Education for
Ecological Sustainability
A Special Double
Volume of Ometeca (14/15, 2010)
Preface (see contents below)
The goal of this special edition on Educating
for Ecological Sustainability is to provide readers with a compendium of insights
and strategies for transforming academic disciplines, pedagogical practices,
and our larger educational vision. The pursuit of ecological sustainability is
a current and crucial challenge, and to paraphrase José Martí,
it is criminal to separate education from key questions of our time.
Authors were invited
to explore their specific disciplines or specialty areas in relation to the
pursuit of ecological sustainability, and in the spirit of Ometeca, to
highlight and explore interdisciplinary connections. Authors were encouraged,
or permitted, to make their essays user-friendly, utilizing less academic and
more narrative and personal writing styles, or combining academic and narrative
styles, in order to share reflections and insights on educational experiences.
Some authors seemed to find this permission puzzling, which is understandable
given academic standards, but which may also signal a problem, given the power
of narrative to educate and transform (see the essays by Thomas Hudspeth and
Meredith Bird Miller). Most authors also included a selected annotated
bibliography to provide a path of texts for fellow educators to follow.
Most importantly,
authors were invited to draw upon their expertise to provide responses to the
key question of educating for ecological sustainability. Two authors responded,
in part of their essays, by wisely questioning the special edition theme of
educating for ecological
sustainability, preferring educating for sustainability instead. Their concern
is that educating for ecological sustainability is too restrictive, focusing
solely on ecosystems rather than ecosystems and socio-cultural systems. As
readers will discover, based on the historical unfoldment
of the term “sustainability,” ecological sustainability is a subset of the
terms “sustainability” or “sustainable development” and only one of several
sustainability goals, including education, gender equality, public health, and
civil and political rights (see UN Millennium
Development Goals). In other words, it is possible to have ecological
sustainability without a healthy, ethical, and equitable, and therefore
sustainable, socio-cultural life-world — consider the horrifying prospect of
ecologically sustainable Nazis, or dictatorships more generally.
The truth is that I
went back and forth quite a bit between the two titles/themes, but I eventually
decided that educating for sustainability was too broad, without enough focus
on ecosystem services — clean air and water, healthy soils, etc. — that sustain
societies and cultures (see 2005 UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). Healthy
socio-cultural systems demand healthy ecosystems; and for far too long
socio-cultural systems and natural systems have been intellectually and
perceptually separated, despite the fact that this separation is an illusory
social construction. The term sustainability has also too often been co-opted,
or green-washed, to mean whatever someone, typically a developer or
corporation, wants it to mean; it seems to me that it is harder to co-opt
“ecological sustainability.”
To me, while the
interpretation of eco-social systems is filled with uncertainty, there are
certain truths that should not be denied: natural systems must remain viable to
provide services necessary for the survival of all species. A central problem
is that cultures and societies are perceived as healthy while ecosystems are
degraded. Thus “educating for ecological sustainability” provides a needed
focus; a focus which, if we move beyond the illusory separation of nature and
culture, inevitably includes the health of socio-cultural systems and thus the
goals of education, gender equality, public health, and civil and political
rights. It is only through the lens of a rigid nature-culture dualism that
educating for ecological sustainability excludes human well being. Our
educational practices must work to overcome this rigidity, which has been
historically expressed via the separation of the Humanities and Sciences and
pedagogical overspecialization. A larger, more integrated educational vision is
needed; a vision that Ometeca has been promoting for over twenty years.
This is a healthy
discussion (from which I have learned and am still learning); it promotes
critical thought and helps define what we must do. Whatever title one wants to
give to this special edition, “Educating for Ecological Sustainability” or
“Educating for Sustainability,” the essays within clarify a key, and complex,
question of our time and provide numerous pedagogical responses. And yet, while
this special edition is long as far as Ometeca journals go, it could have been
much longer. All disciplines must respond, and the possibilities for
interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary insights and
practices are unbounded, especially as new eco-social crises and sustainability
solutions arise.
This special edition
provides insights toward solutions, while recognizing the enormity of the task.
We are talking about changing structures, thinking, and habits, on a large
scale, which is obviously a daunting challenge. Daunting, but
necessary. Education is key. Like all volumes
of this type, it makes a contribution to a worldwide “coming to awareness” (tomando consciencia).
I would like to thank
Rafael Català, editor emeritus, and Jerry Hoeg, the current editor, for encouraging me to take on this
project. Ometeca’s vision of integrating the sciences
and the humanities, or at least putting them into dialogue, has always provided
me, and many others, opportunities to think outside the academic box we too
often find ourselves in. It is my hope that this
special edition helps us to think big and differently about education in an age
of ecocrisis. — William
Homestead,
Contents • Sumario
Front Matter
Contents • Sumario: p. 3
Preface: p. 5
Our Cover: p. 7
Letter from Kevin Larsen, President,
Ometeca: p.8
Call for Papers,
Conference/Working Session XI: p. 9
Guide for authors: p. 11
Pautas Editoriales: p. 12
Subscription Rates: p. 14
Suscripciones • Assinaturas: p. 15
Articles
Education
for Sustainability: Scholarship at the Intersection of the Arts, Humanities,
and Sciences by Tom Kelly: p. 16
Steps to the Recovery of Ecological Intelligence by
C. A. Bowers: p. 43
Preparing Future Generations: Climate Change,
Sustainability and the Moral Obligation of Higher Education by Dane Scott:
p. 53
Stories as a Social Transformation Tool
to Work toward a Sustainable Future: Sustainability Stories Help Put the Pieces Together, Connect the Dots, and
Build Sustainable Communities by Thomas R. Hudspeth: p. 77
Preparing the Next
Generation of Leaders to Practice Sustainability by Robert B. Seaman: p. 107
Teaching Sustainability as a Living Practice: A
Place-Based Course of Intellect, Heart, and Behavior by Lisa K. Barlow: p. 124
The Greening of Religion: Insights and Principles
for Teaching about Religion and Ecological Sustainability by Dan Spencer: p.
138
Green Chemistry as a Central Area for Interfaces
between the Humanities and Sciences by Liliana Mammino: p. 164
Environmental Dance as an Educational Practice for
Ecological Sustainability: Raising Epistemic Consciousness among Educators by
Dianne Eno: p.
191
How to Sustain Your Mind While You Sustain the
World by Linda Wiener: p. 216
Starting a Farm at Your School by Josh Slotnick: p.
225
Learning From the Past: Environmental Hazards and
Human Responses by Teresa Kwiatkowska and William Forbes: p. 234
Educating for Ecological Sustainability in
Political Science by Peter G. Stillman: p. 252
Urban Sustainability: Teaching at the Interface of
Environmental and Urban Studies by Brian J. Godfrey: p. 274
Restorative Environments and Human Well Being: How We
Treat the Earth Is How We
Treat Ourselves by M.J. Raleigh: p. 294
Wilderness Experience and First-Year Programs by Brian
Van Brunt: p. 309
Storytelling for Sustainability by Meredith Bird
Miller: p. 320
Collapse Tourism: Reflections Floating Face Down by
Joseph Henry Vogel: p. 342
Communicative Praxis in an Age of Ecocrisis by
William Homestead: p. 347
Book Reviews/Reseñas
Ayala,
Francisco J. Darwin’s Gift to Science
and Religion, Reviewed by Kevin S. Larsen: p.
393
Fray Alonso de Veracruz
(1507-1584): Misionero del
Saber y Protector de Indios, Reviewed by Martha Muciño: p. 396