a means to an end...exploring our relationship(s) to the natural world from the place(s) that we belong to, call home -sometimes it's our backyard, sometimes it's global.
It's education that allows for more ways than one to approach this exploration with the intention of bridging connections between who we are, how we are living, and what makes for our realities. In that mix, the story of place informs and is mutually receiving from us. What we do with the knowingness of these complexities is the action element. Creativity to talk about the old, the new, and a vision for finding meaning in life, self-actualization on an individual & collective front. How do we learn that we are or aren't a part of nature?
I've seen it as an entry point to both bring exposure to youth about what ecological communities we belong to in the midst of living in an urban environment as well as a space to engage in some wholistic critical thinking about why things are set up the way they are. Why & how do we learn that there's an otherness to peoples, animals, plants.
Breaking down questions of identity in relationship to environment unfolds attitudes & behavior =culture.
I don't have a schooling reference of EE per se, but the image of mainstream EE operating from a western scientific worldview, affluent white-led, conservationist-orientated, outdoor recreation.
You are right about the whiteness of EE. Diversity in the field has always been an issue since the beginning. NAAEE has been addressing it but if you go to the national conferences it is overwhelmingly white and disturbing because this world is not overwhelmingly white - in California latinos are the majority. How do we reach out more? There are pockets of EE such as People for Community Recovery in south Chicago http://www.peopleforcommunityrecovery.org/ which is a Environmental Justice organization that probably doesn't network with other EE groups.
ReplyDeleteBig issue that we will talk about and since Dylan says he wants to be an Environmental Educator when he grows up it is something I really want us, environmental educators to address. Especially since we all like clean water, clean air and good food!!
http://www.naaee.org/programs-and-initiatives/diversity/cultural-diversity-eetap/
http://www.naaee.org/programs-and-initiatives/diversity/achievingdiversity.pdf/view