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Schooling Ecologically: An Inquiry Into Teachers’ Ecological Understanding in ‘Alternative’ Schools

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2014

David Wright
David Wright*
Affiliation:
School of Education, University of Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
*
Address for correspondence: David Wright, School of Education, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith NSW 2751, Australia. Email: david.wright@uws.edu.au
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Abstract

This article reports on an inquiry into ecological understanding and the professional practice of a selection of teachers in alternative and/or independent non-systemic schools in Australia, Canada and the United States. Through a reflective, participatory framework, based on the premise that it is one thing to observe ‘an ecology’, another to understand one's self as part of it, as actively involved in ‘bringing forth our world’, the project sought to understand if and how teachers employ systemic, ecological insights in their teaching. The project looked at the underlying ecological principle of ‘connection’ and how teachers work with this, through teacher education and options for further education in ecological understanding, at the responsibilities schools hold for ecological understanding, and at ways in which individual teachers have worked with this form of knowledge. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with small numbers of teachers in five schools. The philosophical underpinnings of these schools were considered in relation to the teachers’ capacities to facilitate ecological understanding and the organisational setting in which these schools operate. Teacher perspectives are reported and discussed through a structured presentation of selected responses to a series of questions on the overlapping themes of ecological insight and formal and informal learning processes.

Keywords

ecological understandingteacher educationalternative educationholistic learningteacher attitudes and responsibilities
Type
Feature Articles
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , December 2013 , pp. 136 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2014 

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