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CONTENTS 1. Error and Ecological Literacy Epistemological Error Ecological Literacy / Critical Ecological Literacy2. Communications Failures Denial as a Natural Defense Mechanism Value - Action Gap3. The Women’s Movement and Transformative Learning Transformation Learning Sterling’s ‘Learning Levels’3. Paulo Friere, Critical Pedagogy and Ecopedagogy Critical Consciousness Action and Intervention 4. Shattering Denial and Innerism Acknowledgement & Presencing Intervention & Action5. New Tactics for Radical Education Crisis as Space for Intervention
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Error, Crisis & Social Learning
EcoLabs www.eco-labs.org
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CONTENTS
1. Error and Ecological Literacy• Epistemological Error• Ecological Literacy / Critical Ecological Literacy
2. Communications Failures• Denial as a Natural Defense Mechanism• Value - Action Gap
3. The Women’s Movement and Transformative Learning• Transformation Learning• Sterling’s ‘Learning Levels’
3. Paulo Friere, Critical Pedagogy and Ecopedagogy• Critical Consciousness• Action and Intervention
4. Shattering Denial and Innerism• Acknowledgement & Presencing• Intervention & Action
5. New Tactics for Radical Education
• Crisis as Space for Intervention
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The roots of the economic crisis
(and other converging crises)
are epistemological.
1. Epistemological Error and Ecological Literacy
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Gregory Bateson:
‘we are governed by epistemologies
that we know to be wrong’
Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 1972
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‘the organism that destroys
its environment destroys itself ’
Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 1972
ECOLOGICAL
SOCIALECONOMIC
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Epistemology defines how we know
what we know.
123The notion that the dominant epistemological position
is a poor reflection of reality has been described in
detail by cultural commentators
in multiple fields.
123
Bertalanffry 1969, Bateson 1972, Orr 1992, Capra 1997, Reason 2001, Sterling 2001, Meadows 2008, etc.
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We are now faced with an epistemological tradition
that works for building clocks and cars, but not for
understanding or managing complex systems.
u123
This reductive worldview conflicts with the highly
complex ecological systems on
which we depend.
f
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whole systems thinking
123
ecological literacy
ECOLOGICAL
SOCIALECONOMIC
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These stresses can only lead to deepening crises within economic
and ecological systems, and while economic collapse is painful -
ecological collapse is terminal.
Feedback from the economic system will be significantly
faster than feedback from the ecological system -
which has evolved over a period of millions
of years and has significant inbuilt buffers.
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1. Epistemological Error and Ecological Literacy
The nature of the economic system is to grow and consume
everything to suit it needs; our language, our values, our ideas
about what can and cannot be an economic transaction.
123
The emphasis on profit in an international capitalist system based
on infinite growth is that transnational capital will continue to grow
and swallow up everything in its wake until there is nothing left to
use.
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Organic metaphor for growth:
The very notion of growth includes some concept
of maturity or sufficiency, beyond which point physical
accumulation gives way to physical maintenance.
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As living systems mature,
their growth processes shift from
QUANTITATIVE to
123
Qualitative growth.
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Ecological Literacy
“All education is environmental education. By what is included or excluded,
emphasized or ignored, students learn that they are part of or apart from the
natural world. Through education we inculcate the ideas of careful stewardship
or carelessness” (Orr 1992, 90).
“An understanding of the ‘principles of organization’ of ecological systems”
(Capra 2003, 201).
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Critical Ecological Literacy
“Critical eco-literacy is linked to cultural literacy for a more robust analysis of
the connections between social and ecological systems” (Kahn 2010, 66).
A awareness of the interdependence between human, economic and ecological
systems must become an educational stable. Ecological literacy implies that each
discipline transform its theory and practice to make sustainability a reality.
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2. Communications Failures
In States of Denial Stanley Cohen claims that a capacity to deny
disturbing facts is the normal state of affairs for people in an
information saturated society.
123There is evidence that increasing information may actually intensify
denial strategies.
= Denial as a natural defense mechanism.
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value / action
Even when we understand the problems and possible solutions,
it does not mean we put this knowledge into practice
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Educator Stephen Sterling information alone does not
necessarily lead to change;
‘not only does it not work, but too much environmental
information (particularly relating to the various global
crises) can be disempowering, without a deeper and broader
learning processes taking place’.
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3. The Women’s Movement and Transformative Learning
Our society has witnessed radical social change in the past
when we evolved new moral codes and changed power
dynamics, laws and institutions accordingly.
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Transformative Learning Theory (TLT)
TLT describes a process of increasing an individual learner’s capacity for change.
Transformative Learning Theory proposes that this process gives learners greater agency as they become more emotionally capable of change.
Transformative learning processes can reveal assumptions behind our behaviours, beliefs and values. It does this while helping to creating agency and the ability to make change happen.
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Phases of Transformative Learning
Jack Mezirow’s Ten Phases of Transformational Learning (1978) was based
on extensive research in a 1975 American nation wide study of women education. .
1. A disorienting dilemma2. Self-examination with feelings of fear, anger, guilt or shame3. A critical assessment of assumptions4. Recognition that one’s discontent and process of transformation are shared5. Exploration of options for new roles, relationships and actions6. Planning a course of action7. Acquiring knowledge and skills for implementing one’s plans8. Provisional trying of new roles9. Building competence and self-confidence in new roles and relationships10. A reintegration into one’s life on the basis of conditions dictated by new perspectives
& 11. Altering present relationships and forging new relationships (added later)
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Levels of LearningLevel A- No change (no learning: ignorance, denial, tokenism)
Level B- Accommodation (1st order - adaptation and maintenance)
Level C- Reformation (2nd order learning - critically reflective adaptation)
Level D- Transformation (3rd order learning - creative re-visioning) (2001, 78)
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Learning & Communication Levels
1st: Education about SustainabilityContent and/or skills emphasis. Easily accommodatedinto existing system. Learning ABOUT change. Accommodative response - maintenance.
2nd: Education for SustainabilityAdditional values emphasis. Greening of institutions. Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice.Learning for change. Reformative response - adaptive.
3rd: Sustainable EducationCapacity building and action emphasis. Experiential curriculum. Institutions as learning communities. Learning AS change. Transformative response - enactment.
Orginally Gregory Bateson, adapted by Stephen Sterling
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Actions
Ideas/theories
Norms/assumptions
Beliefs/values
Paradigm/worldview
Metaphysics/cosmology
Stephen Sterling on transition from beliefs to actions: ‘Levels of Knowing’, 2009
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Education now requires a ‘fundamental transformation of our
concept of learning relative to the health of the biosphere’.
David Orr
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• Banking education vs. liberatory education
• Critical consciousness
3. Paulo Friere, Critical Pedagogy and Ecopedagogy
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4. Shattering Denial and Innerism
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5. New Tactics for Radical Education
Crisis as space for intervention?
Has the economic crisis opened new
political space and provided an opportunity
for re-evaluation and intervention into the
assumptions that maintain the status quo?
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“Only a crisis, actual or perceived, produces real
change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are
taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I
believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to
existing policies, to keep them alive and available until
the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.”
Milton Friedman
1982 edition of Capitalism and Freedom
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‘When seismic events can trigger mass physic breaks:
moments when status quo stories no longer hold true, and
a critical mass of people can’t deny that what is happening
in the world is out of alignment with their values.’
Smartmeme - Communications consultancy
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