; pp. 226, 227) Mertig, 1992; Hird, 1994; Petulla, 1987; Szasz, 1995). Environmental educators seeking greater So, we return to the checklistof traits that professional autonomy would most usefully construct define a professional, to reconsider some of the avisionoftheenvironmentascontrollably changes, modelled on such exemplars as medicine dangerous. The more risk-filled and problematic our and the law, which I had suggested to enable relationship with our surroundings appears, the environmental educators to become true more essential it becomes to have an intermediary professionals. It seems all too likelythat those who promises to be able to help. There must always changes would lead to an environmental education be something to cure through expertise, rather than conservative rather than transformative of such to prevent through common sense. There must always disciplinary order. be someone or something to monitor, in order to diagnose sickness. BEST COPY AVAILABL Professionallzation and Environmental Education 1 33 134 Senior Management 139 265 (21%) Natural Science Health Art vernment Engineering Education Cu lnire Management Architecture Social Services Recreation 15 610 Management Management Management ( 32%) 50 730 90 355 24 400 (15%) (59%) (43%) Process Manufacturing Trades Primary Resource Sales Management Management Management Service 152 920 308 965 52 415 Management (12%) (4%) (10%) 716 910 (43%) T Other rtd. Management 686 860 (59%) Professions Technicians Technicians Paraprofessionals (Nat.Sci. / Eng. /Arch.) (Art / Cult. /Rec.) (Soc.Sci. /Law /Ed'n/R1g.) 322 290 193 395 124 335 (15%) (52%) (70%) Trades Primary Office Sales Transport Resource Workers Service Product Fabrication Workers 2 049 705 Workers Equipment Operation 692 290 (79%) 3 388 415 1 255 295 (23%) (56%) (5%)

Figure 3. The workforce support and control of the system of professionals in Canada. Total numbers of workers and percentage of women workers are shown for each category. Following Marshall (1989), occupations are considered to be male-dominated where the percentage of female workers falls below that in the total labour force (e.g., 45% for 1991). (Based on Statistics Canada, 1993 a., b., c.)

Appropriation of nonprofessional environmental economics, sociology, administration, management, planning, law, and policy. (Vol. 17 (3); Aims and knowledges, exclusion of amateurs and volunteers, scope ofthe journal, second page, unnumbered) elitismthroughanincreasingly inaccessible universitytraining,problematization ofthe Such a limitedinterdisciplinarity,focussed on everydayworld of our surroundings, and assumptionsaboutneutrality,objectivityand globalization of a Western science-based ideal of universality in the natural and applied sciences (but environmental epistemology and of the universals of see,forinstance, Harding & Hintikka, 1983; moral maturity all of these have precursors in Longino, 1990; Shepherd, 1993) is reflected in the other professions, and all of them may be avoidable. Code of Ethicsand Standardsof Practicefor Thus,oneofthestated aimsofThe Environmental Professionals (Vol.17 (3);fourth Environmental Professional, the official journal of page, unnumbered): theNational Association ofEnvironmental Professionals, is to foster interdisciplinarity,but As an Environmental Professional, I will: only of a limitedsort. Focussed on "developing 1.be personally responsible for the validity of imaginativeapproachestotheresolutionof alldata collected, analyses performed, or environmental problems," the editors of the journal plans developed by me or under my direction... requested articles which: 2.encourage research, planning, design, management, and review of activitiesin a go beyondalaboratoryanalysis,afield scientifically and technically objective manner. experiment, or a theoretical derivation... linking I will incorporate the best principles of the scientific, technologic, and socioeconomic systems environmental sciences for the mitigation of to effective impact assessment, regulation, and environmental harm and enhancementof environmental protection...at the interface of environmental quality. environmentalscience,technology,education,

134 Marilyn MacDonald

$3 5 According to Bowler (1992) environmental sciences Rossiter, 1982, 1995; Schiebinger, 1989; Shortt, 1992; include/d geography,geology, botany, zoology, Sokoloff, 1992; Ursel, 1992). ecology,physics,and meteorology.Thus,the That this professionalization of environmental interdisciplinarity that was to include the social education might be a mixed blessingisalso and natural sciences, the humanities, the arts and foreshadowed by the ambivalence which many otherareasof human endeavour has become people feel towards the professions in general. As considerably narrowed. Just as professionalization Millard (1992) pointed out: seemed to contribute to the hierarchical division of the labour and non-labour force, so it also seems to Until recently, professionals enjoyed high limit the EE goal of a broad interdisciplinarity. statusinCanada.Wise,learnedand Again, I do not intend to criticize the National compassionate doctors, lawyers and AssociationofEnvironmentalProfessionalsfor clergymen were regarded as the embodiment attemptingtheadmittedlydifficulttaskof of moral probity and social responsibility. fostering the levelof interdisciplinarity which Armed withesotericknowledge,they they do. The development of collegiality amongst battled disease, crime and sin for an ever naturalandsocial scientists, businessand admiring, and deferential laity. Benign and government managers, and educators can be an apolitical, they were an incorruptible force important first step towards the EE goal of wider dedicated to public service, progress and interdisciplinarity, to the empowermentof social order. marginalizedenvironmentaldecision-makersas Although admired for their altruism, in discussed in Agenda 21(1992 United Nations the last few decades the professions have Conference on Environment and Development), to the fallen in public esteem .. ..critics see [them] transformation of worldviews from the Dominant -as monopolistic barriers to individuals and Social to the New Ecological Paradigm. But it can be ideas ...[they] entrench privileged elites, an important first step only if it is perceived assuch. restrictcompetition,raisefees even Thus, at the same time that we are devising shield incompetence. (p. 3) methodologies to combine botanical,geological, sociological and legal information together within How can one subset of occupations be perceived so the time constraints dictated by particular projects, differently?Although Millardconstructedthe we need to question a model of science (andhence of "good professional-bad professional" dichotomy as technology) as rational, dispassionate, inevitable, chronologically(i.e.,historicversus recent) and neutral and competitive.Perhaps we needto cognitively(i.e.,general societyversuscritics) develop a model of explanacy or creativity instead, disjunct, the realityisfar more complex. This whichemphasizestheproductiveinteraction dualistic split in our concept of profession is all too between rationaland intuitive,passionate and similar to what feminist analysts have called the dispassionate, chaos and determinism, relationship "pedestal-gutter" syndrome in relation to the status anddetachment,competitionandcooperation of women. That is, just as the social construction of (MacDonald, 1993). women as either the reliable, chaste madonna or the As Smith (1987) proposed in The everyday fickle, wanton prostitute had more to do with power world as problematic, and expanded upon (1993) in distributions between and within the genders than Texts, facts, and femininity in relation to authority with the real natures of women (Mackie, 1991), so i t and communication, professionals such as may be with professions. sociologists must develop practices that promote Perhaps we need to understand not just the equity, and provide research for the marginalized meanings of professional and not-professional, but rather than about them. also the human longing for the world to be arranged Certainly, if the success of sustainability is as in sets of such simple dichotomies (Schleifer, Davis dependent as it was conduded to be in Agenda 21 an & Mergler,1992). Certainly, ourconceptual the recognition of, and reliance upon, women, youth, landscapeislitteredwithsuchpairings indigenous peoples, non-governmental organizations man/woman, masculine /feminine,culture/nature, and trade unions as environmental decision-makers, day/night, reason/emotion, centre/margin, then past professionalpracticestowards these life/death, certainty/risk, and on and on. Perhaps groups need to change (Bolaria & Bolaria,1994; we also need to understand the politics (in the sense Code, 1991; Gaskell & McLaren, 1987; Grimwood & of relationships of power) of dichotomization Popplestone, 1993; Harding, 1993; Kinnear, 1995; why do concepts often acquire meaning only by Noble, 1992; Pearson & Fechter, 1994; Rogers, 1993; difference, by opposition and separation? How do we take into account the dialectic, the overlap, the Professionalization and Environmental Education 135 136 dynamic commonalitiesof what appearto be which inequalityislegitimated(Gaard,1993; discrete and antonymic terms? Seidman, 1994). For example, Pascarella and Terenzini (1991) The question,then,iswhetherprofession- argued that such dualistic thinking is relatively alization allows society as a whole to move beyond simplistic: dualisticthinking,orwhetherit,andthe accompanyingcommodificationandterritorial things are either right or wrong, good or bad, and distribution of knowledge, freezes most of us (or knowledge of which is derived from "Authority." The dichotomous categories include knowledge, allows most of us to remain) in an obligate and self- values, and people, and they are absolute. (p. 29) justificatory moral adolescence. Or whether, given the dynamic, unstable and multivocal meanings However,they ascribed thatsimplistic throughwhichweconstructsocialreality, approach to cognitive and ethical immaturity. They professionalization is better considered a described Perry's nine-stage(or, more properly, Damoclean sword, symbolic of the dangers that position) model of cognitive and ethical attend a violence-based prosperity, but symptom development which assigned dualistic thinking to and tool rather than cause. the first four of those stages. After that was an More particularly,how willenvironmental intermediatestage in which analyticthinking education, with its central goal of human moral skills began to replace unthinking acceptance, and maturity, benefit and lose from professionalization? therelativismof multipleknowledge claims Can it survive the "good educator/bad educator" replace the absolutism of good/bad knowledge, but dilemma the wise and compassionate teacher where making choices amongst apparently equal opposed to the self-aggrandizing monopolist as alternatives was resisted. In the last three stages, public funding for education disappears? Can we peoplemoved ontocommitment,andan outgrow our apparent willingness to entrust our understanding that making choices was part of one's moral responsibilities and agency to others, and/or identity. For Pascarella and Terenzini, who were to take others over when virtual reality and global summarizing twenty years of research on How restructuring may be rigidifyingtheultimate collegeaffectsstudents,thechallenge was to dichotomy of have and have-not? Do we really identifythefactorsthatwerelinkedwith want to increase the credibility and capability of substantive moral maturation, and to provide a post- environmental knowledge by exposing and excluding secondary educational experience thatpromoted the charlatans and quacks to whom Johnson refers in such maturation. Such an approach is in keeping the opening quotation? Or are we acting in self- with similar challenges in environmental education interest, agreeing to unite segments of such disparate (e.g., Caduto [1985]). occupations as lawyer, accountant, biologist and In contrast, or in complement, post-structuralists teacher into one meta-community called and post-modernists have suggested that dualistic environmental professional, in order to gain the thinking is both fundamental to the way in which benefits of exclusive control (for the professionals) weconstructreality,andessentialto the and experts-as-commodities (for the not- maintenance of the status quo of modernity. That is, professionals)? words are considered to gain meaning not so much It is important to remember that the creation of through any correspondence to some real object, but professions rested and rests on difference th a t through the particular ways in which they differ professions haveaconceptualdensitybecause from other words. Thus, and as we have briefly something else was and is not-professional. Again, discussed already, profession acquires its meaning referring to a dictionary, we find an important less by having specific traits or attributes, than by bifurcation in the common sense understanding of having traits or attributes which some other word, being not-professional. That is, it can be a matter of such as laity, charlatan or amateur, can be shown to passive absence of professional essence, or an active lack or to misuse. In such an analysis, this binary opposition to that essence (Allen, 1990): oppositionisan active,dynamic socialforce, organizing our senses of self, social institutions and nonprofessional: not professional(esp.in relationships of power. Each such pair is constructed status). Neutral in sense. F. Latin non not: not as a superior term (the first one, e.g., man, culture, doing or having or involved with; not of the soul, reason) and an inferior one, derivative from kind or class described; used to form a neutral and subordinate to the first(e.g., woman, nature, negative sense when a form in in- or un- has a body, emotion). The degree to which we come to special sense or (usu. unfavourable) accept that hierarchical relationship as connotation. commonsensical, natural or normal is the degree to 136 Marilyn MacDonald I 3 7/ unprofessional:contrarytoprofessional Centraltothemeaningofprofessional standards of behaviour etc.; not belonging to environmental educator is the exchange of educative a profession; amateur. labour for a fee. In any struggle to validate that professional status, one would therefore expect a People are nonprofessional because they do not movement to widentheperceiveddifference have the essential attributes, and are not engaged in between the quality of the professionals and the doing that combination of knowledge and practice not-professionals. At the same time, internal to the that is societally sanctioned as professional. new profession are a series of differenceswhich Thus, professions (as discussed earlier)were would havetobe minimized(e.g.,between defined in opposition to other parts of the labour consultant and elementary school teacher). force: Thus, for environmental professionals (including environmentaleducators),thevolunteersand the semi-professions: which lack autonomy in activistsof the environmental movement are the relation to either the client or the employer most likely candidates to be set up in opposition to a (e.g., public school teacher); driveto professionalize. And themost likely the skilled occupations: which lack autonomy characteristic around which to build metaphors of and depend on professionals for the theoretical opposition would be motivation the reason of the grounding oftheirwork(e.g.,Geographic objective professional compared to the will of the Information Systems technician); and volunteer (from the Latin, voluntas) and the love of thesemi-skilledorunskilledoccupations: the amateur (from the Latin, amare).In other which lack autonomy and theory,and are words, given the context of environmental education essentially physical or manual in the practice of inCanadainthe 1990s,thestrategiesof their work (e.g., draftsperson, logger). professionalization may demand the construction of separation between environmental activistsand Theessentialattributeswhichseparate environmental professionals by denying reason in profession from nonprofessionare,inorderof the former and passion in the latter. descending importance, autonomy, a general and Moreover, given this construction of a binary systematized knowledge base, and a predominantly opposition between reason and passion (and, by intellectual practice. In other words, the concept of conflation, between professional and activist), the profession in relation to nonprofession makes sense drive to professionalize environmental education of, or naturalizes, an ideology of a hierarchical may also target other groups for exclusion. I want to workforce. Equally importantly, it contributes to an end thisdiscussionofthepossibleeffectsof acceptance of the commodification of knowledge, professionalizationon environmentaleducation and thepositioning of professionalsas quasi- with a consideration of two pieces of information. capitalists who invest, and derive profit from, For me, they are evidence that we have remained information. entrenched in the old patterns and processes of the In contrast to nonprofessionals, unprofessionals Dominant Social Paradigm, rather than sought the are people who have some or all of the essential new and sustainable. They have to do with the attributes, or who are engaged in doing the special linkages between capitalism and patriarchy (Witz, something that is the domain, of a professional 1992). but who are being or doingitwrong. As the First, in a report on the Human resources in t h e definitionsuggests,theyeitherfailto meet environment industry (1992), it was conduded by professional standards, or they do what they do for Ernst & Young (who prepared thereport), and love rather than money. accepted by Employment & Immigration Canada That is, the definitions of educators, (who published the report), and Industry Canada environmental or otherwise, can be arranged in a and Environment Canada (who sharedfederal dichotomous key of decreasing opposition: responsibilityforthe developmentofthe environmental industry) that,forthesixtyto 1. receives a fee for educating others 2 seventy thousand workers considered: ".. . compared 1. does not receive a fee for educating others amateur, volunteer 2. works for an employer 3 to the general Canadian labourforce, and on 2. is self-employed consultant average, employees in the environmental industry 3. depends on other professionals 4 are younger (20 to 45 yearsold), more highly for research 3. carries out research professor educated and composed predominantlyof men 4. teaches discipline-based secondary school (almost 90%)." subjects teacher This is a surprising finding, given that we have 4. teaches young children elementary school teacher seen, for instance, that about half of the pool of some Professionalization and Environmental Education 137 3 BEST COPYAVAii APIr 1.2 million potential environmental educators are Are we, by the ways in which we are defining women; or that in only one grouping of potential the work of environmental professionals, and by the environmental professionals (architects, engineers, concerns that we might have for the professional urban planners) does the percentage of women fall as autonomyofeducators,headed towards a lowasthe 10percentsuggestedforthe reinstituionalizingofgender-basedinequality? environmental industry. It is certainly not from lack Would we findsimilardiscrepanciesinthe of interest, or from lack of will to take action. Again, representation within the environmental professions we have seen that more women than men volunteer, ofvisibleminorities,aboriginalpeoples,the eitherwith formal volunteer organizations,or disabled? informally; and thatthe percentage of women Returning to the argument for the interestedin environmentally-relatedactivities professionalization of environmental education, I never falls to 10 percent (see also Day & Devlin, suggest that we must proceed with care. We cannot 1993; MacDonald, 1995, 1996). assume that the gains of professional autonomy are Second,Snow (1991), in a surveyof without costs, or that those costs are distributed environmental non-governmental organizations in fairly in relation to the benefits. If we develop a the USA, found that over half of the members of body of professional knowledge that is available an those organizations were women, but that less than a user-pays basis, then we may exacerbate, rather one fifth of those women were in decision-making than diminish, already-existing inequalities. If we positions within their organizations. Admittedly, limit the goals of environmental education to those Snow's focus was an thedearthof competent marketableina knowledgesocietyandthe managers within the environmental movement, and Dominant Social Paradigm, then we will lose those on the benefits (often perceived by the managers very goals that made environmental education themselves) which management training would worthwhile. bring to social change. However, it is not promising Iconcludethisinquiry into theeffectof to find an unproblematic acceptance,withina professionalizationon environmentaleducation movement dedicatedtosocialchange,ofthe with the following brief story. The person who told hierarchies and exclusionary practices of the wider it to me said that it was originally a Sufi story, and (in this case, American) society. I must rely an her accuracy and my memory in this The "true professions" have never been as warm retelling. a climate for the marginalized in society as they Nasrudin had gone out for the evening, and havefor thedominant groups(Harris,1981; returned home well after dark. As he walked along, Kinnear,1985; Marshall,1989; Sokoloff,1992; he jangled his housekeys in his hand, as much for Statistics Canada, 1995; Witz, 1992). For example, the cheerful noise as anything. But alas, he dropped Armstrong & Armstrong (1992), in an overview of the the keys, and began to search for them under a professions in Canada, concluded that: streetlight. Soon, he had attracted the attention of although women have here as elsewhere flooded a police officer and several passersby, all of whom into the professions, pronounced patterns of sex joined in the hunt. After an hour of fruitless segregation persist both within and between searching, the police officer said to Nasrudin that it professional occupations. Evidence reveals that yearsof educationand other objective was very unusual not to have found the keys, what characteristics do not account for the power, pay withso many peoplelooking, and withthe and prestige differences among professionals. Clear advantage of the light. "Oh," replied Nasrudin, contrasts emerge in the marital and, parental of female and male professions. In short, "it's not hard to understand why we haven't found for the professions sex counts. (p. 118) the keys, because I dropped them in that alley over there." "Well, why aren't you looking in that alley One of the perceived challenges to professional then?" asked the police officer. "Why, because i t autonomy hasalwaysbeengender.Female- seemed so much easier to search where there was dominated professions (e.g., nursing, librarianship, light," Nasrudin replied. social work) have tended to have less autonomy So it may be with professionalization, and our than male-dominated ones (e.g., doctors, physicians, search for ways to move to a New Environmental lawyers), and to be considered to have that lesser Paradigm. autonomy because of women's individual pattern of psychologicalmaturation,theirbiologicalor Notes on contributor socialized identity,or because specializationof labour makes the most efficient use of human capital Marilyn MacDonald isAssistantProfessorof (Davidoff, 1986;Lindsay,1994;Moore,1988; Women's Studies at Simon Fraser University. She Newman, 1985). has done research, taught, and published on the 138 Marilyn MacDonald relationship between women and the environment, Bynum, W., Browne, E., Porter, R (Eds.) 1981. Dictionary of thehistoryof science.Princeton UniversityPress, women and science/engineering/technology, women Princeton. and the medical system, and feminist pedagogy in Caduto, M. 1985. A guide on environmental values education. UNESCO-UNEP International Environmental Education school systems. Marilyn is currently doing a survey Programme; Environmental Education Series 13. Paris: of women, work andtheBC environmental Boudin. movement and studies of female-friendly science Cahn, M. 1995.Environmentaldeceptions:thetension between liberalism and environmental policymaking in the teaching materials (including distance and computer United States. Albany: State University of New York assisted education). Press. Callahan, J. (Ed.) 1988. Ethical issues in professionallife. New York: Oxford University Press. 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Environmentaleducation inCanada and education's critical focus should not be employed elsewhere is hindered by a lack of access to the only on dominant culture discourses and withheld useful results of recent research an critical thinking, from environmentalist ones. valueseducation,andtherelationbetween This is an important point, for particularly in environmental ethics and the science of ecology. the intermediate and senior grades, students caught Lacking the frameworks for exploring environmental up in consumerism and dismissiveofenviron- values in inclusive and open-minded but also critical mentalist concern are not likelyto encounter the and educative ways, some teachers try to avoid uncritical promotion of environmentalist values in valueissuesaltogetherexceptforthemost the classroom as beckoning. This is overwhelmingly uncontroversial sort. On theother hand, some the case in thepost-degree Teacher Education teachers feel convinced that the science of ecology classes I have taught at the University of British has forced a holistic understanding of nature upon us Columbia. Whenever the topic of environmental that everything in nature isconnected with education and teacherbias has come up, the everything else, that ecosystem stability depends dominant concern expressed in every class has been to upon diversity, and so on. On the basis of this speak against the promoting of environmentalism allegedscientificwarrant, theyfeelthatthe among students: "It's great to do environmental promotionofenvironmentalistvaluesinthe eduction in theschools, but teachersshouldn't classroom is not only permissible but mandated by impose their environmentalist views on students." In the environmental problems we face. every class, I have had to point out that teacher These are not two extremes. They are practices bias in environmental education comes in any of one meets up with regularly in elementary and many stripes, a large number of them non- or anti- secondary classrooms. What is problematic about environmentalist. The challenge then is to figure out them is that both the avoidance strategy and the how to deal with these biases. ecology-as-warrant strategy prevent the Whatever their orientation, many teachers of exploration of value issues that is fundamental to environmental education need access to clear and effective environmental education. The ecology-as- concise discussion of thevarietiesof teaching warrant strategy makes the further mistake of a ) strategies that can be used to enable students to assuming thatecology is dominated by a single explore value issues in ways thatare inclusive, paradigm and that this paradigm is "holistic," and open-minded, critical,educative,and not mis- b)assumingandcommunicatingthatitis informed about the nature of ethics or the nature of appropriate to look to science to determine our science. In other words, teaching strategies which a ) values for us. enrich the student's understanding of other points of Recent literature on environmental education view and of how to deal with conflicts of values; hasn't helped with these problems. For example, and that b) engage the student in thoughtful and two of the most popular of recent publications, critical exploration of existing practices, proposed David Orr's Ecological Literacy (1992) and C.A. reforms, and his or her own environmental practices Bowers'Education,CulturalMyths,andthe and values. This paper will make a beginning a t Ecological Crisis (1993), both promotean developing a framework for such strategies. environmentalist approach to environmental edu- There is also a need for clear discussion of the cation that is insightful in many important ways, problems that attend the claim that ecology forces but which falls short on the criteria of inclusiveness, environmentalistvalues and aholisticunder- open-mindedness, and criticalness.As much as standing of life upon us. These problems are best environmentalist perspectives have been left out of understoodbyexploringwhatenvironmental the curriculum, this problem is not best corrected by philosophy, the history of ecology, the philosophy building them into the curriculum to the exclusion or of science and feminist theory have to reveal about trivialization of views and literature from other reading ethics out of science so simply (Courtenay (including "dominant") perspectives. Further, the Hall, 1995). But to render this into the form of a questioning which Orr and Bowers both promote is framework for teaching strategiesis the work of always of dominant Western beliefs and practices, another paper. andneverofenvironmentalistclaims.Their critiquesare important, butenvironmental 142 Pamela Courtenay Hall 143 A practical framework for exploring values approach seemed to be unduly subjectivist. What in environmental education more teachers can legitimately aim to do in terms of values education at least includes the teaching of The purpose of this paper, then, is to develop a moral concepts and of moral reasoning(Coombs, practicalframeworkforexploringvaluesin 1980). This conviction was the genesis of reasoning environmental education programs, and to outline approaches or CriticalThinking approaches to the philosophical justification for this framework. values education, a movement which shares with The point of the framework is to facilitatethe the earlier Cognitive-Developmental approach of exploration of values in inclusive and open-minded Lawrence Kohlberg (1975), an emphasis on the role but also critical and educative ways. My ultimate that reasoning plays in moral experience. objective is to helpteachersdeal soundly and But classroom teachers have never been slaves to effectively with the values education dimensions of the whims of curriculum developers,, and whether environmental education. they embrace the new curriculum of the hour or I will argue that the approaches I refer to as ignore it,they generally set up their classrooms Clarification, Cultivation, Criticalthinking and with some clear ideas of the sorts of attitudes, and Moral Perception (see Figure 1) are allessential dispositions, which they want to see their students components of effective values education in public develop and practice during thecourse of the schools. What follows is part of a larger project semester. This idea that there are certain character critically exploring each of these approaches from traits which should be developed in the classroom is the perspective of the others as well as from the the basis of the lower-profile but popular movement perspective of: a) my own experiences in values in values education known as Character Education. I education, environmental education, and teaching call this the Cultivation approach because of its critical thinking, b) recent work in feminist ethics emphasis on cultivating certain virtues and its ties and pedagogy, and c)recent work in pheno- toAristotelian, Humean or communitarian menological anddirectrealistapproachesto approaches to moral philosophy. understanding theroleof perceptionin moral Now clearly, even the Values Clarificationist experience and in knowledge generally. and the CriticalThinker are committed to some modest formofthis"cultivationofvirtues" approach in so far as theyactivelyengage in The four approaches and their place fostering a concern for clarityin students. The in recent history Critical Thinking approach goes further, of course, in nurturing a whole host of intellectual and moral From the 1960s to the present, curriculum initiatives virtues needed for effective critical thinking. But in values education have been dominated by two the difference is that the Cultivation approach approaches, the Values Clarification approach and embraces a set of virtues which go beyond those theCriticalThinkingapproach.TheValues necessary for achieving clear or critical thinking Clarification approach aims to help students to among students. Further, the Cultivation approach clarify the values which they hold. Its methods ascribesanarrowerroletoreasonin moral include open-ended questions, exercises and group experience than is typical among Critical Thinking discussions. The purpose of these is to elicit students' approaches. views and values,and toencourage listening, Advocates of a Perception/Empathy approach comparison, and reflection by the students. Itis take even stronger issue with the reasoning focus of based not only on psychological, philosophical and Critical Thinking, arguing that moral judgement is moral recognitions of the importance of including never simply a matter of trying to make rational, students' experiences and concerns in the curriculum, unbiased judgements on thebasisof neutrally itis also based on the conviction thatto help obtained observations. Moral judgement depends students to clarify the values which they hold is crucially an moral perception, which is a complex the only form of moral education a teacher has the set of attunements, understandings, attitudes and right to engage in. To attempt to do more is to abilitiesthatrequireexample,nurturing and indoctrinate, values clarificationists argue, and this exercise for their development. Drawing on feminist is an abuse of the teacher's position. reconceptualizations of moral experience and ethics, Many philosophers of education and others were the Perception/Empathy approachis committed concerned with the moral relativismthatthis also to the view that there is something deep in approach seemed both to assume and to spawn. The Western cultures that has led to the suppression of understandingofmoralityembeddedinthis the role of perception, caring and empathy in moral

Environmental Education as Values Education 143 144 The Approach Aim Methods Clarification approach Help students to clarify the (Teacher and peer example are values which they hold. common to all.) More broadly, Self-reflective Open-ended questions, exercises approaches & group discussion to: elicit views and values, encourage listening, comparison & reflection.

Cultivation approach Help students learn the values, Extrinsic rewards, beliefs, and ways of behaving enforcement, punishment Spectrum from indoctrinating (*) necessary for them as members of to encouraging the development society: Encoura gement , praise, of certain virtues (Character correction, questioning ed'n) For them to have a Teacher & peers as examples meaningful life in our Stories & films with role- Links with Virtue theory society? model value (positive or For them to get ahead in the critical) world? Cooperative group, team or For them to be cooperative class projects and productive citizens? Community work Experiential education, Some of these methods involve habituation as well as critical reflection.

Reasoning approach Help students learn to make and List of reasons for/against act on reflective and responsible decisions. Research, discussion and Critical thinking role-play to explore the reasons behind differing points of view Learning critical concepts Evaluating own and others' reasons; e.g., Principle- testing. Perception approach Help students develop their Stories, speakers, films, capacities to recognize and radio interviews, plays, Links with Naturalism, Fem. appropriately respond to the artwork, field trips, ethics,,Existentialism, moral features of situations, i.e., community work ... Hermeneutics ... help them to develop their Small, supportive group capacities for moral perception, discussion of life caring, and imaginative empathy. experiences, of particular issues, of the above activities ... Critical exploration of own standpoint and own present limitations of empathy.

Figure 1. Approaches to Moral Education (Note: Each approach above is really a heterogeneous set of approaches.)

1 44 , Pamela Courtenay Hall .4 '1- ;:-.) experience and theorizing. This "something deep" Of course, it was the original intent of the hasvariouslybeenidentifiedaspatriarchy, Values Clarification movement to engage students in logocentrism,etc. A firincommitment of the reasoning by asking them pointed questions to help Perception/Empathy approach is this that moral them reflecton theirvalues. But thelackof education must include a revalorizationof these resources and education,to helpteachersnot features of moral life (Baier, 1995; Murdoch, 1987; schooled in these teaching methods to learn how to Nussbaum, 1990). use them, led the movement todegenerate in most by, Eachoftheseapproacheshasimportant casesintoclassroomdiscussionsflavoured features to contribute to environmental education relativism. The concern to educate became restricted (and to values education generally), but each has to the concern to affirm. It is also possible toidentify important lacks which make them essentially the virtues of open-mindedness and reflectiveness as complementary to each other; thatis,allare among the virtues we ought to cultivate.However, needed. A program lacking connection with the the need to think critically is so important to recall students' own experiences and values (emphasized in against the naive subjectivism or conformism that the clarification approach) will be less likelyto can occur by default, that the approachbears a name involve and thereby less likelyto educate. A unto itself. program which opts out of the consciouscultivation But the Reasoning approach to moral education of certain socially and individuallyimportant is often (not always, but most often) accompanied by virtues (emphasized in the Cultivation approach) ideals of objectivity and neutrality which need willcultivateunreflectivelyselectedcharacter scrutiny from the stand point concerns identified in traits in an accidental fashion, because it is a fact of the Moral Perception approach. First of all, moral social life that children learn to be in the ways that judgement is not a matter of trying to make rational, their social environment encourages them to be. To unbiased judgements on thebasisof neutrally refrain from intelligent guidance in the habits that obtained observations. It depends crucially on moral students develop in the classroom is to acquiesce to perception, which is a complex set of attunements, the guidance of traditions not reflected upon and understandings, attitudes and abilities that require social forces not recognized. Indeed, students' values example,nurturing,andexercisefor their and characters are not miraculously inborn in them development. How we perceive a situation depends whole and complete. In response to the conditions dramatically upon what we are looking for, what thatsurround students, some capacitiesdevelop we are prepared to perceive, howclosely we look, while others wane. (A Deweyian expression of this what we refuse to see, and how well-developed our would be in terms of habits formed.) Itisthe perceptual capacities and abilities are. There is in teacher's job to set things up to enable students to principlenoobjectivestartingpointinour exercise virtues, and thereby cultivate them. observations for rational judgement to exercise itself This approach makesexplicitwhatsome on (Blum, 1994; Harding, 1993;Murdoch, 1990; educators do not like to talk about: the fact that Nussbaum, 1990). education involves the effort to shape the student's Feminist theorists have argued that there is character and beliefs in certain directions. Once something deep in western cultures that has led to made explicit, the question of which direction can the suppression of the role of perception, caring and receive the public debate it deserves. empathy in moral experience (variously identified But values education cannot rely exclusively on as patriarchy, logocentrism, and so on).Observing the Clarification approach supplemented by the that women have traditionally been charged with guidance provided by recognizing certain virtues as the tasks of taking care of people's needs, and so legitimate ones to cultivate. As Jerrold Coombs has have traditionally been trained to develop the argued, reasoning plays a prominent role in moral attentiveness, empathy and caring required to do experience: "We do ask for and give reasons for this well, feminine and feminist moral theorists moral claims, we do accept some reasons as relevant have raised the challenge that these qualities of and reject others as irrelevant, we do challenge character have historically been trivialized and moral claims by offering counter examples, .. . ." ignoredby westernmoralphilosophersand (Coombs, 1980). A program lackingin helping theorizers of moral development. In the place of students to grow as critical thinkers risks failing in these qualities of character, the canonical texts of helping students learn how to evaluate the values moral philosophy have given reason the central and practices they embrace, and the values and role in moral experience, inspiring the impossible practices embraced in their society. quest of showing how thiscould work. It can't, feminine and feminist theorists argue, because good

Environmental Education as Values Education 145 moral judgement depends not just upon reason but teacher preparation time, teacher education, and upon a host of sensibilities and abilities that cannot public expectations that characterize American and be traced to reason. These include, among others, Canadian public schools. The collapse of Progressive perception, empathy, and concern to help and not educational reforms into child-centred schooling harm. indeed has its roots in these difficulties, and its The view of perhaps most feminine and feminist parallel in the monopoly of values education which moral theorists is that moral judgements are often the Values Clarification movement effected for two made on the basis of an intuitive understanding of decades. We are in danger of reproducing this the moral features of a situation. But while the dynamicifvalueissuesremainignoredor masculinist bias that obscured this understanding simplistically answered in environmental had to waittillthe late 20th century riseof education. Dewey's philosophy of education makes feminist philosophy to be discovered, clear why thisshouldn't happen, and thefour dissatisfaction with a rationalist account of moral approaches to valued education identified above experience did not. Virtue theory and sentiment show how it can be avoided. But as the record of the theory have been recalcitrant but well-defended past shows, these understandings need clear and themes in the history of western moral philosophy, public communication and debate if they are to have with Aristotle and David Hume numbering in the a chance to effect change in the public school system. ranks of their defenders. Whatever the meanderings Critical thinking approaches to social studies of its ancestry, the point of the Moral Perception (e.g., Werner and Nixon, 1990) are being developed approachfor moral educationisthatthese at a healthy rate. But the lack of explicit attention inadequately recognized features of moral life must in the literatureof environmental education, to be revalorized and made central in moral education. questions of how to dealwithethicsin the The fuller philosophical justification for this classroom, has been so problematic that it was the setofapproaches,andforreconceptualizing impetus for Bob Jickling's hosting of the invitational environmental education as values education,_ relies colloquium at Yukon College, Whitehorse in July, upon a reinterpretation of the philosophy of John 1995, where local and First Nations educators and Deweythat focusesonthetransactionalism theorists met with counterparts in environmental developed in his later work. The understandings of ethics and environmental education from Canada, education, individual and society which Dewey the U.S. and Australia. The work done at that developed provide strong ground for identifying a 11 conference, in this volume, and in this paper, is four of the above approaches as essentialto an toward the better integrationof "Environment, effectivevalueseducationprogram.Dewey's Ethics, and Education." I hope this framework is philosophy has been variously hailed and rejected helpful toward that end. The work continues. in the recent literature of environmental philosophy and environmental education as a source of insight for current concerns (e.g., Bowers, 1993; Chaloupka, Notes on contributor 1987; Taylor, 1990; Orr, 1992). I believe that a better approach to the question of Dewey's usefulness to Pamela Courtenay Hall teaches philosophy of environmental education today lies not in asking education,feministtheory,and environmental how well or how poorly he anticipated current education at the University of British Columbia. A understandingsoftheculturalrootsofour former math and physics teacher,she recently environmental problems (although his presciencean completed herPh.D.inphilosophyatthe other grounds is amazing; e.g.,hiscritiqueof University of Toronto with her thesis Ecoholism and mind/body dualism).Itliesratherinthe itsCritics: A CriticalExplorationof Holismin understanding he develops of what education is and Environmental Ethics and theScience of Ecology. why it ought to be conducted in ways thatengage She is the mother of two young children, Matthew with the experiences of students no less than with and Stefan, and a frequent teller of original nature the concerns and activities of the broader society in stories at local elementary schools. order to help the student grow intoa caring, competent and critically reflective citizen. Although Dewey is frequently characterizedas a child-centred educational theorist(e.g., Levin, 1991), he importantly is not. The kind of education he recommended was (and remains) difficultto accomplish within the limitationsof class size,

146 Pamela Courtenay Hall Coombs, J.R 1980b."Validatingmoral judgments by Notes and references principle testing," chapter 2 of The development of moral reasoning, ed. Donald Cochrane and M. Manley-Casimir. Baier,A. 1995.MoralPrejudices:EssaysonEthics. New York: Prager. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Courtenay Hall, P. 1995. "Ecoholism and its Critics: A Burke, J. & Walker, E. 1995. "Rock-On Yukon." (Primary, Critical Exploration of Holism in Environmental Ethics Grade 5 Social Studies, and Grade 8 Earth Science and the Science of Ecology." Ph.D. thesis, Philosophy curriculum resource on mining.) Whitehorse: Canada- Department, University of Toronto. 388pp. Yukon Mineral Development Agreement, Yukon Chamber Levin, R. A. 1991. "The Debate over Schooling: Influences of of Mines, and the Yukon Department of Education. Dewey and Thorndike," Childhood Education Vol. 67, no. Coombs, J.R. 1995. "Israel Scheffler's Theory of Moral 4:71-75. Education: A SympatheticCritique,"Studies in Murdoch, I.1992. Metaphysicsas a Guideto Morals. Philosophy and Education (forthcoming,1995). London: Chatto and Windus. Coombs, J.R. 1980a. "Attainments of the morally educated Nussbaum, M.1990.Love'sknowledge:Essayson person," chapter 2 of The development of moral reasoning, Philosophy and Literature. New York: Oxford University ed. Donald Cochrane and M. Manley-Casimir. New York: Press. Prager.

Environmental Education as Values Education 147 148 Instead of Environmental Education Anthony Weston, Elon College

1. Teachersgetimpatientwiththeradical critique of education when it is perceived as mostly Next year, my companion and I and some friends negative. Perhaps this is why the radical critique will we hope start a school. Our children rarely gets discussed at all in the education journals: are moving into the first years of official schooling, most of their subscribers are in the schools already, and we want something different for them than we and committed to them. In any case, whatever the think we can find in either the public or private reason, there is not one word, at least thatI could schools available to us. find, about the radical critique of education in the It is hard to say exactly what we want. It is not JournalofEnvironmental Educationfromits a simple or a single thing. Most of all,I think, we inception twenty-six years ago until now.' Yet the want our children to grow up with a sense of delight critique is crucial especially in new and evolving and possibility or rather, not to lose this sense, for and delicate areas like our relation with the larger they have it now, as what we so oddly call "pre- living Earth. Despite the seemingly uncontroversial schoolers," as if their relation to school defined and unproblematic characterofthegoalof their very being. We want them to grow up aware "ecological literacy," for example, it seems to me and self-awareenough to createand re-create that this notion this metaphor, really is genuine community with others around them. So too deeply problematic, and so ought to be controversial, we want them to feel a sense of delight in and care and precisely from an environmentalist point of for the Earth which is what I would like to mean, view. Moreover, this point is not wholly negative; most fundamentally, by "environmentalism." In our in fact, it can arise in a way thatis profoundly naming ceremony for our daughters we spoke of their suggestive and constructive. My goal in this paper is kinship with the spiders and the owls and the not to oppose environmental education, but rather, in rivers, welcoming them not only to the human thecourse of applying theradicalcritiqueof community and their Jewish continuities but to their education to environmental education as it stands, to community with the larger living Earth, too. One of open up the possibilityof another and broader my colleagues sent me these lines from Chang Tsai on understanding of what we are about as environ- the birth of my younger daughter: mentally-concerned citizens and educators and finally a broader focus for constructive action as Heaven is my father and earth is my mother well. and even such a small creature as I find an intimate place in their midst. All people are my brothers and sisters and all things are my companions. 2. So we want tostartaschool.Better,an Education as it exists has no lack of critics. The most alternative to school as I will explain in the vocal critiques at present, at least in the US, are course of this paper. Of course for all sorts of reasons "conservative." These are not so deep, in my view it may not happen. I mention this project here partly they tend to want to "go back" to (what I see as) a in order to contextualize what follows in this paper. more rigid, standardized, technical and moralized These are not the words of a disconnected critic who curriculum, away from many of the liberalizing faces no practical or constructive demands. I would moves of the 20th century. A deeper conservative like to think that all my concerns are practical and critique that,for example,schools tend to constructive. At any rate they'd better get practical undermine the authority of parents leads some of and constructive fast. Also, besides trying to starta the more religious to home-school. One may also younger person's school,I teach college.I teach pull out of school for the opposite reason: precisely environmentalethics, Iteachphilosophyof because itis too good at inculcating subservience, education. So all of these concerns are very close to both behaviorally and imaginatively. From this me, part of a daily struggle. I am trying to work from point of view the liberalization of school is not,as it a radicalcritiqueof education toward areal were, morally misguided; the real problem, very alternative, especially in environmental education. different, is that it is self-defeating. On this view, It is not easy, but it seems to me to be absolutely the attempt to liberalize school is doomed to failure essential. precisely by the fact that it takes place in school.

148 Anthony Weston I A o0 The argument goes like this. Regardless of its where the impact of some of these problems is explicit content, school itself the institution and reduced. Certainly there are also counter-tendencies its practices has a meaning too, a "hidden in some schools, toward genuine critical thinking curriculum" as Ivan Illichcallsit in Deschooling and empowerment, asbellhooks for example Society, something in fact far more powerful than its argues.' But I think it must be acknowledged tha t manifest or officialcurriculum. For Illichthis there is also something to the critiques: too much for "hidden curriculum" is the ranking and grading comfort, something deeply disturbing and difficult system and all the social certificationsand (even to respond to. Just because the critiques aregenerally more crucially) de-certificationsthat go with it. not discussed does not mean thatthey have John Holt argues in Instead of Education that school somehow been answered. I think we ignore them, is corrupt from the start fundamentally because more often, because we do not know what to say. students have to be there. How could a compulsory The liberal social critic Katha Pollitt recently institution be liberatory? argued for prayer in the public schools on the BothIllichand Holtalsochallengethe grounds that it will alienate children from religion. assumption thateverythingimportant must be This is the outcome she favors, though of course it is learned in school. In fact we learn constantly, and in just the opposite of what its normal proponents a variety of ways, most powerfullywhen we become intend. Maybe she's serious: anyway, one sees her engaged by some project of our own. Itisonly point. The "hidden curriculum" may override and "learning for it's own sake" (that mantra, that defeat everything else, no matter how congenial.' To formulatowhichwe'reallsupposedtobe teach what we care about may be self-defeating. My committed)that,as Holtargues,necessitates own schooling, which I guess was not sobad as compulsion. Learning for the sake of keeping your schooling goes, left me with a deep antipathy for boat afloat or winning the heart of an Italianor Shakespeare, for certain novels such as Moby Dick starting a revolution needs no compulsion, if those and Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and for most goals engage us.2 But school (says Holt) is usually sports. Since then, luckily, I have learned better, antitheticalto learning in thissense, toself- though I stillcan't stand gymnastics. Today, of determined and self-scheduled learning: in short the course, books like The Scarlet Letter would notmake kind of learning that actually does contribute to itpast the parents' vetting committee anyway, competence and self-confidence.' Illich stresses the which Pollitt would probably consider a good thing: opposite side of the same point: that the reduction at least then kids would not have to overcome of learning to something that happens in schools, having "studied" them in order to read and love and something that people usually must be forced to them. Though first, of course, as Holt would add, do, delegitimates all other forms of craft, skill, and they must survive school with a desire to read a t wisdom, everything that takes place or could take all. place in the normal course of life. Other systematic problems with school are more familiar: the fragmentation of the curriculum; the 3. tendency to reduce knowledge to cleverness; the thoroughinfusion ofeconomic values; the Looking at environmental education in this light is confinement of students to the school building and not encouraging. Perhaps school is exactly what we grounds, systematicallyisolating them from the should not wish upon the values we care about. Will very world they are supposedly being preparedfor; A Sand County Almanac become the equivalent of ossified administrative hierarchies that consume The. Scarlet Letter for my daughters? Or maybe more and more of the dwindling money and space Walden which has a head start because it is read available, and too often reward the least committed already as a ''classic" and therefore, of course, and imaginative administrators and teachers; and boring (let's be honest: this is the view of 95% of our the lack of social support that might translate into students, and withintheirframeof reference, more money and space,not to mention decent they're right). I sometimes use Walden in my college salaries. philosophy classes: it is wonderful to see the text These problems go deep, and they are painful to come alive for students who have encountered it in a think about for anyone who has children and, very different key before. But why should they indeed, for all of us who have gone through the have had to encounter it first in that other way? schools ourselves, or work in them. No doubt some of And what of the great majority of students for whom the problems are overstated. Perhaps Holt and it will be the only encounter, thereafter only a bad 'filch go too far. Certainly there are "good" schools memory?

Instead of Environmental Education 149 00r NorthernMichiganenvironmentalist Rod their own school grounds, and so on. The problem is Bearup, beginning to think about teaching a deep not with these goals. The problem is that they are ecology course at a local college, visits a Native our goals. They are not goals that emerge naturally American friend of his. "After hours of discussion I out of these children's or students' own lives (they left frightened and confused. He had asked, 'How might, of course, but whether or not they do, can I expect to address matters of the spirit within children/students are being told that this is what the intellectual confinement of the classroom?' No, theymust nowlearn;thewheelofcourse he was not willing to take part in the project."' But requirements grinds on). That's Pollitt's point too, the point is not that such things can never be said a t beneath the irony: even the most delightful thing all. The phrase "intellectual confinement of the canturngreyifentrustedtoa dumsy and classroom" is crucial here: and, as Bearup might authoritarian institution. have added, part of what is crucial is not merely its In introducing projectslikethe. onionrub, intellectual confinement but itsactual, physical Robinson and Wolfson note that: confinement. Certain kinds of spaces preclude and overpower most of the messages offered within young children are naturally curious and sensitive and are eager to become involved in first-hand them; and the very fact of talking about nature experiences in the world around them. However, as inside carries a powerful message all by itself. the learning process advances and children develop There are some fine ideas in the environmental cognitive skills,they often lose their sense of wonder and involvement. By the time many are education literature. Barbara Robinson and Evelyn adults, the barriers to receiving information from Wolfson suggest trying to get students back into their their senses may be so great that they trust the senses, and to perceive the world as many animals written or spoken word far more than their own sensory information. Today many adults either do, by rubbing an "onion trail" around some of the intellectualize about environmental problems or objects in a yard and having the students get down on feel completely removed from them.' all fours and sniff out the track. They have students role-play other animals, in a kind of mini-Council of Robinson and Wolfson trace the environmental crisis All Beings. They have students do an ecological itself in part to this profound sensory alienation. inventory of, and then begin to take responsibility They introduce exercises to counter it. But they are for, their own school grounds.' There are ideas here surprisingly incurious about where it comes from. I'd like to use for my college environmental ethics Surely this loss of wonder and the connection to the course, some are similar to ideas I already use in senses does not just happen. What have the kids other classes. North Carolina publishes a Teacher's been doing while this profound change is going on? Guideto EnvironmentalEducation Programs and We know the answer: going to school (though also, Resources, alsolistingan impressivearrayof to be fair, watching TV). And when growing minds programs and possibilities.'LikeRobinson and and bodies spend eight hours a day sittingin Wolfson, for example, the compliers suggest training classrooms with books away from the more-than- teachers to teach the experimental sciences by human world, reduced to one sense or less, running "enhancing the school grounds as a wildlife habitat through a curriculum (literally, "a course to be run") through encouraging plantings of nativewild- that others have chosen for them, and when the flowers, shrubs, and trees...and returning selected world of higher education and work is essentially mowed areas to meadows and natural sites" (p. 13). more of the same, what else would we expect? North Carolina has distributed 1400 rock kits and state geological maps to schools across the state, etc. (p. 54). 4. It seems ungentlemanly to complain. But there are problemstoo:infact,profound problems, There is a deeper worry too. It is not just that the problems that make me reluctant to hope for such schools' "hidden curriculum" can subvert the official things for my children. All of these are "lessons" curriculum. The hidden curriculum also shapes the which students are required to learn to receive the official one. necessary certifications. We are still deciding what The kind of religion that Pollitt imagines the is good for them, only now it is not more American schools naturally inclining toward is hierarchical history or chemistry labs but getting back into their and authoritarian,not notablyopen-endedor senses or back in touch with the Earth. And of course, pantheistic or social-action-oriented. Not Zen Bud- once again, there is everything to be said for these dhism or Quakerism, but patriarchal Christianity, goals. Getting back into their senses is good for them. with God as a supernatural version of the Principal. I love the idea of students taking responsibility for And thisparallelismis no accident.Itarises

150 Anthony Weston precisely from thedeep affinitybetween the solved, and theresponsibilityof citizensand hierarchical andauthoritarian structureof government to work toward their solution."' Jickling patriarchal Christianity and the hierarchical and argues that this is far too restrictive aconception. authoritarian structure of school. Not just in terms of The question of our relation to nature is not just a set disciplinary power, either, but in terms of course of "problems" inviting problem-solving "skills" for content too. Knowledge and power go togetherhere. resolution. In its tone too, Stapp's definition sounds Principal/God is effectively both omnipotent and managerial in outlook, still confidently centered in omniscient;theteacher/priest isHislocal the human universe as we know it:beset by representative.Bothinstitutionsprecludein- problems, to be sure, but not needing to be re- dependent action and egalitarian community. It is imagined at its core.' And as Jickling points out, all this parallelstructure, this collusion in practice, of thisis (once again) natural for schools. We that Pollitt wants to expose. especially like "problems" because the So what sort of environmentalism would the corresponding suggestion is that there are precise, schools naturally incline towards? Schools' structure well-established, and discrete "solutions," lending remains hierarchical and authoritarian; knowledge themselves to trim and methodical course design and is presented as an already-codified, unified, expert- (most crucially of all) efficient grading. certifiedsystem. We mightthereforeexpect These problems affect much more than the something similar in the forms of environmentalism mainstream. Consider a writer far removed from and environmental ethics officially approved for Withrington's and Stapp's anthropocentrism, and a use in environmental education programsin school. fierce critic of certain aspects of schooling as we Furthermore, despite what the right wingers say, know it: David Orr, especially in his 1992 book schools remain profoundlyconservativesocial Ecological Literacy. There are many aspects of Orr's institutions,and so remain profoundly human- critique thatI applaud: hischallengeto the centered as well; thus I think we might well expect abstraction of much modem knowledge, ecological a significant degree of anthropocentrism. knowledge included;his mistrust of the Do the facts bear out these fears? Take the managerial/technocratic attitude; also his recog- anthropocentrism charge first. A study by J.F. nition of many of the points made above about what Disinger recently concluded that "[environmental] he calls the "tacit curriculum": educators generallyfavorthedominant social Process is important for learning. Courses taught as paradigm, placing greater emphasis on 'wise use' lecture courses tend to induce passivity. Indoor than non-use perspectives."10David K. J. classes create the illusion that learning only occurs inside four walls isolated from what the students Withrington defines environmental education as call, without apparent irony, the "real world." follows: "Environmental education is essentially a Dissecting frogs m biology class teaches lessons practicalprocessfor equipping man withthe about Nature that no one would verbally profess. Campus architecture is crystallized pedagogy that knowledge, skills, and commitment to improve his often reinforces passivity, monologue, dommation, environment.' Here it's not just the anthropo- and artificiality.' centrism that's a little shocking (and "man" too is finally beginning to make us uneasy), but also the All of this seems quite accurate and vital to me. managerial/technocratic shape it takes, as if the We therefore turn to Orr's positive prescriptions relevant knowledge was already well-established, with high hopes. He says a lot, much of it again and as if it were the most obvious thing in the world entirelyrightin my view. Like Robinson and what constitutes an "improvement." So we come to Wolfson, for example, he suggests "using campus the other charge too: schools by nature tend to resource flows (food, energy, water, materials,and present knowledge as fixed and "given" after all, waste) as part of the curriculum." only a pretty high degree of epistemological self- Then we come to "ecological literacy.""No confidence can justify school in thefirstplace. student," Orr tellsus, "should graduate from any EnvironmentaleducationWithrington-style is educationalinstitutionwithoutabasiccom- .. exactly what we should expect. _ prehension . of the laws of thermodynamics, .the Bob Jickling points out that many environmental basic principles of ecology .. ."and so on through a education programs emphasize "problem-solving."12 list of eleven such requirements, including, as #11, Consider for example WilliamStapp,etal.'s "environmental philosophy and ethics."' No doubt influential definition, according to which one aim of these general categories in turn could be spelled out environmentaleducation is "afundamental with similar lists:for example in environmental understanding of the biophysical environmental ethics the mandated list would presumably include problems confronting man, how these problems can be concepts like "anthropocentrism" and its opposite;

Instead of Environmental Education 151 152 intrinsic value; and so on. I suppose we could even fundamentally carry a message that undercuts its speak of "environmental ethics literacy" as well. overt point: "the illusion" that, as Orr himself puts Have our hopes been met? I think not. Instead, it, "learning only occurs inside four walls"? And how once again, we have just the sort of thing th a t could we have missed this effect, even for a second, schools love: mandated, discrete curricular items, if in our imaginations we had not already reduced "given," already established, testable. I guess this allof the possibilities for learning to something is why the literacy metaphor is so widely current in that happens in school? environmental education it is not just Orr's. What At the Whitehorse conference we were honored is startling, though, is how deeply Orr undercuts his by the visit of a number of local Elders, speaking of own critique with this last turn of the screw. Most of how they teach their own young. In the discussion the items on this list are abstract. Almost all of period, a member of the audience asked about the them privilege specialized knowledge over non- possibility of Elders coming into the schools to speak school-certified and non-school-stratified craft and of these things. The general response was that it has skill. Most of them "crystallize" a monologic and been tried and did not work. The setting was too dominating pedagogy. Yet these were the very artificial neither Elders nor students felt (were!) problems Orr just complained about. at home; the students "asked too many questions," Illichrather pointedly remarks that "Many didn't know how to listen;and, most crucially, self-styled revolutionaries are victims of school. students could not join any ongoing work in the They see even 'liberation'as a product of an context of which real learning could take place. institutional process."' So here. Faced with the Everything was reduced to an episodic encounter or unbelievably destructive results of an ever more "presentation," and to words. And none of this is schooled society, even so radical a critic as Orr can surprising. School is an artificialsetting; talking only imagine more school. Faced withthe and presenting and questioning areitsfavorite abstraction and disconnection that attend literacy methods; ongoing work has no place there. The (Orr himself notes that the only peoples who have Elders, in their typically understated way, were so far managed to live sustainably on this Earth therefore telling us that our schools cannot teach have been illiterate,"or at least, like the Amish, love for the Earth. Not because we cannot make the do not make a fetish of reading"") all he (or we?) words part of the curriculum, but because precisely can imagine is more literacy, a different kind of by doing so we obscure and undercut what the words literacy. actually mean. I am not against reading, I love reading, and obviously I am not against knowing something about ecology or environmental ethics. The objection lies 5. with the assumption that school, and school alone, must "teach" these things, an idea for which the So I don't really want to start a school. I want to "literacy" metaphor is the perfect vehicle. Literacy start an alternativeto school. There are many is a mandatable, testable,technicalskill,quite questions about what would it look like that we apart from (and, as I worried above, probably: a t cannot begin to enter into here. But one question in odds with) a love of reading and the willingness or particularis key for this paper: how could an eagerness to have one's life changed and enriched by alternative learning process (it's hard to know what it. But mandatable, testable, technical skills are to call it) deliberately and effectively engage its what school is allabout. Once again the circle students/participants with nature, but avoid the closes. kind of self-undercutting just discussed? I think that this kind of paradox is common. I had better say from the start thatI do not Almost all critiques of the content of contemporary have anything likea complete answer to these education, even very radical critiques, even when questions indeed barely an answer atall. My like Orr they acknowledge the "tacit curriculum," argument most crucially is that we need to make the still, when it comes round to their actual proposals experiment, open thediscussion,tryout some for reform, revert entirelyto talking about the possibilities. But I do think that some preliminary official curriculum.' But the official curriculum is conclusions can be drawn. irremediably shaped by the tacit curriculum just Here is my proposed first step. Suppose thatwe critiqued. Orr says thatone reason "ecological ask to what extent this is really an "educational" literacy" is hard to teach is that we have come to issue at all. Perhaps the entire problem is wrongly believe that education is an indoor activity." Right. posed from the start if we ask how we can educate But literacy is an indoor activity. Does it not then for environmental awareness and responsibility, for

1 52 Anthony Weston 1 4-9 4 delight and care. Mightn't these things be nurtured precisely what my own non-school "environmental mightn't they have to be nurtured in some very education" has enabled me to do. different way? Still, "environmental education" is not the right Here is how I "learned" much of what I "know" phrase not against the background of the kind of about "nature." Quarrying sandstone for our house, critique I have suggested here. I propose a different and then chiseling it, piece by piece, and hauling conception. Let us callit "enabling environmental the pieces up scaffolds for my father to cement them practice." into place. (I learned that rocks are heavy. I also Rock-quarrying and bird-watching and the like learned a lot about strata and sedimentation and are, in the first place, practices: that is,they are fossils and why Frank Lloyd Wright used a certain practical, they are things that one does, rather than style of masonry on his prairie houses.) Watching things one reads about or watches on TV; things that the birds, over thirty or so years in all different call for and call forth skill, artistry, craft; and that habitats and seasons (the hawks and vultures that extend over time (we speak of "a practice,"of circle the freeways, always signalling what is "practices" as a noun), even across generations.I happening over the next rise; the dozen new kinds of learned stone masonry from my father, birding from warblers I saw in one hour one morning around a both parents. They are environmental practices, Maine cabin in spring, migrating through; the because they engage us with the more-than-human, meadowlarks and whip-poor-wills that no longer with the larger living world. And they are enabling sing around my boyhood prairie home). Discovering practices in a sense I borrow from Illich's Tools for and growing edible flowers. Backpacking. Conviviality: they open possibilities("enabling" Gardening. them) rather than closing them ("disabling" them), As Holt would be quick to point out, none of these and they enable us, to find connections ourselves, things have anything to do with school. We ought rather than disabling us by telling us what the to take thisperfectly obvious observation with connections are and then threatening us with tests to greatseriousness. Noneofthese thingshave make sure we got the ones we were supposed to get." anything to do with school.' They are the reasons Instead of environmental education, then,I thatI am here today, they are the stuff of my propose that we focus upon enabling environmental delights and dreams, but all of them have come to practice. Instead of teaching our children about me independently and sometimes in spite of school. plants, for example, we should make garden spaces These experiences are not merely preludes to for them, and let then their questions and needs as something thatmight more properly be called gardeners drive whatever "study" or development "environmental education." They are"environ- we do from there. Or perhaps they will not want to mental education," properly speaking. What I know garden. So, they won't. Plants will eventually come of geology comes from quarrying. Watching the birds up in other ways, maybe even in ways we would not opened up a profound range of further kinds of have thought of ourselves, as subjects for watercolor awareness for me: of patterns of migration and paintings, or sources for dyes, or who knows what. seasonalchange,forinstance,andofthe (My older daughter is fascinated by the thought transformation of habitat (with the coming of the thatspiderwebs were once used for bandaging corporate farms the meadowlarks and whip-poor- wounds: the connection is partly that for some reason wills lost their little copses and fallow fields, and the whole idea of doctoring interests her right now.) vanished). A boyhood hobby of star-watching(I We can generate building projects that will carry never "took a course" in astronomy) finally, twenty student/participants into a working relation with or so years later, made me sensitive enough to the the natural world, like quarrying did for me. Even changing patterns of light and dark that I can be a something as simple as making a sandbox allows us decent all-year gardener (in North Carolina itis to cut the trees and make the boards ourselves, to dig possible) and still later opened up an understanding the sand ourselves in the dunes or an the beach, and of the great cycle of the holidays(Christmas, consider how the sandbox should be shaped and Hannukah, and New Year's to Easter and Passover, used. Also how to discourage the cat from using it for to Halloween and Samhain, etc.) as deeply tied to a litterbox. Everything connects! the waxing and waning of the light and the seasons, In this spirit we might re-approach some of the theSolsticesand theEquinoxes.' Orr defines suggestions inthe environmental education "ecological literacy" as "that quality of mind that literature mentioned in section 3 above. Consider seeks out connections."' I have argued that the again the onion-rub project, for example. Above I literacy metaphor serves us poorly, but surely we do complained that however laudable the goals of such need to be seeking out connections. I think this is projects ("reconnecting with our senses," here), still

Instead of Environmental Education 1 53 they are not goals that emerge naturally out of these as such. Instead, my aim is to broaden our conception children's or students' own lives, and therefore that of what we might be about as environmentally- they necessitate compulsion and most profoundly concerned people, not just educators so that we disempower rather than empower. Thinking about might become more effective in practical action, and enabling environmental practice would suggest that finally so that the true possibilities for "education," weexplore moresystematic,practice-based, even of the traditional variety, become clear. There "structural" ways to address our disconnection from certainly remains work for the schools to do. Against the senses, so that ultimately these goals (or effects) thebackground of largersocialand personal do emerge naturallyout of thesechildren'sor practices such as bird or star holidays, for example, students' own lives. The questions here are wider- schools might fillin the factual background: kids angled. Here is one: how could we make our learning could do some bird study, learn the constellations. spaces' more smelly? We could plant herbs all Facts are what schools are good at: so let them teach around, instead of the scentless plants (or no plants) facts. The great difference from "environmental we usuallyencounter.Food-preparationsmells education" as it presently exists, however, is simply might not be instantly pumped out by kitchen fans. that the school aspect would not be the whole story. (We could practice identifying them.)Bouquets, Enabling practices are not confined to school, are not perfumes, animals,machineoils,storms, fresh a "school thing" or anything likethatfamous bread: the world easily gets smellier. The point is "learning for its own sake," and therefore do not thatsmell could surround us; orienting to smell have to be motivated by thethreatof social would become second-nature, part of the setting of decertification,failure,ifone isn'tinterested. our lives and not some special exercise in school. Schools can offer "the facts": it is not the job of the Take bird-watching. We could imagine th a t schools, but rather of the rest of the culture, to lead birdfeedersandbird-friendlyplantingscould thestudents to want to know those. facts.So become something of a civic duty. Bird count days, environmental education might become more like likethe Audubon societyruns in the US on driver education is now, in American high schools: Christmas, could become national holidays. Or one of the few things that students actually can't again, taking a degree of ecological responsibility wait to learn, because it manifestly enables them to for our own buildings and their grounds one of the take their place in a larger personal and social ideas I have cited from the standard environmental practice, shared by parents and peers, already education literature as well as from critics such as familiar in all manner of ways, and a practice th a t Orr would be far more effective ifit were an further enables their own growing independence and expectation of all of us, all of the time. After all, adulthood.' Besides, it's fin: that is one reason I am what messages do students get when schools are the speaking a lot about holidays here. Why not? only places for which one is so responsible? Holidays are social practices every bit as much as On the theme of holidays, we could imagine any voting or taking out the trash. Environmentalism number of new ones. Imagine "Star Nights" on which ought to pay a little more attention to these aspects all lights everywhere are turned out: these could be too. Politics and garbage are not the most engaging timed to coincide with meteor showers, eclipses, activites around. occlusions.ThepoetAntlerrecallsEmerson's epiphany "If the stars came out only one night in a thousand years, how people would believe and 6. adore, and preserve from generation to generation, remembrance of the miracle they'd been shown" I conclude with a philosophical twist. I want very and imagines the scene: briefly to relate the arguments and concerns in this paperto environmental ethicsproper, and in Whole populations thronging to darkened baseball stadiums and skyscrapertops particular to the arguments about and models of to sit holding hands en masse environmental ethics I have advanced in my paper and look up at the billion-year spree "Before Environmental Ethics"' and in my book of the realm of the nebulae!' Back to Earth. I have suggested that it is for partly structural We might co-ordinate other festivals with the reasons that environmental education in practice great animal migrations: whales, salmon, hawks, tends toward closed, given, theoretical, fact-based warblers. Every bioregion has its possibilities. approaches, and thus to takequite a different Let me emphasize again that it is not my aim in direction from, if not to actively discourage, the this paper to argue against environmental education kind of delight in and care for the Earth which I

1 54 Anthony Weston

E3 woulddefineastrueenvironmentalism.The practices that engage us in the more-than-human structure of school (isolated, hierarchical, and a 11 world in open-ended ways: in short, again, through the rest) itself pushes in that direction. What is enabling environmental practices. New holidays, striking is that a parallel thing happens or so I again, and new ways of building houses and common argue in "Before Environmental Ethics" --in buildings, new "transhuman etiquettes"for our environmental ethics. Environmental ethics is still relations with other animals, gardens, quiet zones. struggling for legitimacyas a sub-discipline of Out of such practices, out of a long process of ethical philosophy, a struggle compounded by the awakening or reawakening .to our deep academic suspiciousness of anything embeddedness within the more-than-human, out of interdisciplinary, ontop of the academic an extended "dialogue with a place,' we may suspiciousness of anything normative. So similar someday be able to formulate an "environmental kinds of self-constraintsevolve.Environmental ethic" that (maybe!) will lend itselfto formal ethics too, at any rate in its academic forms, tends philosophical theory and formal environmental toward "closed,"codified,theoretical,expert- education. certified systems. Uncertainty, taking other animals Though then too, I suspect, one of the essential seriously, sleeping Oil the ground, listening to voices tasks for freespiritswill always be to resist far outside the usual academic circuits, embracing codification and closure. Aldo Leopold himself openendedness and complexity: these things do not insisted that no ethic is ever "finished." Right now, getyoutenure.Theshapeofcontemporary in any case, a littlefree-spiritedness allaround environmental ethics is no accident. would be a good idea .. Not only environmental education, then, but environmental ethicsitselfcan become inimical precisely to environmentalism, to delightin and Notes on contributor care for the earth. Nothing guarantees that such deep matters as our relation to the more-than- Anthony Weston teaches at Elon College, North human can be captured or codified or formally Carolina. He isthe author of Backto Earth: "taught" in any way at all, especially right now. Tomorrow's Environmentalism and a number of Philsophers as well as educators need to take note. articles in environmental philosophy, as well as The easy assumption that we already have such booksandarticles inethics, logic, social answers is part of our general epistemological over- philosophy, and philosophy of education. Currently confidence. Moreover, if environmental ethics really his main project is starting an early elementary can't be either codified or taught, then it would not school (or, alternative to school). be surprising that attempts to do so (pedagogical or philosophical) prove counter-productive. At least the possibility demands attention. Notes and references Once again too, however, the result is not to leave us totally stymied. Just as there is something In 1984, midway through these years, Thomas Tanner, himself one of the more regularly cited authors in the to do "instead of" or as the larger cultural context Journal, published an account of what he called "The for environmental education, so too is there Evolution of Environmental Education as Inferred from or as the larger Citation Analysis" (Journal of Environmental Education something to do "instead of" 16 [1984]). The conclusion in part is that "references to cultural context for environmental ethics. In fact, the environmental foundations of EE dominated the it is the very same thing. Enabling environmental earl[y] period, but have much diminished in recent years, I think our only way to to be replaced by references to psychological foundations practice is also a way and EE itself. This was interpreted as representing a evolve an environmental ethic. So enabling practice maturation of the field, as it turned from defining its turns out to be our mandate both as environmental structure, concepts, and goals, to testing the pedagogical philosophers and as environmental educators. procedures for attaining those goals' (p.20). These remarks make a philosopher nervous. I do not think we There is no way we can transcend our thoroughly would agree that a field is "mature" when it no longer anthropocentrized world in thought alone. The needs to question itself: quite the contrary. philosophical category of "non-anthropocentrism" 2Another influential critic should be mentioned here: Paulo Freire. Illich writes: "The Brazilian teacher Paulo Freire is just a negation, a dialecticalopposition, not has discovered that any adult can be to read in a something that can be articulated as a usable ethic matter of forty hours if the first wordshe deciphers are for us at this stage of our cultural history. What we charged with political meaning. Freire trains his teachers to move into a village and discover the words which can do is to "enable" the evolution of some such ethic designate current important issues, such as the access to a in the future, with a real content that eventually well or the compound interest on the debts owed to the can be specified, through manifold environmental patron .. .. Since 1962 my friend Freire has movedfrom exile to exile, mainly because he refuses to conduct his Instead of Environmental Education 155 BEST COPY AVAILABLE 5R sessionsaround words which arepreselectedby institution that directs them into responsible adulthood." approvededucators,ratherthan those whichhis David Orr, Ecological Literacy (Albany: SUNY Press, discussants bring to class" (Ivan Illich,Deschooling 1992), pp. 103-104. Society [NY: Harper and Row, 1970], p. 18). Freire 's Teacher s Guide to Environmental Education Programs and classic is The Pedagogy of the Oppressed(NY: Seabury Resources, North Carolina Department of Environment, Press, 1974). Health, and Natural Resources, Office of Environmental 3 Holt would like tosee education look more like Berlitz Education, POB 27687, Raleigh, NC 27611-7687. schools: "The Berlitz and other schools do not give us an 9 Robinson and Wolfson, Environmental Education, p. 9. 10 exam to see whether we are smart enough to get in, j v.F. Disinger, "Environmental Education for Sustainable whether we are 'Berlitz material' or 'Up to the Berlitz Development," Journal of Environmental Education 21 experience'. Nor do they say that their schools are the (1990), p. 5. This article was written before the rise of the best because they are the hardest to get into. Once in the self-styled "wise use" movement in the American West. I school, we study only the language we want... We stay think Disinger means the termin the broader sense of only as long as we want... They do not test us at the end what environmental ethicists call "anthropocentrism." to see how much we have learned, nor give us a diploma 11 David K.J. Withrington, "The UNESCO/UNEP En- or any other kind of job ticket. They -keep no records vironmental and its Implications for British about us or our work for other people to see. They do not Environmental Education," in David Hughes-Evans, ed., put a label on us to tell the world that we were good or EnvironmentalEducation:KeyIssuesoftheFuture bad students .. ." (John Holt, Instead of Education [NY: (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1977), p. 33. Dell, 1976], p. 19). Almost any community education 12 Bob Jickling, 'Environmental Education, Problem Solving, classes at the local pool, or folkdance clubs and Some Humility Please," The Trumpeter 8 (1991), pp. that teacnewcomers, just to name two within a mile of 153-155. my home are also good examples. 15 William Stapp, et al., "The Concept of Environmental 4 bell hooks, Teachingto Transgress:Education as the Education,"Tournalof Environmental Education 1 (1969), Practice of Freedom (NY: Routledge, 1994). I am indebted p. 33. to Val Plumwood for insisting on this point, and for 14 This point and the point in the last paragraph about the pointing out hooks' work to me. managerial and technocraticshapeofthereigning 5 Katha Pollitt,"Subject to Debate," TheNation, 26 conceptions of environmentalism were well developed at December 1994, p. 788. In her own words: "In our country the Whitehorse conference in papers and discussions by the constitutional separation of church and state has Marilyn MacDonald and Val Plumwood. obscured the nonetheless real connection between the two 15 David Orr, "What, is Education For?" The Trumpeter 8 as fellow enforcers of conformity, mmarification and (1991), p. 101. hierarch. Prayer in the schools will it plain to see 16 ibid.,p. 102. ...Rightnow religion has the romantic aura of the 17 Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society, p. 47. forbid en ... We need to bring it into the schools, which 18 David Orr, "What Is Education For?," p. 99. Similarly, in already hate, and associate it firmly with boredom, the context of his essay in Ecological Literacy on the regulation,condescension,, makework and defacto "Great Books" approach to education, Orr points out segregation, with business math and Cliffs Notes and that St Francis of Asissi never wrote a "Great -Book" (or metal detectors." anything, I guess). When I mentioned Pollitt's argument to Rick Kool at the 19I do not know the work of C. A. Bowers well, but it Whitehorse conference, he responded with a joke, which appears to me that something similar happens here. In a goes like this: "Question: What is the best way to turn book called Education, Cultural Myths, and the Ecological kids off a considered approach to sex? Answer: Sex Crisis (called "daring" by Lester Brown in a back-cover education!" The underlying point is exactly the same. endorsement), and specifically in an article called "The 6 Rod Bearup, "Educating forDeep Ecology Action," The Anthropocentric Foundations of Educational Trumpeter 8 (1991), p. 150. At length Bearup launches his Liberalism," Bowers charges even radical educational course anyway, and reports it successful, though he does reformers like Freire with anthropocentrism actually not really explain how he overcame the difficulties his Cartesianism becausetheyprivilegecritical friend feared. consciousness to the point of making it the whole aim of 7 Barbara Robinson and Evelyn Wolfson, Environmental education (C. A. Bowers, Education, Cultural Myths, and Education:A Manual for Elementary Educators. New the Ecological Crisis (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992); and York: Teacher's College Press, 1982. "TheAnthropocentricFoundationsofEducational David Orr details the farther implications of the Liberalism: Some Concerns," The Trumpeter 8 [1991], current practice (he's speaking here particularlyof pp.102-107.) I agree in a way; I always felt that The colleges and universities). "A 'nice' campus is one whose Pedagogy of the Oppressed is unduly dismissive of other lawns and landscape are well-manicured and whose animals, for example, along just these lines. Bowers' buildings are kept clean and in good repair by a poorly alternative, however, is essentially to use education to paid maintenance crew. From distant and unknown places question and undercut this anthropocentrism (surely a the campus is automatically supplied with food, water, laudable goal, but surely also, as he allows, another form electricity, toilet paper; and whatever else. Its waste and of criticalthinking) and to incorporate"curricular garbage are transported to other equally unknown places. activites that have the potential to expand the sense of "And what learning occurs on a nice' campus? First.. . connectedness, meaning, and thus an awareness of self as students learn the lesson of indifference to the ecology of part of a larger community, [like] dance, music, and art" their immediate place.... Students also learn indifference ("The Anthropocentric Foundations," p.107).Again to the human ecology of the place and to certain kinds of laudable, but again matters of curriculum. I'm doubtful people: those who clean the urinals, sweep the floors, how "daring" this really is. I'm puzzled that in neither haul out the garbage, and collect the beer cans on Monday work are Holt or Illich mentioned at all: Bowers does not morning ... address the idea that reform might require not changing "Second, students learn that it is sufficient only to learn the curriculum but getting rid of it: School itself, according about injustice and ecological deterioration without to this version of the "radical critique," is a technocratic, having to do much about them, which is to say, the lesson Enlightenment, and probably Cartesian institution of hypocrisy. They hear that the vital signs of the planet once again, everything Bowers is against. are in decline without learning to question the de facto 79 Ecological Literacy, p. 87. energy, food, materials, and waste policies of the very 1 5 6 Anthony Weston -54 21 A major point for Holt and Illich: Illich, for example, 27Getting a driver's license does require passing a test, writes: "Everyone learns how to live outside school. We though not a test in school, so there is a way in which learn to speak, to think, to love, to feel, to play, to curse, to Driver'sEducationisstillsomewhat coercive.In politic, and to work without interference from a teacher" response I should note that Holt is not against competence Deschooling Society, pp. 28-29). And listen to this: Illich tests for specific practices, so long as the tests are clearly also reminds us that Karl Marx opposed a passage in the tied to the needs of the practice, are not identified with Gotha program which proposed to outlaw child labor. school, and the practice itself is not compulsory. (Schools "He opposed the proposal in the interest of the education as they now stand, by contrast, are a kind of mandatory of the young, which could happen only at work" (p. 23). test for life.) The motivation for learning to drive remains 22 Seemy book Back to Earth: Tomorrow's Environmentalism the attraction of the practice itself. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), pp. 139- Another analogy is the study of music. Many people 143. study music for the sheer love of music, making music Ecological Literacy, p. 92. when they can, by themselves or with whoever they can. 24 Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality (NY: Harper and Row, None of this is tainted by the requirement that, if you 1973). want to make music with certain established ensembles, 25 I am not assuming that there must be spaces for you need to meet their standards. "education" separate from other life spaces. Ideal would 28 Anthony Weston, "Before Environmental Ethics," En- be a large space in which a number of people live and vironmental Ethics 14 (1992):323-340. work, in which certain areas might be more usual spaces 29 This notion is beginning togrow on us, and I would like to for young people's projects, but nothing is permanently have been able to say more about it in this paper. Orr and structurally isolated from everything else. In co- writes of such dialogue on pp. 90-91of Ecological housing schemes, the common house would be a natural Literacy. Like human conversation, he says, dialogue with such place. the more-than-human cannot be dominating it begins While I'm on the subject crucial in general for "un- with the acknowledgement of the existence and interests school," but not quite the central theme here let rre add of the other. Its terms must be accurate, not loaded (like that I would also like, with Holt, to see "official" school "resource," "management," and so on).Itmust be short. School's sheer length is part ofitsgreyness: unhurried; it has form, structure, and purpose. See also Jim probably anything you have to do forty hours a week, for Cheney, "Postmodern Environmental Ethics: Ethics a s twelve or sixteen years, is antithetical to delight and care. Bioregional Narrative," Environmental Ethics 11 (1989), 26 Antler, "Star-Struck Utopias of 2000," The Trumpeter 9 . 117-134, and Donna Haraway, "Situated (1992), p. 92. owledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (NY: Routledge, 1991).

Instead of Environmental Education 1 57 158 Wolves, Ethics, and Education: Looking at Ethics and Education through The Yukon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan Bob Jickling,Yukon College

My story about wolves, ethics, and education Occasionally we are provided with goes back to the early 1980s when, as a school opportunities which give us the glue we need to teacher in Whitehorse, I had to examine my role in cement new ideas. For me, I was asked in 1992 to the midst of a controversy about wolves. The Yukon participatein thewriting of The Yukon W o lf Government had initiated a wolf control program Conservation and Management Plan.' Faced with and was also considering culling grizzly bears. As a demands to initiatethis most recent wolf control teacher, I wanted my students to get involved in the program, theYukon Department of Renewable issue;participate inthe debate.However Resources recognized that management today must passionately thatI feltabout thisissue, I was be comprehensive, proactive and inclusive of a troubled deeply by thelackof philosophical conservation strategy to protect long term interests of guidance and apparent curricular options.I also species. Withthisin mind theyassembled a knew that everyday I faced a class comprised of broadly representative citizen's group to develop a individuals with different cultural backgrounds and plan for "wolf conservation and management" (or values, and who had parents who supported the possibly one day "management regarding wolves," or activities about which I was so skeptical. .). Ilookedforinspirationintheexisting This was a task which I agreed to with some environmental education materials available and trepidation. I was ever conscious of Socrates's refusal found none satisfactory.While many of these, to become involved inpoliticsbecause of the including alocallydevelopedpackage,spoke inevitablecompromisesrequired.Thetension eloquently about addressing questions concerning between preparing a useful document while avoiding values, none presented activitieswith any real being compromised, required me to think a great promise of achieving this goal. I was disappointed deal about the nature of ethics.It also provided and frustrated. I was also unsatisfied by my lack of some cluesabout howImightthinkabout understanding about what environmental education relationships between ethics and education. was, and could be. Within two years I had begun a In what follows I will talk about ethics and Ph.D. program and a journey which has led me to discuss two ways of thinking about them "ethics thistopic today. And, yes, thetopicremains as code"' and "ethics as process." Then I will return frustratingly difficult. to The Yukon Wolf Conservation and Management While that wolf-kill was soon stopped, issues Plan which, seen heuristically, can further enable surrounding wolves, and wolf control programs have understandings of ethics and their implications for remained controversial in the Yukon. Systematic education. removal of wolves is not new; itis part of our history.For thepastthreeyearstheYukon Ethics Government hasagain been responsiblefora When Aldo Leopold described his idealized journey controversial wolf-killprogram. However, this from the ethics of Odysseus's era towards a "land traditionis being challengedaspublic values ethic," he was using "ethics" in a particular way.' In change. this instance he was talking about social mores, or The first biologist hired for the Yukon in the the customs and conventions of a broad social group. 1950s was given the task of overseeing a widespread He was also speculating about the evolutionary wolf poisoning program. The scale and methods of nature of these social mores. In hanging a dozen thisprogram would be unthinkable by today's errant slave-girls, Odysseus was ridding himself of standards.' Whereas public norms had, in earlier property in an expedient way. Disposing of human times, unquestionably relegated the wolf to the chattels was widely accepted in Ithacan society. status of vermin, this is no longer the case. Many Leopold's use of the term "ethics" refers to the citizens now recognise that wolves are integral to a unwritten code, or social mores, of a particular fully functioning ecosystem, and themselves subjects society at a particular time. He notes, however, of inherent and/or intrinsic value. There appears to that ethical criteria have, since Odysseus, been be growing respect for wolves and intolerance for extended to many fields of conduct. Leopold contends past management practices. that ethics are not static but evolving and that they

158 Bob Jickling I 5 9 may one day be inclusive of respect for, and duties This usage, like that of Singer's, stands against that toward, the land. His sense of ethics in this vignette of Leopold's and reflects a view that environmental is descriptive of social codes and his predictions are ethics essentially concerns a- philosophical process based on observations of the evolutionary tendencies for thinking about issues and considering what to do of such codes. in particular instances. "Ethics" is also associated with a process for Yet others, such as Jim Cheney' and Karen investigatingand evaluatingissues.Leopold's Warrensargueforsubjectivistandcontextual usage, for example, isquite different from the epistemologies. According to their understanding of "ethics" of Peter Singer who advances ideas about ethics, what constitutes "good" will be non-objective animal liberation.' Singer's interest is in developing and shaped by geography and historical experience. disinterestedandrationallydefensiblemoral Narrative, or storytelling, is seen as an important theory and then seeking to understand how this resource to environmental ethics. What unites the theory may be applied to contemporary issues. In work of these authors is that they are all engaged in this sense ethics is not a description of a society's a process of inquiry. And, the ensuing conversations moral code but a process for carefully considering between them can be challenging and creative. what might constitute a "good" state of affairs or Ethics can thus be seen as an open-ended process better practice. In Singer's case he is concerned to withpotentialto expose new challengesand show how principles of non-maleficence might be generate new possibilities. extended tosentientanimalsand appliedin As these examples illustrate,"ethics"is a particular instances. There are, of course, others who difficult term in that it can have multiple meanings. have developed moral theories based on different However, theyalsosuggestaframeworkfor premises including concerns for biodiversity, rights, considering the nature and implications of "ethics" ecocentrism, and aesthetics. in practice. Wildlife management, which Eugene Hargrove, founding editor of the journal implicitly orpurposefullyaims toreflect Environmental Ethics, argues that environmental contemporary values, embodies a conception that can ethics is broader still than just moral theorizing and be termed "ethics as code." Practices which are more application.' He maintains thatthisfield also inclined to encourage careful examination of various addressesaspectsofaesthetics,metaphysics, value positions can be said to embody the term epistemology, philosophy of science, and social and "ethicsasprocess.". Withthisframework as political philosophy. In this sense environmental background,theeducativepotentialofthese ethics is equivalent to environmental approaches to practice can be considered (see the philosophy. first column of Figure 1).

Environmental Ethics Community Learning The Yukon Wolf Conservation Possibilities and Management Plan

Ethics as code Socialising Respect for wolves Reflection of customs and Inculcating or reinforcing customs, Wolf conservation areas. conventions of a broad social conventions, and/or social norms. Interpretive opportunities. group. Hunting season shortened and bag limits introduced.

Ethics as process Educating Provisions considered Process of philosophical inquiry Enabling participants to: think Inherent/existence values. into issues concerning about, rather than simply Values concerning species and human/environment relations accepting, present norms, to think future generations. about contentious issues, to Instrumental values. examine new possibilities, to Foster conversation between these accept/reject past standards based competing priorities. on careful considerations.

Figure 1. A framework for relating ethics to management practices and community learning possibilities.

Wolves,Ethics, and Education 159 6 BEST COYAVAILABLE Ethics as code such that they can be examined and evaluated. This Many attractive environmental projects are rooted in can be a first step for any group which is grappling, particular values. Often such projects seem fair and in a substantial way, with value laden issues. In appropriate; we tend to want to inculcate values this way, participants are thinking about, rather concerned with general respect for the environment, than simply accepting values. And, in doing so they willingness to mitigate damage and minimize harm. are engaged in the intellectual work of an educative In practice we could be talkingabout saving activityas distinct from deferring to socialising endangered species, pollution testing, recycling, or processes which limitoptionstothose which site restoration. While these projects are conducted conform to pre-existing norms." It is through such a "for" the environment they imply acceptance of process that managers and citizens can examine new particular norms or social codes (see the second possibilities, and accept or reject past standards. column of Figure 1). And, it is through such a process that potential for Therearevalues whichareclearlymore social change can be created (see Figure 1). controversial.Many who areconcernedabout There is, of course, tension between environmental, feminist, social, and development implementing codified ethics and processes which issues see much of whatisconsidered socially tend to question these codes. Often, it is precisely acceptable to be the problem. We sometimes say this tension which provides our society with the that the hidden agenda embedded in management raw material for an important conversation about decisionsreallyservestheinterestsofthe what is good and how we should live. While we economically powerful, the developers, the elite, or may one day have developed a moral theory which the management hierarchy. We may also see values will provide a framework for guiding appropriate which favour resourcism,orunsustainableuse environmental behaviour, this does not appear to be embedded in management policies.' This illustrates presently the case. As Anthony Weston suggests, the limitations and the more pernicious side of environmental ethics is in its originary stage and we "ethics as code." cannot predict in advance where the process of moral "Ethics as code" tends to have reproductive roles change will take us.11 For this reason environmental in social life. Their prescriptions, and those values ethics should be a creative, open-ended, process. It thatinform them, tend to be taken-for-granted, must resist temptations to reflect particular stances authoritative, and applicable in a range of contexts. (codes), even those appearingto be themost While socialization processes can accelerate social enlightened. If wildlife managers, educators, and change,incasessuchastheintroductionof citizensareto participatein theunfolding of metrification and more gender fair language, they environmental ethics then policies must acknow- can also tend to reinforce existing power relation- ledge the need to deeply question values. They will ships. In the language of schooling and education, only do this when they prepare the ground for exercises and projects which reflect such codes tend environmental ethics in its second sense: "ethics as a to socializeratherthan educate in thatthey process of inquiry." inculcate and reinforce existing social norms. Impor- To help understand how some of these concepts tant social values are uncritiqued and often masked can be applied in real situations, I will now discuss in the circumstances of their application. The Yukon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan to illustrate these two understandings of "ethics" Ethics as process and to discuss further how they may contribute to We can also think of "ethics" as being associated thinking about education. with a process for investigating and evaluating issues."Ethics"inthissense involvesseeking The Yukon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan principles to guide moral behaviour and evaluating The composition of thewolf conservation and their application in particular instances. To allow management planning team was diverse,and engagementin"ethicsasprocess,"planners, conceptions about human/environment relationships managers, and educators must first recognize that varied. However, there were points about which many values, sometimes contested, exist within a everyone could broadly agree. In particular, the complex community and that these values may be planning team adopted a view that wolves 'should weighted differently from community to community be respected. While ideas of "respect" appeared to and from time to time. An increasingly critical vary, there was sufficient agreement to allow for public will eventually demand this recognition. thedevelopmentofrecommendationswhich When engagedin"ethicsasaprocess" reflected this value. These included establishing participants will seek to identify existing values wolf conservation areas, developing interpretive

160 Bob Jickling opportunitiesabout wolves, reducingthewolf also point to clusters of more contentious values hunting season, and introducing a bag limitfor associated with wolf issues. These include "use" or wolves and the need to protect habitatof prey instrumental valuesheld by recreationaland species (see the third column of Figure 1). subsistence hunters, and which allow for consider- The "ethics" underlying these recommendations ation of wolf culling in response to low ungulate are descriptive. They represent andreinforce an numbers.Additionally,FirstNations'cultural existing code. In this sense the community learning values are frequently associated with practices of effect will tend towards socialising rather than subsistence use. Concern for extinctions of ungulate educating.' Of course, activitiessuch as wolf- populations reflects a collection of values often interpretation will not simply involve mindless expressed as obligations to future generations to inculcation of codes; such programs will also include preserve species, genetic diversity, and much of educative value. However, in each of these biodiversity.Recognitionofinherent/existence examples the underlying premise is that wolves are values is identified as a matter of principle and valued and the broad acceptance of this moral code speaksdirectly to non-instrumental values isreinforcedthroughimplementationofthe concerning wolves. These might include aesthetic, recommendations. It is interesting to note, following cultural and spiritual values. While there has been Leopold, how moral codes concerning wolves appear some criticism that The Plan does notspecifically to have evolved over the last forty years. mention "intrinsic" values,' it does tend to provide While some elements of The Plan reflect current generaldirections which should encourage social values, others acknowledge a more contentious discussion inclusive of ideas about intrinsic values. debate about human/wolf relationships. It would be The Plan neither gives nor denies the Yukon impossible to gain consensus about conducting wolf- Government approval to engage in wolf control. killsfrom arepresentativesampleof Yukon Presently there is debate in the Yukon. Are needs residents; the collective social mores would neither and wants of people who hunt moose and caribou affirm nor reject the proposition. Further, imposition more important than inherent/existence valuesof of one set of values to the exclusion of others would wolves? How should preservation of First Nation have resulted in a document having littlepublic cultural contact with caribou herds be measured confidence; it would have been untenable. Similarly, against growing respect for wolves and perceived as ideas about environmental ethics are dynamic failuresof pastmanagement practices?These and developing, itis impossible to provide any questions represent just a few dimensions of a universalformulaforresolvingenvironmental complex issue. However, any decision still requires disputes concerning wolves. Appropriateactions an accounting for why one set of values should be appear to be time and context dependent, as values weighed more favourably than another. Fulfilling are actively examined, challenged, and evaluated. this obligation should encourage discussion in a A simpleprescriptionwouldquicklybecome societywithdynamic andcontestedvalues; obsolete. environmental ethics should be a thoughtful process Rather than trivialising the decision making concerned with introspection, exploration of pos- process, The Yukon Wolf Conservation and sibilities, and evaluating claims. Decisions based on Management Plan provides a context for discussion careful consideration of these provisions will,I and a broad framework from which to encourage believe, be better informed, more inclusive, more "ethics as process." It recognises and identifies the carefully justified, and more ethically considerate existence of disparate social views and expects that thanthose otherwise made. Ultimately,such they all be considered. For example, wolf-kills can decisions will have an impact on standards of care, be considered when ageographicallyseparate and views about these standards will change over population of ungulates (moose and caribou are time.But,theexistenceof TheYukon W olf typically the species which generate most concern) ConservationandManagementPlandoesnot isthreatened withlocalextinction,or when guarantee this will be the case. ungulate populations are declining or low and conser- Fair implementation of such a plan will also be vation measures are applied. These considerations affected by the political climate, attitudes amongst should, however, be juxtaposed against The Plan's wildlifeprofessionals,andresourceagency/ - principles which statethat"inherent/existence' community power relationships. However, The Plan values of wolves will be considered." There is no does provide: a gauge of public attitudes and an clear or simple answer. acknowledgment that values have changed, para- In addition to preventing indiscriminate wolf- meters for debate, a vehicle for critiquing practices, kills (reflecting an emerging code), these provisions legitimacy of contesting values, and access to ethical

Wolves, Ethics, and Education 161 162 dimensions of social issues. According to the extent to As Eugene Hargrove has said, "ultimately, the which these provisions are used, it can also serve an form environmental ethics takes in any particular educative role. By stimulating broad community place on this planet will be determined by those discussion about value claims, Yukon citizens will be who use it."18 For the student, the more educative engaged in the educative "ethics as process." Unlike activitieswill be those which enable them to "ethics as code," "ethics as process" is itself edu- engage in environmental ethics as a process for cative; to undertake "ethics as process" is to become thinking about contentious issues to "do ethics," to betterinformedaboutthedebatesurrounding "practice ethics."Students will be extended philosophical dimensions of the issue in question. encouraged to think critically about even the most "Ethics as process", then, is not only important for environmentally enlightened practices of the day. gaining a more complete picture of (in this case) They will be equipped to transcend themost wildlife management; it also coheres with impor- creative approaches available at present. To do this tant aims of environmental education itself, namely they will need to hear a variety of theories, or to inform critical debate about environmental issues. stories,and from themlearntocritiqueold For those concerned more specificallywith standardsand beencouragedtocreatenew schooling,TheYukonWolfConservationand possibilities. Management Planrevealsseveralpossibilities. First, just as this paper has attempted to identify values embedded in one policy statement, so might Notes on contributor students and teachers probe this and other policies for themselves. As Neil Evernden once reported, the Bob Jickling teaches environmental philosophy and real authorities in one's society are unquestioned environmental education at Yukon College. He is assumptions.' By examining the"texts" which also a member of the North American Commission reflect values and shape decisions, students can for Environmental Education Research and is the begin to examine for themselves those social codes editor' of the Canadian Journal of Environmental which affect activities in their communities. This Education. Canoeing Yukon rivers and skiing Yukon can lead to further questions. What are the stated trails are his passions. values? What values are implicit? Do the details of policies support or reinforce thestated values? Similarly,students can begin to examine other Notes and references "texts" which occupy important rolesin their society.What,forexample,arethevalues 1 Scott Gilbert, "Science, ethics and ecosystems," in Juri embedded in their textbooks, their curricula? And, Peepre & Bob Jickling, eds., Northern protected areas and wilderness (Whitehorse: Canadian Parks and Wilderness do these documents tend to reinforce existing social Society - Yukon & Yukon College, 1994), pp. 195-201. codes or can they enable students to participate in 2 Wolf Management Planning Team, TheYukonwolf the continued evolution of environmental ethics? conservation and management plan (Whitehorse, Yukon: Yukon Department of Renewable Resources, 1992). Second, the two meanings of "ethics" suggested 3 In this sense, I am speaking about implicit or unwritten in this examination of The Yukon Wolf Conservation codes. Interpretationsofthesecodescan alsobe and Management Plan parallel schooling practices. formalized and expressed as written codes of conduct or standards for practice. Ethics as a reflection of broad social valuesor 4 Aldo Leopold, A Sand County almanac (Oxford: Oxford unwritten codes are reinforced through socializing University Press, 1949). activitiesthattakeplaceinschools. 5 Peter Singer, Animal liberation 2nd ed. (New York: Avon School Books, 1991). recycling programs or campaigns to save endangered 6 Eugene C. Hargrove, Foundations of environmental ethics species and a host of other activities can tend to (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1989). reinforce emergingcodes,heighteninterestin Jim Cheney, "Postmodern environmental ethics: Ethicsa bioregional narrative," in S. J. Armstrong & R. G. Botzler, environmental issues, and "enable environmental eds., Environmental ethics: Divergence and convergence practice."' The Plan suggests thatethics should (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993), pp. 86-95. also be thought of as a process of inquiry which Karen Warren, "The power and promise of ecological feminism," Environmental Ethics, 12 (1990):125-146. parallels more educative activities in schools. By 9 For a recent example of this concernsee John Livingston's revealing the nature of contested ethical positions, Rogue primate: An exploration of human domestication The Plan acknowledges the need to ask deeper (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1994). 10 I am not suggesting that educational activitiesare some- questions about what might be the rootcause of how value free or neutral. We as educators can, however, environmental "problems"' and how an can be self-conscious of our biases in our attempts to be environmentally responsible citizen should act ina fair minded and tolerant of alternative views. This should particular context at a particular time. not, in turn, be construed as relativistic, but rather as a

162 Bob Jickling 6 3 willingnesstothoughtfullyconsider,andweigh, directs us to think also of "intrinsic value" and is alternative perspectives. reminiscent of the period in literature when "intrinsic" " Anthony Weston, "Before environmental ethics," Environ- and "inherent" were used more loosely and perhaps mental Ethics, 14 (1992):321-338. interchangeably. 12 For treatments of distinctions between education and 15Neil Evernden, The natural alien: Humankind and the envi- socialisationsee Robin Barrow,The philosophy -of ronment (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985). schooling (Brighton, Sussex: Wheatsheaf, 1981)and 16 Weston, "Before environmental ethics." Kieran -Egan, "Education and socializing: A proper 17 For a further exploration of this idea see my "Environ- distinction?" Teachers College Record, 85 (1983):27-42. mental education, problem solving, and some humility Armstrong and Botzler, Environmental ethics: Divergence please," The Trumpeter, 8 (1991):153-155. and convergence (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993), des- 18Eugene C. Hargrove, "Science, ethics and the care of cribe an distinction between inherent and ecosystems," in Jun Peepre & Bob Jickling, eds., Northern intrinsic value. e "inherent value" in this paper, and in protected areas and wilderness (Whitehorse: Canadian The Yukon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan, is Parks and Wilderness Society - Yukon & Yukon College, used more generally and should be considered in terms of 1994), pp. 44-45. the general direction to which it points. In this sense it

Wolves, Ethics, and Education 163 84 Directions for the Future: Environmental Education in British Columbia Richard Kool, British Columbia Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks

Tiing in the realm of the practical and real, I learn that in Business School, and people like him onder as an environmental educator working are the ones making decisions not only in BC, but a 1 l within a governmental regime, how I can help move over the world. this weird field along. Environmental education has been carried on in British Columbia is a province with a great Canada and British Columbia since the early 1970s. deal of environmental interest and a great deal of In 1972, the British Columbia Teachers Federation environmental polarization,a place where the commissioned a task force to examine environmental largest act of civil disobedience ever seen in Canada education. The recommendations made by this group was played out a few years ago at the start of a 20 years ago included considering the built as well as logging road going into Clayoquot Sound on the west thenaturalenvironment,theintegrationof coast of Vancouver Island. It is also a place where, environmentaleducationwithintheexisting in some communities, teachers take a serious risk in curricula, and the value of out-of-school experience looking too "green." It is a place whose history is in both natural and built environments. Since then closely tied with mythic struggles involving humans many school districtshaveactivelysupported and the environment. The First Nations peoples environmental education, committingsignificant arriving some time around 10,000 BP found a place of amounts of dollars and staff to create exemplary immense natural wealth, a place rich enough to programs. Individual teachers in British Columbia support what some archaeologists believe to be have been recognized nationally and about 1/3 ofallaboriginalpeoplesin North internationally for their contribution to the field of America priorto European arrival.Thefirst environmentaleducation.ThethreeBritish Europeans, when they arrived just more than 200 Columbia universitieshave had environmental yearsago,alsoappreciatedthevastnatural education offerings in their catalogues for more than wealth. There were trees so tallit took two people 20 years. to see to the top (one person looked up as far as they Within the realm of public education in British could see, and the next person started from there and Columbia today and in the past, environmental got to see the top); rivers so rich in salmon that you education has not been a mandated course of studies. could walk on their backs from one side to the other; Whilemany teachersprovidesome kindof coal,gold and other minerals in inexhaustible environmentaleducation,principally inthe abundance, fertile bottom land; vast potential for primary program, environmental education at the hydroelectric power, and more. intermediate and secondary program is found only And now, in only 200 years of non-aboriginal withinthe realm of locally-developedcourses. occupation, a great deal of that natural wealth has There are environmentally-related courses such as been used up. Now, as we are here thinking, a vast "environmental biochemistry 12," "environmental practical problem of environmental ethics is being studies9-12,""outdoorskills 11and12," sorted out as Canada and the United States, and in "environmental consciousness 9 and 10," particular Alaska and Washington State, struggle "environmental education 8 - 10," "environmental over who gets how much of whose salmon. Just a few science 8 - 11," "forest and wildlife management 8 years ago, 800 people were willing to go to jail over and 9," and "forest ecology 11." Environmental an issue of environmental ethics at Clayoquot. The education howeverhaspreviouslylackeda struggle over who will get the last old-growth tree, legitimacy through its exdusion from the ministry- the last free-swimming salmon, the last cup of water set curriculum, depending as it has on the initiative from depleted reservoirs, the last breath of clean air of individual teachers and supportive principals in the Vancouver area, these issues are not too far and superintendents. away. BC is a place where the vice-president of the A surveycarriedoutin1990bythe BC Business Council could berateagroupof EnvironmentalEducatorsProvincialSpecialist environmental educators and others for forgetting Association (EEPSA), a group associated with the thatbusinesscreatesthewealthofBritish BC Teachers Federation, gives some indication of Columbia. When told, after his outburst, that the the stateof environmental education in British wealth of BC is daily created by the sun, and left to Columbia. This PSA, which hasless than 150 us by residue of geological activity, he responded teachers in its membership, represents the interests with "I never thought of it that way." He didn't of the formal environmental education community.

164 Rick Kool Their survey of school districts indicated that less Diversity than 20% of school districts had environmental Change, Succession, and Homeostasis education policies, philosophies, an environmental Impact of biota on physical environment (past education committee or an environmental education and present) coordinator. Considering that 68% of the districts responded, the actual number may be even lower Closely related to the scientific subjects are the than reported.' understandings thatrelateto theworkings of In 1991, a small group of civil servants were complex systems and systems thinking, of which charged with the task of putting together a vision human society and the natural world are two large statement for environmental education in BC. The examples. Complex systems thinking brings us to a Ministryof Education did not haveastrong moreglobal way of looking at things. commitment to environmental education, and clearly Environmentally educated citizens must be able to had no intention of creating any formal mandate for think globally, and to understand the nature of teachingenvironmental education,but hadto globallinkagesandfeedbacksystems.The respond to thegrowing public interestin the fundamental ideas of sustainability relate to the environment. Through readings, roundtable understandings of complex systems; citizens need the discussions throughout theprovince, discussions knowledge necessary to understand the with academics and practitioners, a draft vision relationships between economic, environmental and document was released. social systems. We took a great deal of advice from Milt McClaren's widely reprinted paper on environmental literacy.' Our document also embraced the Landmark 2: Understandings of the past conception that E.F. Shumacher wrote about in A and the future Guide for the Perplexed: 3 One way of looking at the world as a whole is by means of a map, that is to Twenty-five years ago, the historian Lynn White say, some sort of plan or outline that shows where publishedanow-classic paperentitled"The various things are to be found not all things, of Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis." 5 In that course, for that would make the map as big as the paper, he attempted to demonstrate that it has been world, but the things that are most prominent, most the interpretation of the Book of Genesis that sits a t important for orientation outstanding landmarks, the root cause of the environmental crisis. While as it were, which you cannot miss, or if you do miss White's thesis has spawned much discussion and is them, you will be left in total perplexity. by no means a universally accepted analysis, the What were our landmarks? There were four, and point is that one has to understand the past in order they reflect directly from the doctoral work of our to make sense of the present. A student's knowledge host, Bob Jickling, who, writing about what it means of the issues of today and tomorrow has to be to "think environmentally," pointed out that there groundedinhistoricalunderstandings.Under- are four areas of knowing: ecology/science, history, standings of how past societies have looked upon aesthetics and ethics.' We spun these out into a their place in the world and the impact of past series of landmarks for environmental education. societies on environments are a critical component of the knowledge of an environmentally educated citizen. Landmark 1: Understandings about complex systems John Huckle puts it this way:

realmofthesciences,abasic The study of environmental history should develop Withinthe pupils understanding of changing social formations involvement withthefollowingconceptsare and their use of nature. Pupils should understand necessary: how the transformation of nature allows social development, how human environments are socially constructed and how socialrelationsshape Thermodynamics environmental relations.' Cycles, Flows and Fluctuations energy and matter How other peoples today, in particular non- Population concepts, including limiting factors Europeanculturesincludingthevariety of and carrying capacity aboriginal peoples of the world, maintain different Interactions, interdependence and coevolution conceptions of the place of humans in the world is Communities and Ecosystems knowledge importanttotheeducatedcitizen. Understandings from these other cultural Directions for the Future 165

b. conceptionsarea necessary component ofthe scientific nature. Spiritual and aesthetic environmentally educated citizen's "toolkit." understandings are different from those of science, Concepts surrounding the use of nature through historyor philosophy.These kinds of under- timealsoleadnaturallyinto examinationof standings are not exclusive domains of a particular ecologically and socially sustainable development religion, but are probably at the base of all religious as a possible model for present and future economic experience. Here, we are examining the other not- systems. The relationship between environment, necessarily rational ways of knowing the non- economy and society are direct outgrowths of our rational or super-rational means of knowing those historicalconceptions and understandings of our of "intuition, insight, deep familiarity,respect, place in the environment. Understanding the various compassion."' To these terms we might add the human conceptions of and use of natural resources, general realm of transcendence and transformation and their historicalroots, is a major part of our through the appreciation and perception of the historical landmark. sacred in the world. Perhaps the easiest and most acceptable way to Landmark 3: Understandings of philosophy describe this landmark is that it encompasses the and ethics sense of wonder that grows out of experience in the natural world. This wonder at what we cannot begin An environmentally educated citizen has knowledge tounderstand actsasabalanceto the ofthephysicalworld. Butthereisalsoa scientific/utilitarian understandings which result philosophical and ethicalcomponent to being a from our experiences withsome of theother responsible citizen. The realityof environmental landmarks. The particulareducational messages activism today is driven as much by concern for that fall within this landmark are going to come philosophy as for photosynthesis. from a varietyof cultural understandings. Most The philosophical "toolkit" of an ecologically- relevantto us, however, willbe the wisdom literate person must contain an understanding of the contained within the traditional teachings of the present world-view. This kind of knowledge is First Peoples of British Columbia. important to make sense out of the present-day situation,andtobeabletounderstand the Environmental concepts in the classroom mainstream perspective of today's Western culture. As well, the new and emerging world-views need to The vision document and others that have followed be examined, and the critique of the traditional ithavefloatedaround BC andelsewhere, Western perspective needs to be understood. preparatorytothedevelopmentofaformal Aboveall, theremustbeathorough Ministry document. Over the past two years the examination of values and valuing. To Fritjof Ministry of Education has been developing their Capra,'ecologicalvaluesincludemovingour position around environmental education, and during concerns: the last week of October released their document Environmental Concepts in the Classroom: A guide from independence to interdependence forteachers.'Thereareproblems withthis from competition to cooperation document: we're not alwaystalkingabout "the from quantity to quality classroom," for one. from expansion to conservation EnvironmentalConceptsin theClassroom: A from domination to partnership guide forteachersisn't a curriculum document; The environmentally educated citizen will have an teachersdon'thavetoteachenvironmental understanding of thepresent value systems, of education. But its importance is clear. First, and alternativevaluesystemsincludingthoseof most important, it gives permission to teachers who aboriginal peoples as they relate to the environ- might have wanted to approach environmental ment, and have sufficient confidence in their ability education, but reallycouldn't find any formal to act according to their values based on their authorizationfordoingitinanyMinistry knowledge of the issues. documents; it does provide a legitimacy to teach environmental education and that is not something to be overlooked. This document isn't for the "early Landmark 4: Aesthetic/spiritual adopters" those teachers who have been teaching environmental education in spite of its questionable Formany,theessentialnatureoftoday's curricular legitimacy. But it will be of great value to environmental "crisis" is of a spiritual rather than a 166 X67 Rick Kool the slightly more timid who want more author- Whitehead tells us that we have to do something ization before they go ahead. with our knowledge. This document gives legitimacy Second, you only have to take a look at other to responsible student action. Many of the new Canadian or American curriculum documents around Learning Resources we're now creating in the BC environmental education to see the importance of Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks are thispaper.Itappearsto me thatfor many strongly connected to action projects. jurisdictions, true environmental education is a scary How do you decide on what is responsible? You business. Most opt for a version of environmental have to have some understanding of the range of science, with a strong emphasis on ecology. Ecology ethical stances that are available. This ranges from is not environmental education; it is necessary, but Old Testament dicta such as "love your neighbor as not sufficient. Some curricula talk a bit about action yourself" to Immanuel Kant's categorical skills; but leave much of the underlying values and imperative which tells us to treat other humans philosophy alone. only as ends and never as means, to the deep The Environmental Concepts in the Classroom ecologists position of strong identification with document is a short one as Ministry of Education nature. The new document gives us permission and documents go: only 20 pages long. But it lays out for encouragement to consider our ethical stances, and teachers, too tersely at times perhaps, the guiding especially consider them in relation to their impact principles we should be using in our practice. These on the environment. The third principle states that principles go beyond ecology and environmental "The study of the environment enables students to studies and give the lead to teachers as to the develop an environmental ethic." What we think legitimacy of using environmental education as a and what we do have real implications for the fate truly integrative educational practice. of the planet, and we now have direction to consider Thefirstprinciplepresentedis"Direct them within our classrooms. experience is the basis of learning." This statement The document tells us in another principle that gives permission to teachers to use the outdoor "Human decisions and actions have environmental classrooms, the fieldtrips to nature centres and consequences." Here we have the opportunity to look forests or streams or seashores, as legitimate and at environmental history, both close-term and going important parts of the school program. Want to back to ancient times. How can we understand the learn about streams? give your children the direct problems oftodaywithoutunderstanding the experience of working in and around a stream. As you historical trajectory our culture, or any other culture, walk into the Marine Biology Laboratory at the has been on. Human decisions taken more than 2000 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution at Woods years ago led Plato to bemoan the deforestation of Hole, Mass. a place that I spent much time in as a the southern Greece. The cedars of Lebanon, so kid and as an undergraduate there is a brass poetically described in Scripture, are no longer. The plaque,astatementbythefounderofthe great oak forests of Great Britain have long been Laboratory, Louis Aggassiz. It says "Study Nature, felled, the results of human decisions. The ozone Not Books." Aggassiz, a great educator of the 19th holes, the reduction of global biodiversity,the century, would have liked this first principle. collapse of the cod stocks, the rise of CO2 in the The second principle talks about responsible atmosphere, these are allthe results of human action: "Responsible action is integral to and a decisions and in orderto understand whatis consequence of environmental education." This is a happening and likely to happen, we have to look subject close to my heart. There is,I believe, a backwards. The document gives us permission to do weight that comes along with knowing things, a that. responsibilitytoactin accordance withone's Yes, there is science in this document. Life on understandings. Student action projects have to be earth depends on, and is part of, complex systems. carefully thought out and sensitively directed. And The study of complex systems is considered integral yet, the mark of a responsible citizenis taking to environmental education, yet here we are told thoughtful action in the world, action that comes as that it is more than just ecology: it is economics, it is aresultof honestinvestigationandinquiry, political science and sociology and law that also reflective of the integrity of the individual. Alfred need to be understood from an environmental North Whitehead starts the Aims of Education perspective. We need to study both natural systems with the lines: "Culture is receptiveness to beauty and human-created systems, systems of society and and humane thought. Scraps of information have economy, in order to fulfill our role as responsible nothing to do with it. A merely well-informed man citizens working towards sustainability in our lives, isthemostuselessboreon God's earth.'

Directions for the Future 167 168 our society, our economies, and the environment that Marris points out a failure that many of us are guilty we share with all creatures. of: And finally, and perhaps most radically, the document links the work of environmental education When those who have powertomanipulate changes act as if they have only to explain, and fromenvironmental awareness to aesthetic when their explanations are not at once accepted, appreciation:"Environmental awareness enables shrug off opposition as ignorance or prejudice, they students to develop an aesthetic appreciation of the express a profound contempt for the meaning of lives other than their own. For the reformers have environment." Through direct experience with the alreadyassimilatedthesechangestotheir natural world, we can develop an understanding purposes, and worked out a reformulation which that comes about through identification with the makes sense to them, perhaps through months or years of analysis and debate. If they deny others beauty and wonder we experience. For the fine arts the chance to do the same, they treat them as teacher,thisdocument gives an opportunity to puppets dangling by the threads of their own connect with a science or social studies teacher doing conceptions. work in the outdoors. It provides an opportunity to link the role of painting and painters with the ways We know from 25 years of research' that the in which we see the world and thus how we value things that really encourage students to learn and the world. Soundscapes, and compositions like Srul grow is what happens when the teachers close the Irving Glick's nature piece set around a lake in door of the classroom not what comes out of Banff, these can all become and should become part central government offices. In order to help teachers of what we do in environmental education. and students, we have to be able to help teachers do With this new document, I am more hopeful what they do when they close the doors. And i f about what environmental education can be in BC we're interested in environmental education and schools,butitisnotcurriculum.Whatis ethics, we've got to help them learn about what environmental education in most schools in BC? The that means and provide them with encouragement to report that I can give is only anecdotal. But it is teachthis when theyclose thedoors of the clear that the major area where teachers deal with classroom. environmental education is in the science curriculum. The last part of the Environmental Concepts in Environmental education is really seen by many as a the Classroomdocumentiscalled"Suggested subset of the science curriculum, and is presented to a guidelines for implementation," and it lays out some great degree as a variant an environmental studies. ideas that David Denning and I put together a few Students learn about ecology, but the curriculum years ago. Some of these guidelines are that: presents a highly technical bias to the students. For example, there is a new Science K-7 curriculum in EnvironmentalEducationneeds to consider BC, just released. We can look at the grades 5 and 7 integration oftraditional subjects. Walt curriculum to see what we have to work with. It is Whitman once wrote that "The world will be clear, for example, that ethics are not a large part of jagged and broken to those men and women what is discussed in this new curriculum. In fact, whose lives are jagged and broken. The world ethics the theme of this conference are not will be whole and together to those men and really part of any curriculum in BC. women whose lives are whole and together." Whatisdriving teachers today? The new Curriculum integration, which sits at the heart curriculumdocuments,theIntegratedResource of good, brings peoples lives together. Packages (IRP), are setting out what the law of the Presentationof a range of perspectives. We land in BC education is today. If we are to make dropped the word balance, feeling that balance some impact on what happens in schools, we are implies that there are lunatics on either end of going to have to tie whatever we do to the IRP even the spectrum and the truth lives in the middle. if we have an environmental education framework We do not often know where the truth is, but do document. We have to use the IRP, for better of feel that an educator cannot simply present one worse, to provide for us curricular space where we kind of analysis or answer especially in areas can act. of contentious knowledge as if it were the only We haveto be careful,asenvironmental one to be considered. The mark of an educated education evangelists, about pushing too hard on the person is the abilityto criticallyconsider a teaching community. We clearly can't tell teachers range of perspectives. that they should teach environmental education, Hopefulnessisanotherguideline. We first because some of us in government outside of the talkedabout optimism, but thedictionary Education Ministry think that they should. Peter definition of optimism refers to the belief that

168 Rick Kool everything will turn out for the best. That is Notes and references perhaps a bit too "pollyanna-ish." Things may ' S. Blackstaff, S. Crichton, R. Hammill, B. Scott, & C. Taylor, not turn out for the best. But as educators, we Environmental Education in British Columbia a view to have to operate on a paradigm that is baSed an the year 2000 (Victoria: BC Ministry of Education & hope hope for ourselves, hope for our students, Environmental Educators' Provincial Specialist hope for life on earth. But this hope has to be Association, 1991). 2. Milton McClaren "Environmental literacy. A critical tied, of course, to action. element of a liberal education for the 21st. Century," And finally, humility. There is much we don't Alces 25 (1989), pp. 168-171. and maynever 3 E. F. Schumacher, A Guide for the Perplexed (New York: know,don'tunderstand, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1977), p.7. understand. In the face of the challenges in front 4 R. J. L. Jickling, Thinking Environmentally: considerations of us, and when we see the faces of our students for education and curriculum in the Yukon (Unpublished PhD thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1991). who are that part of our trajectory into the 5 Lynn White, "The historical roots of our ecological cris- future we must be humble. is," Science 155 (1967), pp. 1203-1207. 6 John Huckle, "Education for sustainability:assessing pathwaystothefuture,"Australian Journal of Environmental Education 7 (1991), pp. 43-62. Notes on contributor Fritjof Capra, The turning point: science, society, and the rising culture (New York: Bantam Books, 1983). Richard Koolistheenvironmentaleducation See,for example, D. H. Meadows, Harvesting One Hundredfold: Key conceptsand case studies in coordinator in the British Columbia Ministry of environmental education (Nairobi, Kenya: United Nations Environment,Lands and Parks.He hasbeen Environment Programme, 1989). 9 Environmental Concepts inthe Classroom (ED 00447) involved in the educational world as a secondary (Victoria: British Columbia Ministry of Education, 1995). 'school science and environmental education teacher, 10 Alfred North Whitehead, The Aims of Education (New college and university insructor, and for many years York: Macmillan, 1929). atthe IIP.Marris,Lossand Change (New York: Anchor asan educator /interpretor /programmer Press/Doubleday 1975), p. 166. Royal British Columbia Museum. He is struggling to 12 See, for example, M. C. Wang, G. D. Haertel, & H. J. complete his doctorate in educational leadership a t Walberg, "What helps students learn?"Educational Brigham Young University at the same time that he Leadership January (1994), pp. 74-79. approaches his dotage. Extracurricular activities involve trying to make sense of his children's ever- changing lives, trying to get his doctorate before his wife finishes hers, and playing Irish music on his recorder.

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