What Is a Green Education?

• Author: Schillo, Keith
• Position: Green Party views on education - Brief Article

The topic of education has received considerable attention during the past several presidential elections. Candidates typically want to be known as "the" education President. In this regard, they introduce policies that promise less violence, more funding, better facilities, more computers or better pay for teachers. Rarely is there discourse regarding what it means to be educated, or how our views of education influence the world we live in. How we view knowledge determines how we live in our world. Our Western view of education relies on a theory of knowledge that views humans as separate from nature. This view assumes that humans gain knowledge by passively observing nature; i.e., it assumes that our actions do not influence what we observe, or that our observations influence our actions. Those of us who embrace a more ecological world view should be critical of this traditional view and work to develop a more ecocentric conception of knowledge.

The Green movement acknowledges that humans are inextricably linked to nature, and that our actions influence the well being of both human and nonhuman communities. This insight is incompatible with a theory of knowledge that portrays humans as passively extracting knowledge from nature. Greens should advocate an education reform that advocates a radically different view of knowledge; one that allows us to see the dynamic interactions between humans and their environment. The type of education reform I am advocating will not be achieved by adding a course in ecology or environmental studies to a curriculum, or by adopting school projects that encourage recycling and reduced energy use. Rather, we should advocate reform that is expressed in all courses, all school activities, all school policies and is focused on changing how students think about the world they live in.

What sort of theory of knowledge is appropriate for such an ecocentric world view? Above all, it should recognize that the world is dynamic, and that it is difficult to draw a sharp distinction between the observer and the observed. The late Gregory Bateson suggested that to think ecologically requires that we develop an "ecology of mind." This is a way of thinking that acknowledges that what we do influences what we can know and that what we can know is influenced by what we do. Bateson used the process of chopping down a tree to illustrate this idea. When I begin to chop down a tree, I aim the ax and strike a blow to the tree...