Critical Pedagogy

As a child, I unraveled nature’s beauty and existence. Each new experience brought me feelings of excitement and joy, sparkling my imagination and igniting my curiosity. It all seemed so large back then. Oceans appeared endless as they reached towards the horizon. Treetops seemed to make friends with the puffy-looking clouds as they soared to the sky. Over the years however, as I have grown older and life has become more complex, I am beginning to think less and less about the natural world around me. I glimpse sunset stuck in rush-hour traffic trying to return school after debate practices and only listen to the pitter-patter of the rain when there’s a storm outside. Forests and oceans seemed less appealing as they became intertwined with the urban development. In a way, I was becoming more and more distanced from the so-called nature. So, with an overwhelming desire for adventure and to escape the masses, my family and I drove to Big Bend National Park in Southwest Texas last summer.

Critical pedagogy is a philosophy that aims to foster more than just dialogue between the educators and students. It encourages “exploration, to help students move through the process of discovery by talking with them, asking questions and generally keeping up the momentum of exploration” (Elmborg, 2002, p. 458). This then effectively resolves the issue of a stagnant pedagogy, one that does not keep up with the times and needs of the students. Additionally, critical pedagogy serves to place some, or perhaps a lot of autonomy on the students’ part, attributing the means to the realization potential to them as well as the educators. As such, the only way for the educator to come to a better understanding of their students’, as well as their own

“The most practical and the most feasible solution offered, and the one on which this paper will center, involves the schoolyard. The schoolyard habitat movement, which promotes the “greening” of school grounds, is quickly gaining international recognition and legitimacy.” This quote touches on the fact that currently our schools need to “greened” meaning nature needs to be implemented not on the sidelines of fields but rather right in the center for kids to explore. There are many studied showing how children’s connection with nature at a young age helps them have a strong connection with nature along with having better health and lesser chances of depression. There are many organizations such as the National Wildlife Federation, Council for Environmental Education, American Forest Foundation, Britain-based Learning through Landscapes, Canadian-based Evergreen, and Swedish-based Skolans Uterum, that have all expresses interest in helping out with this cause. A theory that is very interesting that relates to this issue is a theory by Edward Wilson from Harvard. He had a theory that he named biophilia. Basically what this theory was about was that all people are simply drawn to nature by their very instinct. This quote has a lot of truth to it. Almost all

Due to urban sprawl, the neighborhood of Walnut Park has been victim to marginalization. Similar to Pruitt Igeo, urban sprawl caused residents to leave walnut park and take businesses and jobs with them. Hammell (2016) states that, “Occupational deprivation arises when populations have limited choice in occupations because of their isolated location, their ability, or other circumstances”. The residents of Walnut Park cannot force business to stay in their neighborhood, so the lack of occupations is outside of their immediate control. The deprivation of healthy occupations causes a surplus in dark occupations, due to the fact people must find alternative ways to fill their time and provide for their families. Also, the link between marginalization and occupation impacts culture. Downes (1997) defines culture as, “the learned part of human lifestyles”. If a child grows up in a community where there is illegal activity, lack of opportunity and decreased importance on education, this is what they incorporate into their own life. The culture of Walnut Park is directly linked to its occupational deprivation and feelings of inferiority. However, Walbridge elementary school is working endlessly to shift this culture and bring opportunity back into their neighborhood.

Nowadays, children have become very dependent on technology, rather than observing the world around them. Richard Louv's, "Last Child in the Woods" excerpt portrays to readers that children, nowadays, aren't being given the opportunities nor choosing to embrace nature for themselves. Instead, they're using technology to sort of "mask" reality. Louv provides logical reasoning, real examples, and emotional and relative connections with the reader to strengthen his opinion on this topic. The title, "Last Child in the Woods", also assists with the emphasis that children aren't embracing nature. Author Richard Louv effectively uses rhetorical strategies in this excerpt from "Last Child in the Woods" to emphasize the importance of embracing "true" nature.

In “Where the Heart is,” Mara Casey Tieken recalls her experience in a predominately-white town located in Delight, Arkansas. Tieken explains that Delight is at risk of losing its school due to state legislation favoring consolidation. Consolidating Delight’s schools with the neighboring town of Murfreesboro school would be detrimental to their economic and social success. The schools serve as a primary source of income and entertainment. The community and school systems share a connection that bared a symbiotic relationship, in which one’s survival is vital to the survival of the other. Moreover, the school is the community itself (Tieken 2014, 51-65). The author’s account informs the reader about how and why the school systems in Delight are of essence in maintaining sustainability in Delight.

Turk, J., & Bensel, T. (2014). Contemporary environmental issues (2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

One of the statements in the movie that was shown on September 12 at the Lawrence Public Library, “This Changes Everything,” that really resounded with me was, “We are its [Earth’s] machine. We are its masters.” Throughout the movie different locations were described, from the oil in Canada that was destroying the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, Yellowstone River in Montana, New York City, Pine Ridge, South Dakota, France, India, and China. It was interesting to link the different issues in those places to class. Each place had a similar environment issue, but each had problems that made their battle in preserving their environment unique.

The article sequences from a personal story, to a review of research, to a quick accumulation of some good old knowledge about nature. She starts with photosynthesis, a process that has been beaten into our brains since third grade; plants breath in carbon dioxide and breath out oxygen. This is increasingly crucial to humans in a time when carbon dioxide levels are skyrocketing. Khazan adds that carbon dioxide is not the only compound absorbed by the leafy green, but also noise. In the hectic ruckes which eneloops inner city-schools, plants may be utilized to absorb some of the obnoxious sound and therefor reduce stress on students attempting to focus on their timed algebra test. Bringing it around to after school time, the article finishes off with the importance of green space for a health living. Parks with beautiful forestry will bring the kids to put down their remotes and become healthy

The multi-purpose facility’s mission is to use the campus as an outside lab for experience-based learning and connecting with the urban ecology and landscape. Around 80 faculty members and students attended the ribbon cutting.

By doing so, humans can develop a strong caring relationship with nature. Children hold this language to communicate with animals and plants, but adults teach them out of it. However, Waters (2011) suggests the idea of narrative journey to support children’s interaction with the nature. Children carry out interactions with the natural world to make sense and understand the world around. Through the walk, children collaborate in stories and bring lives to the environment around. They develop human characteristics to narrate the stories. Anthropocentric view sees human as “more alive” than other beings in the world. However, narrative journey addresses this bias and introduces lives to other matters (Waters, 2011). In addition, collaborative story walks also bring the children together through the common theme (Waters, 2011). In conclusion, anthropomorphism creates relationships and attachment between children and nature, as well as developing a sense of ecological

In today’s current school systems, the question of whether or not schools are correctly teaching students the right curriculum is coming up for debate. In the Article,"Teaching Critical Thinking by Marcia Clemmitt, she goes into extensive research of the U.S. Department of Education’s crisis of standardized testing. Most learning activities include standardized testing which lacks many students to express creative and critical thinking. Critical thinking is defined as the examination and evaluation of ideas, events and arguments in their contexts which introduces students to interrogate assumptions and identifying biases (Clemmitt)Pure critical thinking involves investigating a text more than just memorizing, but to apply theirself in other ways of techniques, meaning schools should stimulate more analytical methods of teaching. This would not only free students from a sheltered test culture,but will allow students to think in a deeper,more passionate way than before.

Our education should be aimed at educating people who love the world they lie in and who are ready to become peacemakers and healers of the world (Orr 55). A sustainable society “consists” of citizens, workers, specialists, technicians, etc, who are ready to work in order to build and support such society. One of the ways to provide such education is to “get outdoor”. The skills and abilities develop in real world and not in artificial situations in class. In this regard, we may refer to the Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”. One should “touch” the real world problems and get personal experience from it. Shadows in the cave are the retrospectives of the real knowledge. To acquire the knowledge, we should leave the “cave”. We can learn theory separated from practice and this will not have any result. Instead, we should understand that every individual is a part of the natural world, thus, education should be based on ecological literacy as “health of our planet” is one of the most urgent questions of the modern social community.

This should be firmly implanted in a child’s mind so that he may constantly be aware that man has a special responsibility to protect Nature. Students should be made aware of their responsibility and duty towards protecting nature and prevent its wanton destruction which unfortunately seems to be order of the day. Some simple practices like encouraging planting of trees periodically in their neighbourhood, watering the plants and nurturing them, digging pits for rain water harvesting should be taught. These and other would foster in a child caring and sharing attitude towards nature and life on earth and a deep appearance of the flora and fauna.

As a 17-year old teenager going to high school, contrary to the environmental activist, David Suzuki’s, remarks about the ignorance of humans about nature, I receive much information about these kinds of problems at my school, from dedicated assemblies, eco fairs and special days that address our responsibility to deal with nature in a more responsible fashion. Yet, when the school day is over, all of the information seeps out of the roof of the school; plastic water bottles are still found in the corners of hallways and leftover Tim Hortons cups are still present in the desks of my former Business class. Even when I step inside the door of my house, the disconnection from nature is apparent. Most of my time at home is spent looking at a screen and doing homework and the only sign of nature would be the fly