Rethinking relationships through education: wild pedagogies in practice

Abstract

Wild pedagogies are about rethinking our relationships within the world and represent a desire to let go of an overabundant sense of control, to invite the places we visit to become an integral part of our educational work and to respond to provocations in spontaneous, and at times unforeseen, ways. In this paper we provide a contextual background for wild pedagogies and outline key ideas that underpin this special issue of the Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education. In doing so we situate some of these underpinning ideas within touchstones – intended as provocations and reminders of what we are trying to achieve. The touchstones described include: agency and the role of nature as co-teacher; wildness and challenging ideas of control; locating the wild; complexity, the unknown, and spontaneity; time and practice; and cultural change. These touchstones are drawn from experiments in practice and attempt to bring the more-than-human world actively into educational conversations.