4 Alternatives Journal 33:5 2007

Alison Neilson

PUTTING DOWN my well-worn copyof Green Grass, Running Water, mywhole being tingles from the mix ofmagic, reality, comedy and tragedy thatspirals through Thomas King’s narra-tives. I start to plan my upcomingcourses. Applying lessons from King, Ihope to make room for many bodies,voices and perspectives. My goal is tohelp these students – soon-to-be teach-ers – learn to reflect on their assump-tions so that they can make room intheir classrooms too.

On the picnic table sit copies of SilentSpring, The Last Child in the Woods, anda DVD of An Inconvenient Truth. Popu-lar and instructive yes, but are they toomainstream? Too white? In their popu-larity and certainty do they silence othervoices? Probably, maybe, depends … Iexhale for a moment and notice the beesbuzzing hypnotically around my cone-flowers. Butterflies flit among the milk-

weeds that cover my tiny front yard. Asmy mind drifts, a rustle in the bushescatches my attention. I realize I’m not atall alone.

Alison: Er, hello? Coyote? What are youdoing in the city? In my garden?

Wannabe Coyote: Humpf. I’ve been herea long time. Can’t you see I’m stalkingmy lunch? And why are you calling meby that name?

A: Sorry to disturb, but I’m happy to seeyou. I need help with my teachers. Anddon’t you wannabe Coyote?

WC: Me? No, you’re the student. Are youWannabe Coyote?

A: Me? Well, no. I’m talking aboutstudents learning to be teachers:student-teachers.

WC: Student-teacher, teacher-student?

Confusing. Let me help. I love to fixthings. The teacher is the one whomakes everyone speak English. Oops,no, that’s not right, Coyote. Yes, Coyote.They must only speak Coyote – just liketheir white, heterosexual, able-bodiedEnglish-speaking teacher. And by theway, you can call me Nanabush.

A: What? Well, the problem is thatwealthier children and the ones withbetter schooling, white-er skin, able-erbodies, errr … and yes, English-erlanguage skills – live near bigger parks,have cleaner air and water. Toxic dumpsand uranium mines are near FirstNations communities, not my neigh-bourhood. Yes, Coy-errr … Nanabush, Iknow – but how can I teach people tosee the things they don’t want to see?

WC: Whoa! Trying to get people to see ismy job. Hee-hee! Look at me dance. Andstop labelling me “Coyote.” Maybe Iwannabe Loki. Maybe you should just

TricksterTeachersIt takes a thoughtful dance to ensurethat environmental education is asjust and inclusive as it needs to be.

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Alternatives Journal 33:5 2007 5

dance with me.

A: Okay, Loki … What do you mean?Shouldn’t I teach about Africville orKanesatake, or the Chipko Movement inIndia, or the work of the South RiverdaleCommunity Health Centre or the BusRiders Union or the Afri-Can Foodbas-ket?

WC: Yes, no. Questions, questions, ques-tions. Listen, just follow my feet. Let’shear from the people who get stuckliving near the Sydney Tar Ponds or thefolks next to Grassy Narrows.

A: I am trying to listen. By the way, Ithought by calling you “Coyote” I wasrespecting indigenous knowledge. Hey!

WC: Oops, sorry about knocking overyour books. My balance is a bit off. Oh,I don’t feel so good – I think I swallowedthe idea of “wilderness.” I’m dizzy – toomuch genocide. Hey, you’re a doctor; gotany pills? Maybe I need a dentist. Don’tall those missing Indians get stuck inyour teeth too? Wait, I know how to curethis. Just change my name. How’sUzume or Anansi? Exotic, eh? Howabout calling me Nasreddin? Hee-hee!Yeah, I’ll look real “diverse.” I’m startingto feel much better.

A: Serious issues, yes: violence, environ-mental injustice and cognitive imperial-ism. Some people only get lousy dande-lions and don’t hear the call of loons orsee the Milky Way. And it is unfair thatmy words, ideas and language are theones that define “nature” and “environ-ment.” Can’t I use my unfair share ofpower for good?

WC: Hmm, tough question. I didn’tknow you had sheriff powers – coool.And by the way, I like dandelions; theytickle my toes and are tasty.

A: What? Errr … I’m sorry. I didn’t meanto insult how you connect to the envi-ronment. Dandelions are swell. This is

the problem: how can I be certain that Ihelp students learn about “environmen-tal education” without getting myself inthe way?

WC: You have a lot of problems. It’s tiringlistening to you – “cognitive imperial-ism” - holy moly, how many syllables isthat? Relax, chew on a dandelion leaf.Maybe I’ll just listen to my iPod for awhile.

A: I’m not certain if I’ve gotten out of theway. Have these words successfullydisrupted hidden assumptions? I’mbound to steal ideas from differentcultures in trying this, but I want toreveal how one culture dominates thewords used and the way we learn aboutwords in school.

WC: Hmmm, how about trying IrishSpring deodorant? – “Strong enough fora man, made for a woman.” Coyotesdon’t need deodorant; we smell beauti-ful.

A: I’m not so certain about that …

WC: Good. Don’t doubt that there aremore things you don’t know than thingsyou know. You are the teacher-studentafter all. It’s all about you, but not youalone. I’m glad you can smell it too.

A: Well, I’m just attempting …

WC: Shh, you’re not going to hear anyoneelse while you’re talking … and I’mtrying to catch your fat milk-fed housecat. Yummy …

… a small bee lands on my nose. I crossmy eyes. Unable to focus on its delicatefeatures, I nonetheless marvel at thismomentary encounter and wonder howlong it will be before the wind, or evenmy breathing sends the creature on itsway. The coming school year alsopromises fleeting but powerful interac-tions. Students are going to look to mefor answers, so will they embrace the

ambiguity and list of questions I hope toprovoke in their place?

In a 2006 report, EnvironmentalEducation in Canada, the CanadianEnvironmental Grantmakers’ Networkindicates that environmental educationin elementary and secondary schools inCanada lacks perspectives from FirstNations and diverse cultural groups.Teachers also have trouble dealing withcontroversial issues. But there are noeasy instructions for how to overcome asystem troubled by the injustices thatplague Canadian society.

Provincial curriculum for environ-mental education can be about ecosys-tems and human society. It can be forsolving environmental problems like thecollapse of cod populations. It can focuson outdoor experience, and being in orwith the outdoors or our inner or spiri-tual environments. Or it can be all ofthese things. Regardless of the approvedcurriculum outlined in the official docu-ments, however, it is the teacher who willleave the strongest impression. Teachersbring with them ideas and assumptionscrafted by who they are and how theyhave experienced “the environment.”The way in which we speak will be influ-enced by these ideas and assumptions,and will contain all the same elements ofrace, gender, sexuality, ableism, culture,politics and other influences that wedon’t always acknowledge or under-stand.

Even by evoking Coyote, I’m stillusing assumptions that I cannot see.Using dialogue, I invite readers to bringout the subtle variations in their voices.Such participation may not overcomethe tendency to teach one’s own view ofthe world, but I hope it will provokequestions about whose knowledge andvoices are normally recognized andaccepted, and whose are routinelyexcluded or stolen.

Questioning myself, I invite studentsto look for what I cannot see in order toweaken my power. In turn, I hope, this

Continued on page 46.

46 Alternatives Journal 33:5 2007

Trickster Teachers from page 4

helps them find ways to invite theirstudents to make the hidden visible aswell. Much like ecological systems, timeand space for classroom lessons, writtenhandouts and walks in the woods havelimits. Unspoken or “hidden” assump-tions from dominant ways of knowingare too powerful and take up much toomuch space. In my classes, I use story-telling, illustrations, poetry and othercreative prose to question the very ideasI think need to be “taught.” I try also toremember to look for resistance, forgetmyself once in a while, and make spaceto listen to others.

Alison Neilson teaches at the Universityof Toronto and Queen’s University. Herlatest book Disrupting Privilege,Identity, and Meaning: A ReflexiveDance of Environmental Education willbe out this fall.

What’s your reaction to Wannabe Coyote? Visitour blog and share your thoughts: www.alternativesjournal.ca/blog

To learn about cognitive imperialism read M.Battiste, “You Can’t Be the Global Doctor ifYou’re the Colonial Disease,” in Teaching asActivism: Equity Meets Environmentalism, P. Tripp and L. Muzzin, eds. (Montreal &Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press,2005), pp. 121-33.

“anthropolatry,” the worship of humanaccomplishments, history, and masteryover nature. As anthropolatry, the studyof nature is mostly intended to fathomhow the world works so as to permit amore complete human mastery and afiner level of manipulation extendingdown into genes and atoms.

My experience at Meadowcreekopened the door to the different possi-bility that education somehow ought tobe more of a dialogue requiring thecapacity to listen in silence to wind,water, animals, the sky, nighttimesounds, and what a Native Americanonce described as earthsong – the sort ofthings dismissed by anthropolators asromantic nonsense.

Confronted by the mysteries of aplace I did not know and slightly book-ish by nature, I turned to all of thosewriters on education that I had avoidedin my earlier years as a college teacher,including John Dewey, AlbertSchweitzer, Maria Montessori, J. GlennGray, and Alfred North Whitehead.There is, I discovered, a useful criticismof the foundations of contemporaryeducation in their writings that empha-sizes the importance of place, individualcreativity, our implicatedness in theworld, reverence, and the stultifyingeffects of “secondhand learning,” as

Whitehead once put it.From a variety of sources, we know

that the things most deeply embedded inus are formed by the combination ofexperience and doing with the practiceof reflection and articulation. And weknow, too, that what Rachel Carsoncalled “the sense of wonder” requireschildhood experience in nature andconstant practice as well as early valida-tion by adults. The cultivation of thesense of wonder, however, takes us to theedge, where language loses its power todescribe and where analysis, the takingapart of things, goes limp before themystery of creation, where the onlyappropriate response is prayerful silence.

Best known for his pioneering work onenvironmental literacy in higher educa-tion and his recent work in ecologicaldesign, David Orr is the author of NorthAmerica's seminal book on environmen-tal education: Earth in Mind: On Edu-cation, Environment, and the HumanProspect. He is currently the chair of theEnvironmental Studies Program atOberlin College. This excerpt fromDesign on the Edge was slightly modifiedand reprinted with permission fromDavid Orr and MIT Press.

Teachers bring with themideas and assumptions craftedby who they are and howthey have experienced “theenvironment.”