Nature-based teacher education as beyond ‘getting outside:’ relational attunement, attending to the un-noticed, and ethical responsibility

ABSTRACT

As in-service teacher educators, we take concerns about the environmental emergency and the crisis of colonialization seriously. We offer graduate programs in Place and Nature-based Experiential Learning to try and foster cultural change within mainstream schooling, while also preparing teachers for the immense challenge of teaching within the Anthropocene. In this article, we share four vignettes that describe experiences that contributed to important shifts in worldviews and ways of being with land for ourselves and/or our students, and we explore how this has led us to think differently about teaching and learning. Guided by Indigenous and eco-critical scholarship, we identified ecological pedagogical practices across the vignettes that contributed to such shifts, including relational attunement and attending to the un-noticed. We consider how this attending and attuning makes ethical demands that potentially puts us at odds with conventional dominant educational practices and expectations.

POSITIONALITY STATEMENT

We, the authors, write from our perspectives as white settler scholars and educators living in relationship with the unsurrendered territories in the place colonially known as British Columbia, Canada. We recognize the complexities of relating to land as uninvited guests and our ethical responsibility to disrupt and unlearn colonial ways of being and teaching. We also acknowledge our limitations in understanding these territories and Indigenous Knowledge systems within the context of this work in which we strive to recognize, hear, and center the voices of both Indigenous peoples and the land. To this end, we provide an appendix of the Indigenous scholarship (see Appendix A) that inspired our thinking and experiencing in this paper, including the ancestral background of the scholars (based on publicly available biographies). We acknowledge that we have a responsibility to nurture sacred, reciprocal relationships with the land and to be good relatives and ancestors to all beings.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher-education
• vignette methodology
• attunement
• ethical responsibility
• nature-centered teaching

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. It is important to recognize the complexity of the modern western context in Canada which includes historical and ongoing colonialism, racism, and other forms of oppression. Colonial structures continue to attempt to impose such ‘normalized’ ways of being human on Indigenous Peoples and others who continue to assert their rights for self-determination.

2. Again, we want to emphasize that within the modern western context, there is much cultural diversity. Here we are speaking to the mainstream white dominant, settler-colonial cultural narratives commonly taught to teachers and embedded in teacher education.

3. Again, we are careful not to universalize humans but rather point to the ways capitalism and colonialism have shaped dominate western cultural experiences of being human.

4. The legend of Deer Lake Park is included in the book Legends of Vancouver, which was first published in 1911. The collection of legends was documented by E. Pauline Johnson (2009) (Tekahionwake), daughter of a Mohawk Chief and an English mother, as a retelling of the legends told to her personally by the late Squamish Chief Joe Capilano. These traditional Squamish stories are shared through her own framing. It should also be noted that her original texts have received mixed reviews. A more recent publication (2023) has been updated and restored to Johnson’s indented title Legends of the Capilano, and includes the voices and stories of Joe and Marie Capilano (decedents of Chief Joe Capilano) in order to reconnect to the ancestry of the stories.

5. For a more expanded version of this ‘kinfolk’ activity see Appendix B.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Notes on contributors

Cher Hill

Cher Hill is an Assistant Professor and a Teacher Educator in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. Her scholarship utilizes new materialist theories to make visible the complex relations between humans and more-than-humans within educational contexts. Her current research aims to develop empirically informed understandings of posthuman ecological education, while taking immediate action to care for salmon. Cher is a place-conscious educator and a passionate supporter of community-based and participatory learning initiatives.

Paula Rosehart

Paula Rosehart is a Continuing Lecturer working within teacher education in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. Her scholarship focuses on fostering (w)holistic ways of knowing, learning, and educating within teacher education. She is dedicated to re-imagining educational environments to nurture the spirit, emotions, body, and mind of teachers and learners. She is passionate about co-creating intentional learning spaces that foster a relational alchemy that honours diverse ways of knowing, being, and relating with self/to, others, and the natural world.

Daniella Roze des Ordons

Daniella Roze des Ordons is a white settler educator, scholar, Registered Clinical Counsellor, and PhD candidate within the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. Her scholarly work explores land-based education, radical ecopsychology, and social justice at the confluence of personal, social, and ecological systems change. Daniella’s work as an educator, scholar, and counsellor occurs in collaboration with land and communities in an effort toward more just, flourishing, and sustainable futures.

Kate Aileen

Kate Aileen is a doctoral student at Simon Fraser University studying Educational Philosophy with a focus on ecopedagogies within the public school system. She is a passionate environmental and social justice advocate and has an extensive background as a place and nature-based educator, working to foster caring and compassionate learning communities with young people and the land. Kate holds a BA in Child and Youth Studies, MA in Social Justice and Equity Studies, and is certified as a Forest School Practitioner with the Child and Nature Alliance/Forest School Canada.

Sean Blenkinsop

Sean Blenkinsop is a professor of education at SFU. His current research explores teacher education and imagination, school and cultural change, nature as co-teacher, eco-social justice, and the challenges of justice, equity, and the environmental crisis in a rapidly changing world. His most recent books are: Ecoportraiture: The Art of Research when Nature Matters published by Peter Lang in 2022; Practice of Eco-Social-Cultural Change published by Palgrave-Macmillan in 2023, and, Ecologizing Education published by Cornell University Press in 2024 which gathers learnings from several innovative public eco-schools and shares them with a more general public.