Abstract
Given the sense of ecological urgency that increasingly defines our times, this chapter seeks to look beyond current norms and worldviews that are environmentally problematic. With this thinking in mind, wild pedagogies, first, aims to re-examine relationships with places, landscapes, nature, more-than-human beings, and the wild. This requires rethinking the concepts wilderness, wildness, and freedom. Second, this chapter contends that educators need to trouble the dominant versions of education that are enacted in powerful ways and that bend outcomes towards a human-centred and unecological status quo. With this in mind, wild pedagogies seeks to challenge recent trends towards increased control over pedagogy and education, and how this control is constraining and domesticating educators, teachers, and the curriculum. Finally, given that the dominant current human relationship with Earth cannot be sustained, we posit that any critique suggested must be paired with a vision—and corresponding educational tools—that allows for the possibility of enacting a new relationship.
The Crex Crex Collective includes: Hebrides, I., Independent Scholar; Ramsey Affifi, University of Edinburgh; Sean Blenkinsop, Simon Fraser University; Hans Gelter, Guide Natura & Luleå, University of Technology; Douglas Gilbert, Trees for Life; Joyce Gilbert, Trees for Life; Ruth Irwin, Independent Scholar; Aage Jensen, Nord University; Bob Jickling, Lakehead University; Polly Knowlton Cockett, University of Calgary; Marcus Morse, La Trobe University; Michael De Danann Sitka-Sage, Simon Fraser University; Stephen Sterling, University of Plymouth; Nora Timmerman, Northern Arizona University; and Andrea Welz, Sault College.
Bob Jickling (bob.jickling@lakeheadu.ca) is the corresponding author.
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Notes
- 1.
Here we are riffing off of: Bruno Latour, “Will Non-Humans Be Saved? An Argument in Ecotheology,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15 (2008): 459–475.
- 2.
Kris Gutiérrez, “Designing Resilient Ecologies: Social Design Experiments and a New Social Imagination,” Educational Researcher 45, no. 3 (2016): 187.
- 3.
Ibid., 192.
- 4.
Irina Bokova, “Foreword,” in Education for People and Planet: Creating Sustainable Futures for All, ed. UNESCO (Paris: UNESCO, 2016), 5.
- 5.
Bokova, Education for People and Planet, 2016, 5.
- 6.
Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Life (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005), 12.
- 7.
Ibid., 12.
- 8.
Ibid., 12.
- 9.
Stephen Sterling, “Assuming the Future: Repurposing Education in a Volatile Age,” in Post-Sustainability and Environmental Education: Remaking Education for the Future, ed. Bob Jickling and Stephen Sterling (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017): 31–45.
- 10.
“Sustainable Development Goals: 17 Goals to Transform Our World. Goal 4: Ensure Inclusive and Quality Education for All and Promote Lifelong Learning,” United Nations. Accessed February 5, 2018, http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/education/.
- 11.
See, for example: Sean Blenkinsop and Marcus Morse, “Saying Yes to Life: The Search for the Rebel Teacher,” in Post-Sustainability and Environmental Education: Remaking Education for the Future, ed. Bob Jickling and Stephen Sterling (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017): 49–61.
- 12.
Louise Profeit-LeBlanc, “Transferring Wisdom Through Storytelling,” in A Colloquium on Environment, Ethics, and Education, ed. B. Jickling (Whitehorse: Yukon College, 1996): 14–19.
- 13.
Deborah Bird Rose, “Connectivity Thinking, Animism, and the Pursuit of Liveliness,” Educational Theory 67, no. 4 (2018): 491–508.
- 14.
Darling, F. Fraser (Editor) West Highland Survey: An Essay in Human Ecology (London: Oxford University Press, 1955).
- 15.
James Hunter, On the Other Side of Sorrow: Nature and People in the Scottish Highlands (Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, 1995).
- 16.
See, for example: T.C. Smout, A Century of the Scottish People 1830–1950 (London: Fontana Press, 1987).
- 17.
John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization (Concord, ON: Anansi, 1995): 161–162.
References
Bauman, Z. Liquid Life. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005.
Blenkinsop, S., and M. Morse. “Saying Yes to Life: The Search for the Rebel Teacher.” In Post-Sustainability and Environmental Education: Remaking Education for the Future, ed. Bob Jickling and Stephen Sterling, 49–61. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
Bokova, I. “Foreword.” In Education for People and Planet: Creating Sustainable Futures for All, ed. UNESCO. Paris: UNESCO, 2016.
Fraser, D., ed. West Highland Survey: An Essay in Human Ecology. London: Oxford University Press, 1955.
Gutiérrez, K. “Designing Resilient Ecologies: Social Design Experiments and a New Social Imagination.” Educational Researcher 45, no. 3 (2016): 187–196.
Hunter, J. On the Other Side of Sorrow: Nature and People in the Scottish Highlands. Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, 1995.
Latour, B. Will Non-Humans Be Saved? An Argument in Ecotheology. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15 (2008): 459–475.
Profeit-LeBlanc, L. Transferring Wisdom Through Storytelling. In A Colloquium on Environment, Ethics, and Education, ed. B. Jickling, 14–19. Whitehorse: Yukon College, 1996.
Rose, D.B. Connectivity Thinking, Animism, and the Pursuit of Liveliness. Educational Theory 67, no. 4 (2018): 491–508.
Saul, J.R. The Unconscious Civilization. Concord: Anansi, 1995.
Smout, T.C. A Century of the Scottish People 1830–1950. London: Fontana Press, 1987.
Sterling, S. Assuming the Future: Repurposing Education in a Volatile Age. In Post-Sustainability and Environmental Education: Remaking Education for the Future, ed. R. Jickling and S. Sterling, 31–45. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
“Sustainable Development Goals: 17 Goals to Transform Our World. Goal 4: Ensure Inclusive and Quality Education for All and Promote Lifelong Learning.” United Nations, n.d. Accessed February 5, 2018. http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/education/.
Acknowledgements
Crex crex is the taxonomical name given to the Corncrake. We have chosen this bird to represent our collective because it was an important collaborator in this project and because its onomatopoeic name beautifully mirrors its call—a raspy crex crex. For some reason, it chooses to fly over England and breeds in Scotland and Ireland. Presumably this is due to loss of habitat in modern England, but perhaps these birds sense some epicenter of empire there? Who is to know?
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The Crex Crex Collective., Jickling, B. (2018). Why Wild Pedagogies?. In: Jickling, B., Blenkinsop, S., Timmerman, N., De Danann Sitka-Sage, M. (eds) Wild Pedagogies. Palgrave Studies in Educational Futures. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90176-3_1
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