New Ideas in Environmental Education

Sálvano Briceño, David C. Pitt, Sálvano Briceño, David C. Pitt

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351054102
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Originally published in 1988, this book was a plea for new approaches to environmental education. In the years prior to publication there had been a reappraisal of education and a growing awareness of the problems of environment and development. However, the movements had rarely met. The objective of this book was to present some of the ideas and the action that was taking place at the time. It was put forward for discussion because a major intergovernmental meeting took place in 1987, ten years on from the famous Tbilisi meeting, the world's first intergovernmental conference on environmental education. With environmental education still very much on the world's agenda today, this title can be used as a resource to show where it all began.

Part One
Frameworks for Ideas and Action

Chapter One
The Ecology of Education

Mark Braham

The World System

Ecology

My title, the 'Ecology of Education', provides what I believe to be the proper context for any discussion of education: the infinite and open system we call nature, within which we are evolving; which is evolving through us, and of which our planetary life is but one micro-system.

From this standpoint nature is not just something 'out there' in the form of fields, forests, clouds and stars, but is also 'here', and each one of us is a part of nature as well. All that we do is subject to what we understand are its principles, those that are known, and undoubtedly those that are unknown as well.

With all due respect to green politicians, green economists and Greenpeace, ecology is far more than saving trees, rabbits, dolphins, sites of scenic beauty, and humans from the ravages of monetarists, vivisectionists, aquatic zoo-keepers, motorway enthusiasts, power station advocates, and nuclear-weapons testers.

Ecology is nothing less than the study of organisational reciprocity because every form of life, including our own, is an organisation in some phase of development or decay, in constant interchange with its internal and external environment.

Organisation

Organisation is found everywhere both as an all-pervasive process and as the myriad inorganic, organic and extraorganic forms that are its products. An organisation is an inter-relationship of elements, parts or units comprising a system of behaviour. Every organisation appears at once as a micro-organisation participating in the creation of an organisation greater than itself; and as a macro-organisation dependent upon a hierarchy of micro-organisations from which it derives its existence.

On the one hand, the process of organisation follows a generally regular course of phases and stages of development through which an emerging entity, inorganic, organic or extra-organic, becomes established and self-maintaining in its milieu until it achieves a temporarily optimum state, at which point it either transforms to a higher level of complexity, or becomes relatively fixed in its form and functions, until, according to the nature of its substance and environing conditions, it rapidly, or slowly, decays.

On the other hand, there are the products which emerge out of the process of organisation; molecules are organisations of atoms; organelles are organisations of molecules; cells are organisations of organelles; tissues are organisations of cells; organs are organisations of tissue, and so on throughout the fabric of the flora and fauna of the planet, to human life in its physical, psychological, emotional, perceptual, conceptual, ideational, commercial, industrial, social, political and religious organisation and beyond, such that we can say, 'no organisation, no existence'.

Turning to the opposite direction: while molecules are organisations of atoms, atoms are organisations of electrons, and the neutrons and protons that comprise their nuclei. Neutrons and protons, in turn, are organisations of quarks, and quarks, perhaps, will be found to be made up of yet more minute units, for as the bit of doggerel about fleas says:

Big fleas have little fleas
On their backs to bite 'em;
Little fleas have littler ones
And so, ad infinitum

Every part - every micro-organisation - acts in a finely articulated and balanced relationship to every other part, from the domains of the infinitely small to the infinitely large; from the infinitely simple to the infinitely complex. A change in any part of a system will, to a greater or lesser extent, affect the whole system.

Reverberations

Hence ecology, for everything exists in a dynamic relationship to everything else. Thus, the present wholesale cutting of trees in tropical moist forests means the destruction of habitats for micro-organisms, insects, birds, animals and people. The loss of foliage means that heavy rains fall unimpeded on fragile soil whose structure erodes because of lack of root systems to bind it.

The erosion of soil limits plant growth, leading to a loss of humus and the food of bacteria, and thus the food chain is broken until the species that can must migrate or die out and many do die out - and even the local human population has to leave. The consequences do not stop there, for with the disappearance of the forests oxygen decreases, carbon dioxide increases, and the consequences, subtle and great, reverberate throughout the local, regional, and ultimately planetary eco-system.

The world refugee situation, for example, can be understood in the same ecological context. Instead of insecticides and the well-known consequences of this form of species destruction, bullets, bombs and other kinds of body and mind killing devices are used, forcing some, or even all of the local population to flee and search for another habitat in which to establish a new ecological niche. Often they come into conflict with the indigenous inhabitants who seek to protect the integrity of their own lifestyle. The tensions that result, often leading to rejection or expulsion as they try to gain acceptance and accommodate themselves to and integrate within their new environment, and are common to refugee groups around the world.

Thus, the world ecological problem, largely a human creation, is now working its way out on the human level, and with poetic justice, large numbers of the fleeing populations are seeking - and in some cases are managing to find asylum in some of the distant countries whose governments, commercial and financial institutions have certain responsibilities for the original disasters.

If the ecological balance of the planet is in disarray, and the evidence for this is available on every continent, the first place to look for causes is within the system itself. There is an obviously lethal factor at work.

As is the case in any organisation when destructive forces emerge - inorganic, organic or extra organic - there is usually something wrong with its information system. In the case of the planetary ecology (and perhaps even the present human propensity for cancer and other severely destructive illnesses) the problem lies in human consciousness. It is human consciousness that has so often been incapable of responding appropriately to the dynamics of life and which lies at the source of the planet's ecological condition.

Education is Natural

Evolution

While pre-industrial societies were - and to the extent they still exist, are - embedded in nature's seasons and cycles, industrialised and urbanised humanity has been passing through a psychological separation between itself and the rest of nature, acting as if it is the result of some independent and special creation apart from the general evolution of life.

Strange as it may seem, it is only as we have begun to move into the post-industrial, or technological, phase of human life, that this separation is starting to be overcome, and we recognise that we are one among the many species that have evolved on this planet. Whether our evolution is the result of a series of mutations from a progenitor that led on the one hand to the simians, and on the other, to ourselves is still uncertain. We may yet find, as some traditions suggest, that we have come from the stars.

Haekel's old contention, however, that 'ontogeny recapitulates phytogeny' - that is to say, that the development of the individual replicates the evolution of the species (as seen in the formative stages of the human foetus) and the fact of our physical, chemical and biological affinities with other forms of life (as found in trace elements, amino acids, skeletal and tissue structures and functions), suggest that whatever its source or cause, human evolution has long been an intrinsic part of the general evolution of life on this planet.

This evolution is still continuing, but having established the chemical, physical and biological levels of life, it is now to be found working through the dimensions of human emotion, feeling, thought and intuition, and the vast complex of human actions, creations and institutions - and, perhaps, even beyond human life (for who knows that evolution terminates with human kind?).

Information

From the micro-biological end of the evolutionary continuum through to human neuro-physiology, life organises itself on the basis of information that is genetically transmitted from parents to progeny in the course of reproduction. We understand its results as 'instinct'. Because of instinct, the general species type (or genotype) is maintained, but as genes are not exactly replicated during reproduction, distinctive individuals (or phenotypes) emerge, adding their particular characteristics to the gene pool for the inheritance of future generations. Together, genotype and phenotype give rise to both unity and diversity of form, function and behaviour, providing, thereby, for the survival and continuity of species.

Although genetic programming establishes the foundations of individual and species life, it is too limited for the range of behaviour required by highly complex species such as the higher mammals. Of all known species, ours is the most instinctually deficient, while at the same time the most proficient in the complexity, flexibility and refinement of its behaviour.

Maturation

Where genetic programmes exist, we speak of 'maturation' to indicate a generally determined developmental sequence leading from conception to an optimum state, beyond which no major constructive transformations are possible. Amoebae mature, roses mature, cats, dogs and horses mature, their species continue, but, in general, no longer evolve - that is, increase the complexity, flexibility and orderliness of their form, function and behaviour - except to some extent as a result of human intervention.

Although the genetic transfer of information is also a necessary condition for human life, it is largely confined to our neuro-physiological growth and development. Provided that adequate care, food and exercise are available, our bodies mature and achieve the optimum state possible according to the nature of both the internal and external milieux sometime between approximately 23 and 29 years of age. From then on, but for some 'filling out', they will stay in a reasonably recognisable state while ageing, in the form of gradual cellular disorganisation, ultimately takes its toll.

By the same token that our bodies reach maturity, they also do not continue to evolve. Although our species continues to be born, to live and to die in just about all regions of the planet (and now goes for walks and rides in outer space), except perhaps in the case of the fore-brain it has hardly changed, if at all, for thousands of years. Beyond our body's neuro-physiology we do not mature. We cannot achieve maturity.

All that is contained in the ideas of human consciousness, such as our emotional, mental and spiritual life, does not reach maturity. We cannot point to an emotionally, mentally or spiritually mature person, for we know of no final state that marks the criterion of the full flowering of our emotional, mental and spiritual possibilities. In fact, should the present human condition that demonstrates so much discord, violence and destructiveness be the sign of our maturity, we would be in a very sorry situation, as it would signify the limits of what we can become. Fortunately, we are immature, every one of us, and can, therefore, continue to develop and, collectively, can continue to evolve.

The Garden of Eden

The source of our planetary problems lies at that point in evolution at which instinct was transformed to intention through the agency of human life. Like so many events, it is recalled in myth and retold down the ages in the legend of the Garden of Eden.

It was in the Garden of Eden where Adam, our progenitor, was granted dominion over 'the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moved upon the earth', as long as he remained subject to the Will of God. Adam was told that he could partake of everything except the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Should he eat of that, God said, then 'he would surely die.'

In due course, Eve was created. Then the Serpent appeared and instigated Eve to invite Adam to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam did so, and was cast out of the Garden. From that time on, we are taught, sin entered the world, and has forever been our inheritance.

Some interpretation is in order:

First, the Garden of Eden was Paradise, which, by definition, was perfect - a place of unity and wholeness. In contemporary parlance, some would even call it 'holistic' (which many regard as meaning 'Holy'). It was, however, a setting in which behaviour was pre-determined, ordained by God. As some control system was required to maintain order among the Garden's species, we can suggest, on the basis of our knowledge of genetics, that their behaviour was instinctual, guided by their respective genetic codes.

Second, Adam's behaviour was also prescribed, suggesting that he too, was an instinctual being - possibly as Homo neanderthalis, Neanderthal man - with the locus of his consciousness centered in the hind - or 'instinctual' - brain

Third, the Serpent, we are told, was 'subtile'. Although in modern Bibles the world subtile is spelled 's-u-b-t-l-e', meaning devious, in the King James' version it is spelled, 's-u-b-t-i-l-e', meaning 'fine, delicate, rarified', something almost ethereal. Traditionally, the Serpent is the symbol of Wisdom, and God's messenger on Earth. Hence, the Serpent symbolises consciousness, a point well understood by yogis and those practitioners who know somewhat of kundalini, the 'serpent power', that, rising, through the hierarchy of ehakras or centres of consciousness, as they are understood to be in Hindu and Buddhist thought, enables the initiate to acquire successively higher states of awareness.

Fourth, Eve, who is also Isis and Gaia, is the Earth Mother, the feminine principle without whom the power, inherent in matter, of generation and birth would not be possible.

Fifth; as we are dealing with an Asian story that refers back before the Old Testament period, it may be useful to consider that in Sanskrit we find that 'sin', translated as avidya, means 'ignorance', or 'non-knowledge'.

Let us put the story together again:

Adam signifies instinctual man, bound by the then achieved levels of God's creation, who surely did die, as God said he would. The Serpent, as the principle of consciousne...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Half Title
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART ONE FRAMEWORKS FOR IDEAS AND ACTION
• PART TWO THIRD WORLD SITUATIONS
• Index