Abstract
This article argues that rejuvenating a sense of wonder towards nature is essential to ecocentric education and to finding a sustainable future. It examines the barriers that block education for wonder and looks at the issues around education for wonder in the home, at school, at university, and in the community in general. It considers the scale of a natural area in terms of wonder education, and ways of teaching wonder in school that increase wonder rather than isolate the student from nature. It also considers the issue of an “education for sustainable development” influenced by anthropocentrism, in contrast to an environmental education where some scholars accept the intrinsic value of nature. It discusses the need to balance “facts” in education with ethics. The article concludes by summarizing the steps needed to re-educate for wonder.
Highlights
Much official educational policy—including that which relates to the environment—makes scant reference to nature and shows a largely analytic/instrumental/invasive rationality [1]
Ecocentric education is arguably education that focuses on the intrinsic value of nonhuman nature and assists humanity to find an ecological ethics that allocates moral consideration to the nonhuman [3]
Environmental educator David Orr [25] argues that the ecological crisis is rooted in the way we educate future generations. He argues that the dominant education today alienates us from life in the name of human domination, fragments instead of unifies, over-emphasises success and careers, separates feeling from intellect, and the practical from the theoretical, and unleashes on the world minds that are ignorant of their ignorance
Summary
Much official educational policy—including that which relates to the environment—makes scant reference to nature and shows a largely analytic/instrumental/invasive rationality [1]. Ecocentric education is arguably education that focuses on the intrinsic value of nonhuman nature and assists humanity to find an ecological ethics that allocates moral consideration to the nonhuman [3]. Given the strength of the barriers to education for wonder discussed below, arguably as a society we will not be able to reach an ecocentric worldview unless we can rejuvenate our “sense of wonder” toward nature [3,11,14]. The key reason is that a sense of wonder towards nature assists the deep belief necessary to take the difficult decisions that need to be taken to solve the environmental crisis [14,16]. The article finishes by summarizing the key steps to re-educate for wonder
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