So, what
happens after you’ve successfully implemented a place-based, community-focused,
developmentally appropriate approach to environmental education? Hopefully
you’ll be one step closer toward achieving your lofty outcome, but along the
way you’re likely to run into people whose perspective will differ from yours.
Objectors commonly claim that environmental educators are short on facts and
long on cultivating unnecessary fear. Others argue that teachers who employ
these methods are advocates rather than objective educators who consider many
sides of the issue.
David L.
Larsen, in his address Be Relevant or
Become a Relic, said, “The resource benefits when resource professionals
are secure enough in their own perspective and beliefs to step outside those
beliefs and enable others to care about the resource for their own reasons.” In
this passage, the resource refers to the object of your project or program, be
it a watershed district, invasive specie, or other issue that faces your
community. It underscores the importance of learning the facts, and hearing all
sides of the story.
Presenting
multiple points of view and embracing a diversity of perspectives is important
for many reasons. It creates more opportunities for buy-in from the community
and maximizes ownership through partnerships. For example, projects or programs
that aim to save the community money are great motivators for involving
business interests in collaboration. Additionally, Larsen says, “It creates an
environment of respect that allows for dialogue rather than conflict.” When
you’re under attack, it’s easy to get defensive and hard to share the power,
but it’s important to at least try to start from a place where you are
listening to the concerns of the other constituencies. Usually it’s not a
matter of, “my way or the highway,” but building a new road together.
Finally,
it’s important to recognize when you have a dog in the fight. Some people are
just not interested in what you have to say. This might happen when a situation
is emotionally charged, when there is a strong political or ideological agenda
at play, or when people are fearful of change and its impact on their life. Often
these entities already care a great deal about your project or program, but you
are at two ends of the same spectrum.
To add to
your “Dealing With the Fallout” toolkit, I’ll close with a few excerpts from Tread Lightly When You Carry a Green Stick
in David Sobel’s handbook, Place-Based Education:
Connecting Classrooms & Communities. Here, Sobel illustrates that
sometimes all it takes to win over the detractors is not changing the program,
but changing the language that you use to describe it:
Environmental education often raises
people’s hackles…Our challenge [is] to develop a strategy that respect[s] the
various perspectives in the community and to find a form of environmental
education that honor[s] local economic and ecological realities…In the
beginning, the Community-based School Environmental Education (CO-SEED)
materials talked about educating for “ecological literacy,” which for many in
the North Country translated into tree hugging. They assumed we wanted to teach
children that cutting down trees was bad and that by extension, people that cut
down trees (their parents) were also bad…The program explores the history of
people’s relationship with the land just the way an environmental education
program would, but “cultural heritage” has less baggage than “environmental
education,” and places environmental issues within a broader context.
Similarly, we have found it more effective to talk about “place-based
education” rather than “ecological literacy.” Sometimes, we elaborate and refer
to “community- and place-based education,” to give equal emphasis to cultural
and natural contexts for learning…In community- and place-based education we
need to find the same kind of balance between environmental quality and
economic vitality…Place-based education is about connecting people to people, as
well as connecting people to nature.
Learn more:
Educational
Research, Vol. 48, No. 2, June 2006, pp. 223–241
Written by Deborah R. E. Cotton, University
of Plymouth, UK
Abstract
(abbreviated):
Environmental
issues are frequently controversial and involve conflicting interests and
values. Much environmental education literature explicitly encourages teachers
to promote pro- environmental attitudes and behaviors amongst their students,
despite evidence that teacher support for such a policy is ambiguous at best.
The literature on teaching controversial issues provides conflicting advice for
teachers, though many authors advocate the adoption of a neutral or balanced
approach. However, there has to date been little research into the strategies
which teachers actually adopt in teaching about controversial environmental
issues.
This research aimed to address the gap in
the literature by investigating the beliefs and practices of three experienced
geography teachers teaching controversial environmental issues in English
secondary schools. The study draws upon both interview data and transcripts of
classroom interaction.
“But, there really isn’t anything controversial about
environmental science, if the topics are taught with honesty, citing
respectable sources and allowing probing questions, then the benefits of
educating in this area far outweigh the risks of ignoring that environmental
elephant.”
This site highlights some effective teaching strategies for
engaging learners with controversial issues, and helping them create their own
opinions.
