The challenges of ‘teaching by being’: the case of participatory resource management

Abstract

In 1997 a new unit, Participatory Resource Management, was developed and offered in the School of Resource, Environment and Society, at the Australian National University. The challenges of the unit were multiple, ranging from introducing social science material into a science curriculum, to attempting to change practitioners' attitudes towards natural resource management. This paper is an account of this experience showing how feminist pedagogy has provided a useful framework to foster attitudinal change and encourage a paradigm shift. The paper presents the unit aims and objectives. It gives insights into the specific processes implemented and reflects on the challenges posed by the unit and the personal challenges to ‘teaching by being’.

Keywords:

• Feminist pedagogy
• curriculum development
• collaborative learning

Notes

Correspondence address: Marlène Buchy, Institute of Social Studies, PO Box 29776, 2502 LT Den Haag, The Netherlands. Email: [email protected]

A ‘unit’ is the equivalent of a module amounting to about 90 contact hours over a full semester (February till mid‐July). The module covers three aspects of natural resource management (NRM): (a) a body of knowledge related to history and history of resource management, tenure (with a focus on women's access and control over resources), the myth of community, power relationships, gender in NRM (this includes women's role in decision‐making and their degree of dependency on resources), participation, aboriginal land management practices and practical management issues like management plans; (b) some skills and tools such as stakeholder analysis, conflict mapping, gender analysis, communication, facilitation, participatory monitoring and evaluation, participatory rural appraisal; and (c) attitudinal changes such as learning and reflective practice, which was not taught but was woven into the unit through the learning journal, the Critical Incident Questionnaire, some question and answers time, the learning matrix exercise. The assessment consists of the learning journal, project work (a poster presentation on an NRM collaborative issue focused on exclusion or design of a web page discussing participatory issues), running a tutorial class and an oral exam.

I use here the expression ‘teaching by being’ as a further step to ‘teaching by doing’ or, as Richard Bawden put it during a workshop in 2000, “talking the walk and walking the talk”.

This is how students refer to students focusing on biophysical or hard sciences. SREM is School of Resource and Environmental Management.

In order to respect anonymity I mention here only the first initial of the student's name.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marlène Buchy *

Correspondence address: Marlène Buchy, Institute of Social Studies, PO Box 29776, 2502 LT Den Haag, The Netherlands. Email: [email protected]