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The Nature of Transformation: Environmental Adult Education. Second Edition

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The Nature of Transformation: Environmental
Adult Education
INTERNATIONAL ISSUES IN ADULT EDUCATION

Volume 2
Series Editor:
Peter Mayo, University of Malta, Msida, Malta

Editorial Advisory Board:


Stephen Brookfield, University of St Thomas, Minnesota, USA
Waguida El Bakary, American University in Cairo, Egypt
Budd L. Hall, University of Victoria, BC, Canada
Astrid Von Kotze, University of Natal, South Africa
Alberto Melo, University of the Algarve, Portugal
Lidia Puigvert-Mallart, CREA-University of Barcelona, Spain
Daniel Schugurensky, OISE/University of Toronto, Canada
Joyce Stalker, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand/ Aotearoa
Juha Suoranta, University of Tampere, Finland

Scope:
This international book series attempts to do justice to adult education as an ever
expanding field. It is intended to be internationally inclusive and attract writers and
readers from different parts of the world. It also attempts to cover many of the areas
that feature prominently in this amorphous field. It is a series that seeks to underline
the global dimensions of adult education, covering a whole range of perspectives. In
this regard, the series seeks to fill in an international void by providing a book series
that complements the many journals, professional and academic, that exist in the area.
The scope would be broad enough to comprise such issues as ‘Adult Education in
specific regional contexts’, ‘Adult Education in the Arab world’, ‘Participatory Action
Research and Adult Education’, ‘Adult Education and Participatory Citizenship’,
‘Adult Education and the World Social Forum’, ‘Adult Education and Disability’,
‘Adult Education and the Elderly’, ‘Adult Education in Prisons’, ‘Adult Education,
Work and Livelihoods’, ‘Adult Education and Migration’, ‘The Education of
Older Adults’, ‘Southern Perspectives on Adult Education’, ‘Adult Education and
Progressive Social Movements’, ‘Popular Education in Latin America and Beyond’,
‘Eastern European perspectives on Adult Education’, ‘An anti-Racist Agenda in Adult
Education’, ‘Postcolonial perspectives on Adult Education’, ‘Adult Education and
Indigenous Movements’, ‘Adult Education and Small States’. There is also room for
single country studies of Adult Education provided that a market for such a study is
guaranteed.
The Nature of Transformation

Environmental Adult Education

Darlene E. Clover
University of Victoria, Canada

Bruno de O. Jayme
University of Victoria, Canada

Budd L. Hall
University of Victoria, Canada
Shirley Follen, Belleville, Ontario
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978-94-6209-144-3 (paperback)


ISBN: 978-94-6209-145-0 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-94-6209-146-7 (e-book)

Published by: Sense Publishers,


P.O. Box 21858,
3001 AW Rotterdam,
The Netherlands
https://www.sensepublishers.com/

Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved © 2012 Sense Publishers

No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted


in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming,
recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the
exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and
executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
DEDICATION

Shirley Follen died in February 2012. She was just 83 years old. We have kept
Shirley as a co-author of this book because without her humour, courage to take
risks, dedication to adult education, sense of awe at the natural world, love of a
good pub, indefatigable creativity, and zest for life and learning, there would be
no theory and practice of environmental adult education; there would be no Nature
of Transformation. Shirley was Darlene’s treasured colleague and confidant, her
inspiration, her trusted critic, her most beloved friend. Shirley brought pure joy to
our lives.

Darlene E. Clover, Budd L. Hall and Bruno de O. Jayme


CONTENTS

1. Introduction 1
Knowing Where We Stand; Standing Where We Know 2
Process, Context and Participants 4
Content of This Book 5
A Few More Things 7
Who We Are 7
2. The Seeds: Education Theories and Principles From Which We Work 9
Adult Education 10
Liberal Adult Education 11
Critical/Progressive Adult Education 12
Gender Difference and Feminist Adult Education 14
Arts-Based Adult Education: The Creative Turn 18
The Arts, Society and Knowledge 18
The Arts, Adult Education and Learning 21
Anti-Racist Adult Education: Greening Justice 23
Experiential Outdoor Learning: Into the Forest and Up the Trees 25
Environmental Adult Education: Transforming Human-Earth Relations 26
3. Inscape, Landscape, Learning and Life: Environmental Workshops
at Work 29
Types and Aims of Community-Based Workshops 29
Issue-Based Workshops 30
Process-Based Workshops 31
Education, Learning and Knowledge 31
Creating the Learning/Teaching Milieu 33
Conveying the Purpose 34
Building in Theory 34
Knowing Your ‘Audience’ 35
Our Story of Racism 35
The Potential of Humour 36
Art and Creativity 36
A Story of the Arts 38

vii
CONTENTS

Valuing Emotion 38
Time, Timing and Group Size 38
Valuing Small Group Process 39
Balancing the Individual and the Collective 39
Ecological Context and Framework 40
The Ecological Agenda 41
The Checklist 42
4. The Praxis of Environmental Adult Education 43
Introductory Activities: Weaving Natural and Social Worlds 44
Green Activist’s Calisthenics 45
Opening with Nature 45
Tell us a Story 46
Connecting to the Earth 46
Environmental Buses: Travelling Together 47
Artistic Introduction 47
Learning Our Nature 48
The Tree of Education and Learning Practices 48
Re-Connecting Activities 49
Re-connecting through Nature and Song 49
Refreshing Our Memories 50
Looking Back 50
Broadening the Analysis of Oppression: Weaving in the Rest
of Nature 50
The Discourse Tree 50
The River of Learning and Transformation 51
Exclusion and Inclusion 52
Building a More Healthy Community Network: The Sun at the Centre 53
Inscape and Landscape 53
Living Gender 54
Reconceptualising Work 54
Ecological Media Literacy 55
Learning Through Our Historical Roots: Weaving Our Landscapes
From Memory 56
The Historical Environmental Learning Stream 56
Personal Environmental Historical Stream 57
Ecological Storytelling 58
Variation: Nature as Foe 58

viii
CONTENTS

Women’s Ways of Knowing and Being with Nature 59


Are They Just Words? 59
Words and Ideas 60
Altering the Environment by the Book 60
Theory Matters 62
Fishpond: Facilitator/Organiser Presentation 62
Moving Forward: Understanding Past Learning 62
The River of Theory for Transformation 63
The Art and Challenge of Critical Thinking 64
The Theoretical Tree: From Roots to Leaves 64
Learning And/Through Landscape 65
Sense Mapping 65
Variation: Bio-regional community Walk-A-Bout 65
The Wise Soil 66
Knowing and Nature 66
Nature in Mind 67
Sound Mapping 67
Sculpturing a Tree 68
Exploring the Night 69
The Politics of Consumption 69
Zen of Consumerism: “Waste R Us”? 70
Globalisation and Socialisation “R Us?” 70
Corporations “R Us”? 71
Human and Ecosystem Health: Food for Thought 72
The Chemical Stew 72
Variation 73
Further Variation 73
Preparing Our Future 73
The Shopping Cart Survey 74
Food Fortune Hunting 75
Cooking or Ready Made 76
To Weed or Not to Weed 77
From Words to Action 77
Open-Air Environmental Adult Education Market 78
Variation: The Environmental Adult Education Market 78
The Art of Educative Action 78
Variation: Learning for Change 79

ix
CONTENTS

From Discourse to Action 79


Creativity in Action 80
Re-Energising the Practitioner: The Mountain of Passion,
Power and Purpose 80
Who is the Expert? 82
Evaluations and Closure 82
Coalition Building Through Song, Theatre and Poetry 83
Final Reflections 83
Accomplishments and Challenges 84
One Word Circle Evaluation 84
Stringing Ourselves Together 84
Nature Circle Evaluation 84
‘Post-it’ Evaluations 85
Written Evaluations 85
Head, Hands, and Heart 85
Meditational Closing 86
Tree of Expectations; Forest of Accomplishments 86
5. Global Environmental Adult Education Praxis and Stories 89
Material Matters 89
Women Expressing Needs and Ideas Through Banner Painting 89
The Positive Energy Quilts: The Story of a Visual Protest 90
Jean (Raging Granny) 90
Ecologial Study Cirlces and Mapping 92
Environmental Adult Education Study Circles 92
Green Community Mapping 93
Experimental Learning in the Outdoors 94
Experiencing Place 94
The Ecological Art of Technology 96
A moving Lens on the Environment 96
Participatory Video for Empowerment 99
Art Of/And Communication 101
Communications Activity: Poster Drawing 101
A Story of the Developers’ Feast 103
Shadow Puppetry for Environmental Adult Education 104
Puppetry and the People’s Court: A Story From Australia 106
The Age of Beauty: A Story of Consciousness 107
Bigfoot Comes in From the Cold: A Story 108

x
CONTENTS

The Art of Waste 110


Community and Household Waste Workshops 110
The Garbage Collection: A Labour and Environment Story 111
A Show of Hands 113
6. Postscript 115
Resistance and Fear 115
Silenced Voices: Women and the Rest of Nature 116
Learning Experience: The Positive, Negative, and Unexpected 117
Keeping on Track 118
Follow Nature’s Lead: The Virtue and Challenges of Diversity 118
Not Everyone Thinks Your Workshop is Great 118
Working as a Team 119
Further Lessons Learned 120
Easy Answers?: You Make the Road by Walking 120
7. References and Further Resources 123
Adult Education 123
Environmental Adult Education and Outdoor Education and Learning 124
Feminist Adult Education and Gender 125
Anti-Racist and Aboriginal Education 126
The Arts, Adult Education and the Media 126

xi
CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Although environmental problems began with industrialisation, over time they have
increased to an alarming degree. Indeed, eavesdropping on the conversations that
swirled around the recently concluded United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development (Rio+20, 2012) suggests major environmental challenges persist.
Social media messages were for the most part lamentations of the deep geographical
(West versus the rest) and ideological divisions hampering the search for global
environmental solutions. Despite efforts by hundreds of organisations worldwide
such as the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE), major political/
policy commitments by politicians to change the destructive ecological course
were weak at best. We are therefore highly conscious of the power of neoliberalism
and global capitalism as the might-makes-right countries interfere with those with
little power but much needed natural resources; enforced consumerism is extolled
as nationalism - things are to be consumed, burned, used, replaced and discarded
at a constantly accelerating pace to ensure economic prosperity above all else; a
propagandist discourse of ‘ethical oil’ fills the airwaves worldwide as we lurch from
one devastating spill to the next; environmental justice is shouted from the treetops
but ignored at board room tables; and women, often the poorest of the poor who
work harder to care for the children poisoned by polluted water, remain just so much
collateral damage in the pursuit of profit-at-any-cost.
But while all is not well, neither is it lost. The world has advanced in terms of
ecological consciousness and change since 1972 when the United Nations held the
first conference on the environment in Sweden. Examples of change worldwide
abound. Much electricity in Denmark comes from wind power; paper and plastic
recycling programmes proliferate. Many European countries have green parties as
part of coalition governments and Indigenous peoples in countries such as Canada
have used United Nations declarations on cultural rights to save their lands from
destruction (Clover, 2012). There are other examples of environmental activism
soaring or daring to new and creative heights. For example, the late Wangari Matthai,
the “visionary adult educator” of The Greenbelt Movement in Africa was beaten and
jailed in 1990s for her activism but awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 (Kushner,
2009, p. 195).
Both the positive and the negative, however, demand that education, learning,
advocacy and activism be maintained and strengthened. The Nature of Transformation:
Environmental Adult Education is our contribution, as adult educators in the
community and/or the academy, to helping people to learn, create and re-create the
world they want, to address contemporary socio-environmental crisis and to encourage

1
CHAPTER 1

hope and a stronger sense of political agency through an ecological approach to


teaching, and learning. The Nature of Transformation is first and foremost a practice-
based book for adult educators, trainers, literacy and health care practitioners,
activists, community artists and animators, labour educators, teachers, and professors
interested in weaving environmental issues in to their adult education practice in
community, workplace or institutional settings. We provide a variety of activities,
stories and resources that illustrate how to critically and creatively integrate the rest of
nature, concepts of ecological justice and citizenship, environmental consciousness
and activism, in to teaching and learning. This book is also for environmental
activists who wish to strengthen the adult and public education components of their
work. The activities and stories encourage dialogue and critical questioning, tap
into people’s understandings and use their own knowledge and experiences as the
basis for discussion and activism, uncover power relations illustrate how to facilitate
learning through community settings and/or to incorporate creative, arts-based
practices.
With its emphasis on acknowledging and confronting ecological oppression,
working towards justice, ensuring hope and fun are key to the learning process,
encouraging critical thinking, defiance and creativity, challenging assumptions, and
helping people to find their own solutions and forms of activism, environmental
adult education is and can remain a valuable player in any pedagogical quest for
socio-ecological change.

KNOWING WHERE WE STAND; STANDING WHERE WE KNOW

The Nature of transformation has three underlying premises. The first is that
environmental problems are political and therefore, our emphasis as adult educators,
trainers, practitioners, professors, activists, community-based artists, animators
or activists must be political. We acknowledge that a single person’s activities
such as shutting off the tap water while brushing one’s teeth or living in a 1000
year old tree to prevent its destruction can have a positive environmental impact
(Walters, 2009). There are numerous individualised ‘how-to’ books on the market
with important suggestions for lifestyle / individual behavioural change. However,
limiting educational and activist work to a focus on the individual – behavioural
modification – ignores the politics of issues such as consumption, food insecurity,
environmental racism and the need for collective, systemic change. This omission
leaves governments and corporations free to carry out their socio-environmentally
problematic activities unencumbered by the critique or challenge of a politicised,
engaged, and questioning citizenry. Although it is argued that corporations rule
the world – and so it would very much appear - they could not have reached this
pinnacle of success without the political/policy support of national governments.
Indeed, governments are ‘not’ powerless pawns standing on the sidelines wringing
their hands and wondering how corporations managed to become so large and
all consuming, both literally and figuratively. Governments in fact paved the

2
INTRODUCTION

way through policy change. We also believe that environmental problems are
political because we have learned through our work over the past 15 years with
communities worldwide that all too often, small individual behaviour changes
can be easily undermined by one simple political decision such as a municipal
government choosing to dump bottles and cans in to landfill to save money rather
than transporting them to a recycling depot. This does indeed happen although the
government does neglect to mention it to the general public, which is why you may
not know but the sanitation truck driver does if you simply ask (see Chapter Five).
So while individuals are important, the collective, through social action, is the more
powerful position to take.
Central to many of the activities and stories in The Nature of Transformation –
whether from Canada or abroad - is the idea that the development of and the
solution(s) to today’s most complex and pressing environmental problems ultimately
lies in the political realm, in the decisions and steps our politicians take or do not
take. And it is the collective voices of citizens that influence them the most, even
in countries like China (see Chapter Six: Warriors of Qiugang film). Given this,
as adult educators, practitioners, professors, activists, animators and/or teachers,
we must use educational strategies to embolden adults (and youth) to creatively,
critically and unapologetically challenge this political realm. This does not mean
turning everyone in to a full-fledged activist (although that would be terrific), but
it does mean encouraging a politicised consciousness or to borrow from Wyman
(2004), a ‘defiant imagination’ that believes in people’s and one’s own ability to
make or bring about socio-environmental change.
The second and linked premise behind this book is that collective learning and
action is more powerful in terms of socio-environmental change than individual
learning and action. One person can learn about environmental problems and take a
stand and this will have an impact (see Walters, 2009). But a group of people taking
a stand is what moves mountains, as the story of A Show of Hands in Chapter Five
illustrates, and encourages an even more, as noted previously, politically active
citizenry. As adult educators we must work to enhance people’s collective potential to
learn, to query, to make change and to help them to more fully realise their capacities
as ecological citizens. What people require are opportunities to reflect collectively
and critically upon the root causes of environmental problems, and not simply to
respond individually to what often appears on the surface. They need to learn together
to see and then to challenge, for example, the systemic practice of environmental
racism. In other words, they need to learn to think and struggle together to develop the
abilities, skills, and confidence to move different agendas forward. Having said this
we are cognisant that communities take action only to be thwarted by corporations
or governments. We also know that communities are not homogenous, and that
real internal struggles based on class, race, gender and so forth exist. Although we
use the term ‘community’, after 20 years of working in ‘community’ we are/were
never oblivious to these power relations as well as other challenges knowledge that
underlies all the activities in this book. But there are also real instances where people

3
CHAPTER 1

work together, there is change; where collective learning for action has worked and
we provide some stories of these triumphs in Chapter Five.
The third premise behind The Nature of Transformation is that sharing information,
statistics and scientific data by experts is an important way for adults to learn. The
environment as a system is complex; problems can be understood and possibly
corrected through science. There is much to learn and to know in terms of environmental
problems. However, although science matters, not everything is a matter of science.
Moreover, counter statistics and data do not often win what are in fact ideological
battles. Moreover, the expert-driven scientific can be disempowering and fatiguing.
In other words, it can problematically promote the belief that community members
have no knowledge to offer and therefore, will not be able to address environmental
problems without the proper ‘facts’. But communities will never truly be able to
match the ‘facts game’ played by governments, corporations and even some scientists
who simply find more data and/or move the goal posts of what can be known. As
we said, environmental problems are political and ideological more than anything
else. The story of The Positive Energy Quilts in Chapter Five acknowledges this and
shows how a community matched wits, and won, through quilts – yes, quilts! Our aim
with this book is to illustrate educational processes which are engaging and creative
and not simply didactic and/or expert or facts-driven. Indeed, we turn the notion of
environmental ‘expert’ on its head, respecting and working with the knowledge of
so-called ordinary citizens who always know far more than they may at first believe
about the issues affecting their lives and even, the planet and certainly more than
many experts give them credit for. For us, vital to developing an engaged, active and
politicised citizenry are educational processes and practices that encourage adults to
draw from their own knowledge and experiences, engage in critical and open dialogue,
challenge one another’s assumptions (including those of the facilitator), laugh, have
fun and be creative together, as well as continually strategising and developing new
educational methods and approaches.

PROCESS, CONTEXT AND PARTICIPANTS

When we began our work on and around the environment in the early 1990s, no
practice or theory of environmental adult education existed. This meant, to borrow
from Spanish poet Antonio Machado, we had to make the ecological educational
road by walking. This book in many ways shares that journey by passing along our
understandings, beliefs, triumphs, creativity as well as some of our blunders and
mistakes.
We developed the theory and practice of environmental adult education through
workshops in all corners of the world. The activities we created for the workshops are
included in Chapter Four and some of Chapter Five, although this latter focuses much
more on the work of other adult educators. For almost every workshop we worked with
a local organising group to develop the agenda. The organisers supplied the overall
purpose, the venue, the length of time we would have for the workshop (anywhere

4
INTRODUCTION

from two hours to two days), introduced us to the context and explained whom the
participants would or could be (they did not always know exactly who would attend).
Using this information we developed a series of inter-weaving activities, that aimed
to match the context and reach the groups’ intended goals. Sometimes the goal was
to help the group begin to address an issue, at other times it was to train community
animators or adult educators. Sometimes it was simply us (e.g. Shirley and Darlene)
as the educators and sometimes we co-facilitated with indigenous adult educators,
community activists and/or teacher-educators. Moreover, the workshop settings
were varied; the participants equally diverse. In Sudbury, Ontario the workshop was
held in a community centre and included an inter-generational and multi-sectored
group of youth, local politicians, teachers and community activists. In Thailand we
facilitated the workshop on a beach, using ourselves, our bodies, as flip-chart stands.
In Trenton, Ontario we worked with a group of university educated women whilst
in Metchosin, British Columbia, the international college classroom overlooked the
Pacific Ocean and participants came from around the world. We always created at
least one new activity for every workshop just to exercise our imaginations. We also
often re-used an activity created for one group such as those for the retired university
women in Canada for the University of the Third Age participants in an elder care
facility in Darwin, Australia. At other times we created a variation on an activity,
many of which are illustrated in Chapter Four.
All the activities in this book have been tried and proven to be effective and
powerful processes of socio-environmental education and learning and they will
work for you. At first glance, some of the activities may seem rather naïve. But with
adults nothing is ever as simple as it seems. A question such as ‘where are your from’
is a potentially loaded question so tread carefully and critically. Further, although the
activities can be followed quite closely, this is not a ‘how-to’ book in the traditional
sense. In other words, we have intentionally left the descriptions of the activities
quite open. We do provide concrete ideas on what materials or resources to have
on hand, the timing, or examples of questions that promote deeper reflection on an
issue. But you must keep in mind your own context, the venue, who the participants
are, and adapt the activities accordingly. In other words be creative, take a risk,
respond to the needs or concerns of your own situation, fall down and get back up
and always, trust the process and the people with whom you are working. Moreover,
keep theory in mind as it truly enables discussions to go beyond the surface. It is
where the politics of the politics of the environment lies.

CONTENT OF THIS BOOK

Theory is an epistemological technology that, more than anything else in a


community workshop or classroom, allows for deeper critical understandings of the
fluid and troublesome realities of environmental problems. It is theory that helps
to move the problem being ascribed to individuals and their problematic behaviour
to a, more critical and therefore useful, socio-political understanding of forces

5
CHAPTER 1

or circumstances. Chapter Two contains a sketch of some of the key educational


theories that framed our work as environmental adult educators. These include
adult education, gender difference discourse and feminist adult education, arts-
based adult education, outdoor-experiential learning, and anti-racist adult education.
Although we have not included any specific reference to postmodernism in this
chapter, the ways in which we problematised power and victimisation in our work
in fact drew from that discourse. We conclude this chapter with a discussion and
outline of environmental adult education, an amalgam of methods, theoretical
perspectives, discursive protocols and epistemological assumptions that also has its
own essence.
Chapter Three provides insights on ecological teaching and learning drawn from
our many years of experience of designing and facilitating environmental adult
education activities and workshops for communities and/or in institutional settings
worldwide. We stress the importance of planning, passion, humour and making
things challenging. Woven in to the fabric of all of this is what we see as some of the
essential elements required to be a successful community facilitator including first
and foremost, respect for people’s knowledge. We also stress the vale of tapping into
the human aesthetic dimension, people’s inherent creative, imaginative and artistic
abilities.
Chapter Four is theory and reflection in action: praxis. This chapter includes
a plethora of environmental adult education activities, including variations on
activities we used with youth and adults from Belleville to Beijing. Some of these
were modified from existing activities we found in books but the vast majority came
from our own imaginations and the stimulus of working with very bright and creative
people around the world. Particular attention is paid, not surprisingly given what we
have been talking about up to now, to using the rest of nature as a teacher and site
of learning, including theory, using the arts and the human aesthetic dimension and
working towards ecological justice and collective solutions.
Chapter Five showcases environmental adult education activities from across
Canada and around the world. Woven together are activities and stories of creative,
group educative practices. We include these because they expand understandings of
the context, challenges and potential of linking ecological learning and education to
activism but also because they represent ‘hopeful possibilities’ in what can often feel
like a socio-environmental malaise.
Chapter Six shares some further reflections, challenges we faced facilitating
environmental adult education workshops in communities and institutions around
the globe since 1992 and some of the key lessons we have learned. Amongst other
things, we discuss the importance of taking risks, getting it wrong, and learning from
those mistakes.
The final chapter provides a list of the references cited throughout this book as
well as further resources on the educational theories and methods highlighted in
Chapter Two. We have categorised the references under the theories we outlined in
Chapter Two.

6
INTRODUCTION

A FEW MORE THINGS

Throughout this book we use the term ‘the rest of nature’. We argue that if humans
are part of nature, then to use language that separates humans from nature makes
little sense. Others use the non-human world but that feels like a negative. Therefore,
although cumbersome, ‘the rest of nature’ is what we feel best makes the connection.
You may believe you know who is concerned about the environment in society
and who is not. For example, a group of homeless/street-involved women would
probably fall in to the latter category. Think again. You may also think minority
groups have too many other concerns to care out the environment. Think again (Tan,
2005). Working class people don’t really care about environment problems; they just
want good jobs, correct? Not so. Never underestimate the concern people from all
walks of life have for the environment. They may express their concerns differently
and they may even fall in to a different place on their agenda of their apprehensions,
but you do neither them, nor yourself, any favours by assuming you know who
wants to work for environmental change and who does not. Stereotyping is ugly at
best and useless at worst.
As we write this introduction we remember the many wonderful moments: a
vociferous ‘Aha!’ in a workshop; uncontrolled peals of laughter at the antics of a
popular theatre skit; the excitement of the back and forth as we prepared agendas
in collaboration with a community group; a robust walk through a tropical forest;
dangling our feet off the dock into the water of a beautiful Ontario lake while sipping
a glass of wine after an invigorating workshop. We also remember the bits that
were difficult, challenging, indeed, panicking. Would people actually engage in the
activity? Sometimes they refused. Would the luggage containing all the workshop
supplies arrive? Not always. Were the activities too childish or easy for adults or
university students? Yes, sometimes but we have omitted those from this book.
Would a participant or facilitator get arrested for carrying out our activities in Toys
R Us? No arrests but some were thrown out of the store once and that made it an
even more invaluable learning opportunity vis-à-vis power (we return to this later
in this book). Would a major blackout render our electricity dependent activities
useless? Never count on technology. Flip–chart paper and coloured markers work
the best. In other words, the good, the bad, the difficult, the humorous actually did
occur and on more than one occasion and sometimes, simultaneously. What we
know now looking back, and can pass on to you both literally and metaphorically, is
that learning happens from the undulations of the ups and downs. And we would not
have changed anything for the world.

WHO WE ARE

Darlene E. Clover was the International Coordinator of the Learning for Environmental
Action Progamme (LEAP) of the International Council for Adult Education from
1994 to 2000. She was Co-organiser of the environmental education event at the

7
CHAPTER 1

1992 Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro and is the world’s leading scholar in the
theory and practice of environmental adult education. Darlene is currently a professor
of community leadership and adult education at the University of Victoria, British
Columbia, Canada. Her current teaching and research foci are arts-based adult
education and research, feminist adult education, environmental adult education and
activism, and higher education (See Chapter Six for references to her work).
Shirley Follen, who died in February 2012, was an indefatigably committed
community activist and adult educator. Shirley taught at a college in Belleville,
Ontario for over 25 years and founded an afterschool programme entitled Bridging
the Gap for underprivileged children. She was the North American representative
of the Learning for Environmental Action Programme (LEAP) and the Coordinator
of the ‘Growing Jobs for Living’ educational project in Belleville from 1994–2000.
Shirley was a poet.
Budd Hall was Secretary-General of the International Council for Adult Education
(ICAE) for over 20 years. He is one of the world’s best-known scholars in adult
education, participatory research and more recently, social movement learning.
Budd’s most recent book on this latter subject was published by Sense in 2012 (see
Chapter Six). Budd is currently the UNESCO Chair for Community Based Research
and the Social Responsibility in Higher Education at the University of Victoria,
British Columbia. Like Shirley, Budd is a poet.
Bruno de O. Jayme is an educator and community artist interested in non–formal
education and learning and social movements. He is currently living in Victoria and
working towards his PhD at the University of Victoria, BC. Bruno uses arts-based
methodologies – in particular video and puppetry - and popular education with youth
and adults in Victoria and members of recycling cooperatives in São Paulo, Brazil to
help them to challenge inequitable power dynamics.

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CHAPTER 2

THE SEEDS: EDUCATION THEORIES AND


PRINCIPLES FROM WHICH WE WORK

Individuals and communities can and do come to develop critical and more creative
understandings of their situations, just as they can and do come to develop critical and
creative strategies for change. But praxis doesn’t automatically occur spontaneously.
Nor do new generations of activists necessarily acquire the theoretical tools that
they need in order to make sense of their rapidly changing worlds, providing them
with the theoretical basis for developing strategies that effectively demonstrate that
another world is possible.
Marjorie Mayo, Learning and education for a better world: The role of social
movements, 2012
Over the past four decades, the nature of adult education has changed and shifted
as new ideas and purposes grafted themselves on to existing theories and practices.
Addressing contemporary environmental problems is one of those new ideas and
purposes. For adult educators committed to the transformative and political purpose
of learning, environmental injustices and degradation simply cannot be ignored. The
collective production and distribution of socio-environmental knowledge as well as
new forms of ecological civic engagement are crucial to the survival of this planet.
Educating within a socio-environmental framework contributes to the creation of a
more just, healthy and sustainable world by focusing on both the systems world and
the life world of this beautiful, robust yet suffering planet. Adult education therefore
must now include not only the social, economic, cultural, and political spheres but
also ecological discourses and spheres.
This chapter provides a brief sketch of key educational theories that have
guided and continue to guide our educational practice in the community and/or the
university. We focus on theory because we believe it truly does matter to learning
and change. We included in each workshop a discussion, in one way or another, on
theory. We did encounter people who were frustrated with this activity, who voiced a
concern that theory was inaccessible to many and therefore, elitist and/or irrelevant.
Participants sometimes felt we should just move on to what we knew intuitively,
to subjective ways of knowing and experiences, and get on with the workshop or
the environmental action. But think as Thompson (1997) suggests of a politician
who simply wants to roll up his sleeves and do something without thinking through
the longer-term impact or consequences of his or her actions. We never just think
intuitively and diving in to an action is often a means to deny the existence of the

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grand narrative or ideology that is behind an action. Therefore, like poet Adrienne
Rich, we believe theory is the seeing of patterns, showing the forest as well as the
trees. It is the dew that rises from the Earth to collect in the rain cloud and return to
Earth over and over. Theory provides a framework to explain and analyse diverse
aspects of the world and their relationship to one another. Adult education theories
provide critical analytical lenses to ensure deeper reflection and understanding. But
theory must be useful in terms of building and shaping educational practice. It must
be the connection between lives lived and deeds done.
The five theories in particular that form the foundations of environmental adult
education include adult education (personal growth and social transformation),
gender difference and feminist adult education, arts-based adult education, anti-
racist education and outdoor experiential learning. Informed by or foundational
to these adult education theories is Marxism, behaviourism, humanism, feminism,
critical theory, aesthetic theory, colonial and post-colonial theory, theories of
technical rationality, democracy and citizenship, anti-racist theory, postmodernism
and structuralism and cultural theory/literacy, to name but a few. We do not discuss
these social theories but suggest you do further reading in these areas.
You may not always see these theories explicitly referred to, although often we
do, in all of the activities in the following chapters, but you will feel their presence
through probing questions or a poetic report-back activity. For further reading on
adult learning theories, we suggest you follow-up with the references in Chapter Five.

ADULT EDUCATION

A critical adult education practice for contemporary times must re-integrate


the learning and teaching of practical skills and knowledge that people need
for daily living with the stimulation of questions and public debate about the
future of society and the possible designs of individual and social life.
T. Jansen
There is often confusion about the definition of adult education and for good
reason. The term can refer to adult basic education where adults return to secondary
school to obtain a degree. It can describe collectively the work of agencies and
organisations to deliver leisure learning courses, art-making workshops, adult
literacy classes, job and computer skills upgrading or English as a second language
for adults. Adult education can also specify an area of academic study. The term can
also refer to workshops or learning circles – intentional collective practices - held
in community centres, church basements or other informal sites to explore concepts
such as healthy communities, address issues of violence against women or train
activists how to work with the media or engage in peaceful, non-resistance tactics.
Adult education can also be categorised in to three areas: formal adult education
(degree courses in universities or colleges on adult education); non-formal adult
education (workshops, learning circles, art-based activities); and informal adult

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THE SEEDS: EDUCATION THEORIES AND PRINCIPLES FROM WHICH WE WORK

education (experiential or individual self-directed activities such as reading a manual


or being mentored on the job).
There is similar breadth around the purposes of adult education. For some, it is
for leisure – a course on Egyptology through continuing studies in a university or
a talk about the paintings of Paul Gauguin in an art gallery. For governments adult
education programmes need to focus on learning designed to meet the requirements
of the global market. In other words, “the acquisition of new knowledge through
education and learning is seen as key to the meal ticket of the nation: the economy”
(Bouchard, 2005, p.165). For others, the purpose of adult education – and the
emphasis of our book - is to learn and teach for a more just, equitable, equal, healthy
and sustainable world.
For the sake of brevity and a baseline understanding of adult education principles
and debates, we divide the field in to two paradigms, what we call liberal adult
education and critical adult education.

Liberal Adult Education

There are essentially three fundamentals to the liberal tradition of adult education:
psychology/behaviourism, the notion of the individual or self-directed learning
and economic determinism. Within this tradition adult education is in essence a
“psychological activity which does not require external pressure or encouragement to
begin and which proceeds out of inner drives fuelled by interpersonal energy rather than
out of external pressure fuelled by rewards and punishments” (Mackeracher, 1996, p.5).
Within this discursive paradigm, attention is paid to the emotional and psychological
well being of the adult in the learning environment. This is fostered by removing any
alienating or inhibiting factors within the person, much like therapy (Wildemeersch,
Finger & Jansen, 2000), designing safe and comfortable learning environments, and
creating learner-centred practices (Mackeracher, 1996; Thomas, 1991). Learner-centred
activities are tailored around the needs of the learner. Emphasis is placed on utilising
their experiences and knowledge and confirming and acknowledging that experience.
The role of the educator is to facilitate and guide the learning process (English &
Mayo, 2012; Thomas, 1991). Further in the liberal tradition of adult education we
find the concept of self-directed learning. According to Knowles (1975), this can be
defined as:
A process in which individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of
others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying
human and material resources for learning, choosing and implementing
appropriate learning strategies and evaluating learning outcomes (p.18).
Personal autonomy characterised as independence, free choice, will power and
control over learning is essential to self-directed learning.
English and Mayo (2012) argue that the liberal tradition of adult education is now
cloaked in a discourse of ‘lifelong learning’. Favoured heavily by governments and

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business, this discourse revolves around economic imperatives, that is, using training
and education (and re-training and re-education) to ensure that adults obtain the skills
and competencies required to make nations more competitive in the global market.
Other principles or practices in liberal paradigm include:
• Promoting self-esteem and confidence in the leaner
• Recognising and valuing the vast past experience and knowledge learners bring
to the learning process
• Providing opportunities for active decision-making, and planning in the learning
experience
• Creating the opportunity for learners to evaluate their own learning
• Helping learners to develop new competencies and skills
• Continually adapting and re-creating learning practices

Critical/Progressive Adult Education

Liberal adult educators will undertake to improve unjust situations but avoid
tackling the root cause of injustice. They emphasise the importance of ‘life skills’,
which oppressed people are expected to take up to change their self-defeating
behaviours.
Arnold, Burke, James, Martin and Thomas, 1991
Picking up on the last point above, while no one would argue that gaining skills
and abilities is not important, many adult education scholars (e.g. Crowther &
Sutherland, 2009; English & Mayo, 2012; Thompson, 2007) believe this emphasis is
problematic because it neglects issues such as social class and difference, structural
inequalities in society and even the classroom, power and social control. Moreover,
the adoption of the discourse of lifelong learning by economic interests is often
simply “a way of downloading responsibility for education to individuals and
blaming them for failed economies and states” (English and Mayo, 2012, p.10).
Critical adult educators share a commitment to the more social purpose of
adult education and its baseline values of justice, fairness, equity, equality, and
collectiveness. Within this sociologically rather than psychologically driven
paradigm, adult education and learning are viewed as instruments or tools for critical
discovery, a means to challenge problematic normative values and assumptions, and
a call to action and activism.
Essential strategies of a critical adult teaching practice include dialogue, critique
and the study of power (English & Mayo, 2012). It is based upon trying to better
understand “how ideological systems and societal structures hinder or impede the
fullest development of humankind’s collective potential” (Welton, 1995, p.14).
To be more critical and therefore, socially valuable, adult education must take
into account the structures and practices of exploration and more deeply explore
the beliefs citizens have about themselves, their communities and their societies

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THE SEEDS: EDUCATION THEORIES AND PRINCIPLES FROM WHICH WE WORK

in terms of how ideology, power structures and relations have shaped these.
This also requires examining how institutions and systems have reproduced and continue
to reproduce social inequities. As Paulo Freire (1970) argued so eloquently in his book
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “education [is] a social action that [can] either empower
or domesticate people” (p.10). In other words, adult education is not a neutral process.
In this more socially responsive, political practice of adult education, the role of
the adult educator is to create learning settings where people reflect on their own
as well as larger social, historical and cultural realties. By looking more deeply,
or reinterpreting experience, underlying power structures and frameworks that we
often take for granted or ignore begin to emerge and re-shape how not only the
world is constructed and how it in turn constructs our understandings of the world.
To probe deeply means to take risks, to see things beyond their surface level or
value, to challenge the taken for grant. In the critical adult education tradition it is
this risk rather than comfort that brings about the most important transformation;
going beyond the known and the familiar that makes the world expand. In other
words adult educators cannot simply create learning environments which are
safe, comfortable and simply uncritically affirm or validate all learner experience.
Moreover, the adult educator is not solely a guide or facilitator. Indeed, we need
to return to an understanding of the value of the educational process, the socially/
politically intentional teaching process and the collective, rather than laissez-faire
and individually focused practice of lifelong learning. Being challenged on our
assumptions (including those of the adult educator), shifting paradigms and seeing
things differently can be painful. But it is no less painful than experiences of sexism
or racism. Learning environments must nurture and feel safe to advance problematic
beliefs and assumptions, but they must also be intentional sites for challenge, rebuttal
and making mistakes. The term ‘intentional’ means, as alluded to above, that the
adult educator is teacher and a learner – critical adult learning and education are
processes of co-learning, co-facilitating, and co-engagement. But the adult educator
must take responsibility for the process and since learning comes about primarily
through social interaction and is shaped by political, social, cultural and economic
forces, what adults learn as well as what adult education is about are at the forefront
of all activities. Activities that are transformative and challenging, however, can
have enormous social consequences, and educators need to be prepared for these
(Clover & Craig, 2010; Lopez & Thomas, 2006; Manicom & Walters, 2011).
Within all that we have said are questions of ‘education’ versus ‘learning’ and
subjective knowledge, which we take up in Chapter three in terms of our work. But
importantly, Freire insisted that educators must exhibit not a professional authority,
but rather an authority of knowledge (Kilgore, 1999). Moreover, Horton added, “you
start with people’s experience, people get the point that you start and stop with that
experience, but of course…there’s a time when people’s experience runs out” (cited
in Kilgore, 1999, p.193).
At the core of critical or social transformation–oriented adult education is the
notion of empowerment. Empowerment does not mean ‘giving’ power to someone

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because if you can give power to someone, you have the power to take it back.
Rather, empowerment through adult education is premised upon what Freire called
‘conscientização’ (consciousness): providing people with opportunities to explore,
understand, challenge and ultimately, transcend the constraints placed upon them
by particular ideologies, structures and cultural practices, which are both part and
apart from the learner. Empowerment is the increased capacity of people to engage
in meaningful interactions, decision–making, civic engagement and social action.
People are transformed from audience or victim of life, to actors and agents of
change in the shaping and re-shaping of their lives, communities, societies or the
world. What this means is that within the critical or progressive tradition of adult
education citizenship is a key focus although like many other terrains such as the
concept of power (Foucault argues that power is never stable nor static), citizenship
too is contested (English & Mayo, 2012).
Socially transformative critical adult education takes up social, cultural,
historical, economic and political considerations as it continually questions the
status quo, corporate capitalism and other threats to social democracy and equity. As
it emphasises collective action and reflection in learning processes and community
building, it asserts the necessity for rational dialogue, communication and debate
(English & Mayo, 2012; Grace, 1998). Mezirow (2006) believes that a rational
epistemology of adult learning holds the promise of saving adult education from
becoming like religion, prejudice, and politics, the rationalisation of a vested interest
to give it the appearance of cause” (pp. 29–30).
An important challenge to critical adult education is postmodernism. This
framework problematises simplistic and exclusionary universalising discourses that
hide more than they reveal. It also challenges limited, normative conceptulisations of
identity, drawing attention to multiple identities and troubling the power dynamics
within and around these. Going further, what both liberal adult education and the
more critical paradigm often neglected, however, were women’s situations and the
issue of race. Moreover, a fixation on developing individual agency through job-
related skills and capacities in the case of liberal adult education, and emphasising
the rational mind and the cognitive dimension in the critical tradition neglected
the aesthetic dimension and the powerful roles of creativity and the imagination
in learning for change. As you would expect these omissions were not ignored by
women in the field.

GENDER DIFFERENCE AND FEMINIST ADULT EDUCATION

Discussion of feminism and adult education includes many complex factors


and problems such as marginality, invisibility and representation.
Morish and Buchanan, 2001
English and Mayo (2012) argue that while “women and learning…refers to an interest
in how women learn…feminists share concerns about facilitating women’s learning

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THE SEEDS: EDUCATION THEORIES AND PRINCIPLES FROM WHICH WE WORK

and they bring to it a more radical perspective in which learning is politicised and in
which attention is given to who women are included and excluded form the learning
area” (p.159). In other words, the discursive practice of feminist adult education
emerged as a challenge to the exclusions and omissions of women in both society
and adult education. Although women world-wide have contributed to culture and
society and have even played an essential role in the development of adult education
for personal and social change, women along with other marginalised individual
have seen their experiences, their knowledge and their skills under-valued and/or
totally ignored.
Feminist adult education is a pedagogical process for empowerment. It aims to
deepen understandings of diverse experiences, social and cultural practices, social
structures, ideologies and relationships. It both exercises and contest powers.
Feminists “teach against, confront, resist, and subvert social, cultural, political,
or ecological injustices, fostering multiple, on-the-ground responses in people to
enable them to work towards more respectful, healthy, equitable and sustainable
conditions” (Clover, 2011, p.193). As a practice, feminist adult education suggests
a set of complementary goals and strategies, a sense of what Vaugeois (2009, p.2)
calls “trying things out, of keeping open the possibility that goals will change.” What
makes it feminist is its accordance of women with subject status, a perspective that
believes women bring experiences as subjects that by and large have all but been
ignored in a majority of societies. Contextualised within the discursive pluralities
of feminisms, masculinist social constructions, and gender fluidity, feminist
adult education challenges multiple oppressions in its aim for empowerment,
transformation, justice, and change. It aims to re-configure the lives of women in
particular but also those in the margins and help them to work towards responding
to and/or controlling those conditions. It us a valuable tool for understanding and
enhancing adult education, by granting insight into how knowledge and power work
both within the education process and society in general (Barr, 1999; Manicom &
Walters, 2011).
Because feminist adult education has been so deeply influenced by feminist
ideology, it is understand the key concepts that inform feminist ideology in order
to obtain a solid understanding of feminist adult education. Having said this, it is
important to point out that this and any definition of feminism and feminist adult
education is subject to debate due to the fact that there are multiple feminisms and
each individual perceives the meaning of feminism in a unique way (English, 2008).
Although this inconsistency or lack of clarity might appear to be problematic, in fact
it is considered by feminists to be the contrary. The rejection of canonical knowledge
and recognition of the subjectivity of knowledge is considered to be one of feminisms
greatest strengths (English, 2008; English & Irving, 2008).
Generally speaking, feminist ideology is one that centralises the subordination of
women while critically analysing the production of knowledge, power imbalances,
and oppression in society. Generally speaking, feminism seeks to empower
individuals and groups that have historically lacked access to power, including but

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not limited to women (Moss, 2006; Ackerley et al., 2006). Commonly feminism
is a term that conjures up images of women fighting for equality against men and
a masculine dominated society. Although the roots of feminism are grounded in
this ideal of struggle for gender equality, the discourse of equality has limitations.
Feminists, have therefore generally come to reject the notion of achieving ‘equal’
rights on men’s terms in a socially constructed “man’s” world – one of the challenges
alluded to above to ‘citizenship’. After all things can be equal but they not in fact be
equitable (fair or just).
The concept of patriarchy is perhaps the most important element in feminist
pedagogy as it offers an understanding and helps one to imagine how social hierarchies
(specifically gender hierarchies), social domination, and power arrangements have
been constructed to favour men in the classroom and the rest of society. Patriarchy
as a theoretical concept serves as a tool to conceptualise how gender hierarchies are
maintained by focusing on social systems and social arrangements created (in the
past and present) that reinforce domination of subordinated groups (Connell, 1998;
Hunnicutt 2009; Kronsell, 2006).
Gender influences the way people experience the world, interact with others, and
the types of opportunities or privileges open. One of the most important elements
of gender relations is how they solidify hierarchies and relationships of power in
society through various means of oppression and privilege. This means that in the
processes of producing knowledge we would expect those who are oppressed to
have different roles in constructing and legitimating knowledge than those who are
privileged (Cope, 2002).
Knowledge is a very central concept in both theory and practice for feminist adult
educators. Feminist adult educators endeavour to view the production of knowledge
and the valorisation of knowledge in a completely unique way. Firstly, feminists
recognise that all individuals have identities, subjectivities and personal experiences,
which shapes their perceptions of the world in ways unique to each individual
(English, 2008; Ackerly et al, 2006; Moss, 2006). Feminist pedagogy recognises that
all knowledge is subjective and socially created, rejecting notions of universal truths,
and meta-narratives, recognising that each individual and group of individuals learns
and understands ways of learning in completely different ways (English, 2008). An
important component of the knowledge production process is the recognition that
there are unanswerable questions and feeling comfortable asking such questions,
which runs counter to science, which believes measurement to be the basis of a good
scientific question (Moss, 2002). Feminist pedagogy also encourages women to use
curiosity to ask challenging questions about what may seem like everyday banalities
in order to render visible the unnoticeable in the learning process (English, 2008).
Feminist adult educators will be the first to admit that traditionally their approach
to developing knowledge and the ways they viewed knowledge was too narrow,
recognising the production of knowledge as predominantly an individual project
(English, 2008). It is now common practice in adult education that a wider variety of
marginalised groups and individuals contribute to making new meaning and have an

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THE SEEDS: EDUCATION THEORIES AND PRINCIPLES FROM WHICH WE WORK

essential role in contributing to the process of knowing (D’Costa, 2006). For feminist
adult education collaborative knowledge is an essential component to exploring and
understanding the world, thus it recognises that knowledge is a collective process.
This collective process explores how collective decisions should be made and how
collective knowledge should be shaped (D’Costa 2006). Recognising knowledge as
a product of collaborative efforts is an important in including the marginalised voice
in the classroom.
Involving the voiceless or marginalised in the creation of knowledge is an important
to both feminism and feminist pedagogical practice and is viewed to be critical in
dismantling hierarchies and power asymmetries in society (English & Mayo, 2012;
Trelstad, 2008). By continuously questioning what should be considered valid
knowledge and who should be considered the holder of valid knowledge, feminist
education has contributed to the rejection of the traditional hierarchal stance within
the classroom, which subjectively decides who are valid contributors of knowledge,
and what marginalised should be represented in the creation of knowledge. Focusing
on how the marginalised voice has been validated or not validated in the classroom
has served as a lens to view and challenge how education has traditionally served to
protect the interests of the privileged.
Traditional locations and roles in society have meant women’s experiences
(although varied) and ways of knowing often differ quite dramatically from those
of men. Their understandings, readings or explanations of issues or problems which
come from a different place, set of assumption and ways of being in the world have
proven to bring greater breadth, depth and scope to discussions vis-à-vis social
problems, as we saw happen in our workshops. Thus, while recognising that the
marginalised bring much to the table, we must also still recognise that even today
in the 21st century, the fact remains that women still occupy subordinate roles in
politics, companies, and even organisations.
Patriarchy still permeates society and pedagogical situations. Sit in any mixed
university classroom or attend a political gathering and see who raises their hands
most often or who heads for the microphone to voice their opinions. English and
Mayo (2012) ask: “how often are women interrupted when they speak (quite often)?
Do men control the conversation in a class” (or workshop) (p.166). Men worldwide
still hold the most power and feel the most entitled and knowledgeable. They ‘know’
their ideas count, even when/if they are contested. They were the ones to speak
first, longest and loudest in our workshops. This means that empowerment, giving
voice to women and other marginalised groups, encouraging them to believe enough
in themselves and their ideas to speak, must remain a central aspect of the work
informed by a feminist lens. It means the emphasis in the educational process must be
on building self-confidence, providing space for the marginalised voice to be heard
on the one hand and the communicative skills and capacities to speak publicly and
see oneself in collaboration for change. Yet focusing on those who have traditionally
lacked voice, although this may seem some paradoxical, is also about attending to
silences. Silence can be a form of active resistance. Refusal to speak up, take part or

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to engage in a process that is clearly biased or weighted to a particular outcome is


one example. Therefore, one needs to be sensitive to the context of silences and the
power relations they reflect. Equally important, as in liberal adult education, is to
create spaces and opportunities and identify educational media and processes with
which women will be comfortable and which offer ways to express often submerged
feelings and perceptions (Walters & Manicom, 1996, p.16).

ARTS-BASED ADULT EDUCATION: THE CREATIVE TURN

A defiant imagination… defies the constraints of expectation and the


everyday… because the imagination – liberated by engagement in cultural
expression – is necessary to the achievement of all we hope for as a society.
Max Wyman, 2004
Imaginatively educate. Aesthetically elucidate. Visually illuminate. Creatively
investigate. Theatrically explicate. Artistically animate. Performatively resonate.
Feminist and critical adult educators have long called for more innovative pedagogical
approaches that centre on the whole person and challenge, re-create or transform
the world in which we live. The arts and creativity are often what they called, and
Paulo Freire’s firmly supported the arts and visual literacy in his community work.
Although often dismissed as “frivolous, a mere frill, irrelevant to learning in the
post-industrial world” (Greene, 1995, p.125) the past two decades has seen a marked
growth in understanding and using the power and potential of the arts as tools of
adult education and learning (e.g. Barndt, 2012; Clover & Stalker, 2007; Lawrence,
2005). But there is a complicated ‘knowledge’ and educational history to the arts.
This history is broad and we do not pretend to have here an exhaustive summary. We
simply highlight some of the most robust debates as they pertain to social change,
knowledge, learning and education. You may follow up on the readings cited at your
leisure.

The Arts, Society and Knowledge

For centuries scholars have debated how aesthetic forms engage, undermine,
elaborate on, counter or enhance ‘the social, cultural, and political conditions of
society’ (McGregor, In Press). Plato was one of the first to articulate a consistent
albeit relatively derogatory view of the arts in human life and society. To Plato the
arts were ‘falsehoods’, flawed or inexact imitations of the world with the potential
to corrupt by stimulating irrationality and irrigating immorality and associated
inappropriate behaviours. This particular understanding derived from a bipartite
notion where the rational or thinking element of humanity was seen as noble and
aimed towards the greater social good whilst the irrational side – the emotional or
‘appetive’ – was highly susceptible to the corrupting forces, making a dangerous
“impression on suggestible people” (Belifore & Bennett, 2010, p. 54) and becoming

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THE SEEDS: EDUCATION THEORIES AND PRINCIPLES FROM WHICH WE WORK

their rulers. Threaded through these understandings were issues ranging from class
and artistic interpretation. Whilst the highly educated classes were understood to
have the skills necessary to assess any ‘myths’ portrayed in and through the arts, the
‘susceptible minds’ of the non-lettered classes were not. Seen to be lacking in any
form of aesthetic judgement or life experience upon which to draw, the masses were
unable to interpret artworks ‘correctly’, discern reality from engineered situations
(such as in the theatre) and were thereby mislead into “believing things they had no
grounds for believing” (Hospers, 1974, p. 156).
Following in Plato’s footsteps, Aristotle took a somewhat different approach
although one could argue his journey terminated at the same destination. Aristotle
developed a hierarchy of different forms of knowledge, separating the ‘useful and
necessary’ from the ‘beautiful and purposeless’. This distinction, McGauley (2009)
argues,
divorces art… from any purpose other than reflective enjoyment. Because the
material world is governed by competing social interests and is thus unstable,
messy and unreliable, the pursuit of beauty and truth has to occur within the
realm of pure thought. The highest truths are the Ideal, transcending the life
of exploitation and poverty of the majority, and reserved for the ‘higher’ level
of society, those whose minds are uncluttered by distractions like cold or
hunger (p. 25).
These sentiments of superiority formed the ethos upon which many arts and cultural
institutions were founded. Their mandate was to provide enjoyment, enrichment
and knowledge and for the most part, they attracted solely the upper classes. As an
enhanced social consciousness began to seep through these cracks of this elitism,
however, efforts to encourage the intellectual improvement of the working classes
were put into place, forcing the doors so to speak. For some greater access to arts
and cultural institutions for the labouring classes and poor was seen as cultural
democracy; for others it was simply a means to make them more valuable to the
wealthy classes, augment their perceived lack of morality through contact with
art, religious texts and literature, or to uplift the spirits of the poor, although many
institutions maintained a steadfast and hearty distrust of this latter, believing them
to be incapable of becoming civilised (Perry and Cunningham, 1999). And then of
course there were women who were not yet ‘persons’ and of such delicate natures
they needed to be confined “into separate ladies’ rooms” in libraries (Lerner, 2009,
p.133). Indeed, as Nochin (1993) argues, women were allowed in to galleries most
of if they were naked or virgins. She was of course, speaking predominantly about
the artworks themselves!
Scholars have of course been inspired to develop aesthetic conceptualisations to
challenge these ingrained sentiments and practices of elitism, classism and sexism
outlined above. Theorists such as Bourdieu (1993) described the artworks within
these institutions as well as elitist social and institutional practices as ‘high art’,
meaning particular genres or types of art – and all by men who maintain today the

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moniker of ‘the masters’ - that had a reified position in the cultural hierarchy that,
despite the above efforts, or perhaps because of them, remained out of reach of
the majority. Feminists such as Nochlin (1988), as we noted earlier, went further,
highlighting an unrepentant sexism shadowing both elitism as well as terms such as
‘the masses’ and ‘the majority’. Others denounced all separations in the aesthetic life-
world, illustrating how they create chasms between arts and crafts and delegitimise
the arts in relation to education, knowledge creation and the enrichment of citizens’
everyday lives (Duvenage, 2003; Mann, 1977). Inherent in this were questions
around ‘use-value’, giving rise to complex debates around freedom of expression
and instrumentalism, central to which, and most interesting, is politics. On one
side of the debate are scholars who argue for creative expression to be free of all
politics and pre-determined use or end value whether or not it is for the betterment
of society (e.g. McGauley, 2009). The primary concern was that art would become
an advertising aesthetic aimed to simply commodify ideas. Moreover, political goals
and messages in art, no matter how progressive, rendered them mere handmaidens to
propaganda (Adorno, 2002; McGauley, 2009). There were also important concerns
about a tendency towards seeing the arts as tantamount to ‘fixing’, an insurmountable
burden “to transform the lives not just of individuals, but of whole community”
(Belifore and Bennett, 2008, p. 3).
On the other side however, are those who challenge the idea that authentic
expressive freedom in art only exists when it is disengaged from all interests
outside of itself and that all politicised uses of art is simply propaganda. While they
acknowledge the arts cannot change the world or solve ‘all’ the worlds’ problems,
they can be contribute to change by illuminating and naming socio-political subject
matter, and encouraging active learning in ways other methods cannot (Clover,
2011; Mullin, 2003). The problem is not the use of the arts as a political, educational
or organising tool, but rather an impoverished understanding of politics, imagination
(Mullin, 2003) and any other “sense of the creative possibilities in human life”
(Williamson, 2004, p.136). Aesthetics is politics and working with or through this
real/imagined medium is more than an oblique route to change the world. Arts have
a potential to rupture “the codes and categories of how the world is seen, to imagine
the world not as it is but as it might be” (Miles, 2012, p.10).
These aesthetic considerations take us further along the continuum of
epistemological, investigative and educational value of the arts. Some scholars argue
the arts lack any ability to supply real data or new understandings that can be judged
against “any reliable scientific standard” (Belifore & Bennett, 2008, p. 47). New
(1999) challenges that the arts cannot “authenticate the view [they convey]”, which
means they are neither factual nor reliable sources of knowledge. Although we may
garner some ‘truths’ from the arts, “they are not shown to be truths by virtue of being
persuasively conveyed [through an artwork]” (p. 120). Taking this further, Carroll
(2002) challenges claims that the arts can educate. If they simply recycle truisms
people already possess, “it makes little sense to claim that people learn the truisms
they already know…there is little point in regarding the arts as education” (p.4).

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THE SEEDS: EDUCATION THEORIES AND PRINCIPLES FROM WHICH WE WORK

This means the best the arts can do is to “activate already possessed knowledge
rather than its creation ex novo” (Belifore & Bennett, 2008, p. 46).
Although himself somewhat wary of truth claims Habermas argued that aesthetic
expressiveness was the “correct way to interpret one’s own and other’s needs and
desires; the appropriate argumentative form for revealing subjectivity” (in Duvenge,
2003, p. 55). On this alone they secured themselves a legitimate place in the everyday
communicative practice. However, what was recognised and valued was their
‘subjective’ or personal nature. Marcuse, however, lifted the arts into the realm of the
cognitive/intellectual, arguing that “imagination enables one to transcend the given,
by cognitively creating the future” (in Miles, 2012, p.17). For many, this was an
advance against leaving the arts to languish in the affective/emotional realm where
they could too easily be dismissed in a flurry of derision, scorn and condescension
(Green, 1995; Yoemans, 1995).
Other scholars, however, argued that it was this ‘affective’ – sensory, appetive,
and emotive - aspect and ability of the arts that was the most transformative. Indeed,
Greene (1995) suggests the more serious the problems in life, the more we need
the arts to provide us with compassion, empathy and insight and challenge today’s
technically rationalised industrial culture ‘whose values are brittle and whose
conception of what’s important [is] narrow’ (Eisner in Butterwick and Dawson,
2006, p. 3). Wyman (2004) refers to this defying “the constraints of expectation of
the everyday [to approach a] realm of understanding [that] lies beyond the immediate
and the real” (p. 1). Similarly, Fielder calls it “moments of release from the ordinary
burdens of everydayness and even rationality” (cited in Mann, 1977, p.5).
Eisner (2008) brings the emotional-rational together, suggesting the mind
operates at its highest level when sensory perception and emotion are understood as
inseparable and integral:
To talk about thinking and feeling is somewhat of a misnomer, for it segregates
feeling from thinking by the inclusion of the word ‘and’. The ability to feel
what a work expresses, to participate in the emotional ride that it makes
possible is a product of the way we think about what we see…. Seeing is an
accomplishment and looking is a task, and it is through seeing that experience
is altered, and when altered, becomes an experience in shaping the kind of
minds that people can make for themselves (p. 344).
It is the reuniting of the emotional and cognitive engagement with and through the
arts that will “achieve all we hope for as a society’ (Wyman, 2006, p. 1).”

The Arts, Adult Education and Learning

You will notice as you move through the activities in Chapters Four and Five that
popular theatre, poetry, storytelling, puppetry, collage, video and other aesthetic
practices figure prominently as means to make explorations more creative,
presentations more fun and engaging, and to encourage new, metaphoric and

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CHAPTER 2

symbolic understandings and insights of old problems. This is because we believe


that of all our cognitive capacities the imagination and creativity permit us to give
the most credence and depth to alternative realities (Greene, 1995).
Arts-based adult education draws on a key concept from the ‘formal’ art world and
particularly the feminist art world: activist art. Activist art is about engaging “with
political issues, questions and concerns” (Mullin, 2003, p. 191). It is a collaboration
between artists, adult or community educators and other social movement actors
involving “research, organisational activity, and orientation” around a social or
ecological issue of concern to the community (Felshin, 1995, p. 10).
Arts-based adult education is described as an imaginative, participatory aesthetic
approach to personal, cultural and social transformation (Clover & Stalker, 2007). It is
about people using collective artistic processes and media, sometimes with artists (see
Chapter Five) but also often with adult educators (see Chapter Four) to comprehend
and understand a particular social, cultural or environmental issue. Tapping into the
aesthetic dimension is another way to promote new understandings and knowledge,
stimulate critique and debate, re-construct and re-position ideas, and enhance people’s
sense of themselves as cultural actors and agents who can challenge processes and
practices that exclude, marginalise and des-empower. Using arts, crafts and other
symbolic, performative, metaphoric and visual forms, adult educators can address
any number of complex contemporary issues. Engaging the aesthetic dimension
enhances, or has the potential to enhance, the transformative and emancipatory
objectives of feminist and radical adult education by providing an aesthetic space for
conscientização, to see or present the existing world as if it could be otherwise.
Arts-based adult education is grounded in the understanding that “learning through
art is always an experiential activity” (Lawrence, 2005, p.80). It is also an embodied
way of learning because one needs to use her or his hands or vocal cords to create art.
A stronger sense of personal authority or power seems to come from this creation,
from when someone is able to express her or himself through creativity; when she or
he is free to act, draw, dance and sing without self-consciousness.
Arts-based learning is also fun and fun is a factor that is often missing in forms
of adult education that emphasise critique and address serious socio-environmental
issues. But without fun, programmes and laughter in this type of learning, we run the
risk of what Schugurensky (2002) called the ‘paralysis of analysis’. We have watched
the atmosphere in a workshop–as we grappled with a particularly difficult issue–
quickly transform when a group of participants shared their deep-rooted stereotypes
through the satirical antics of a popular theatre skit. The arts enabled them to show
what they had been taught to believe, say what they might not otherwise feel they
could say, and let the laughter move them along to new understandings. In other
words, the art had a very unique way of making a difficult subject easier to digest
and process without taking away from the gravity of issue.
But the arts are also about taking a risk and being challenged, key aspects, as
noted above, of transformative learning. It can be a risk to be creative in a room
full of strangers. It can be a risk to create images in a quilt or a collage that will be

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THE SEEDS: EDUCATION THEORIES AND PRINCIPLES FROM WHICH WE WORK

visibly challenge the status quo or reveal bigotry or ignorance. And it can be a real
risk to share art with a public audience. Art is a powerful instrument used in many
demonstrations and rallies and it is often censored as discussed in two of the stories
in Chapter Five.
In their discussion of art and capitalism and arts as subversive, political practice,
Boltanski and Chiapello (2005) suggest creative practice is particularly applicable
or aligned to the environment because it is within these two domains where “the
multiplicity and particularity of beings – human beings, natural beings and in some
versions, artefacts – are assigned an intrinsic value” (p. 91). And so for us, it became.

ANTI-RACIST ADULT EDUCATION: GREENING JUSTICE

[As educators] we should be able to confront and deal more openly with the
tensions and uneasiness, the contradictions and paradoxes of discussing race
and racism in our [work].
Dei, Hall and Rosenburg, 2000
In addition to gender, the issue of racism is extremely important to environmental
adult educators. Racism is not solely about personal prejudice but rather a
combination of structural, institutional, embodied, and ideational/ideological factors
rendered legitimate by policies, laws, common sense and even science (Thompson,
1997). Anti-racist adult education explores how racism, power and privilege work
overtly and covertly to strengthen or uphold this legitimising process. By focusing
on issues of power, silences and exclusion, it creates openings “to advance racial
equity and justice” (Lopez & Thomas, 2006, p.1).
Lee and Lutz (2005) suggest: “racism is not what it used to be. Ideas of race,
racisms, and anti-racisms are in constant motion and our understandings evolve as
they take new forms” (p. 3). One of these forms, which require new understandings,
is environmental racism. For example, Alcorn (2008) has found that “over 95% of
the world’s high biodiversity areas overlap geographically with lands claimed by
culturally diverse peoples. But all is not well in the lands of bio-cultural diversity”
(p. 44). In what she calls these ‘lands of beauty’ there are beasts. Environmental
organisations often unquestionably protect or defend the ‘beauty’ of these lands
rather than support the rights of the traditional people’s who have, for centuries,
lived off the land and its resources. In other words, the lands are kept in their pristine
forms for the benefit of the flora and fauna, and/or for, supposedly, all to enjoy.
Although extremely disconcerting, Alcorn’s words affirm what we sometimes felt
as we worked our way across Canada and around the world. We often witnessed,
somewhat ironically, an extremely conservative streak to the environmental
movement. Moreover, we saw racist tendencies towards aboriginal peoples, tribal
peoples and other traditional cultures in terms of how they understood and used
the land. This was certainly not true of all organisations and none in Canada were
as excessive as David Foreman of EARTH FIRST! who once argued the famine in

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Africa was “a ‘natural’ measure against over-population which should not be mitigated
by human assistance” (Roussopoulos, 1993, p.76). However, we became aware that
conservation of an area meant getting rid of the people or when it did include people, it
was not about livelihoods but recreational enjoyment, presumably for the rich. In other
words, social class was a determinant to environmental enjoyment given those who
could ‘afford’ to reach these pristine areas would be the privileged classes. Although
there are notable exceptions, socio-environmental justice was not necessarily the
foundation of environmental conservation.
For us, Mikkes David Lengwati (1995) from South Africa still has one of the most
eloquent and poignant explanations or descriptions of environmental racism:

When minerals like gold, diamonds, platinum and coal are extracted but the
surrounding communities are among the poorest in the country; when black
townships experience the leakage of water pipes and sewers without any hope
of the local government attending to repairs; when black township streets lack
sheltering trees for shade and ornamental flowers for beautification; when
blacks-only areas are targeted as industrial sites... and when a town council
decides to dump poisonous waste products from manufacturing in a blacks-
only township, racism is clear (p. 103).

Environmental racism includes the active exclusion of people from policy decision-
making around the resources that affect and maintain their lives and livelihoods.
But it goes beyond politics. Tan (2005) believes the environmental movement in
general has failed to establish full and broad alliances with minority communities.
Moreover, western environmental issues are often projected as universal concerns
demanding universal attention. This narrow, bourgeois view precludes the voices
and environmental aspirations of those who struggle against unequal relations and
systems of oppression and leads to the simplistic conclusion that the non-privileged
are not concerned about the environment. This is patently untrue although the
issues are often framed in a much broader way as Tan shows through an example of
traditional medicine activists in Toronto.
In essence, the key principles of an environmentally conscious anti-racism include:

• Seeking common ground with low-income and minority communities and


recognising their struggles and concerns
• Just treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, colour
or national origin in environmental change and decision-making
• The right to a safe, healthy, productive, and sustainable environment for all, where
environment is considered to include the ecological (biological), physical (natural
and built), social, political, cultural, aesthetic, and economic environments
• The equitable enforcement of environmental regulations
• Protecting minority communities from environmental hazards
• The right of traditional cultures to decide how their land will be preserved and/
or used

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THE SEEDS: EDUCATION THEORIES AND PRINCIPLES FROM WHICH WE WORK

EXPERIENTIAL OUTDOOR LEARNING: INTO THE FOREST AND


UP THE TREES

It is the very nature of their experience and reflections that mandate that they
can no longer see the world as it once was.
Carry Wittmer & Brian Johnson, 2000

Experiential learning or learning in situ has always been an important aspect of adult
education. The belief behind this practice is that knowledge is not only learned from
experience, but in or through experience. At its heart lie three concepts: flexibility,
participation and contextualisation. Flexibility hinges on adapting programmes to
meet local needs. Participation is often reflected in how actively learners are engaged
in the educational activity and the degree of decision-making they have around
the experience. Often in the more standardised experiential learning programmes
developed in museums, there is an expert who organises and leads and the learners
follow and learn. The more contextualised a programme or less standardised, the
more likely it is to be locally personalised or meet an individual’s needs (Taylor,
Neill & Banz, 2008).
Outdoor experiential education, as the name suggests is learning in, about, with
and through the out-of-doors. It can refer to recreational activities such as nature
hiking, plant identification or bird watching. In essence, the aim is predominantly
to develop knowledge about and a re-connection to the natural world – sometimes
by learning a skill such as kayaking. Others, however, use outdoor education to
illustrate human impact on the natural environment (Clover, 1998).
Outdoors education can occur in any type of setting: swamps, meadows, forests,
shores, deserts, and all other biomass. But it can also include the built or human
created environments – a cemetery, a gravel pit, or any type of urban renewal or
development project (Ford, 1986).
There are a number of key principles or philosophies behind outdoor education
that helped to guide our thinking as we developed environmental adult education:

• Teaching a commitment to human responsibility and environmental stewardship


of the land
• Learning certain facts and concepts such as the inter-relationship of natural
resources to each other and with humans, their societies and their customs
• Linked to the above, the integral relationship between the survival of the natural
world and the survival of the planet
• Understanding the integrity of nature – things are alive and have the right to live
• Understanding the cultural and spiritual value of the out-of-doors in the lives of
different cultures (Ford, 1986; Wittmer & Johnson, 2000)
Teaching and learning in the outdoors is a means to recognise and respect the vital
functions of nature in our lives, beauty, rights and even, the pedagogical importance
of the natural world as a life-long educator. For others, the value in teaching outdoors

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is how it fundamentally changes the traditional role of teacher or educator from


knowledge expert to facilitator of experiences (Wright, 2000). Although seldom
acknowledged as such in outdoor education, the educator is actually the natural
world, or the built world. Knowledge and guidance lay in its hands and we gratefully
and thankfully threw ourselves in to the midst.

ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION: TRANSFORMING


HUMAN-EARTH RELATIONS

Environmental adult education respects and nurtures patterns of knowing that


are rooted in the spirit and the land; provide opportunities to critique, reflect
and experience. It encourages hope, imagination, creativity and action.
Darlene E. Clover and Lilian Hill, 2003
When environmental adult education began to take shape in the late 1980’s and early
1990’s it was a very different world from today. Although adult education had come
to terms with issues such as gender and class oppression, as noted above, it had all
but ignored the environment. Even Paulo Freire went to great lengths to separate
humans from the rest of nature (Clover, 1999). Although environmental justice as
a concept was beginning to make in roads worldwide, anti-racist adult educators
seldom used or included the discourse. Traditional environmental and outdoor
education was either aimed at children/schools or not particularly critical or social
in its orientation. Further, the practice of arts-based adult education did not focus on
the rest of nature or environmental issues other than to perhaps use environmental
materials but without the critical analysis. Environmental adult education had to also
be environmental in two respects: the content and the methods and means.
Our challenge was what to do with or about the rest of nature and how to do it.
We needed to draw on the above theoretical understandings and principles, but more
importantly, methods and processes that would give us new language, new practices,
a new theory, and a new praxis. We needed to go beyond simply adding environmental
issues to adult education or adults to outdoors experiential education and stirring. We
had to create a process of identifying and using ecological knowledge, weaving the
socio-political and the environmental, and building critical and creative capacities in
pursuance of a more healthy, just, and sustainable world.
Environmental adult education is an amalgam of methods, analytic practices,
theoretical perspectives, discursive lenses and epistemological technologies. Our
starting point for its development was the fact that the environmental crisis was
multi-faceted, local, yet global; it touched every aspect of lives: our health, the
quality of the environment, our social relationships, livelihoods and economies, our
cultural practices, our politics. What happens in Canada affects the South Pole and
the lives of people in Africa.
The foundation of environmental adult education had to be political in orientation
It was not going to be enough to nurture and instil a love of nature and a yen to

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THE SEEDS: EDUCATION THEORIES AND PRINCIPLES FROM WHICH WE WORK

preserve the green spaces. We had to recognise that no matter how many trees we
hugged they would still all be cut down in the name of raw development and the
accumulation of global profit. We had to realise that no matter how well we washed
our bottles and cans for recycling, unilateral decisions to send them to landfill and
not to a recycling depot could be made by governments (see Chapter Five) and that
indigenous peoples would continue to lose their lands where the resources used to
create those cans and bottles were found. A political focus meant educative-activism.
People needed to realise they had to act collectively and politically for systemic
change to occur. This meant grounding environmental adult education in the notion
of environmental citizenship, even with its challenges. We framed citizenship as not
only rights, responsibilities and duties people have towards one another, but also
towards the rest of nature and the planet itself. Environmental citizenship, drawing
from feminist and critical adult education, is people as actors who can influence
not only the context of environmental decision-making but policy-making vis-à-vis
natural resources.
Another element, very much linked to the above, to be woven into the new fabric
of environmental adult education is the concept of ecological knowledge. In spite
of protestations that people are totally disconnected from their environment, we
discovered that for the vast majority this was simply not the case. Although often
numbed with scientific facts and data to the point of green fatigue, people, when
asked, did in fact understand things such as where their drinking water came from
or the medicinal uses of diverse plants. This by no means suggests that everyone
knew everything or that there was not more to learn, but workshop participants
continually illustrated various fascinating forms of ecological knowledge. We will
never forget the vast repertoire of knowledge found in the clock repairman about
the multiple chemicals seeping in to Lake Huron. Indeed, there was often a deep,
healthy relationship with the rest of nature, even if this was just in the form of caring
for potted plants in an apartment in the concrete jungle of São Paulo. Disconnection
had far less to do with a lack of knowledge as had been suggested in the many books
on environmental education we perused and far more to do with misunderstandings
of what counts as knowledge and who has it. As in all forms of adult education,
environmental adult education had to begin with where people were at, tap into their
rich store of ecological knowledge and build on that through active engagement. In
other words, preaching about environmental dangers, which everyone was fully aware
of, and dishing up the statistics (which few could keep up with anyway) were out.
Building on this, environmental adult education had to be hopeful. It had to
be creative, fun, enjoyable and memorable. It had to make people feel powerful,
energised, and strengthened for the long struggle that would need to continue
long after the workshop. Since workshops can only ever be fleeting learning
portals, particularly important was building more lasting relationships amongst the
participants in the room (or under the tree) as well as encouraging them to make
stronger connections to broader environmental justice and social movements and
organisations outside the four walls.

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And speaking of four walls, we not only used the community as a teacher and
site of learning, but we had to learn ourselves to trust the rest of nature to do the
teaching, to be the leader, the storyteller, the truth holder, the knower, the facilitator,
the guide. And she never once let us down. As alluded to above, when things became
complicated or tense, we turned to the rest of nature, most often combining this with
the arts. Even when she showed us her pain (i.e. clear-cut) the affect was calming
and restorative for reasons we are unlikely to ever fully understand.
In essence, environmental adult education is about the fundamental transformation
of human/earth relations. The main inter-weaving principles include:
• Stimulating a critical socio-political analysis of humanities’ response to itself and
oppression such as humans over nature, men over women, whites over minority
groups and so forth
• Encouraging the re-connection in a more sensory, spiritual and emotional way
with the rest of nature in both urban and rural environments through experiential
learning
• Critically examining the root causes of the environmental crisis (such as unequal
power relations, capitalism, cultural imperialism, economic development,
scientific frameworks, militarism, fear of change)
• Making links between environmental and other social issues and examining
the ways in which our views and perceptions of the rest of nature are culturally
mediated
• Being experiential, inter-active and participatory
• Using creativity, passion and emotion
• Using the human aesthetic dimension; stimulating creativity and imagination
through the arts
• Beginning with people’s own experiences and locations; encouraging and tapping
into ecological knowledge
• Using people’s own potential to solve problems and bring about social and
political change
• Making links between local and global issues
• Empowering people to see themselves as agents of socio-environmental change

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CHAPTER 3

INSCAPE, LANDSCAPE, LEARNING AND LIFE:


ENVIRONMENTAL WORKSHOPS AT WORK

Perhaps the ultimate question for humankind, given current trends, is whether
we are truly interested in an informed, active and critical citizenry work for
social [and environmental] justice.
While and Oppenshaw, 2005
This chapter shares some of our approaches and understandings around environmental
adult education workshop design and facilitation based on successes and challenges
in implementing learning activities around the world. Predominantly we used the
medium of workshops so we begin with a discussion of the types of workshops
we designed and facilitated, including a list of their key aims. Following this, we
have a section on education, learning and knowledge. Although the previous chapter
outlined in some detail the theories within which we contextualised our work,
we share our thoughts from practice. From there we move to a discussion around
creating the workshop milieu. This includes things such as how (and why) to build in
theory, humour, emotions, creativity and small group process in the context of ‘time’
and knowledge of the participants.

TYPES AND AIMS OF COMMUNITY-BASED WORKSHOPS

As noted above, we used workshops because they are effective means of non-formal
adult education. However, the activities in this book work equally well in a university
or college classroom setting. Facilitators will encounter various institutional
constraints in these locations such as chairs bolted to the floor in expectation of
a robust and fortifying lecture – the educational weapon of choice in much higher
education. But there are also constraints working in community settings and we will
discuss ‘improvisation’ in the final chapter of this book and make suggestions in
Chapter Four of how to adapt activities.
Workshops are intense, condensed processes that take place over a few hours or
days. Moreover, workshops can incorporate an extraordinary array of diverse activities
aimed to touch what Barndt (2012) calls heads, hands and hearts: the inseparable
cognitive, embodied and affective. Indeed, human beings are thinking, feeling and
active beings with the ability to acquire and create knowledge in and through various
ways. Given the opportunity to experience a multiplicity of education and learning
methods affords a greater possibility for personal and social transformation.

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The workshops we facilitated were primarily of two types: issue-based and


process-based.

Issue-Based Workshops

This type of workshop revolved around a specific issue as identified by the


‘community’. Having just used this term let us say here that we were, and remain,
cognisant of how problematic this term is. Communities are seldom homogenous.
They store complex relations of power very different viewpoints on an environmental
issue or set of issues and we address this in diverse ways throughout this book.
In essence, the key aims of the issue-based workshops were to:
• Identify key environmental issues and critically examine the root causes of these
problems from the various standpoints of those participating;
• Use the community setting and the rest of nature to enhance learning/understanding
about the problems;
• Examine historical and contemporary relationships with the rest of nature, through
cultural, social and economic lenses;
• Stimulate creativity and imagination in exploring issues (using the arts);
• Examine fundamental and problematic relations of power, including discourse or
language, in the community and the workshop setting itself);
• Critically analyse dominant stories about issues and share our own stories;
• Make the links between local issues and national and/or global problems and
impacts;
• Have fun and enjoy one another as a basis for continued work;
• Challenge people to reflect on assumptions and take risks; and
• Collectively develop first steps, strategies or plans for action.
As alluded to above in our notation on ‘community’, the participants who attended
these workshops were diverse. They were employed in social service agencies,
women’s or environmental organisations, food banks, local government, foundations,
small businesses, recycling plants, schools, colleges, outdoor education centres and
numerous other sites. Ages ranged from teenagers to seniors, aboriginal peoples,
peoples from minority groups and both men and women attended.
The multi-generational, multi-sectoral and gender (im)balance in these
workshops – this is also relevant to the process-based workshop we will outline
shortly - made for a challenging, charged and dynamic learning environment. In
essence, the workshops became a microcosm of complex, socio-cultural and political
power relations, a tapestry of ways of knowing, seeing and acting that make up any
‘community’. In other words, while everyone might have come to the workshop in
agreement that environmental problems existed – we never actually had any climate
change deniers although did have people who thought educational ‘process’ was
irrelevant - what these environmental problems were, their connections to other
social issues, how they were experienced subjectively and/or what should be done

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INSCAPE, LANDSCAPE, LEARNING AND LIFE: ENVIRONMENTAL WORKSHOPS AT WORK

to address them varied substantively in each workshop setting. Nature is diversity –


diversity as power, as strength. So as difficult as dealing with multiple differences
can be, it is critical that you as the facilitator see diversity and difference as an asset.

Process-Based workshops

The process-based workshops were based on the notion of ‘training the trainers’.
The aim was to introduce community animators, students, practitioners and activists,
to name but a few, to the art and practice of environmental adult education. Veering
from more common training programmes, we consciously built in educational,
social and environmental theory.
The process-based workshops included many of the same aims as the issue-based
workshops above such as exploring root causes, having fun together, and making
links to the local, national and global but they were also sites to:
• Discuss and engage in a variety of critical educational approaches (including
using the rest of nature and the community as a teacher and site of learning);
• Learn to use or incorporate the arts, creativity and humour in to community
environmental work;
• Learn how to weave environmental issues in to more traditional adult education
spaces or activities;
• Develop together new approaches to education and learning in the community;
• Understand more about how adults learn;
• Learn how to make connections between personal lives/memories, and
contemporary problems;
• Learn how to use theory to build analytical capacity and to continually contextualise
the environmental as a political/social problem rather than an ‘individual’ failing;
• Explore the value of self-evaluation and reflection as an educator; and
• Learn to define, interrogate concepts such ecological citizenship and knowledge,
and agency and promote diverse forms of activism.
As we noted in Chapters One and Two, when we began this work in the mid
1990s, ‘environmental adult education’ did not exist. The workshops became an
incubator for the development and/or refinement of its theory and practice. Each
time we developed a new activity, expanded one we had developed or shared
stories and viewpoints on socio-environmental issues, we increased collectively our
understandings, the discourse and practice. Collaboration flows from rapport, and
our creative, committed and critical interactions triggered sparks and influenced
each others work.

EDUCATION, LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE

Education and learning are often used inter-changeably but they are not necessarily
the same thing. A person can learn without being ‘educated’ (taught) and educating

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does not automatically mean a person will learn. However, there is a reciprocal
relationship between learning and education that enriches and informs the other
(Kilgore, 1999). Traditionally, the focus of adult education has been much more
on the process of education or ‘teaching’. However, over time, the term education
became synonymous with a didactic, expert-driven process, as noted in Chapter
Two. The response was a leap towards ‘learning’, described as more learner-centred
and therefore, empowering (English and Mayo, 2012). Indeed, for Foley (2001)
learning is a deliberate act that can be formal or informal, unplanned or tacit “but
it is very powerful” (p.13). We share this belief that ‘learning’ is powerful and used
it as a conceptual and working framework. However, we never shirked from what
Freire (1970/1993) called the responsibility to teach, to educate. For us, education
is the most intentional process and in an unjust and unsustainable world we need
to be intentional – to educate activity for change, for justice, for transformation.
We cannot be neutral; we cannot simply ‘hope’ people will learn something,
somehow that is useful or different. As educators, we say what we think, we share
our own intellectual frameworks, values and political positioning yet we use these as
platforms for participants to “explore, test and develop [their] own thinking” (Foley,
2001, p.13).
For us, a more education-orientated process does not take away from the leaner as
expert. Rather we see educating as a collective and highly inter-active process that
keeps discussions focussed on the larger socio-cultural and environmental picture,
challenges underlying assumptions (including our own), builds on knowledge and
creates new knowledge and draws from and on theory as it aims actively towards
seeing and enacting upon the world differently.
Adult community educational experiences should motivate, inspire, and
empower those involved as they activity unsettle, problematise and challenge.
Adult community educational experiences should be rooted dynamic reality of
individual experience but they should also include new knowledge, knowledge
from outside such as from research and theory. Adult community educational
experiences should provide the opportunity for people to take control of their
learning.
Building on this, our focus on both education and learning encouraged us
to use a variety of methods or activities to encourage new ways of knowing and
understanding the complex, deeply political, no one solution socio-environmental
milieu in which we live. Knowledge can be produced through transfer methods
such as a guest speaker, research findings and/or reading materials. Knowledge
is also created through subjective experience of an issue, such as polluted water
or contaminated food. As feminist adult education theorists argue, knowledge
comes through emotion and sharing personal stories (Manicom & Walters,
2011). Knowledge is produced as much through rational debate and discussion
as it is through the arts and our imaginations. In other words, knowledge always
has a source and these sources are multiple, varied, and dynamic when used in
collaboration.

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INSCAPE, LANDSCAPE, LEARNING AND LIFE: ENVIRONMENTAL WORKSHOPS AT WORK

So how does one do all this? Well, facilitating and educating are not skills easily
taught but here are some thoughts we you might like to consider:
• Teach but relinquish ‘teacher power’;
• Be a resource – know the issues and current research and debates - as much as a
guide and a co-learner;
• Admit - and know- you do not have all the answers: “Be passionately aware that
you could be completely wrong”, as a colleague, dian marino, used to say;
• Listen carefully, do not just ‘hear’; never formulate your response while someone
is speaking;
• Use patient prodding rather than goal seeking and clock watching;
• Permit silence and allow participants time to ponder, think, and often, squirm;
• Take your own risks with the possible outcome of error;
• Encourage diversity of opinion but keep justice and equity at the forefront;
• Be candid about where you stand on an issue but open to learn from others;
• Be flexible, fair, and generous;
• Always be respectful, but again, keep justice and equity at the fore;
• See disagreement and debate as positive learning processes; and
• Place equal value on ‘process’ and ‘content’
Is all this easier said than done? If you do not know the answer to this already, you
are about to find out.

CREATING THE LEARNING/TEACHING MILIEU

It is the task of the educator to create a productive, comfortable yet challenging milieu
or atmosphere for the workshop. One consideration to keep constantly in mind is
that adults do not have to remain in the workshop. They are free to leave at anytime
and if they feel frightened or disrespected and/or they have backed themselves in to
a corner, they will do so. You cannot always create the perfect teaching and learning
balance that keeps everyone happy, but you can continue to try as this takes practise.
As educational theorists tell us, it is important to create an atmosphere of trust,
safely, comfort and importantly, respect. This allows participants the freedom to
more actively participate, disclose and take risks in terms of sharing assumptions,
beliefs, knowledge and feelings. A safe and nurturing environment sends a message
that there are few right or wrong answers or ways to participate and that people
will be listened to and given the time and space to grow. But it is also critical to
create, as alluded to above and in Chapter Two, a space in which sensitive and
complex assumptions and beliefs such as racism or homophobia can be collectively
deconstructed, critiqued, and debated. In other words, individual assumptions can
be tested against the collective. Critique in the form of critical questioning and
reflection should not be seen or used destructively or disrespectfully but rather as
means to interrogate the often hidden beliefs or agendas that define and direct how
people think about each other, society, politics and socio-environmental issues.

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Teaching and learning to critically reflect upon and explore one’s own assumption, to
really listen to what others are saying and to have one’s long held beliefs challenged
can, as Paulo Freire (1970) argued, be very painful but this is a very important part of
socio-environmental transformation. We are arguing that ‘safe’ and ‘challenging’ are
not contradictory but rather, key elements of the teaching and learning continuum.

Conveying the Purpose

What do you as the facilitator want to achieve? What does the group want to
achieve? These are the two questions that should guide you when you begin to
design any workshop. Moreover, it is important to take the time at the beginning
of the workshop to go over the list of goals and allow people to make contributions
or additions. You may have worked with an organising group before the workshop
to develop the purposes and aims and they may have sanctioned the activities you
put forward. However, the participants also need a chance to feel ownership of the
process. We always wrote the goals and objectives on flip-chart paper and pasted it
to the wall somewhere in the workshop space so we could refer back to them and
ensure they were always visible.
Going further, the purpose of each activity should be clearly explained in the
agenda, enabling everyone to have a sense of how the goals are being achieved. You
will see the ‘purpose and objectives’ laid out at the beginning of each activity in
Chapter four. We also took participants through the entire agenda of the workshop
before we began.

Building in Theory

People who attend workshops and other learning activities come because they want
to learn something new, to discover fresh ideas and/or create new things together.
Although the knowledge and experiences of the participants in our workshops
were a major source of content, as we have suggested above, we were responsible
for providing the theoretical framework for the workshop. We always included a
session, as you will see in the following chapter, on theory. We also brought to the
workshop books, articles and studies on either environmental issues or educational
theories, for example.
A major problem with introducing theory, however, is the tendency to take on
the persona of the ‘expert’ and use language that may be highly exclusionary. It is
critical to not only present theories very clearly and with limited jargon. By this,
however, we do not mean that you should avoid ‘teaching’ and introducing new
concepts and ideas. Remember, people are not stupid and you are there because
you believe they can learn. It is equally important, throughout the workshop, to
make links between these theories and the activities as often as possible. As the poet
Adrienne Rich once argued, and here we paraphrase: if theory does not smell of the
Earth, it is not good for the Earth. This can be a metaphor for both respect and for the

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INSCAPE, LANDSCAPE, LEARNING AND LIFE: ENVIRONMENTAL WORKSHOPS AT WORK

goal of environmental justice and sustainability. Through some of the questions we


posed under the activities in the following chapter, you will see how we connected
back to theory.
To make our theory discussions more engaging, to avoid simply be standing
and delivering in lecture-style, we often used a metaphoric activity such as a tree.
The roots were philosophies, the trunk principals, and the leaves and buds new
dimensions of theories (e.g. arts-based or feminist), challenges and debates, for
example.

Knowing Your ‘Audience’

If you initiated the workshop through your workplace or in your community, or if


you are teaching in a college, union setting or university course, you will have a
relatively good idea of who the participants are, or will be, and therefore have some
prior knowledge of their backgrounds, interests, the debates as well as the socio-
environmental issues. If not, ask questions of the organisers who have requested the
workshop and are responsible for the recruiting people. Knowledge such as ages,
gender, ethnicity, kinds of issues, type of workshop required and so forth provide
invaluable information that can guide the development of goals and activities around
issues and the identities. Nothing is fool proof, however, and to give you an example
of what can go wrong when you do not know or misjudge your participants, we share
the following story.

Our Story of Racism

In a workshop in central Ontario in the late 1990’s we (Darlene and Shirley) decided
to use the historical time–line mural–building activity (see “Creating a collective
historical environmental stream in Canada” in Chapter Four) to identify issues and
events that had influenced people’s current environmental education philosophies
and practices. Based on a decision that participants’ ages would range from 30 and
55 and recognition of Rachel Carson’s ground–breaking book Silent Spring (1962) -
widely credited with helping to initiate the contemporary environmental movement
- we set the timeline for the activity between 1960 and the present. After we had
explained the activity, all the participants, including the indigenous participants,
added their thoughts to the existing mural structure. All seemed fine - there was much
chatter and the mural was filling nicely with words and images. However, when it
came to the large group discussion of the contents of the mural, one indigenous
man began to speak about the centuries of inter-generational environmental teaching
and learning that had gone on well before the 1960’s. Naturally, we were horrified
to realise our omission or better said, our ‘whitewashing’ of this major aspect of
Canadian and global history. We had made the mistake and we had to admit to this
as a form of racism, although it was unintentional. We then let the conversation take
a far different course from what we had anticipated when the activity began. In other

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words, we focused on environmental racism. We never forgot the lesson we learned


that day.

The Potential of Humour

As adults learn through politically-orientated processes, as they explore their own


value systems and assumptions, and look more deeply at root causes of problems and
issues in the community (to which they are likely to be contributing more negatively
than they had foreseen) humour can help to scale these difficult mountains and
perilous dales. Using or creating the opportunity for humour not only lightens an
atmosphere, it also enlightens as it brings its own potential to understand. Indeed,
as adult learners struggle with new realities and dawning perceptions, they need to
laugh at themselves and with others.
Roy (2004, p.59) writes that humour can be understood as “a sign of rebelliousness;
laughter can defeat the fear of the unknown.” Humour works as a metaphor “for
transformation...a communal response of sensuous solidarity as it implies common
understanding with others. [and helps people] to cope with the situation of the world.”
(p.59). Making people laugh is also an effective way to materialise complex and
problematic beliefs or assumption lying under the surface at a workshop (e.g. racist
beliefs about aboriginal peoples) which might otherwise be left un-articulated (but
still held), make people shut down as they sense rather than hear these assumptions.
In saying this we by no means imply that environmental issues are ‘funny’ and
neither are sexism, racism or homophobia for that matter. Using humour is neither
trivial nor mindless, but rather something that can be politically intentional, like
education, towards self and social critique. So whilst environmental adult education
can be playful, it must remain educative.
We have witnessed time and again when the most powerful learning moment, the
moment that brought people together and changed the course of the conversations
were those where we asked people to be creatively funny, to use the arts such as
singing a song or performing a skit. We also found that activities such as the Green
Activists’ Callisthenics (see Chapter Four) at the very beginning of the workshop
were extremely successful at creating a relaxed and joyful environment, as it touches
comically on the major stresses of leadership and/or fundraising work.

Art and Creativity

Underlying our discussion of humour is a belief that all humans have creative and
artistic potential. The arts can provide both an environment and a practice of active
engagement in creative experience, processes, and development. Introducing adults
to artistic processes cultivates a sense of creative agency and initiative, a fertile or
what Wyman (2004) calls a defiant imagination, a sense of empathy and a capacity
for critical reflection and freedom of thought and action. As noted, imagination,
creativity and innovation are present in every human and can and should nurtured

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INSCAPE, LANDSCAPE, LEARNING AND LIFE: ENVIRONMENTAL WORKSHOPS AT WORK

and applied, particularly in response to social and environmental challenges (Clover


& Stalker, 2007). As UNESCO (2006) argues, “imagination is the characteristic
feature of human intelligence, creativity is the application of imagination, and
innovation completes the process by utilising critical judgement in the application
of an idea” (p.7).
Problematically, education has tangentially focussed on the intellectual or cognitive
dimension – on the potential of rational debate, discussion and argumentation – and
this has excluded the arts. But if rationality were all we required, the world would be
a much different place. You would simply highlight the ‘data’ on climate change and
voila, substantive change. But of course ideology is always at play and this means
diverse and creative responses are required (see The Positive Energy Quilts, Chapter
Five).
We would argue that whilst we need to respect the emotive and affective potential
of the arts, we must also comprehend them as cognitive praxis, as radical subversive
practices that develop our cognitive capacities and allow us to also think theoretical
and analytically about issues and the needs of community.
Yet you need to recognise why participants may be very timid about being
creative and/or engaging in the arts. Many have painful memories of art class in
school. Others reduce art and creativity to drawing or painting and since they lack
the ability (as we do!) to do either, they equate that lack of skill with not being
artistic or creative. But once they get the idea that art is about fun and creativity, that
is not about judgment, there is no stopping them.
Most of the time, the artworks created in our environmental adult education
workshops were simply for that moment, for that particular space and time.
Process – the collective act of creating or performing - dominated the ‘product’.
However there are times when it is important to emphasise the product – the artwork
or performance – if you intend to use it in the public domain. In this case, the artwork
or theatre piece, and not simply the process, will actually do the public speaking
for the participants about the issues they tackled and feel need to be shared. As
the facilitator you do not need to be an artist (we are not), but if you intend to use
the artwork to stimulate critical thinking and deeper reflection in the general public
consider working with a community-based artist who will emphasise both process
and product. The piece will still be collective and ‘political’, but the ‘quality’,
the attention to artistic detail, will enable the work to stand up to public scrutiny.
We do not speak here of issue of ‘beauty’ but of integrity for it is this sense of
artistic integrity that enables people to feel proud of what has been created but also,
circumvents the ability to simply dismiss the message being conveyed on the basis
of artistic merit. Think about bringing in a professional artist to work with a group
and what this looks likes is featured in many of the activities in Chapter Five.
Having said the above, it is critical here that we speak to the challenges of creativity
and the arts. To begin, the arts cannot be seen as a panacea for what ails the world,
nor for what is ailing your workshop. Nor should the arts and imaginative education
and learning practice be aligned with the neo-liberal concept of developing a more

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‘creative, flexible, adaptable and innovative’ workforce. Problematise language and


ideas that naturalise or normalise exploitation whether of humans or the environment.

A Story of the Arts

I (Darlene) glanced with a mixture of excitement yet some trepidation from the
large, blank canvas of butcher paper attached to the blackboard in front of me, to
the array of pastel watercolours on the desk at my side. Finally, this was a ‘real’
art class – I was in grade five - and an opportunity to create a ‘real’ painting. The
image our teacher had chosen for us to reproduce was the quintessential idyllic
western Canadian scene of mountains in the background with a river flowing to the
foreground, edged by trees, rocks and shrubs. I sketched the outline as best I could
with a pencil and then dove for the pastels, using as many of the hues and shades as
possible to bring the drawing to life. Our teacher milled about, speaking sotto voce to
some students whilst simply looking askance at others, including me, without word.
I continued to touch up my painting until the teacher requested we step back from
our artworks. As she scrutinised my vivid ‘impressionistic’ drawing she sighed: “It
is clear you will never be an artist.”

Valuing Emotion

As mentioned earlier, feminist adult educators have long realised the important role
that emotions play in our daily lives and the learning process. We move from one
emotion to another throughout a single day and use them as tools of motivation.
However, traditional education has often stifled or ignored the emotions. Those who
exhibit emotion are often deemed hysterical or illogical. But we feel that passions
such as fear, wonder, love, sadness, anger and happiness are powerful tools. Anger
about pollution and injustice stimulate passionate dialogue. Feelings of wonder and
excitement about the rest of nature are infectious in a group. Sharing our emotions
and naming feelings has both a personal and collective transformative potential.
Theatre, poetry, storytelling, dancing, singing, and drawing are excellent mediums
through which people can express their emotions.
We are suggesting two things. Firstly, challenge comments such as ‘you are too
emotional’ or ‘those are just feelings talking and not the facts.’ Indeed, listen actively
for them. Secondly, and here we are also including the arts as discussed above,
remember the ‘whole’ person in the teaching and learning process.

Time, Timing and Group Size

Forecasting the time it will take for an activity is often difficult, but it is important.
Through practise, you will be able to approximate the time required for each activity,
while allowing for the unexpected such as group size and enthusiasm. Every activity
in Chapter Four has the time with it, based on 15–20 participants.

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Although keeping to schedule is seen as efficient and professional, unwillingness


to bend or change direction can result in anything from mild dissatisfaction to out-
and-out rebellion by the group. If your desire is a workshop that meets the needs
of participants and results in transformational learning and future action, then
scheduling flexibility is very important. Having one’s “eye and ear on the pulse” of
the workshop is vital. Set your time-line for an activity, keep it in mind but do not
allow it to determine or dictate the conversations. If you are desperately feeling you
need to get through all the activities, you may need to re-visit the purpose of the
workshop with the participants.

Valuing Small Group Process

Small group work is an extremely important aspect of any workshop. It is in the


small groups where participants can delve more deeply in issues, share their ideas
and visions. It is also in this space that strategies can be identified and dreamed
into being. Small groups also provide the best opportunity for those who may be
intimidated to speak in a large group, such as women or people whose first language
is not the dominant language, to share more openly. These groups, however, are
not a panacea for open communication. Power relations exist even in these more
democratic spaces. We suggest sitting in on them and listening for examples of
domination that can be raised through some critical questioning in the large group
feedback.
Before forming a small group, clearly explain the activity and what is expected.
The better the understanding participants have in terms of what they are being asked
to do, the better the results. Instructions and questions should be posted on flip–chart
paper or on sheets of paper and provided to each small group for easy reference.
The simplest way to create a small group is to number people off consecutively.
Remind the participants to choose a rapporteur, responsible for taking notes and
reporting back to the larger group. Many groups, however, will decide to share
this reporting role which allows everyone to practise communication skills and
synthesise ideas.

Balancing the Individual and the Collective

Underlying much of what we have talked about above are the issues of individualism
and the collective. Kilgore (1999) believes, and we have touched on this in Chapter
Two, that our dominant focus in learning has been primarily on individual inner
understandings and knowledge. As we push, through our teaching and learning
practice, for greater socio-environmental justice and sustainability, we must be
careful not to deny these individual experiences, values and identities rendering them
invisible in the tyranny of a collective vision or ‘consensus’. But “individual critical
reflection does not necessarily result in social action” (p.195). People collectively
develop solutions to the social and environmental problems or, as Finger (1995)

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argues, adult education must be a collaborative effort “because there is no individual


way out” (p.116).
We attempted as often as possible in the activities we developed to allow a space
for individuals to tell their own stories, but to help them to contextualise these in
the larger socio-political and milieu as we pushed for a greater collective identity of
shared understandings, confidence, agency and solidarity.

ECOLOGICAL CONTEXT AND FRAMEWORK

Every place, not matter how ‘godforsaken’ to an outsider, engenders passion


in the people actually living there. Therefore, every place is intrinsically
important.
Broadhurst, 1999
Although we are not always aware of them, the layers of social life, the marks
of ideologies…are critical to our sense of place.
Hutchinson, 1999
Consideration of context– the setting - is significant to community workshops in
general, but it is particularly important if you intend to use the community and
the rest of nature and other ‘environmental’ spaces as teacher and site of learning.
Mongrad (1999) suggests, “the ritual and building of experience in place is what
creates poetry in the landscape” (p.28). Martin believes that learning in place is a
“complex web of actions, interactions, negotiations, risks and challenges. [There]
are elements that sometimes support, sometimes negate” (p.27).
Understanding the workshop site or location allows you to conceptualise the types
of activities you will be able to undertake. For example, if the workshop venue is in
the centre of a concrete city jungle, then your focus is more likely to be on the urban
environment, touching on concepts such as consumerism and focussing on shopping
centres juxtaposed against small patches of green space. In Chapter Four we include
an activity we created for the urban environment: Consumerism R Us? Not only is
this a very political activity, but as Enright (1999) notes, it is a ‘place-making activity
for “a space does not become a place until it’s used for a purpose not intended by
the designer” (p.21). Reclaiming ‘place’ and ‘space’ in our communities is a subtext
or underlying purpose of all the activities we designed beyond the workshop doors.
As with most learning settings, it is often important in environmental adult
education workshops to have some minimal requirements such as windows that
provide good ventilation and light, and easy access to the out of doors that is not
simply a busy motorway. However, we have facilitated workshops in musty church
basements and enclosed hotel conference rooms without windows and edged by
airports and although draining, it did encourage us to be more active ‘place makers’.
Firstly, we drew attention to the misery of the setting and asked participants to
transform it by drawing ‘windows’ or plants with coloured pencils on butcher paper

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INSCAPE, LANDSCAPE, LEARNING AND LIFE: ENVIRONMENTAL WORKSHOPS AT WORK

and pasting them to the walls. Secondly, when we knew about the space beforehand,
we brought flowers, posters or pasted up poems and quotations – such as the ones
at the beginning of this section - around the room. An airport or motorway provide
a more poignant and politicised atmosphere for activities such as ‘sense-mapping’.
Mind (and use) the fumes!
Equally important to the success of an environmental adult education workshop
is access to natural settings such as a park or streams, whether idyllic or polluted,
within walking distance or a short bus ride or car-pool away. The further you need to
go, the more time you need to add. But what is key here is that learning from, in and
through the rest of nature most often demands being in the natural world.

The Ecological Agenda

Developing a workshop that is truly contextualised within an ecological framework was


a challenge for us. Firstly, the ‘ecological’ aspects of the world were all but ignored by
adult educators and as that was our training, we were at a loss in the beginning of how
to do this. For example, previous examinations of power relations have excluded people
over the rest of nature; discussions around health and healing ignored the emotional
and psychological impacts the rest of nature has on human beings. The second is
that communities do not create pockets or categories of social, political, health, and
environmental dimensions. Instead, they often view these issues as interconnecting,
overlapping and interwoven: basic elements of the make-up of their community.
Educational approaches have had to catch up with this perspective and become
more integrative, with each activity touching upon all of these aspects or at least as
many as possible. There are several broad factors to be considered when developing
an ecologically focussed agenda or course. Some of these include:

• Using the rest of nature as teacher and site of learning–either by going outside or
by bringing things indoors;
• Using and encouraging natural metaphors (i.e. murals of rivers, mountains and
so forth);
• Using people’s stories of experiences with the rest of nature;
• Ensuring that outdoor activities are conscious of, respect and deal with socially
constructed fears and concerns (i.e. media portrayals of rogue sharks, bears, etc.);
• Being conscious of gender difference in the outdoors (i.e. do not encourage men
to engage in certain activities because they are ‘stronger’ or women to do things
to make them ‘equal’ even though they may be frightened or uncomfortable);
• Avoiding the use of ‘us against the rest of nature’ metaphors such as ‘conquering’
mountains or ‘malicious’ storms (which have no evil intentions);
• Continually asking how the rest of nature can be a partner and support in people’s
lives and any community, school, or societal changes;
• Re-instilling or encouraging wonder and awe for the world; and
• Encouraging the continual use of the senses and the body as media of learning

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THE CHECKLIST

Below we provide a checklist of questions, based on the discussions in this chapter


you can use to design your workshop.
• What is the overall goal of the workshop or course - what do I want to achieve?
• Have I defined the purpose of each activity? What is the educational internality?
• Why am I asking people to do this (or these activities)?
• Who is my ‘audience’?
• What theories do I adhere to and how will I bring these into the workshop?
• Will people have fun?
• Have I used the arts and/or other creative practices to tap into human aesthetic
dimension?
• How many different types of ‘learning practices’ am I tapping into?
• Have I managed to create an atmosphere, tone or milieu that is open and friendly
but which also challenges and critically examines beliefs and assumptions?
• Have I left enough time to really be able to ‘listen’ and encourage dialogue?
• Do the goals and activities match the workshop site?
• How is the rest of nature woven in the overall design? Does it underlay all we
are doing?
• What assumptions am I perhaps problematically bringing?

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CHAPTER 4

THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT


EDUCATION

We are all poets,


storytellers,
songwriters,
artists,
actors, and more
This chapter focuses on the praxis of environmental adult education. Praxis is the
process by which theory, through questioning, dialogue and inter-action – and we
would add creativity – is enacted, embodied, applied and practised. Although many
activities revolve around a specific problem such as waste, women’s knowledge, or
were used for a particular purpose, they can be adapted to suit almost any need or
any issue. Indeed, every one of these activities has been used numerous times (and
adapted) and they were all effective in community and classroom environments.
Praxis that fell short of our expectations was discarded in to the flotsam and jetsam
of experience.
As noted in previous chapters, the workshop settings and the participants
were diverse and we learned to improvise – or create alternatives – to work with
what we had. At times we found ourselves facing a group of white, middle class
environmental/health community activists in a state-of-the-art adult education
centre where chairs and tables rolled with ease and flip–charts, coloured markers
and white-boards abounded. Other situations, however, were markedly different.
In Thailand the workshop included a group of environmental educators from
China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore and Indonesia and
was held on a beach. We had flip–chart paper and some markers, but took turns
acting as the flip–chart stand. The shifting sands, ebb and flow of the tides and
gnarled nets of the fisher folk who came ashore frequently into the midst of our
workshop added poignant, active metaphors which often captured. So if you look
at an activity and wonder what the context was, it was ever dynamic and what lay
behind was resourcefulness and flexibility, and, of course the occasional major
blunder.
To simply replicate an activity exactly as it stands is possible, particularly some of
the evaluation and introductory activities. But for others we this would not serve you
well and so we have deliberately left the activities more open–ended and somewhat
vague. This is not meant to cause any anxieties or a belief that they would not be

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useful to you but rather, to provide you with an opportunity to be more creative, more
pro-active and particularly, to pay attention to your own context, your own location,
your own audience. We do, however, ensure that you will have the materials or
resources you need to make an altered book, for example, or an idea of the amount
of time an activity will take although the more complex and intriguing the issue, the
longer people will discuss and debate. It is up to you to decide if you will stop the
conversation and move on to the next activity or if you will veer from the agenda
towards what is clearly a critical issue or concern that must be dealt with openly and
over time.
As alluded to in Chapter Three, it is important to begin the workshop or a course
by sharing the overall purpose, objectives and the activities that will take place.
This permits the participants or students the opportunity to add suggestions from
the beginning (and during the process) and feel more of a sense of ownership. It
also makes it clear that it is about both education and learning and they will be often
with the educators/instructors many times in the drivers seat. So while we do not say
this at the beginning of each activity, we always went over the agenda and solicited
feedback before we began.
The time we suggest for each activity is approximate and will need to be adapted
and changed depending on the size, enthusiasm and/or needs of the group. We found
the optimal group size – in fact the time lines are based on this – was between 10 and
15 people although we worked with much smaller and much larger.
All the questions following the activities were what we used and again, will
need to be modified to suit the specific context of the issues, group needs and so
on. Almost all the activities can take place either inside or outdoors, although we
suggest, for obvious reasons, that as often as possible meeting outdoors. The rest
of nature is often its own best teacher and facilitator. Use its educative attributes
to stimulate dialogue, reflection, and emotions. There are always walls or trees to
which you can tape butcher paper, and most flip–chart stands are portable (and as
noted you can act as one as well).
As you peruse the various types of activities in this chapter, use your imagination
and dream them in to your context. Remember, trust and believe in the process, the
arts, the rest of nature and the people with whom you are working.
As we noted in chapter one, as you go through the activities do not be lulled into
believing they are ‘simple’. Neither adults nor environmental issues are. And again,
theorising all the discussions will ensure the digging goes deeper, the understandings
become broader and sharper and the conversations become more difficult yet
rewarding.

INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITIES: WEAVING NATURAL AND SOCIAL WORLDS

The purpose of any introductory activity is to create a collaborative, fun, mutually


supportive yet critically stimulating and challenging environment. They also aim to
uncover information about the participants, the context or issues. These activities,

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

although appearing to be quite simple, can also flag tensions that may exist in a group
and will need to be dealt with over the course of the workshop (or class). Multi-sectorial
or generational groups may believe there is a socio-environmental problem – the
reason they attended the workshop in the first place – but how they communicate and
conceptualise the problem, and believe it needs to be addressed can vary greatly. Some
activities are ‘embodied’ and by this we mean they actively use our arms, legs and so
forth. Never ask anyone to stand, flail about, bend, etcetera unless they feel comfortable
doing so. In other words, for every activity in this book, opting out is an option.
We found what often worked best for the introductory activities, was for
the facilitator (or one of the facilitators) to begin by introducing her or himself.
This clarifies the questions being asked, the objectives of the activity and what is
‘expected’, although what will happen next once in the hands of the participants
is seldom what is ‘expected’. Keep in mind that simple questions can be difficult
questions. For example, a question such as ‘Where are you from?’ can be a very
complex question, depending on the context. It can make people think deeply about
their roots; it can have racist overtones. Do not avoid asking ‘difficult’ questions
– it sharpens the mind to keep difficult company – but answer them yourself, and
problematise them, before asking others to do so.

Green Activist’s Calisthenics

Time: 10 minutes
Purpose: To have fun and get our bodies moving
How to:
Participants stand and follow the leader who engages them in such callisthenics as the:
• Who’s in Charge Shrug (shrugging the shoulders up hard and then letting go –
relieves tension in the shoulders whilst shrugging off responsibility)
• Side-stepping of the Issue (jumping quickly from one foot to the other to avoid
responding or dealing with an issue)
• Leadership Twist (twisting from one side to other in order to respond to all the
demands that come from all sides)
• Fundraising Bend (stooping to pick-up coins off the street, the only funds
available for community work)
(Note: Adapted from exercises by Barb Thomas and D’Arcy Martin, Toronto)

Opening with Nature

Time: 30 minutes
Purpose: To create a relaxed atmosphere; Get acquainted by finding out different
things about each other and connecting to the rest of nature

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How to:
Each participant responds to the following questions (these are some suggestions
and can be modified):
• Name?
• Where you were born? (where are you ‘from’?)
• What is your volunteer and/or paid work?
• Why have you come to the workshop (goals, objectives and concerns)?
• What animal, insect, plant or any other element of the rest of nature you feel most
like today and why?

Tell us a Story

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To connect through story because we story our lives
How to:
1. Participants stand or sit in a circle
2. Going around the circle, each participant:
• States her or his name
• States where they were born and/or where they now live
• Shares one humorous, sensual, frightening, awe-inspiring incident they have
had with the rest of nature (or the built environment if they prefer)

Connecting to the Earth

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To share what the planet means in our lives
How to:
1. Participants are taken to a forest, park, seashore, field, or any other outdoor
location
2. Participants are asked to find an object they “connect or identify” with (i.e. flower,
shell, stick, rock, piece of metal, cigarette butt). The duration of this first step is
about 10–15 minutes
3. Participants form a circle and place the objects into the centre and are given a few
minutes to observe all of diverse objects
4. Participants are asked to identity their object and explain why it was chosen and
what it represents
5. Once all participants have shared their thoughts, facilitators reflect on what
the object may represent to the Earth or how it ended up at that specific site.

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

For instance, if someone had picked a piece of old metal, the individual should
be encouraged to think about where it came from, why it is there, what it is used
for and so on
6. The large group shares their thoughts on the connections between the objects,
their lives, the planet and so forth

Environmental Buses: Travelling Together

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To get acquainted and identify key environmental interests
Requirements: Paper bus signs with categories such as Health, Economy, Education,
etc. (the names will depend on the theme of the workshop and what you hope to find
out about the participants); An open space with four or five chairs grouped in various
parts of the room; Flip–chart paper and markers
How to:
1. Place a sign on the front of a group of chairs (such as global warming, poverty,
health, and etcetera)
2. Participants enter the bus of their choice (based on work in which they have been
involved or a particular interest). No bus should have less than two passengers. If
this occurs, passengers should come together under a merged theme
3. When the buses are loaded passengers each group responds to the following
questions:
• You name
• Your place of birth
• The reason for taking the bus (e.g. why that particular socio-environmental
issue is of most importance to you)
4. Once all have spoken the large group discusses the linkages between the issues
represented by the buses and how they relate to the overall goals of the workshop

Artistic Introduction

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To get acquainted with each other through the arts
Requirements: Flip–chart paper and pens
How to:
1. Each participant is given a piece of flip–chart paper and asked to draw (or collect)
something that symbolises:

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• Your name
• Some aspect of your life that you want to share with the group
• Your reason for coming to this workshop/course/teach-in
• How you see yourself in relation to the rest of nature
2. Each participant shares her or symbols with the rest of the group
Variation: The facilitators can have a variety of magazines and other objects and
participants can choose from these; participants can be sent outside to find something
symbolic – let your imagination run wild)

Learning our Nature

Time: 30 minutes
Purpose: To get acquainted by finding out about each other
How to: Participants respond to the following questions:
• your name and work (paid/volunteer)
• name a plant indigenous to your bioregion
Other suggestions for questions:
• Name a plant or animal you like or feel close to and state why
• Name your favourite vegetable or fruit that is indigenous to your area
• Name your favourite eco-system and why

The Tree of Education and Learning Practices

Time: 2.5 hours


Purpose: To explore our diverse experiences of learning informally, non-formally
and formally through the rest of nature; To identify participants’ expectations from
the workshop
Requirements: A large piece of butcher paper attached to a wall with a large tree
outline drawn on it; coloured paper cut into the shape of roots, bark, leaves, branches,
buds and rain drops; glue sticks
How to:
1. Participants are divided into small groups
2. Roots: Informal (Childhood) Practices – participants are given roots and asked
to identify some of the important things they learned as a child, by whom and in
particular, the method or practice used (it always works best if the facilitator can
give an example from her/ his own experiences to demonstrate more clearly what
is meant)

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

3. Bark: School Experiences (Formal) – the groups are given pieces of bark and asked
again to identify important things they learned in the pedagogical institutions
(public, middle, high, college, university) they attended which help them in their
work, and in particular, the method or approach used by a teacher or professor
which was most helpful/inspirational
4. Leaves: Growing through Self-directed and Non-formal Learning – groups are
given leaves and asked to identify something they learned by engaging in a non-
formal learning experience (volunteering, workshop, etc.) which is important to
their work and what methods or approaches kept them interested
5. Branches: name one or two things learned from the rest of nature and how
that lesson was taught/learned (the rest of nature at this point does not include
people)
6. Buds – New Knowledge and Ideas – participants are asked, based on what they
have uncovered about their own past learning experiences, what their expectations
are for the workshop in terms of the educational skills and knowledge they would
like to take away
7. The Nurturing Rain Drops – The facilitators place the rain drops around the
trees and discuss with the group the ways in which the activities planned for the
workshop (as well as what will come later from the groups itself) will provide the
various skills and/or knowledge identified by the group

RE-CONNECTING ACTIVITIES

We found it extremely useful to actually use a purposeful reconnecting activity


after a break such as lunch or an evening. The aims varied: to bring the group back
to where we had left off, to have fun, to revisit contentious issues and/or to bring
everyone to the same starting place.

Re-connecting through Nature and Song

Time: 90 minutes
Purpose: To have fun, re-energise and re-connect after an evening or lunch break
Requirements: Flip–chart paper and markers
How to:
1. Each participant is asked to either:
• make the sound of an animal, insect or any other element of nature (others are
asked to identify what makes that sound)
• sing the first line of a song from their country, town, region, area, etcetera
2. Facilitators record the song titles, animals mentioned and so on, on flip–chart
paper

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Refreshing our Memories

Time: 20 minutes
Purpose: To re-connect with what we did yesterday (or in the morning)
Requirements: Flip–chart and markers
How to:
1. The facilitator asks participants to identify main points of what took place
previously in the workshop and records this on the flip–chart;
2. How do you feel about yesterday? What did you learn? What inspired you? What
did you find problematic?
3. The group shares and discusses how to address these or help them to continue
Variation: At the conclusion of the first day of the workshop, participants write
down the pros and cons of the workshop and/or what they have learned. Facilitator
presents this to the group the following morning and items are flagged collectively
for further discussion

Looking Back

Time: 15 minutes
Purpose: To remember ourselves as educators and learners
Requirements: Flip–chart and markers
How to:
1. Participants are put into small groups, share what they have learned the previous
day and record these on flip–chart paper
2. The designated rapporteur shares the key points
3. Facilitator leads a group discussion, asking for what stands out, commonalities,
key issues, etcetera

BROADENING THE ANALYSIS OF OPPRESSION: WEAVING IN


THE REST OF NATURE

We need to critically examine the unjust power of relation behind contemporary


social and environmental trends.

The Discourse Tree

Time: 2 hours
Purpose: To explore the power, potential and problematic of diverse ‘sectoral
discourses

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

Requirements: Large tree drawn on butcher paper with roots, trunk, branches and
leaves
How to:
1. Participants go into small groups and identify a rapporteur:
2. Group A: writes a definition of the economy and its relationship to the environment
(leaves);
Group B: writes a definition of health and its relationship to the environment
(branches);
Group C: writes a definition of education and its relationship the environment
(trunk); and
Group D: writes a definition of community and its relationship to the environment
(roots)
3. Participants come together and explore the discourse, the relationship between
power and language through this activity and how this can be overcome.

The River of Learning and Transformation

Time: 2 hours
Purpose: To reflect on learning as change, to look at what has influenced or changed
us in order to build an understanding of what influences and changes other people
(there is always more than one influence) in order to come to an understanding that
change is possible if we work together
Requirements: Butcher paper, reeds cut from green paper, boulders cut from brown
paper and fish cut from blue paper, glue and tape
How to:
1. Divide participants into small groups and ask them to choose a rapporteur.
2. Each group is given a question:
Question: What are internal/personal inhibitors to change and reaching our
goals?
3. Responses to this question are written on the reeds and placed in the river
Question: What are external challenges and obstacles to meeting their
goals?
4. Responses are written on the boulders and placed in the river
Question: What are some strategies you can think of to overcome internal and
external obstacles?
5. Responses are recorded on blue fish
6. After the fish have been place in the river the large group analyses and discusses
the overall picture, applying broader understandings of the nature of society,
power, gender relations, racism, et cetera to the discussion

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Exclusion and Inclusion

Time: 2 hours
Purpose:
Part A: To discuss the feelings, and dynamics of inclusion and exclusion as a
social process
Part B: To strategise ways to address a particular environmental issue through an
educational process
Requirements: Flip–chart paper and markers
How to:
Part A Remembering Inclusion and Exclusion
1. Participants form into small groups and identify a rapporteur
2. Each group is given markers and two pieces of flip–chart paper one labelled
“Inclusion” the other “Exclusion”
3. Participants draw a symbol/image(s) of what it feels like to be included in an
activity or group
4. They then draw symbols or images to reflect what it feels like to be excluded
5. In large group rapporteur shares the images and the group discusses them
6. The facilitator moves to the next stage

Part B Issue Identification


1. Same small groups identify a rapporteur and two environmental issues that are of
particular importance in their region and why it is important
2. The rapporteur reports back and this is recorded by the facilitator
3. Large group identifies two of the recorded issues they would like to work
with
4. Same small groups respond to the following questions on flip–chart paper:
• Who seems to have the most power/who control around this issue? What
structures or normative practices in society allow this to ‘seem to be’?
• Who has the least power and control and why?
• What is the impact of exclusion? What do we lose in our work and community/
society as whole? (facilitators probe around artistic skill, different knowledges
and so forth)
5. All flip–charts are pinned to the wall. The rapporteur from group one reports on
their responses to question number one, group two to question number two and so
on. At the conclusion all groups add ideas they had that were different
(Note: if time permits, all groups can share their ideas on all the questions
but having each group report back on only one question and then add what was
missed at the end saves time and avoids repetition)

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

6. Facilitators ask the following questions that have been recorded on flip–chart
paper previously:
• What new understanding of the issues do you have in terms of information and
power relationships?
• What does this say about inclusion and exclusion as a social process?
• How can this be challenged and transformed in our work and/or community?

Building a More Healthy Community Network: The Sun at the Centre

Time: 2 hours
Purpose: To strengthen our visions and work, by identifying sectors of society and
elements of nature missing or marginalised in the process of creating a healthy community
Requirements: Draw large sun on butcher paper with small centre large rays; green,
blue orange and red markers
How to:
1. Participants break into small groups and identify a rapporteur
2. Two small groups identify various groups or individuals who are often marginalised
from mainstream healthy community development activities and using the orange
and red markers place these ideas on the rays of the sun
3. Two small groups identify various elements of the natural world that are
marginalised in their community and using the blue and green markers, place
these ideas on the rays of the sun.
4. The rapporteur of each group explains what has been written and the group
discusses reasons why these particular elements of society and nature are often
excluded
5. The large group identifies different ways to involve these marginalised elements
in order to develop a truly healthy community

Inscape and Landscape

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To explore how the dominant cultural understanding of nature is created
from our own experiences; To understand how cultural beliefs are at the root of how
people relate to the rest of nature.
Requirements: Flip–chart paper and markers
How to:
1. In small groups, participants identify a rapporteur and then a variety of cultural
traditions and symbols with which they are familiar (i.e. shopping centres, nature

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programmes, front lawns, and so forth) and these are recorded on flip–chart
paper.
2. The rapporteur shares these with the larger group.
3. In a large group, participants discuss the following:
• How cultural traditions have used or portrayed the rest of nature;
• The types of human/nature relationships inherited in these cultural spaces; and
• The sets of values and symbols reflected.
(Note: films can also be shown that focus on cultures and the land such as Heart of
the Matter: You’ve Got the Power, a film about the Cree struggle in Canada against
Hydro Quebec)

Living Gender

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To help participants examine the gender socialisation process by
understanding how the world is shaped towards feminine and masculine
Requirements: Small groups
How to:
1. Participants are asked to close their eyes and relax
2. The facilitator asks them to think about what they did the day before, activities
in which they engaged, feelings they had, places they went, thoughts they had,
conversations, etc.
3. The facilitator then asks them to think about ways in which these activities,
conversations, feelings were linked to their gender role in society
4. In small groups, participants identify a rapporteur and share their thoughts and
why or how they shape who they are
5. In a large group, participants discuss the following:
• How society has pre-determined the roles we will play as men and women
(theories of social construction);
• How effective this process is in determining your place in society (how do we
internalise this); and
• The ways in which people challenge these roles (use feminist theory and practice)
(Adapted from a workshop at York University, Toronto)

Reconceptualising Work

Time: 3 hours
Purpose: To stimulate discussion and ideas to identify a variety of sustainable or
‘green’ jobs, needed in our communities and the financial, human and in-kind

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

resources available to support these jobs; To demonstrate to people that they have
the knowledge, skills and creativity to make changes in their own lives and their
communities (whilst acknowledging structural challenges and therefore, thinking
activist/politically)
Requirements: Flip–chart paper and markers
How to:
1. Participants are divided into small groups, given pieces of flip–chart paper, asked
to identify a rapporteur and then asked to reflect upon and respond to the following
questions, which were written down previously by the facilitators:
• What do sustainability and a healthy community mean to us?
• What are the functional purposes of work?
• What are the implicit and explicit values behind these functional purposes?
• What are the connections between health and work?
• What do you consider the role of governments to be in job creation?
• Why is the rest of nature ignored in the process of job creation?
• What is the role the rest of nature plays in our health and that of our communities?
2. Each group reports back and shares their ideas with the larger group
3. In the same small groups, participants are asked to identify:
• jobs you feel need to be done in the community; and
• jobs you would like or be willing to do (the idea is not to come up with a series
of jobs you would never want to have anything to do with!).
4. Participants come back into the larger group and share their ideas
5. In the same small groups, people are asked to identify resources that exist in
the community or through the government or private enterprise to create
these jobs
6. They come back to the large group and share these ideas
7. To broaden the discussion, facilitators interject in conversations, framing
discussion through various theories: Marxist theory and/or neoliberal conceptions
of the ‘adaptable, flexible workforce’, the new ‘knowledge economy’, the
decimation of unions, and/or the problematic ‘learning for earning’ emphases in
adult education)

Ecological Media Literacy

Time: 3 hours
Purpose: The purpose of this activity is to develop ecological literacy skills through
the examination of the discourse used in news reports, articles, (columns) or videos
about an environment issue or struggle (i.e. building of a dam, development on a
fragile ecosystem, etc.).

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Requirements: A short article or a video about the environment (often videos will
attempt to show both sides of a debate and can be viewed collectively so they can be
quite useful tools); flip–chart paper and pens.
How to:
1. In a large group, participants discuss the following questions, which have been
written on a flip–chart:
• which views presented in the article or video do you think represent the
‘dominant’ message or story about the environmental problem discussed?
• How has this ‘dominant” message or story been presented for emphasis?
• What has been ignored to make the ‘dominant” story convincing?
• What social, economic or political interests does it serve?
• What are some of the ‘other’ messages or stories heard in this video or outlined
in the article about the environment?
• Are any of the views presented ‘objectively’?
• Why is it important to understand that there are ‘dominant’ and multiple
messages or stories?
• How can we learn to value and remember to critically examine ‘multiple’
messages or stories and perspectives?
2. In small groups, participants choose a rapporteur and brainstorm ideas for
educational activities they could develop to help people to explore more critically
stories and messages about environmental issues
3. The rapporteurs report back to the larger group and facilitators ask the following
questions:
• What are the most common methods chosen?
• What is the role of the facilitator or practitioner?
• How did you weave the rest of nature into your activity? If you did not, why
not? Can you think of how you could/would now?
• Why is there an apparent lack of critical analytical thinking in our society?

LEARNING THROUGH OUR HISTORICAL ROOTS: WEAVING OUR


LANDSCAPES FROM MEMORY

We learn by beginning with our daily-lived experience but by also understanding our
own locations and contexts.

The Historical Environmental Learning Stream

Time: 3 hours
Purpose: To analyse environmental events and issues within and outside Canada
that have influenced adult education; to produce a visual history of environmental

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

adult education in Canada (as we understand it); To brainstorm educational action


strategies (Any country can be used for this activity so know some of your own
history, particularly in terms of marginalised populations – remember ‘our story of
racism’)
Requirements: A large mural with a stream surrounded by pine trees, fields, lanes,
wildflowers, bushes, mountains, and so on (use your imagination but encourage
some type of metaphor); rocks cut from brown paper, fish from blue, trees from
green (or anything that fits the metaphor)
How to:
1. In small groups, participants identify a rapporteur and respond to the following:
• identify major global and Canadian events (political, social, cultural, etc.) that
have shaped the environmental movement in Canada. These are written on
boulders and placed on the mural; and
• identity some concepts and practises of environmental education that have
emerged as a result of these challenging events; these are written on green
trees and placed on the mural.
2. The rapporteurs place these on a mural and report back
3. The rapporteur places these on the mural and reports back
4. Participants are asked for:
• conclusions they have drawn about Canadian environmental education (i.e.,
what is missing) and environmental adult education; and
• how can applying theory (post-colonialism, anti-racist education, feminist, et
cetera help us in our future work to think these things through better?
5. The group brainstorms theory and actions that can be taken to address
marginalisation and exclusion

Personal Environmental Historical Stream

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To situate our own involvement with environmental issues and how these
are linked to other social problems; To explore our own values and knowledge
Requirements: A large mural of a stream surrounded by forests, etc. (or whatever other
natural and human features surround a stream); boulders, fish, reeds, and lily pads
How to:
1. In small groups participants identify a rapporteur and share a:
• moment when they first became aware of an environmental issue or issues:
these are recorded on reeds

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• Moment when they became aware of a link between what is considered a


social issue and an “environmental problem”: these are recorded on boulders
• Way this knowledge and understanding shaped your life/work: these are
recorded on lily pads
2. Rapporteurs report back to the larger group and participants brainstorm ways they
can help other members of their community to explore these connections and link
them to theory so they can probe for missing elements

Ecological Storytelling

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To use the art of storytelling as ecological education tools; To better
understand how past experiences have shaped our relationship to the rest of
nature
Requirements: lip chart paper and coloured markers
How to:
1. Participants break into small groups and identify a rapporteur who will describe
the drawings and share the stories
2. Each member of the small groups share three (or one if there is not much
time) significant events/experiences in their lives that have contributed to their
relationship with, attitude and behaviour towards the rest of nature. While sharing
the stories they draw an image or picture on the flip chart paper that represents
the story
3. The rapporteur shares the pictures and stories with the larger group
4. Participants respond to the following questions:
• What is the significance of art and storytelling as environmental adult
education?
• What is the effect of using peoples’ experiences and knowledge about place/
sense of nature in help build community?
• What are some of the limitations of people’s knowledge and experiences in
terms of understanding the environmental crisis we face?
• How does this knowledge affect future education strategies?

Variation: Nature as Foe

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To analyse negative memories of the rest of nature and how they have been
constructed and/or mediated
Requirements: Flip–chart paper and pens

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

How to:
1. Flip–chart paper is distributed and small groups identify a rapporteur. They then:
• Share one negative memory they have around the rest of nature;
• Describe the social and economic circumstances at that time and/or the role of
the media; and
• Describe how it has affected how they think and feel about the rest nature;
• Describe what impact they feel it has made on their behaviour.
2. The rapporteurs report back to the larger group and participants discuss the role of
the media, the potential and limitations of experience, the politics of representation
3. Why is it importance to respect but also, look beyond the immediate and known?
Facilitators ask about and share theories that can help participants to situate their
experiences within a larger context/discourse (media literacy, etc.)

Women’s Ways of Knowing and Being with Nature

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To use art and storytelling as a way of celebrating how we experience,
think and feel about the rest of nature as women; To strategise ways to work for
change
Requirements: Flip–chart paper and coloured markers
How to:
1. Participants break into small groups and designate a rapporteur
2. Each member of the group stands in front of the butcher paper, shares an
experience with something in nature and while sharing this experience draws a
symbol or diagram on the flip–chart paper
3. In the large group the rapporteur for each group re-tells the stories and explains
the drawings
4. Participants discuss how these memories have influenced their understandings of
the rest of nature
5. Facilitators ask how we can apply Marxist (or ecological or feminist) theory to
help us to think more deeply about what is behind our stories? They probe at
underlying assumptions from participants and help them to think more broadly
about how identities and relationships are shaped

Are They Just Words?

Time: 1.5 hours


Purpose: Of particular importance within any workshop is language and discourse
because words are used differently and have multiple, often contextual meaning.

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They can challenge, but they can also normalise. The aim of this activity is to
interrogate collectively common words
How to:
1. Participants are divided into groups or pairs and given sheets of paper with
words
2. Participants are asked to:
a. define the term;
b. think of ways it could be used to empower; and
c. think of ways the term could disempower or uncover.
(Words could include: creativity, equality, sustainability, nature, adaptation,
exemplary practice, flexibility, feminism, liberalism, justice, and so forth)
3. In the large group, participants share their definitions, debates and understandings
4. Facilitators add other disempowering discourses, drawing from theories presented
earlier in the workshop

Words and Ideas

Time: 30 minutes
Purpose: To experience how language and concepts work in different types of
contexts
Requirements: Sentences concerning environmental issues are broken down into
single words written on separate pieces of paper
How to:
1. Participants break into small groups and identify a rapporteur
2. The groups discuss the word order and create sentence
3. The rapporteurs report back to larger group and the group examines:
• The challenges and struggles they had in the group around language;
• Agreements and disagreements; and
• How they eventually came to an agreement (or not)
4. The large group analyses the power of words and importance of effective
communication through theoretical and experiential lenses

Altering the Environment by the Book

Time: 2–4 hours


Purpose: To provide a creative way to explore environmental issues and themes; To
tell a new story through the medium of an old story

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

Explanation: Altered books are dynamic tools of individual and collective learning
that stimulate new ideas and insights. Altered book art combines several types of
artistic techniques into one unique art form. Starting with an old book, you tear
away pages and then add your own creative expressions through rubber stamping,
scrapping, collage, photomontage, writing, paint, and so on (see below). In essence,
you are taking a book and re-creating the pages to tell a very different story. You can
use parts of the book if the theme fits (i.e. the title, an original chapter, a paragraph
on a page that speaks to your theme) or you can simply paint over and obliterate the
text, making it all new.
Requirements: old, used hardback books (one for each participant), large
numbers of magazines (i.e. political, environmental, cultural, geographic/nature
etcetera); plenty of scissors, glue sticks, coloured paints, stamps and stamp pads,
old post cards, soft back books with pictures that can be cut up, crayons, poems,
ribbons, pieces of cloth, buttons, stickers, pine cones, leaves, flower tops, small
sticks, cigarette butts, and any other materials (bobbles and notions) you wish
to collect. The more materials you have the better. Old hardback books can be
purchased cheaply at garage or lawn sales. You will also need a lot of table space
for materials and participants to work. Have a recycling bin ready for magazine
scraps.
How to:
1. Set out all the materials on accessible tables and keep a number of tables clear
for working
2. In a large group, explain the purpose of the activity, let participants know they
may not be able to finish the entire book during the workshop but that finishing
is not the important thing
3. Brainstorm some broad thematic areas (i.e. environmental justice, consumerism,
women and the environment)
4. Once you have four to six broad themes, ask each participant which one she or he
would like to use to guide their re-creation of the book
5. Place participants in pairs or small groups around that theme;
6. Give people an old book and set them upon the materials you have brought
7. After approximately 30 minutes, ask a few of the participants to share one or two
images, or materials they are using; repeat this every 10 or 15 minutes until all
the participants have shared (this changes the atmosphere in the room as it can get
quite quiet as people really get into being creative)
8. Bring everyone together to discuss a) the themes; b) the activity itself; c) how
people are feeling; the role of the arts in exploring issues (remind them about
arts-based adult education)
Caution: Participants are sometimes nervous about creating art. Some books will
be much more artistic or powerful than others. Never make this distinction as the
facilitator

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THEORY MATTERS

A theory is a framework that supplies an orderly explanation of observed (or felt)


phenomena. A theory should help things make sense rather than create obscurity
through jargon and weighty words.
Many community members and even students in universities distrust or de-value
theory. Yet theory can provide a critical analytical framework through which we can
really explore, re-learn and better articulate contemporary environmental issues and
their links to the social and/or larger cultural or political milieu. Based on this, we
always included a discussion of adult education theories and their relationship to
practice.

Fishpond: Facilitator/Organiser Presentation

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To introduce the fundamental theories and principles of feminist, adult
and environmental adult education and how they can be used to provide a vehicle
for action and the development of stronger working relationships; to encourage
participants to share what they know about these types of education
Requirements: Flip–charts prepared in advance with the principles of adult feminist
and environmental adult education

Method I
1. Participants, organisers and facilitators sit in a circle. Organisers and facilitators
share information on the principles, theories and talk about education and invite
questions
2. Participants ask questions

Method II
1. Facilitators ask the participants what they know about the different types of
educations and record them on flip–charts. Organisers and facilitators also include
their own perspectives (as written previously)

Moving Forward: Understanding Past Learning

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To share different perceptions of learning and education from the point–of–
view of the participants.
Note: This can be as preparation for introducing new theories of education to the
group

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Requirements: Flip–chart paper and markers


How to:
1. Participants share things they felt inhibited their learning within traditional
education and the methods used
2. The facilitator records these on flip–chart paper
3. Facilitators then share the theories and practises of adult, feminist, and
environmental adult education.
4. Participants analyse how these differ from traditional theories and practices they
are familiar with
5. Facilitators and participants go on to discuss fears and the obstacles to using
alternative forms of education
6. Participants discuss ways to overcome these obstacles and fears

The River of Theory for Transformation

Time: 2 hours
Purpose: To share and discuss the theories, principles and practices of adult, feminist,
anti-racist, and environmental adult education as analytical categories to explore
environmental issues
Requirements: A large mural with a rough drawing of a river on butcher paper, reeds,
flowers, pollution blobs, old pop cans, boulders, fish, etc.; flip–charts prepared ahead
of time with statements about the theories, etcetera
How to:
1. In small groups, participants identify and record on the boulders, pollution blobs
and old pop cans how and why traditional forms of education have worked to
inhibit social change; these are placed in the stream
2. Facilitators and participants share ideas about the theories, principles and
practices of feminist, environmental, adult education which are recorded on reeds
and flowers
3. In small groups, participants record on fish, ways they can use these types of
educational philosophy to work towards community and social change – these
are placed in the stream
4. The large group discusses the overall picture, applying these theories to
environmental issues and educational practice in their communities – for example:
• What do these theories tell us about power?
• How do they change how you might have framed an issue?
• What are the links between social and environmental issues?
• Why do we need these various theories (what was/is missing)?
• What/who gets re-positioned when looking through the various lenses?

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The Art and Challenge of Critical Thinking

Time: 45 minutes
Purpose: To examine critical thinking and how it can nurture in people and groups an
examination of commonly held assumptions, your own and others; to discover how
critical thinking can work within an ecological context
Requirements: Flip–charts with elements and obstacles to critical thinking prepared
ahead of time
How to:
1. Facilitators begin by asking the large group the following questions:
• what is critical thinking?
• what are some of the obstacles to critical thinking?
2. Facilitators record these responses and then provide participants with additional
views/ideas
3. Facilitators share some of the debates around ‘critical thinking’
4. Facilitators pose the following question:
• what does critical thinking within an ecological context mean to you?
5. Participants offer suggestions of ways to encourage and support the process of
critical thinking in their own communities
Note: This can be done in small groups as well

The Theoretical Tree: From Roots to Leaves

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To understand how theoretical framings of issues strengthen educational
practice
Requirements: A large tree with roots, trunk, branches, leaves, buds, surrounded by
acid rain drops
How to:
1. Facilitators discuss and record some of the fundamental principles of adult,
feminist, and anti-racist, arts-based and environmental adult education onto the
roots and trunk of the tree
2. Facilitators discuss ways in which these theories have reshaped and strengthened
practise and record these on the branches and leaves
3. Participants identify some of the challenges that exist in their communities and
record these on the acid rain drops
4. Participants suggest ways to overcome these challenges by using different
theories, which are recorded on the buds and placed on the tree

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

LEARNING AND/THROUGH LANDSCAPE

We need to passionately re-connect with the rest of nature through all our senses and
emotions. For each sense is an attraction, a different way of knowing, a different
expression of aliveness, being and surviving.

Sense Mapping

Time: 1.5–2 hours


Purpose: To link community environmental/political or economic issues through sensory
perception; To strategise ways to enhance the positive elements of the community
Requirements: Flip–chart paper, pens, a map drawn on butcher paper, glue and tape;
cut outs of flowers, cat-tails/reeds, fish; acid rain, pollution globs, used coke cans
How to:
1. Participants go to a park or other outside location and are put into pairs
2. Participants use their sense of touch, smell and hearing on various things around
them that make up the community (remembering that these types of sounds,
smells can be found throughout a bioregion)
3. The group returns to the workshop venue
4. On the flowers, cat-tails and fish they identify sounds, smells, and sights that are
positive
5. On the acid rain drops, pollution blobs and old coke cans, they identify sounds,
smells, etc. that are negative (they did not like)
6. Participants return to venue and put their reeds, flowers, acid rain, etc. on the map
and discuss the ways in which social and environmental problems are linked as
perceived through their senses
7. In small groups, participants identify a rapporteur and brainstorm action strategies
(personal and collective) to enhance the positive elements encountered and reduce
the negatives experienced
8. The rapporteurs share these ideas with the larger group, looking at differences and
similarities and analysing how effective each would be

Variation: Bio-Regional Community Walk-A-Bout

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To understand bioregions as whole systems operating by inherent principles
and humans role/place within it; To look at the types of businesses and what they are
selling in order to evaluate how bioregional and/or local they are
Requirements: A mapped-out route for an outside area; A note pad or paper for each
participant and pens

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How to:
1. Participants break into pairs and follow a route, using their senses of smell,
hearing, and sight to discover the world around
2. Participants document the different types of sounds, smells, sights and also, the
types of businesses, community centres, hospitals and so on that make up that route.
3. In a large group (find a place outdoors) participants share what they have found,
the connections between the findings and then discuss what makes the place
healthy or not
4. In the large group they brainstorm strategies for a healthy community – short
term, medium term and long term
(Source: Arusha Centre, Calgary, Alberta)

The Wise Soil

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To use nature as a learning and teaching tool to discuss environmental
issues
Requirements: Containers and large pieces of paper
How to:
1. In pairs, participants take their reusable containers outside and gather soil samples
(i.e. earth) and potential soil makers and place them in the container
2. Participants come together at a central location; each pair empties their container
onto paper spread out on the ground and shares what they collected and why
3. Participants share thoughts about the ‘story’ the soil tells them, the connections
between the potential soil makers and the assets and problems that make-up of
their communities (symbolic, literal, et cetera)

Knowing and Nature

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To use sensory perception to assess the world in which we live
How to:
1. In an outdoor location, participants are divided into pairs.
2. Each pair shares an experience of nature they had during their childhood or more
recently that profoundly affected them.
3. While sharing the stories, participants find an object that symbolises this experience.
4. Returning to the large group, each participant shows their symbol and briefly
shares their story.

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5. Facilitators pose the following questions:


• What lasting impact has this memory on your life?
• How has it influenced your attitude toward the rest of nature?
• How is this attitude reflected (or not) in your behaviour? (if not, why not)?
• In what ways have societal structures such as economics, culture and tradition,
religion, the media, and education maintained a distance or gap between
experiences, attitudes and behaviours?
• What can you do to breach this gap?

Nature in Mind

Time: 1.5 hours


Purpose: To help participants examine their own relationship to the rest of nature on
a day–to–day basis
Requirements: Flip–chart paper and markers
How to:
1. Participants are asked to close their eyes and visualise activities of the day before:
• Where did you go?
• What did you do?
• What were some of your feelings, thoughts, conversations?
2. In small groups, participants choose a rapporteur and respond to the following
questions based on their visualisation which are recorded on pieces of flip–chart
paper:
• How did you inter-act yesterday with the rest of nature?
• What did you do that was supportive of the rest nature?
• What did you do that could be considered harmful?
3. Rapporteurs share the responses
4. Facilitators pose the following questions:
• Had you given any thought to the rest of nature before you were asked to do so?
• What are the reasons why you did or you didn’t?
• How would you characterise your relationship with the rest of nature?

Sound Mapping

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To listen to what our community is telling us by using our sense of hearing
to better understand about connecting with the world and each other

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Requirements: Pieces of paper and pens


How to:
1. Participants go off in pairs to separate areas for 15 minutes, close their eyes, listen
to their environment and draw what the sounds feel like (not actual images like
birds but symbols)
2. On their return they share with their partner what they have heard and how they
felt and then each person explains what the other heard to the larger group
3. Group talks about the role sound plays in education
(Source: Leesa Faucett, York University)

Sculpturing a Tree

Time: 30 minutes
Purpose: To get people to physically create another living species in order to have
fun, share, and use their imaginations to understand the complexity of that species
and its similarities to our social structures; To have fun (although this is a major part
of most activities).
Requirements: Flip–chart paper and markers
How to:
1. The facilitator has people use their bodies to recreate a tree
2. Heartwood: Three participants are asked to stand with their backs to each other. The
facilitator explains that the heartwood is the inner core, the strength of the tree. Its job
is to hold the trunk and branches upright so the leaves can get the sun (the heartbeat)
3. Taproot: Three participants sit at the base of the heartwood facing outward. The
facilitator explains that the taproots are a very long root (not all trees have taproots
but this one does). It plants itself deep into the ground to help the tree get more
water from the earth and anchor itself firmly
4. Lateral Roots: Two or Three participants with longer hair lie down with their feet
up against the trunk. The facilitators explain there are hundreds of tap roots which
grow outward like branches but underground. They hold up the tree and can reach
out as far as three kilometres
5. Sapwood: Four to six participants circle around the tree facing inward and holding
hands. The facilitator explains that their role is to draw water up from the roots
and lift it to the trees highest branches. You are the most efficient pump in the
world, with no visible moving parts. You are able to life hundreds of litres of
water a day and you do so at speeds of about 170 kilometres/hour
6. Cambium and Phloem: Half of the remaining participants are asked to circle
around the sapwood, facing inwards and holding hands. The facilitator explains
that their fronts are the cambium layer, the growing part of the tree. Ever year it

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adds a new layer to the sapwood and the phloem. A tree grows outward from its
trunk, and also from the tips of its roots and branches. Your back is the phloem.
This is the part of the tree that carries food manufactured by the leaves and
distributes it to the rest of the tree.
7. Bark: The remaining participants encircle the tree. They are the bark and their role
is to protect the tree.
8. Remaining in sculpture positions, participants discuss:
• in what ways does the tree reflect our own communities or social world? Is this
an effective metaphor?
• what are the differences and similarities between the problems faced
by the tree (in terms of environmental degradation) and those faced by
humans?
(Source: Adapted from The Joy of Nature)

Exploring the Night

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To provide an opportunity to connect with the natural world after dark
Note: It is critical that fears of the night be explored before taking participants out on the
walk. By doing this, the facilitator will find that participants will agree and actually want
to walk back to the meeting venue by themselves but only if fears are dealt with first
Requirement: Green space (wooded area or park)
How to:
1. In a large group, participants share fears they have about the dark, being alone in
nature, and how these have been shaped and created.
2. In silence the large group walks through a forest, pasture, park or other natural
space and listens to the sounds around them (or silence).
3. Participants then individually or in pairs return to the meeting venue.
4. Participants share the experience.
(Source: Leesa Fawcett, York University)

THE POLITICS OF CONSUMPTION

Consumerism is a major issue for environmental adult education. The following


three activities tackle this issue, not as an individual problem but as a political,
global challenge. To symbolize from the beginning that we will be problematising
the much wielded individualization of this problem by using a question mark after
the title of the activity.
We were often, as we advanced through a major store with pen and paper in hand,
asked to explain what we were doing. Sometimes it was ignored but other times it

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was questioned for quite some time. On other occasions, participants were actually
‘invited’ to leave. Being reprimanded or ordered out of the store should be seen and
used as an opportunity.

Zen of Consumerism: “Waste R Us”?

Time: 2 hours (if allowed!)


Purpose: To look at the politics of consumerism and the impact of our activities on
a healthy community
Requirement: Walmart, Zellers, Toys R Us or any large department stores; pair off
into women and men (if possible). Task sheets are divided into columns — Need;
Want; Amount; Type; Necessity; Lifespan. Facilitators identify aisle and/or areas to
be used ahead of time
How to:
1. Each pair takes three aisles and using the forms provided, lists l5 items under the
columns:
• Is this a need or a want (they need to decide what these mean)?
• What is the amount, type of packaging, and its’ purpose?
• What is the estimated life expectancy of the item after you get it home?
• Where does it end up?
• Where was the product made and how did it get here?
2. Participants return to venue and each pair reports back on their findings and
responds to the following suggested questions:
• Any new discoveries from this activity?
• How would you summarise your experience?
• What are some of the negative implications of consumerism on your community?
• In thinking back to theory, how would you now as an educator approach this
issue in your own work?
Variation: If time constraints or geographical location hinder going to a department
store, facilitators can provide participants with flyers and catalogues. The two
following activities demonstrate how this can be done. They also include other
dimensions such as socialisation and globalisation.

Globalisation and Socialisation “R Us?”

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To stimulate participants to analyse more critically the issue of consumerism
and the process of globalisation and how they affect humans and the rest of nature

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

Requirements: Flip–chart paper (two pieces for each group), scissors; coloured
markers; various advertising catalogues and flyers, tape and glue
How to:
1. In small groups, participants identify a rapporteur; catalogues, scissors, pieces of
flip chart paper, markers and glue are distributed
2. Each group addresses the following questions and cuts out one or two items from
the catalogues to illustrate their response. The responses are recorded on flip–
chart paper with the picture cut–outs beside the responses:
• What are the values represented in these catalogues?
• What are the ecological implications?
• What are the social implications and hidden costs)?
• What does it say about gender issues and the process of socialisation?
• What does this say about the process of globalisation?
3. When participants have recorded their ideas the flip–chart paper is placed on the
walls
4. Rapporteurs share outcomes of this activity, and the importance of stimulating critical
or more analytical thinking about consumerism and the process of globalisation
5. Discuss the ways this activity stimulates critical analytical thinking about
consumerism and globalisation

Corporations “R Us”?

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To engage in a creative and fun activity which analyses advertising mantras,
socialisation and consumerism
Requirements: Pieces of flip–chart paper and markers; a variety catalogues, flyers,
newspapers
How to:
1. Participants They are divided into small groups and asked to peruse the material
and think about the implications
2. They then create poems, skits, short stories, murals and/or songs using key words
or slogans found in the catalogues. Some ideas:
• A skit using the slogan “The More You Buy the More You Save”;
• A “Consumer” Song;
• A poem on “The Lowest Price is the Law”;
• A short story on “Buy One Get One Free”; or
• A mural comprised of cut outs from the catalogues words, slogans, phrases,
perfect models.

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3. Participants share their activities


4. Discuss the role and effect of advertising on society and the rest of nature
5. Discuss this activity and ways it could be strengthened or adapted to other issues

HUMAN AND ECOSYSTEM HEALTH: FOOD FOR THOUGHT

We mentioned this in the introduction to this chapter but we would like to take a
moment to stress the point again: it is crucial in all your environmental adult
education work, and in using all or any of the activities in this book, that you include
a gender analysis as often as possible. More women than men live on or below the
poverty line and are the single parent of a household. This greatly affects or limits
their ‘consumer’ choices meaning they must buy what they can afford and that is not
often organic. This does not mean, however, they do not care about their children’s
health. Moreover, advertisers and even producers of ‘green’ products are very aware
that women remain the primary shoppers of food for their families and other products
such as dishes, clothing, detergents or furniture polish. This means that it is women
who are most aggressively targeted to buy specific products, such as those which
keep their families ‘free from germs’. Linked to the above, they are blamed for ‘poor’
consumer choices which harm not only their families, but also the entire planet!
The point we are making here is that behind consumerism, and even ‘green’
consumerism, there are gender politics. Therefore, if you wish your educational
work to be truly effective and encourage holistic and critical thinking for change,
you must frame consumerism as the structural and political problem it is to avoid
the narrow, shallow focus of individual behaviour change, a trap into which so much
environmental education falls.
If you would like to read an engaging discussion on this and other gendered
environmental issues, please see Joni Seager’s book titled Earth Follies: Hysterical
Housewives, Tree Huggers and Other Mad Women, published in 1993. While this book
may seem to be speaking to a long time ago, you will be surprised, or perhaps better
said deeply disturbed to find how accurate it remains to 2012. If you do not believe
us, use the ecological literacy activity in your community but replace it with ‘gender’.

The Chemical Stew

Time: 3 hours
Purpose: To critically analyse the environmental and health costs of ordinary
household cleansers and develop (less costly and not too time consuming) alternatives
Requirements: Pens, paper and a flip–chart
How to:
1. Participants are divided into pairs, taken to a local supermarket and sent to the
cleaning products aisles with pre-prepared questions on paper

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

2. Questions:
• Can you identify three categories of household cleaners (i.e. floor cleanser, etc.) and
the number of products you can find in each category and their costs (the range)?
• How many identified themselves as eco-friendly or biodegradable?
• How many contain health warnings?
• How many have neither and what is your explanation for this?
3. The pairs then discuss alternative cleaning products with which they are familiar
(i.e. vinegar, milk, etc.,) and locate these in the different parts of the stores,
copying down at the bottom of their sheet:
• The name of the product;
• Its cost and where it was made; and
• Potential harmful side affects of the product (if stated).
4. Back at the workshop venue, one person in each pair shares their findings with
the larger group
5. Facilitators ask the following questions:
• What impact do you think these products could have on human and ecosystem
health?
• Who in particular is targeted through advertising to purchase these products?
What can feminist theory tell us and/or how does it provide a new lens?
• What does this activity tell you about ‘green’ labelling?
• Why are alternative cleaners in little use? How can this situation be changed?

Variation: If you cannot visit a supermarket then ask participants (or bring them
yourselves as facilitators) to bring four samples of home cleaners, which they use
regularly; arrange everything on a table in groups depending on use (i.e. stove,
bathroom, kitchen, etcetera); In pairs, follow many of the procedures above

Further Variation: If you wish to broaden the discussion even further, you can
focus on the so-called ‘green’ consumer movement. This home-based movement
demonstrates how products in the home are environmentally hazardous to health and
wellbeing. However, this too can often unconsciously blame women and therefore,
you need to start with a firm feminist analysis. One way to do this is to begin by
asking participants to identify the pros and cons of the ‘green consumer’ movement.
Be sure you understand its components as well

Preparing Our Future

Time: 3 hours
Purpose: To critically analyse the labels on the prepared foods we eat. What do they
tell us? What don’t they tell us?

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Requirements: A large piece of butcher paper with the outline of a can or a frozen
food package drawn on it; paper, coloured markers and glue sticks
How to:
1. In pairs, participants are given two sheets of paper and taken to a local supermarket
2. Walking around the aisles, the pairs examine 10–12 prepared foods such as frozen
foods, canned goods, etcetera
3. From those, the pair chooses one item. One participant writes down the ingredients
as they are listed and where the product comes from. The other draws the picture,
which is on the label of the ‘food product’
4. Participants return to the meeting venue and place their two sheets of paper on the
large can or frozen food package. For, approximately 10 minutes, the large group
examines all the items.
5. In a semi-circle facing the butcher paper, participants respond to the following
questions posed by the facilitators:
• To each pair – which one is your item and why did you choose that particular
one out of all the others? What impressed you in particular about it?
• Was everyone familiar with all the ingredients listed? Does everyone know
what the purposes of or reasons for all the ingredients?
• What is the difference (if any) between what the label says and what the picture
shows?
• Was there any indication of genetic engineering? If yes, where and if not, why
not? Did you feel safer using products from Europe than from Canada? Why
or why not?
• What did you learn that was form of food engagement?
• Are there any changes in your own purchasing you would now consider? How
could you use this activity?
Variation: Participants bring three or four canned or processed foods items to the
workshop, which they already had in the cupboards at home. These items can be
set-out on large table and participants ‘shop’ for what they want, selecting one
item. Each participant identifies why s/he chose that item, holds it up for display
and reads out the ingredients; The facilitators bring a variety of food products if
participants come from outside the area and travelling to a local supermarket is not
possible.

The Shopping Cart Survey

Time: 2 hours
Purpose: To use applied research to learn more about what foods we buy and how
our decisions are made
Requirements: Notepaper, pencils, prepared questions

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

How to:
1. Participants are divided into pairs and taken to a local supermarket. Each pair is
given a set of prepared questions and asked to choose three men and three women
to interview. The questions are:
• For how many people are you shopping?
• In order of importance, what do you look for when buying food?: locally
grown or produced, organic, overall freshness, price, easy to prepare, storage
life, etc.
• Do you read labels and if so, what is important to you?
• In addition to reading labels what else determines your food choices?
2. The participants return to the workshop venue and one from each pair shares their
results. Facilitators record key words in the responses on flip-chart paper.
3. Participants then respond to the following questions:
• What are the differences between what the women said and what the men said?
• What does this survey tell you about the importance of food and nutrition in
people’s lives?
• What does it tell you about time?
4. Facilitators may close by asking:
• Based on what you have discovered here, what directions should we take in
the future in terms of educational work vis-a-vis health and nutrition in this
community?
• What specific areas should we focus on?

Food Fortune Hunting


Time: 2 hours
Purpose: To learn about comparing food sources, difference in cost (hidden and
real), quality, and the problems faced when making real choices
Requirements: Notepaper, pencils
How to:
1. Participants are divided into pairs and taken to a food/grocery store. Each pair
surveys the fresh food counters/shelves, keeping a record of the following:
• Type of food
• Source: where does it come from
• Quality (freshness, size, visual appearance, organic, etcetera)
• Packaging and presentation
2. Each pair reports back to the larger group

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3. Facilitator questions:
• Was the place of origin of the vegetables labelled clearly?
• What was the percentage of ‘locally’ grown produce available?
• Was some produce better displayed than others? If, so why?
• Was there a major difference in appearance between organic and non-organic
produce? If so what? Is local equal to organic?
• Are there any hidden costs to not buying locally? If so, what are they?
• Are there any basic health risks involved in buying any of this food?; If so
what are they?

Cooking or Ready Made

Time: 3 hours
Purpose: To evaluate the health and environmental costs of our food preparation
work; To critically analyse women’s work and the issue of ‘time’ in our lives
Requirements: Flip–chart paper and markers
How to:
1. Participants are put into four small groups and each is asked to identify a
rapporteur.
2. Two of the groups are asked to develop a dinner menu for four using only
commercially prepared foods (prepared salads, frozen vegetables, entrees, et
cetera). The other two groups develop a menu using only fresh and homemade
foods. They must assign a cost to the menu, and a time in terms of beforehand
preparation, shopping, and actual meal preparation)
3. Each group shares the meal agenda with the larger group
4. Once all the presentations have been made the facilitators ask the following
questions:
• To the “ Fresh” Menu – which items did you have to purchase pre-packaged
and why?
• What are the basic differences between buying bulk fresh food and buying
pre-packaged?
• Do you agree with the times allotted and the allocated costs? If not, why?
• “Commercial Menu”- did you take time to read the labels? If so, what did you
check for? Was that figured into your time?
• What are the environmental and social costs of both menus?
• What determines our food buying habits?
• What does this say to you about:
a. women’s work/place in community? (think back to feminist theory)
b. the issue of ‘time’ in our lives? (whose time?; what are the constraints?)

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5. The group reflects on their own lives and identify strategies for change as
well as ideas for variations on this educational activity they can use with their
community

To Weed or Not to Weed

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To explore weeds: appearance, why they are considered weeds, uses and
benefits
Requirements: A field or garden that provides a good sample of plants and
weeds
How to:
1. In pairs, the group walks through the field/garden and:
• Collects at least three types of “weeds”
• Collects at least one plant that is unknown and therefore, probably a weed
• Makes note of the position of weeds – where are they most prevalent?
2. In the large group, the pairs show their findings and share any information they
have regarding names, why they grow where they grow, et cetera
3. After each presentation, the other participants add their knowledge about the
plant (you will find that everyone knows something about each one). If there are
any plants unidentified, the pair agrees to find out its identification and bring that
back to the group
4. Following this, participants respond to further questions:
• What, if any, medicinal purposes do these plants have?
• What other contributions do these plants make?
• Why are some plants referred to as ‘weeds’?
• What are some of the risks of total weed removal?
• What would it take to make a weed a non-weed?

FROM WORDS TO ACTION

We are all responsible for taking collective action to re–create a healthy planet for
all species, present and future.
The idea of action is complex. Actions can be taken immediately or over the
long term. They can be personal but to have a greater systemic impact, they
must collective. Action can involve motion, actually doing something, or it can
also take the form of reflection, of thinking. People sharing new ideas, creating
knowledge and moving from one set of assumptions to another is a form of
action.

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Open-Air Environmental Adult Education Market

Time: 1.5 hours


Purpose: To learn from each other by sharing educational practices and methodologies.
The three “stalls” will be “Earth Teacher”, “The Arts”, “Facilitation”
Requirements: Flip–chart paper and markers
How to:
1. Participants are divided into three small groups
2. Each group spends approximately ten minutes at each stall and records successful
educational activities with which they are familiar
3. Coming back together in the larger group, facilitators ask each participant to
describe in more detail, one activity under each stall
4. Participants are then encouraged to take the opportunity to talk with others about
activities recorded but not described (if any)

Variation: The Environmental Adult Education Market

Time: 2 hours
Purpose: To analyse an environmental adult education process and generate ideas
that can be used to strengthen people’s own work
Requirements: Flip–chart paper and pens
How to:
At the conclusion of an environmental adult education workshop:
1. Participants break into small groups and identify a rapporteur
2. They identify and discuss the methods used throughout the workshop and create
adaptations
3. They record their ideas on flip–chart paper
4. The rapporteur shares this with the larger group
5. Going around the room, the facilitator asks each person to identify the method or
activity that would be most useful to them and why

The Art of Educative Action

Time: 1.5 hours


Purpose: To commit ourselves to educating and/or taking action regarding an issue(s)
in our community
Requirements: A map of the community drawn collectively by the participants; light
bulbs, question marks, lighting rods and rain drops cut from coloured paper; pre-
prepared letter of commitment

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

How to:
1. The large group decides one or two issues for discussion
2. Small groups identify a rapporteur and then participants brainstorm on strategies to
deal with the issues: educational practices and methods are recorded on light bulbs
and question marks, and all others are recorded on lightning bolts and rain drops
3. Participants glue the cut outs onto the map and the rapporteur reports back to the
larger group
4. Participants rank ten activities from least (1) to most difficult (10) to achieve
5. Facilitators distribute the Letters of Commitment
(Note: these letters ask the participant to commit to three activities over the
short and long term that they will undertake)
6. Letters are returned to facilitators who explain that they will be mailed within two
weeks to the participant as a way of stimulating their memory and encouraging
action or reflecting on either successes or obstacles they faced

Variation: Learning for Change

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To identify one or two issues around which participants would like to take action
Requirements: Flip–chart paper
How to:
1. Participants break into small groups and with flip–chart paper, identify a
rapporteur and answer the following questions:
• What can you do to make this workshop work for you?
• What are my goals and objectives/what do I want to get out of this workshop?
• What issue would I like to take action on?
• What do I see as the biggest obstacles to taking action?
• What are my biggest supports to taking action?
2. Rapporteurs report back.
3. Facilitators record the actions and participants rank for potential immediate
feasibility (1 to 10)
4. Participants choose one or two of the issues as a project

From Discourse to Action

Time: 1.5 hours


Purpose: To work as a group to design a workshop, identify a variety of planning
techniques and workshop strategies, apply environmental adult education principles
and practices

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Requirements: Flip–chart paper and pens


How to:
1. The group decides on a theme around which to design a workshop
2. Participants break into small groups and design an afternoon (4 hours) workshop —
must include purpose and activities
3. Each group presents their workshop design; it is evaluated by the larger group and
suggestions are offered:
4. Facilitators ask:
• What difficulties did you encounter?
• What was good or what worked well?
• What did you learn through this process (about issues, group work, developing
agendas, et cetera)?

Creativity in Action

Time: 1.5 hours


Purpose: To use art, storytelling, theatre, poetry and song as educational tools to re-
enforce the strength of the participants to take positive action
How to:
1. Participants are separated into small groups and using various themes and ideas
discussed/raised during the workshop are given one half hour to:
• Write a short poem;
• Write a short song;
• Write a short story;
• Create a mural on butcher paper; or
• Create a brief skit.
2. These are preformed
3. Facilitators ask participants to evaluate the success of this type of educational tool
to enhance understanding of an issue

Re-Energising the Practitioner: The Mountain of Passion, Power and Purpose

Time: 3–4 hours


Purpose: To identify some of the major concerns practitioners are facing in their
community work or classroom and collectively develop some ideas to keep each
other energised and better able to cope with problems
Requirements: A large piece of butcher paper tacked to the wall with the outline of
a mountain drawn on it; rock cut from brown paper; flowers cut from pink paper;

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

trees cut from green paper; mountain goats (grizzly bears, tigers, etc. depending on
your context), cut from yellow paper; rivulets of water cut from blue paper; coloured
markers and glue sticks; two sheets of flip–chart paper tacked on either side of the
mountain mural, one which has a title “Mining Our Energy” and the other “Clear-
Cutting Our Resources”

How to:
1. In a semi-circle around the mountain mural, the participants are asked to
share ideas of (a) things which they feel are taking away their energy and this
is recorded on the “Mining” sheet and (b) things which are taking away their
resources which is recorded on the “Clear-cutting” sheet (some things may
overlap).
2. In small groups, participants identify a rapporteur and are given the rocks and
flowers and are asked to respond the following questions:

• rock–What makes a successful, invigorating and dynamic learning


environment?
• flowers–What are some of the positive elements of your work that keep you
going?

3. The rapporteur sticks these around the mountain and shares what is written.
Participants examine the similarities, comment on and/or add to what has been
written
4. In the same small groups participants choose another rapporteur, are given the
trees and mountain goats and respond to the following questions:

• trees–What knowledge, skills and experiences do you have that makes you a
good practitioner?
• mountain Goats–What activities can you think of that you could do collectively
which would build your self-esteem, keep you energised and passionate about
your job and help you with your daily work?

5. The rapporteur sticks these around the mountain and shares what is written.
Participants examine the similarities, comment on and/or add to what has been
written
6. The participants look at the activities and categorize them into: ‘can do right
now’, ‘would do a bit later’, ‘would take more time’ and the facilitator
writes the responses on some of the rivulets of water and places them on the
mural.
7. The group discusses the short-term projects, identifying how and when they will
begin.
8. The facilitator closes the session by asking what type of outside help they would
require to assist them and the responses written on the remaining rivulets of
water

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Who is the Expert?

Time: 2 hours
Purpose: The primary purpose of this activity is to demonstrate how we are all
knowledgeable and ‘experts’. A second purpose is to address questions or concerns
participants may have about the workshop
(Note: We did this activity outside on a small island in Thailand by using one of the
facilitators as the flip–chart stand. Do not be afraid to do any or all the activities in
this book outdoors)
Requirements: Pieces of flip–chart paper and coloured pens
How to:
1. Participants are arranged into small groups, given pieces of flip–chart paper and
asked to write down four or five questions they have which have arisen from
an activity, the morning or the previous day of the workshop (this depends on
when you use this activity – we used it on day three of the workshop to see how
things were going). They are asked to leave ample room under the question for
responses to be written
2. Once all the questions have been written down, the facilitators move all the flip–
chart papers from one group to the next group. That group is asked to respond to
the questions and write their answers in the spaces provided (never underestimate
the astonishment of participants who are expecting the ‘facilitators’ or ‘experts’
to respond to the questions!)
3. Once the groups have written down their responses, they come back to the large
group and the facilitator holds up each sheet and reads the question and the answer
aloud. The small group who wrote the question is asked to respond to the other
groups’ responses. The group who responded to the questions is asked how they
felt about the questions. This goes on until all the questions/answers have been
examined
4. Participants are then invited to add responses to the questions and the facilitators
also add their own thoughts and ideas
5. To conclude, facilitators engage the group in a discussion about ‘experts’ and the
idea of who has ‘knowledge’
• Who are the experts here?
• Who has knowledge?
• What does this say about our abilities as educators and “knowers”?

EVALUATIONS AND CLOSURE

An important component of any educational process is evaluation. This should be


done during and at the conclusion of the workshop. We used a variety of methods to

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

evaluate our work. Different types of evaluative techniques provided different pieces
of information at different times.
Oral and more creative evaluation approaches provide an instant reaction to the
activity from participants and can be used periodically throughout the workshop.
Written forms provide a more detailed analysis of the educational processes used,
the workshop as a whole and differences in how people felt about the group,
process in the beginning and at the end. We found for a two-day workshop, it was
helpful to ask participants to fill out a written evaluation form at the conclusion of
each day.

Coalition Building Through Song, Theatre and Poetry

Time: 1.5 hours


Purpose: To encourage creative expression and summarise the most important ideas
that emerged from the workshop
Requirements: Paper and markers
How to:
1. Participants break into four small groups:
• Group 1–A poem focusing on “Why Work Together”
• Group 2–A song focusing on “How We’re Going to Make this Coalition Work”
• Group 3–A Skit focusing on “What We’re Going to Do or “Coalition
Nightmares”
2. Participants put on a performance for each other; Facilitator engages them in a
discussion of next steps

Final Reflections

Time: 15 minutes
Purpose: To follow each activity with a brief reflection on the challenges faced
during and/or the potential of the educational process in which they just engaged in
order to develop alternatives or enhanced methods
Requirements: Evaluation questions listed on flip–chart paper
How to:
Going around the circle of participants, each person is asked to answer:
• Identify a challenge they faced or problem they had during the activity
• Identify something they have learned
• Describe ways in which a particular activity could be adapted (for other situations),
changed or strengthened

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Accomplishments and Challenges

Time: 40 minutes
Purpose: To summarise collectively what we accomplished and where to do from
here
How to:
Facilitators pose the questions and record the responses on flip–chart paper:
• What was the major challenge for you of the past two days?
• What changes do you suggest be made to avoid these difficulties?
• What did you see as important or as an accomplishment of the group? Where do
you go from here?

One Word Circle Evaluation

Time: 15 Minutes
Purpose: To let participants share verbally how they felt about the workshop when
only a few minutes are left
How to: Standing in a circle, participants are asked to say “one word” that describes
how they are feeling

Stringing Ourselves Together

Time: 15 minutes
Requirements: A ball of twine
How to:
1. Participants pass a string from one to another and respond to the following
question:
• How do you feel about your participation in the workshop?
• What did you get out of it?

Nature Circle Evaluation

Time: 15 minutes
How to:
1. Participants stand in a circle and name the animal, insect, plant or any other
element of the rest of nature they feel most like now
(Note: This can matched with the similar introductory activity because it
provides before and after feelings)

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THE PRAXIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION

‘Post-it’ Evaluations

Time: 15 Minutes
Requirements: Post its
How to:
1. On post-its, participants write something positive about the workshop and
something they would like to see changed
2. These are stuck to a wall or sheet of paper for all to read

Written Evaluations

Time: 15 minutes
Purpose: To provide an opportunity for participants to reflect on and write down
the knowledge they have acquired and the feelings they have about the learning
experience
Requirements: Evaluation forms with questions that have been prepared ahead of
time
How to:
1. Facilitator poses a number of questions such as:
• How is this experience different from other educational experiences you
have had?
• Why do you feel using nature as teacher and site of learning an important
educational practice?
• What do you see as the potential of environmental adult education in strengthening
your work?
• What did using (art, theatre, song writing, storytelling) have to do with
environmental education?
• What do you feel was the most important learning moment of the workshop?
• What activity did you find the least effective and why?
• What kind of follow up could the participants engage in?
• What role can the facilitators continue to play in your future work?
• How are environmental and social issues linked in your community?

Head, Hands, and Heart

Time: 30–40 minutes


Purpose: The purpose of this activity is to provide a final closure to the workshop,
demonstrating how we learn cognitively, experientially and through our emotions
or senses

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How to:
1. Participants stand in a large circle
2. Each participant turns to someone beside her or him and each share something
important they learned in the workshop (head)
3. In the circle again, participants are asked to cross the circle and share something
they did or brought to the workshop that contributed to their own learning (hands)
4. In the circle again each participant shares how s/he felt about the workshop (heart)

Meditational Closing

Time: 1 hour
Purpose: To spend some quiet time evaluating the workshop through reflection and/
or our bodies.
How to:
1. Either a pre-selected participant or a facilitator leads the group in a:
• visioning exercise to reflect back on the workshop (eyes closed)
• Chi Gong, Tai Chi or yoga activity (experience matters!)
2. In this relaxed state, each participant describes an important moment in her or his
own learning during the workshop

Tree of Expectations; Forest of Accomplishments

Time: 2 hours
Purpose: To facilitate individual reflection and share their life stories in relation to
learning. As an opening activity it facilitates the introduction of participants while
simultaneously drawing out their workshop expectations using the tree as a central
symbol. As a closing activity it assists the participants in preparing and sharing their
evaluation of the workshop and what they have learned by expanding the tree to
include other components of a forest ecosystem.
(Note: In some environments, the tree may not be a very good symbol, specifically
places without trees so use other images such as a river and its tributaries)
Requirements: Flip–chart paper and markers
How to:

Part A: Tree of Expectations


1. Participants are divided into small groups, identify a rapporteur, and are provided
with sufficient coloured markers and pieces of flip–chart paper for each person

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2. The facilitator explains that we will use the tree as a symbol to help us share a
little about ourselves and our expectations from the workshop and uses a diagram
to explain what each part of the tree represents:
• Buds — what I expect to learn from the workshop
• Leaves — suggested learning methods for the workshop
• Branches — what I can share during the workshop (skills, experiences, creative
talents, jokes etcetera)
• Trunk — my current occupation and other activities.
• Roots — deep influences in my life.
• Caterpillar — things that might prevent me from fully participating in the
workshop
3. Participants are encouraged to add other parts of the tree and to use different
types of trees native to their areas or trees that are significant to them or their
communities
(Note: Motivate the participants to explore different ways of using the art
materials. Cut, paste, fold, tear ... be creative!)
4. Participants draw their own trees and respond to the above on the proper parts of
that tree
5. The rapporteurs synthesise the expectations shared and use this as a take–off
point for the workshop briefing
6. The trees are displayed around the room to transform the walls and to be used
later
7. Participants are encouraged to add, subtract or modify their trees anytime
throughout the workshop and that we will revisit their trees before the end of the
workshop

Part B: Forest of Accomplishments


1. Each participant is asked to revisit his or her individual trees at the end of the
workshop
2. Facilitators explain that the symbol of the tree has been expanded to include other
components and processes found in the forest ecosystem to share what we have
learned, our evaluation and recommendations for the workshop
3. Using the diagram presented at the start of the workshop, add the following:
• butterfly — limitations that have been overcome
• flowers and/or fruits — learning expectations achieved
• leaves, buds and branches that fell on the ground — learning methods not
used, learning expectations not met and things that you were not able to share,
respectively.
• dead caterpillar — new problems raised
• nutrients from the decomposition of the leaves, buds, branches and caterpillar
that fell on the ground — recommendations for future workshops

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• Birds — experiences, ideas, thoughts, images you will take home with me
• Seed — something I commit myself to doing in the future (Note: Facilitator
encourages individual action but probes for political action)
4. Facilitators ask participants to add these new components to their trees instead of
preparing a new tree
5. In a circle participants share their trees to slowly build the forest of what was
learned, accomplished in the workshop and the diverse strategies or plans for the
future
(Source: Jose Roberto Guevara, Philippines)

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GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION


PRAXIS AND STORIES

Aesthetically illuminate. Visually animate. Collectively educate. The imaginative


and inspiring activities and stories in this chapter come from our own work but more
importantly, from environmental adult and popular educators, feminists, community
animators and artists and activists across Canada and around the world. While some
follow the format of the activities in Chapter Four, others are included because
they are examples of educative-activism – the dynamic coming together of adult
education and activism. Still others are a testament to the power and potential of
the arts, of creativity and the human aesthetic dimension as discussed, albeit all to
briefly, in Chapter Two.

MATERIAL MATTERS

Women Expressing Needs and Ideas Through Banner Painting

In courses and workshops organised throughout the Northern Territories by the


Aboriginal Development Unit in Darwin, Australia, we teach participants how to
create large banners that bring socio-environmental issues to life more visually, and
educate to enrich the minds of those who see them.
For us, art is a powerful way to communicate messages and feelings. Aboriginal
women have a strong tradition of passing on culture through art. While creating
the painting and assembling banners, we are thinking about ways to express our
ideas and stories through colour, texture, patterns, shapes and symbols. Murals and

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banners are ‘paintings’ or visuals of inspiration and beauty. Working collectively on


these artistic renderings provides an opportunity for people to be involved together
in a group activity that brings out community pride and tells a story. Aboriginal
women have in fact used these art forms for decades to stimulate creativity, create
new knowledge and explore environmental and health issues.
The ideas manifest through paint, colour and fibre on the banners come from
the women in many different ways. They draw their ideas and images from the rest
of nature – from the land, animals, plants, sea and sky. They come from stories the
women have heard, as children or as adults. Sometimes a verse or song creates a
picture in their/our minds that can reveal the meaning of the words. Ideas can come
after quiet meditation or they can come through active discussion around a specific
topic. Slogans or statements can also be the inspiration for banners.
There are many different kinds of banners. Some are more political, other aimed
to educate, some are spiritual or religious, or commemorate special family or
community events. Whatever their purpose or aim, these fabric arts, are experiential,
creative and a site of cultural and gendered knowledge.

(Source: Shirley Gundhumawuy and Adi Dunlop, Aboriginal Development Unit,


Darwin, Australia)

The Positive Energy Quilts: The Story of a Visual Protest

There is no way we could ever argue rationally against this power plant. We
had strong feelings, but they were not necessarily ‘logical’, and the facts, other
than those pre-packaged by the power companies, were surprisingly hard to
find. BC Hydro had all the facts, figures and the outreach capacity. So we
could not argue at their level but we could creatively uncover another side of
the debate and other ways of understanding the issues, and then we could say
it through a quilt.
Jean (Raging Granny)

In March 2006 approximately 400 people attended a public meeting sponsored by


the Nanaimo Citizens Organising Committee to discuss a proposed British Columbia
(BC) Hydro plan – in collaboration with two corporations in the United States – to
build a gas-fired power plant at Duke Point in Nanaimo, BC. These citizens came
together to identify some strategies to challenge the proposal through an informed
public opposition. One of the ideas put forward as away to reach out to the broader
community was a quilting project.
A group made up of 20 women activists, quilters and artists from Vancouver
Island and Gabriola Island came together and decided to send out small squares of
cloth to people and/or groups throughout the two communities. No firm guidelines
were given, people were simply asked to express what they felt about the power
plant through words or images and to send the piece of cloth back to the group. This

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GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION PRAXIS AND STORIES

was a chance for people who often do not attend meetings or get involved in activism
in the community, to have a voice. Once all the quilt squares were returned, the
women gathered together and spent a chaotic few hours arranging and re-arranging
the squares. The result was five banner-sized quilts that contained a diversity of
creative images/messages from the public about the power plant and the community.
In order to make a stronger public statement, encourage more people to talk about
the issue and inter-act with them, the women decided to engage in what they referred
to as ‘public quilting’. They began by quilting in front of Artworks, a mellow little
arts shop on Gabriola, complete with Cappuccino bar. It was then decided that to
make more of an impact, they should move to the library and then to the front of the
arts centre in the city centre of Nanaimo. When B.C. Hydro organised its first major
public meeting downtown, the women sat outside sewing around the fountain. That
was, as one woman remarked, “the only time the police noticed us.” It is legal, by
the way, to quilt in public!
Some of the people who drew images onto the quilt squares took a softer approach,
stitching windmills, shrimps and scallops, and solar panels to encourage the use of
alternate energy sources. One group decided to use the image of tall factory-type
chimneys spewing greyish smoke. At first, the women argued with them this because
they knew that B.C. Hydro was promising that only white steam would be emitted.
There is always a contestation around environmental problems and whether or not
common folk have their facts right. However, the freedom of using art is that it
is not necessarily about facts but about the senses, creativity self-expression, and
emotionality. The basis of the argument from maintaining the chimneys with their
black smoke was: “But it is still dirty. Its still polluting and I still do not want to
breathe it, even if I can’t see it.” So it stayed.
Others who contributed squares to the quilts made much stronger political
statements. These images portray community-wide concerns about U.S. involvement
and ownership in the project. For example, one image shows Uncle Sam roasting the
world over livid orange flames spewing from a power plant. Another image is the
stripes and stars of the U.S. flag with a maple leaf replacing a star, and the words
“No, eh”. Still others showed an amazing knowledge of the type of toxic chemicals
that would be emitted from the power plant.
The quilts were displayed at community events and centres around the island,
across Canada and even in New Zealand. For a number of months, they hung in the
Arts Centre and City Hall in Nanaimo. They proved to be a very creative, engaging
and dynamic tool of public education, a way to encourage dialogue around a local
source of pollution, but also, broader social and environmental issues that have an
impact on the community and the world.

(Sources: www.kristinmillerquilts.com/Protest_Quilts/Positive_Energy_Quilts/
Positive_; Clover D.E. & Markle, G. (2003). Feminist arts practices of popular
education: Imagination, counter-narratives and activism on Vancouver Island. New
Zealand Journal of Adult Education, 31(2), 36–52)

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ECOLOGIAL STUDY CIRLCES AND MAPPING

Environmental Adult Education Study Circles

In addition to workshops, an effective way of teaching and learning from the


Swedish adult education tradition is the Study Circle method. More information
on the Study Circle method can be found in Chapter Three under Dialogue with the
Rest of Nature.
Study circles are small group discussion methods that have long been recognised
as effective means of learning and teaching. They are particularly useful for dealing
with difficult social and political issues and strengthening the skills necessary for
community participation.
There are eight principles of the study circle method:
• Equality and democracy: the exchange of views in a relaxed manner
• Liberation: proceeding from participants experience and knowledge
• Cooperation and companionship: security and sharing of progress and setbacks
• Freedom and the right to set objectives: to suite the needs of the group
• Continuity and planning: by agreement, without fixed limits
• Active participation: people learn best when they are actively involved in the
learning process
• Printed study material: provided to all participants
• Change and action: empowered and inspired to take action
The study circle methodology is also appropriate to a range of different issues and
interests. Four different approaches to study circles are:
• Thematic: where the theme is selected by members and enhances their insights
and awareness (e.g., book discussion group)
• A course for people who know what they want to learn
• Structured and planned discussions often using two sides of an argument
• Research-focussed (identify a problem or issue of concern to be studied)
Study circles have a valuable role to play in environmental adult education particularly
for difficult or complex biological issues. They are not vocational education or
information transmission but a way of informing dialogue and improving critical
appraisal skills. A study circle is as much a process as an outcome and there are three
features of the process worth noting.
• Study circles are socially and educationally re-enforcing. The process is
empowering and nurturing because it builds on participants existing knowledge
and experience. While being participatory and democratic, it seeks to identify all
viewpoints and common groups, but does not aim for consensus (often the lowest
common denominator).
• Study circles place an issue into a broad context. Environmental issues, which
study circles address are placed in their social, economic and political contexts

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GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION PRAXIS AND STORIES

for participants to explore. The process also presents both urban and rural
perspectives.
• Study circles are intended to have action outcomes. This may include meaningful
changes in people’s day–to–day lives to lessen their impact on the environment. It
also means increased political literacy, including the ability to enter into dialogue
with land managers and decision–makers. One of the most important outcomes is
when groups who have used materials provided stay together to learn about other
issues of concern to them, using the study circle process.
In many ways, a study circle can be seen as a map, which takes people on a journey.
Along the way, it shows them some interesting and challenging places to visit and
things to explore. But if the group has been there before, or if they do not find
something interesting, they continue on until they find something more appealing.
Often a group will back–track to re–visit an issue. The study circle approach does
not aim for experts, but informed decision–makers who are able to take effective and
constructive action.
A typical study circle is a group of 5–15 people who meet three to six times to
discuss and learn about an issue of concern to them. Discussions last approximately
two hours and are facilitated by a group leader whose role it is to assist in lively
but focused discussion. The leader is not expected to be a teacher or subject expert,
but a learner and facilitator. Groups often meet in people homes, church basements,
community centres or some other convenient place. The number of times the group
meets and the length of the meetings are flexible and can be altered to suit a group’s
needs.
The essence of the study circle is free discussion and exploration with all views
being valid. They are excellent ways to explore important topics, consider a range
of viewpoints, challenge commonly held assumptions, and achieve learning that
enables people to take constructive action. Study circle members learn from each
other and help others achieve a satisfying level of understanding.
By Graeme and Meg Gibson, Australian Association for Adult and Community
Education

Green Community Mapping

Community mapping is a graphic learning, development and planning tool that


connects people to one another and their home places. The Common Ground
Community Mapping project in Canada and the worldwide Green Map System are
wonderful sources for practical ideas about how to go about community or green
mapping. Victoria, British Columbia is one of the places where many such mapping
processes have been done. Green mapmaking aims to help people of all ages
represent and share their local eco–cultural resources. It promotes model greening
efforts and links green mapping experiences all over the world through the use of a
common system of icons and symbols.

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Time: A full Green Map may take weeks or months, but the methods may be adapted
for smaller workshops
Purpose: create a collective map showing landmarks of your local built environment
including streets, parks and gardens with green sites and toxic hot spots
Requirements: base map with streets, parks and existing build infrastructure; tracing
paper for making a draft map to begin working from; lists of Green Map systems
icons; pre-numbered stickers; sticky notes; pens
How to:
1. Invite the group to discuss why we are doing this work. Aims include: to promote
and discover; share and participate; learn and educate; promote environmental
awareness
2. Choose the area to explore
3. Make a new base map by copying onto a new sheet of paper from an already
existing base map of your area
4. Identify spaces, green services and toxic hotspots
5. Invite students, neighbours and local business people to put stickers on the map
of their suggested green spaces
6. Transfer information into a table to keep track of all the suggested green sites
and toxic spots
7. Plot them onto a fresh base map
8. Use Green Map icons
9. Make the map: it can be hand drawn, computer drawn, wall size, brochure size,
Internet–based.
10. Have community members review the draft.
11. Finish the map: one big map; print many versions or other options.
12. Share the results: have a launch party; contact the media; invite everyone who
helped; acknowledge all who contributed; tell the story.
13. Listen to reactions, gain fresh energy and plan the next phase
(Sources: Lydon, M. (2007) Mapping our common ground. Victoria, BC: Common
Ground; (www.commongroundproject.ca; www.lifecyclesproject.ca and www.
greenmap.org)

EXPERIMENTAL LEARNING IN THE OUTDOORS

Experiencing Place

Time: 3 hours
Purpose: To familiarise oneself with the outdoors from an ‘experience’ of place; to
learn more about oneself; to learn and understand the outdoors more; to experience
oneself and the outdoors together

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Requirements: The outdoors, comfortable clothes, enthusiasm, willingness to learn,


be curious and have fun
How to:
1. The group needs to be outdoors for the whole experience. You introduce
the activity after you have reached your destination. The destination should
be somewhere where people could find a spot to sit or lie down on the
ground
2. Ask the participants to find a comfortable space on the ground
3. Ask the participants if they have done thinking in their heads, visualisation or
projecting themselves into the future? (this is to set-up that everyone has done
visualisation in their life)
4. Tell them we are going to go on a journey with themselves and the earth
5. They can keep their eyes open and focused on some object for the time or they
can close their eyes
6. This is where you as the facilitator can become creative. You will for about
five minutes lead the people down an imaginary path talking out loud about the
weather, their feelings at the moment, the people they might meet along their
imagined path, and so on
7. You MUST speak very slowly and allow for a pause after you say, for example,
The day is wonderfully bright and sunny and you feel warm and carefree as you
move down the imaginary path. Your task is to guide, not have air-time.
8. Ask people to notice that they are sitting on the ground and that there are people
around them

Debriefing the Activity


It is important to break into groups to debrief the activity. Close with everyone
sharing their thoughts about the activity in a bigger discussion at the end. Walk
through the experiential learning cycle. Asking open-ended questions starting with
Experiencing.

Experiencing
• what did you do? What was that like for you?

Observing
• what happened when you went on your journey down the path? What feelings,
thoughts, people you met and thinking did you do along the way? Were there any
surprises for you?

Interpreting
• what does this tell you about yourself? Have you learned anything new about the
earth and outdoors by experiencing this activity?

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Transferring
• how can you apply this learning to parts of your life? What would you apply?
• what parts of the activity can you use?
11. Final briefing would be a run through of the learning cycle and talk about its
applicability to our lives. We do this cycle all the time without thinking about it.

THE ECOLOGICAL ART OF TECHNOLOGY

Technology is prevalent in our lives. It can be a wonderful tool of environmental


adult education, as this section shows. But it can also have problems and therefore,
before we outline the activities we name a few of those. Firstly, although there are
benefits of collaborative work in a computer environment, setting individuals to
work in groups using (e.g., computer, camcorders) does not mean that collaboration
will happen. Hence, participants should understand the need to take turns with the
working tools. They also should be able to listening to each other during group
discussion, acknowledging other’s ideas and considering their ideas, stating ideas
freely, and resolving conflicts democratically.
In our previous experiences with group work in a computer setting, we have noticed
that (a) in face-to-face interaction during computer sessions, there might be a low level
of discourse amongst participants and; (b) due to different backgrounds of participants
involved in the activity, they may experience confusion when facing different kinds of
technology and even anxiety about the working group itself. More so, the constraints
mentioned above can be increased by a number of factors such as, the number of
participants/computers, the layout of the computer room, and how participants are
arranged around the machine (physical arrangement). If this is the case, it is likely
that individuals may manage the meditational tools differently. For instance, a certain
individual within a working group may take charge of processing the common
understandings of the whole group into the computer for a longer period of time than
others, thus increasing the possibilities of monopolisation of meditational tools.
Aside from the constraints of working groups in a computer setting, research
suggests that the use of computers in adult education can positively assist us in our
efforts for change. Computer collaborative work environments can be very democratic.
If you are familiar with using video as the facilitator then you can follow this
as step-by-step process as a refresher. If you are unfamiliar, you may wish to learn
this first. Alternatively, you can bring in a video artist. This provides an equal (well,
depending on the levels of computer knowledge of the group) learning environment
for facilitators and participants.

A Moving Lens on the Environment

In this activity participants have the opportunity to learn how to produce an


environmental video. Therefore, this video production can be combined with an

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environmental activity. For instance, participants can produce and environmental


video about a fieldtrip to a land field or a visit to a museum.
Time: 2 hours (30 minutes videotaping, 1 hour editing, 30 minutes watching final
videos). If necessary, the video recording can be done in the morning and editing
and watching the final videos can be done in the afternoon. If facilitator prefer,
videotaping can happen in one day, and editing can happen in the next day. Since the
video production is combined with another activity, the facilitator can decide what
would work best for his or her schedule
Purpose: Learn how to make environmental videos
Requirements: Camcorder (or any other video recording device) and a computer
with IMovie™ software. This software is available for free in any Apple™ computer
How to:
1. Participants are taken to an outdoor area chosen by the facilitator and divided
into groups (two or three individuals per group)
2. The facilitator gives one camcorder to each group
3. The facilitator familiarises the group with the camcorders first. The small groups
then discuss a specific environmental concept, issue of theme they would like
to explore (water pollution, environmental racism, women and the environment,
consumerism, organic farming and so forth). As these concepts or issues may
not be present in a concrete form at the outdoor site, participants engage in a
discussion about thinking metaphorically, symbolically. The facilitator moves
from group to group, raising the issue of symbolism, assisting them and/or
talking them through any difficulties, and so forth
4. After the video recording is completed the facilitator takes participants to a
computer laboratory or anywhere else where they can have computer access
with IMovie™ software
5. Using an USB cable that comes with the camcorder, participants y connect the
computer to the camcorder
6. Once the camcorder is recognised, IMovie™ will automatically open on the
computer screen
7. With IMovie ™ open on the computer screen and the camcorder still connected
to the computer, a command box automatically pops up on the computer screen
asking if the user wants to import the videos from the camera into IMoive™.
Participants click the “yes” button. In so doing, all the video clips from the
camcorder will be automatically transferred onto the Shelf
8. Before starting the editing, the facilitator invites participants to transfer the
video clips from the Shelf onto the Timeline by selecting all the video clips from
the Shelf, and dragging them onto the Timeline. This is done by clicking “edit”
from the tool bar (top of the screen) then clicking “select all”. All the video clips
from the Shelf will be selected. Next, click on the videos and drag them onto the

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Timeline. It is also possible to select single videos from the Shelf. If this is the
case, participants should simple click on the video clip he or she wants to edit,
hold it, drag it and drop it onto the timeline
9. Editing now begins and to editing a video, the facilitator helps participants to
delete unwanted footage, add special effects and audio. These IMovie™ features
are covered next.
10. After participants have selected the video clips for editing, the facilitator
encourages them to delete the video clips they will not be using. Deleting
unwanted video clips will avoid confusion with selected videos and will save
space in the hard-drive of the computer. To delete a video clip participants
should click on the video clip from the Shelf
11. Next, the facilitator asks participants to add special effects to their videos. Using
the mouse of the computer, participants will click on “effects”, which is button
on the bottom of the Shelf. In so doing, a list of different special effects will pop
up on the screen. To choose one (or more) special effects you click on the desired
effect, hold it, drag it and drop it onto the timeline. Take your time to play with
the special effects – they are fun and colourful
12. Next, participants can add audio to their videos. Although the video already has
its own audio, other audio effects, such as applauses, booing, and so on can be
added to the video to make it more fun and entertaining. To do so, participants
click on audio, which is button on the bottom Shelf. A pop up window will
appear on the screen with a list of audio effects. Participants choose one or
more audio effects by clicking on them, holding, dragging and dropping onto
the Timeline wherever they want their sound effect to play. Again, take time to
browse the audio effects as they too are fun to work with.
13. Before saving the final videos, you should watch the final product. The
Monitor of the IMovie™ (Figure 5) is used to preview the final product.
This step is important to check if the final product is really what participants
expect
14. Now that the final video is completed and reviewed, it is time to save it. Save
the video as “Quicktime” because it compresses the videos so it can be sent by
email, or published on video blogs or any other video websites such as Youtube.
To save the final videos as “Quicktime” click on “file” from the tool bar (top of
the screen), then on “export movie”; then on “export to quicktime”; then click
on “CR-Rom” and finally, click on “export”. Next, a command box will pop
up on the screen, asking the participant to type the name of their video. Finally
a last command box will pop up asking if the movie is supposed to be saved.
Participants should be encouraged to click “yes”. The movie will be saved on the
desktop of the computer.
15. The small groups show the entire group their final videos, commenting on:
• The process of developing the video their final product
• The challenges
• The learning

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• How they can use this in their own educational work


• What more they need to learn
• Their feelings about technology
• Their feeling about the issues they explored

Participatory Video for Empowerment

Participatory video (PV) is widely used as a tool of educational capacity development


to empower those who are often marginalised and socially excluded. Group training
in video documentation and editing is an important approach to enable the perspective
of the poor to be shown and their voices to be heard. This methodology enhances
community networking, awareness building and contributes to the personal and
social growth.
Worldwide the number of people whose livelihoods depend on the collection,
separation and recycling of urban waste is growing, particularly in large cities. These
informal recyclers are often referred to as – binners in Canada and catadores in
Brazil- and they recover resources. However, there are also negative labels such
as scavengers or dumpster divers. And yet recovering materials that are considered
garbage has become a widespread survival strategy for those who are poor and
socially excluded in the developing world but also in the rich countries like Canada.
They provide an important service to the community by cleaning up the environment
and redirecting materials. The overall goal of this educational project was to build
the capacity of organised recyclers from cooperatives in the metropolitan region
of São Paulo, Brazil and of informal recyclers in Victoria, Canada in video
documenting. The aim was to explore environmental/human health and social
justice issues related to their professional activity and to empower them to enhance
livelihood opportunities, through training in multi-media technology and in citizen
journalism.
A two-week workshop was conducted in April 2008 in São Paulo with 20
recyclers. During the first session of the workshop the following two activities
were conducted within small groups of five individuals: (1) Choosing a Theme:
Participants decided on a collective theme for the video; (2) Community Mapping:
On a large piece of butcher paper participants drew places and monuments that
were meaningful to them; places linked to certain ideas and facts relevant for the
story to be told. This exercise helped participants to identify the geography of those
places that contribute to the community and places that need to be transformed, the
dynamics of geography with recent changes to the physical/social landscape; as well
as significant cultural, social, religious places; location where important events have
occurred.
The second session of the workshop included: (1) Video training: Participants
were trained hands-on in small groups to use cameras. The training techniques
included: (a) Basic camera operations; Turning camera on, loading and unloading
battery, charging battery, charging, focusing, maintaining white balance, and

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zooming in and out; (b) Concept of a shot; shots can be put together to create
new meaning; (c) Shoot-to edit techniques; preparing your shots; (d) Shooting
techniques; close up, pan (left/right), and tilt (up/down), b-roll (Each participant
had an opportunity to frame shots of his/her partner/group); (e) Sound; as a
separate element that can be manipulated independently of the image. This created
a number of options: voice-over narration; cut-away shots during interviews;
music; (e) Interviews; conventional framing, background, questions, answers,
sound, interviewer behind the camera etc. It was suggested that the groups conduct
interviews with each other; (f) General Recording; The director was instructed
to tell the camera operator when to press record and call “action!” when the shot
was to begin; (g) Logging video; document the cue-out points for the editing cues;
(h) Reviewing Footage; After shooting, the raw footage was reviewed with the
participants. They had the option of making changes to their initial plan depending
on what footage they had obtained. Once the technical introduction was completed
groups started to take their first shots, applying the Name Game. Each trainee was
asked to tell in front of the camera their expectations, hopes and fears over the next
three days.
A third session dealt with the storyboard technique. In this exercise participants
agreed on a common story they wanted to tell, based on the predetermined
theme. On a piece of paper the participants draw 8–10 triple boxes, in which
the scene information was recorded: (1) Image sound details; (2) Details of the
shot: Where, Who, What. Finally, the group agreed upon the distribution of
responsibilities for filming, directing, sound, organisation, general helper, and still
photographer.
Over three days, four groups of recyclers from different locations worked together
in videotaping their own stories. Most of the stories were about their relation with
the community during the door-to-door collection, the environmental perspective
of waste as a contaminating nuisance and the necessity for resource recovery
and one group had build a story called “The evolution of the catador” where an
autonomous recycler was approached and convinced to work in a cooperative. After
the fieldwork all groups convened again to learn about post-production and to view
a first collective video edited together with pieces from each group. Each group
then received a DVD tape with their own material. The individual group videos
helped them to publicise their still precarious working conditions and their important
community contributions.
The workshop was also video-taped and a shortened, edited version of a Step
by Step Guide in Participatory Video was produced. Additional outcomes from
the project were photo and video material that provides the wider community of
recyclers, the government and NGOs with a better understanding of the social,
environmental and health issues related to informal and organised resource recovery.
Key environmental issues involved in resource recovery and the challenges of global
development are made visible through this process. There is also potential for the
material to be used in academic courses

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Figure 1: Recyclers using Participatory Video as action research in São Paulo, Brazil

A shortened version of the workshop was conducted in Victoria, BC during one week
in November 2008 with 11 autonomous recyclers. This workshop covered theme
finding exercises, the development of a storyboard, group filming and collective
viewing, feedback and discussions. The recyclers told stories about such as “the
binner entrepreneur”, “a day in the life of a binner” and “binners’ traplines”. The
workshop stirred a strong sense of citizenship in the participants and they commented
about the re-empowering aspect of PV. The recyclers from Canada and Brazil felt
reassured by seeing themselves in the video and being able to project images about
their work to the wider community.

(Source: Gutberlet, J. (2008). Recycling Citizenship, recovering resources: Urban


poverty reduction in Latin America. Ashgate, Aldershot: UK)

ART OF/AND COMMUNICATION

Communications Activity: Poster Drawing

Time: 2 hours
Purpose: This activity is used to illustrate how perceptions and past experience
affect or impact upon our ability to communicate more effectively. The activity
works very well in cross-cultural settings and with people who work in different
areas. It can be between 15 and 30 people with 5 or 6 people in each small
group

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Requirements:
• A poster for each group (see below for selecting)
• Large sheet of butcher’s paper (or flip–chart paper)
• Package of crayons or coloured makers for each group
• Push pins, masking tape, glue sticks

How to:
1. Divide participants into small groups
2. Have the members in the small group number off — 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc.
3. The first person from each group remains in the rooms or at the end of a large
room — all others leave
4. This person is given the poster to view privately for two minutes
5. Put the posters away and invite the 2nd person in the group to join the
first
6. The 1st person has two minutes to verbally describe the content of the poster to
the 2nd and then leave the room (persons leaving should not join those who have
not heard the explanation)
7. The 3rd person is invited in and the 2nd person is given two minutes to verbally
explain the poster to the 3rd person
8. This continues until all the people in the group have heard the explanation of the
poster
9. The last person to hear the explanation remains in the room, is given markers
and/or crayons, flip–chart paper and asked to draw images of what was just
explained to them (not to do a work of art but to get the explanation across
through drawing)
10. All come back to the main room
11. ”Artists” show their drawings one by one and explain what they are about
12. After all have been described, show the original poster
13. Ask the group about differences and similarities between the original and what
was drawn
14. Going through all the posters, ask each group to explain reasons for the
differences:
• Why are objects different colours, smaller, bigger, etcetera
• How did things get changed? Were details left out in the explanation?
• How can we avoid these difference?
• What does this activity say about our communication processes

(Note: When selecting the posters try to find posters that the group is not familiar
with, and use different posters or the same one for each small group as the same
poster generates interesting discussion about drawings)

(Source: Kerrie Strathy)

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A Story of the Developers’ Feast

Arguing that “we have been fighting development in the traditional ways and are
getting nowhere” a group of women artists on Vancouver Island challenged one of
their own, Gretchen Markle, to create an art piece that could be used to promote active
public engagement and create a counter-story to those being told by the developers.
The purpose of the Developers’ Feast was to highlight destructive development
projects in the area and visually capture their impact – the before and after – on
ecologically sensitive areas. The idea of a ‘feast’ was chosen because it best captured
the ways in which development “was eating up the land” and how the “wild places
were being dished-up to development.” Because the issue of development on the
Island is so contentious, complex and fraught with struggle, the artists wanted to
have something humorous yet poignant to take to public meetings to encourage
debate and dialogue.
The Developers Feast is a life-size picnic table. The silk cloth that runs down
the centre and the full length of the table is frayed at one end to show what has
been lost. The end where the cloth is not frayed represents glimmers of hope for the
wild spaces. The silk cloth is covered in red hearts or “bleeding hearts”, symbolic
of the dismissive metaphor used for people who disagree with turbo development.
The knives are miniature chainsaws to represent “clear-cutting”, the logging and
development practice of choice on Vancouver Island. To create the drawings which
adorn each of the eight plates, the artist rode her bicycle around the community,
made sketches or took photographs and then painted these sometimes vibrant and
beautiful, sometimes dull and ugly images in pastels on the plates. The two menus
contain humorous yet truthful accounts of the before and after of development. One
of the entries in the beverage menu reads:
Accompany your fine meal with a tall glass of sparkling, cool, clear Matheson
Lake Water. Caution: Our apologies, Madame y Messieur but recent
cutting in the Matheson Lake watershed has compromised the purity of this
beverage.
But where there is public art there is also censorship. Developers, politicians, the
police and other in situations of authority fully recognise the power of the arts.
Gretchen took The Feast to numerous development hearings and gatherings over
the course of a year. Sometimes, she was told it was too controversial and she
had to leave it in the foyer, rather than bring it into a meeting. Once a menu was
taken as it sat in the foyer and she worried for weeks that the developer would
sue her as he had done to countless others who dared to cross him. However,
The Feast was entered into the local arts festival titled Celebrating Green Spaces
and won the Peoples Choice Award. It was the only political piece of art entered
into the show. Its amazing popularity and the award are testaments to how
beautifully, creatively, and poignantly the Feast raised the issues and engaged the
community.

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(Source: Clover D.E. & Markle, G. (2003). Feminist arts practices of popular
education: Imagination, counter-narratives and activism on Vancouver Island. New
Zealand Journal of Adult Education, 31(2), 36–52)

Shadow Puppetry for Environmental Adult Education

Shadow play or shadow puppetry is a form of storytelling using opaque cut-out


figures held between a source of light and a white screen to create the illusion
of moving images. Shadow puppetry can be used to tell different stories around
different environmental themes. Using paper of different thickness and texture,
darker or lighter silhouettes can be created. Furthermore, the use of coloured paper
or fabric creates colourful shadows as illustrated in Figure 1

Figure 1 – Shadow performance projected on a white wall. Using colourful plastic,


straws, and cardboard, silhouettes of different colours, shapes and textures can be created.
This example is taken from a performance about forest devastation.

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Time: 1.5 hours


Purpose: To learn the art of shadow puppetry; to use shadow puppets to create and
perform a short story about an environmental issue
Requirements: Most of the materials used in this activity are recyclable, such as
paper of different colours and textures, pieces of fabric, straws, chopsticks, plastic,
etc., just use your imagination. Anything that can create a silhoutte could be used.
You may also require scissors, scotch tape and glue. A lamp will be required as
source of light and a white screen could be used to project the images upon as well
(a white wall can be used instead)
How to:

1) Identifying the themes


Divide participants into groups (three individuals per group works well). Ask them
to identify a key environmental issue in their community.

2) Producing the script


1. The groups are invited by the facilitator to write a script around the key
environmental issue they have previously identified. A script is a written work
detailing story, setting, and dialogue to later on be performed. Before the
group starts writing their scripts, the facilitator should invite participants to
think about the “5Ws”: What? Why? Where? When? Who? from their stories.
The 5 Ws will help the groups to fill in the main body of their story. For
instance:
• What the story will be about? The key environmental issue they have previously
identified (e.g., waste management, forest devastation, global warming, and so
on) answers the question “what?”
• Why they have decided to address that specific key environmental issue in
their story?
• Where the story will take place (e.g., forest, city, park)?
• When the story will happen (e.g., future, past time)?
• Who will be part of the story (i.g., characters)?
2. Once the groups have reflected on the 5 Ws, the facilitator asks them to write
down their ideas about these 5Ws
3. Next, participants write a story line based on the 5Ws they just wrote down.
While writing the story line, participants should keep in mind that any story has
a beginning, a middle and an end. To start writing the story line, the facilitator
should ask participants to write a few sentences explaining how the story begins,
where and when it takes place as well as the characters and their dialogue. It is
important that the facilitator at this point remind the participants to keep their
stories as simple as possible.

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Once their scripts are complete, with a story line (beginning, middle and ending) and
characters, it is time to start making the characters (puppets) and the set for the play

Making the puppets


1. Using the scisors, participants should be asked to cut out the paper in shapes
they want to use to make silhouetes. Now it is time for participants to use their
imagination. They can make human shapes, animals, trees. Whatever they decide
that could illustrate their script
2. Once participants have all their shape done, they can attach the straws to them
using the scotch tape or the glue. The straws will help participants to hold their
puppets and the set against the white screen or wall during performance
3. The faciliator should now prepare the “theatre” for rehearsal and show time. For
the shadow puppet theatre, you will need a white screen or a white wall and a
lamp. Place the lamp facing the wall (the light should hit the wall), leave enough
room between the wall and the lamp for participants to perform
4. To perform, participants use the straws glued to the puppets to hold their puppets
between the lamp and the wall, projecting the shadows of their puppets on the
wall. Using their voices and hand movement, they can perform the script they
previously wrote

Puppetry and the People’s Court: A Story From Australia

Activists at a blockade in Australia decided that in order to attract more media and
public attention, they would create an enormous puppet judge from papier maché,
and hold a People’s Court. One trail was a local mining company. The development
of this puppet show involved dozens of volunteers labouring in a ‘Creative Space’
tent with paint, wire and cloth. Together, they wrote, planned and rehearsed. They
then assembled at the mine’s gates, along with a massive crowd – the jury. Two
people worked the judge’s arms and his voice came from a man inside connected
to an amplifier with reverberation effects. Highly qualified scientists, acting
as witnesses, spoke at length about carcinogenic radon gas, nuclear weapons
proliferation, and radioactive pollution of the Kakadu World Heritage Area where
the Mirrar Aboriginals still enjoy traditional activities. The charges were read from a
ten-foot scroll, the jury erupted with giant letters spelling out ‘Guilty’ and everyone
marched on the gates. A police officer warned them they would be arrested; in reply,
a woman read out an ‘Eviction Notice’, which was painted on an enormous banner.
Twenty-two people then entered the road to the mine, and were arrested.
The puppet judge was so out-of-the ordinary because of its size, appearance and
strong childhood connotations, that the speeches were transformed into spectacle,
into something more than just words. The dedication of the group to the cause was
evident from the days of work put into the props. These preparations occurred in
the camp, away from the arrest-able situations near the mine, so there were fewer

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stresses to drive those who were less familiar with the perils of activism away. The
performance too was inclusive, drawing in all the protesters into the role of the
jury, and many bystanders, who would possibly not have stopped or joined in had
the action not been theatrical and thus relatively non-threatening. This added an
international element to the protest, of ordinary tourists witnessing or supporting
what then became an act of civil disobedience. With so many of the public involved,
the line between who were protesters and who were not rapidly blurred, creating
uncertainty among the police as to who to arrest. Such internationalisation too
probably effected police perceptions of the blockade – no longer was it just a group
of strangely dressed radicals, it now included a broad cross-section of the global
community. Artistic forms of action are easy to join, and provide a range of levels
at which people can engage. This inclusivity and creativity help environmental
movements to grow, and further expands audiences in terms of environmental adult
education and learning.

(Source: Branagan, M. (2005). Environmental education, activism and the arts.


Convergence, 38(4), 33–50)

The Age of Beauty: A Story of Consciousness

On July 15, 2004 190 millimetres of rain fell onto Peterborough, Ontario, a city of
70,000 people. This completely overwhelmed an infrastructure built to handle 10
million gallons of water rather than the 54 millions the sky actually delivered. A state
of emergency was declared and thousands of people required emergency housing,
food, and clothing. The city infrastructure sustained $24.8 million in damage and
individuals and businesses for a total of $9.8 million in damage filed by 3,800 claims.
At the invitation of Mayor Sylvia Sutherland, eighteen active and prominent
women aged 55 to 86 decided to pose, daring to wear little clothing if any, to
celebrate the spirit of Peterborough and raise funds for the victims of the flood.
The result was a beautiful, elegant, funny, black and white, 18-month calendar. This
work of art stands as a testament to the strength, creativity, spirit, and contribution of
these elders at a time of ecological crisis in their community.
The women sold out 4,500 copies of the calendar and with government matching
funds generated $200,000 (CAN) for people affected by the floods.
There were many factors that insured the success of this project. While the
Mayor’s initiative and knowledge of government programs were important, the
generosity and collaborative attitude of everyone involved was also crucial. While
some were elected officials, others were businesswomen, artists, community
organisers, and activists. Part of the success was to reach out to women from
different constituencies within the community. They had a cause, a clear project,
a wealth of knowledge, skills, and networks. Having invited women from a wide
range of sectors and accomplishments provided the group with inner resources, be
it leadership, facilitation skills, business know-how, contacts with local businesses,

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experience working with groups, photography and the artistic flair of women who
had lifelong involvement with the arts. Plus there was a compelling cause that was
immediate and very real, as they all knew someone who had been affected.
The project happened very quickly. The idea proved so popular with older women
that as soon as the news hit the local media, the 12-month calendar grew to 18 months.
One woman who was not one of the ‘models’ agreed to coordinate the project. The
businesswomen contacted a local businessman who owned seniors’ residences and
he agreed to pay for the first printing. Others enlisted the help of an award-winning
photographer from the community. The photographer, a younger man, was well
respected for his skills and known to many of the women as a friend. He invited his
female assistant and his teenage daughter to work with him on this project and they
proved to be wonderful additions to the team, looking after the women and making
them feel comfortable for the sitting as it was important that each woman felt at ease
This project was also successful because of the depth of thought, care, and
consideration given by all members of the project. Sincerity of purpose, knowledge,
experience, daring and risk-taking all contributed to the creation of engaging images
of older women. Each of the models reflected on her life and identified a setting
where the photograph could be taken as well as objects that symbolised her life,
passion, and achievements. Each photograph is unique, beautiful, full of grace, spirit
and meaning. Together, the photographs offer diversity and deepened and broadened
notions and images of beauty and aging for women. It took collaboration and the
result is a calendar that reflects the wisdom, beauty and dynamism of these elders.
A public unveiling was organised with dramatic pizzaz, the presence of the media
as well as an unexpected large crowd joined in to cheer each woman as she unveiled
her photograph. Other volunteers then sold the calendars. They quickly went to a
second printing. Exhibits of the photographs have been held and the women have
been invited to speak and share their experience on numerous occasions. As they say,
the calendar has taken a life of it’s own.

(Source: Roy, C. (2006). The Age of Beauty Calendar for flood relief: Photography,
community solidarity, fundraising, and vibrant older women. Convergence, 38(4),
69–84)

Bigfoot Comes in From the Cold: A Story

The Young Endeavour Programme (YEP) was an innovative programme run through
Armidale’s Technical and Further Education College. It aimed to assist young
offenders (some of them Indigenous) to improve their vocational, educational and
life skills. The course included art, music, literacy, carpentry, health, self-defence,
cooking, and excursions to Aboriginal communities and significant bushland sites,
such as ones containing carved trees. Many of the youth came from poverty-stricken
families, in a culture fraught with violence, dysfunction and substance abuse, with
the latter having an effect on people from the womb. These are clear legacies of

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colonial ‘divide-and-conquer’ dispossession, although many in the community


refuse to see this and rely on simplistic law-and-order solutions to unrest.
In July 2008 the YEP art class moved to the IronMan Welders warehouse (an
exciting, Dante-esque but ear-shattering environ), and began to work on ‘Bigfoot’.
This was based on the idea of reducing our ecological ‘footprint’ by moving to
more sustainable lifestyles. Ali Buckley, organiser of SLEX – the region’s first
Sustainability Expo – was able to facilitate access to the shire’s Waste Management
Facility and Council depot, where another mentor, Rod Day, and I frolicked through
mountains of waste to get useful scrap metal, and used road signs. Staff here was
extremely cooperative and friendly.
At our warehouse the young people and mentors worked synergistically on
the design and construction of the foot. Metal strips were bent into the shape of a
footprint, and welded together. Reinforced steel was cut to this shape and attached.
The road signs were cut, fitted to the shape, drilled, and tied on with wire, after
they had been altered to incorporate messages about sustainability. For example a
giant ‘One Lane Reduce Speed’ sign was transformed into ‘One Planet. Reduce
Greed’. To a roundabout sign was added ‘Reduce, Re-use, Recycle’, while other
signs became ‘STOP Global Warming’, ‘GIVE AWAY Your Car’ and ‘Consumption
of coal is prohibited’, or called for solar (not nuclear) power, carbon taxes, and
reforestation. I will never look at a road sign again without subversive intent! More
steel was added to make the foot three-dimensional, and this was covered in chicken
wire and painted red, yellow, black and green. A slab of recycled cans and a Hill’s
Hoist [Australian clothes line] formed the ankle, with the addition of a high water
sign to symbolise rising sea levels. A windmill made from a bicycle wheel topped
this. The group was open to suggestions as to what the windmill should power,
although a cider still was not ruled out! We worked long days and into the night,
and I saw how focused and hardworking these youth could be when they could see
the purpose. They were also able to teach me much about working with metal. We
issued a press release, and a photographer arrived at the same time as a team of
Council workers. We hoisted the foot onto their crane truck, praying it would not fall
off, and installed it at the Showground, just hours before the opening of SLEX. The
foot served as a focal point over the next three days, and we had much favourable
comment and newspaper coverage.
Culture is essential for any sustainable society, so it was exciting to have art brought
into SLEX in this way. It was also good to have the involvement of indigenous youth,
as the tens of thousands of years of occupation of Australia show the sustainability
of Aboriginal culture. In this project, indigenous and non-indigenous youths
worked together harmoniously and creatively. Funding for YEP has ended, but
Bigfoot (now with a solar-powered light) will soon be exhibited in our regional art
gallery.

(Source: Branagan, M. (2005). The art(s) of nonviolence. New Community Quarterly,


3(2), 23–27)

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THE ART OF WASTE

Community and Household Waste Workshops

Increasing availability of modern products such as plastic, glass, metals and batteries, is
creating environmental degradation as the old rubbish disposal and practices continue
to be used since women were not aware of the dangers posed by these new materials.
The women selected for the workshop were trainers or leaders of women’s groups.
The women were selected because the workshops were also designed to introduce
participatory methodologies that could be used to mobilise women to reduce, reuse
and recycle their rubbish, and to safely dispose of the remaining rubbish.
Time: A series of six workshops approximately 3 hours each
Purpose: The purposes of the workshops were to look at current waste disposal
practices throughout Fiji and to introduce more appropriate and environmentally
friendly practices; and to train women leaders to use more experiential and
participatory educational methodologies
Requirements: Forms prepared ahead of time, pens and rubber gloves
How to:
Workshop Session I
1. On forms and in small groups, participants identified a number of household
wastes and the ways in which they were currently being disposed of.
2. The findings were shared with the larger group and written on flip–chart paper
by the facilitator

Workshop Session II
1. A bag of rubbish was brought to the meeting.
2. Participants, using rubber gloves, sorted through the bag and categorised the
contents by type of material (i.e. compostable waste, plastic, etc.
3. This was followed by a strategising session on alternative uses for the rubbish and
disposal methods

Workshop Session III


1. Participants visited a rubbish dump and a recycling depot.
2. Following this visit, they walked through a nearby village to discover the ways
and means that rubbish was disposed of

Workshop Session IV
1. Participants created a trench compost site at the local dump and discussed other
types of composting methods

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Workshop Session V
1. Using small groups and flip–charts, participants strategise ways money could be
made from rubbish such as the production of crafts

Workshop Session VI
1. Participants produced posters and materials as follow–up and educational tools.
2. Participants created songs to celebrate what they had learned and actions they
would take.

(Source: SPACHEE, University of the South Pacific Fiji Centre, and the YWCA)

The Garbage Collection: A Labour and Environment Story

The Garbage Collection was a project in Toronto that used an environmental adult
education process to build links between sanitation workers, environmental activists
and the artistic community in a unique way. The project was a partnership between
a municipal government (the City of Toronto) an environmental organisation, a
group of unionised sanitation workers and a group of artists. Well, it started out as a
partnership but things changed.
The context of this project is important. The City of Toronto produces a million
tonnes of garbage each year. The provincial government, because it was in an
area of their biggest supporters, ordered the closure of a major landfill site used
by the city. Succumbing to the pressure, City Councilors hatched a plan to send
Toronto’s garbage by train to the abandoned open-pit mine in northern Ontario,
which is presently filled with water clean enough for people to drink and to swim
in. Although the conservative government at the time insisted it had carried out a
full-scale environmental assessment, their track record on the environment was
highly suspect. Moreover, conflicting scientific evidence had many worried that the
garbage would leech into ground water and cause human and ecosystem health risks,
not to mention the obvious destruction of an area that has returned to a somewhat
equal state. Although there were many business people and government officials in
the northern Ontario region who supported this initiative, the majority of the public
in Toronto and the aboriginal communities of the area did not.
A group of artists, sanitation workers and environmentalists came together for a
weekend workshop to address stereotypes and misconceptions, and share knowledge
about the issue of waste through personal stories. The project’s artistic expression
was colourful and poignant images of environmental pollution painted onto the sides
of city garbage trucks or what they referred to as “mobile canvases”. Of particular
importance is a thought articulated by one of the artist-educators: “The contradictory
status of the Sanitation Worker in our community struck me as an interesting
metaphor to the ways in which we view garbage – they are both immediately visible
and yet instantly forgettable.”

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The group brainstormed a number of ideas and the broad themes chosen were
earth, air, fire and water. The artists then took these ideas and images and drawings.
Once these images were complete, they were shown to officials in municipal
government for approval. Following this, the painting of the trucks began and once
that was completed, the trucks were assembled on a lot in downtown Toronto and
proudly displayed. The media was invited to attend the event and they came out in
droves. The arts attract attention.
All seemed to be going well until the media noticed a particular image on the water
truck. This created a political explosion that took this environmental adult learning
project from a creative way to build new partnerships, challenge stereotypes and
stimulate discussion to a media circus that gave the project much more publicity and
helped to mobilise political actions and voices around the city. The image that caused
the disturbance was a train surrounded by bags of garbage. In addition, bags of money
swirled around the heads of two grinning human figures. Although the city officials
had approved the drawings when they were displayed on the side of these massive
trucks one official took offence. He argued that the two images depicted Counselors
and that they looked like pigs. He ordered the truck off the lot to be whitewashed
immediately. Union officials, the artists, the sanitation workers, and thousands of
others who had a connection to the project or the issue depicted, protested immediately
and a press conference at City Hall was organised. It was argued that this was an issue
of democracy and freedom of speech. Through a collective process a design had been
developed and then approved. The unilateral decision to whitewash the design was
undemocratic, an issue of censorship and an insult to the educational process.
There were four results of this project. The garbage truck belongs to the city but
copyright of the artwork belongs to the artist. Plans were immediately put into place
to re-establish the image in a more public space, such as along a busy commercial
street where even more people would see it than if it were only on the garbage trucks
that ghost through the neighbourhoods in the early hours of the morning. Second, the
City of Toronto pulled the northern Ontario deal off the table. One media source said
it was because one of the contractors did not like something in the contract, but that,
of course, is not the entire story. Third, the official who whitewashed the truck was
voted out of office within a few weeks. The media said it was due to amalgamations
but the official himself was heard ranting on early morning public radio, blaming the
Toronto Environmental Alliance for his downfall. Finally, the sanitation workers let it
be known that although people were filling their blue and grey boxes and these were
being collected, the contents were simply being dumped into landfill, as this was more
economical. A municipal government upsets three million people who have scrubbed
cans and removed labels at their peril! The contents of those boxes are now recycled.

(Sources: Barndt, D. (2008). Touching minds and hearts: Community arts as collaborative
research. In J. Knowles & A. Cole (Eds) Handbook of the arts in qualitative research
(pp.351–362). Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage Publications; Clover, D.E. (2000). Community
arts as environmental adult education and activism. Convergence, 33(3), 19–30)

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A Show of Hands

trust in the process


celebrate laughter and contribute whatever you can
join hands..come on an join hands
we’ll all stand together no matter the weather
and join hands…
(Lyrics from a song created for the project)
A Show of Hands was a collective visual symbol of what a community that struggles
together can accomplish. A small ‘mountain’ as it was known – the only real green
space in two working class neighbourhoods in Sudbury, Ontario – was under threat
of development. After months of collective struggle, the two communities that
bordered and used the mountain suddenly realised they had won, that they were
going to be able to preserve at least some of this green space for the children and
other members of their community. There was a great sense of accomplishment; a
great sense of feeling that perhaps they could start taking on other issues. And they
wanted to celebrate their win.
They needed to mark the fact that they had matured as a community, they had
come a distance together and that there was a real commitment to community.
Myths and Mirrors, a feminist arts-based adult education organisation in the
neighbourhood decided to develop a collective process that would create some
type of monument to honour all the individuals and what they had accomplished.
The outcome was a process which included over 460 residents painting what they
valued about their neighbourhood onto plywood cut-outs of their hands. The process
began as most Myths and Mirrors projects do: with community consultations that
incorporated adult education and arts creation processes as catalysts for reflection,
analysis and discussion on a theme, in this case the neighbourhood and their
environmental activism. A core group gathered up the images, ideas and analysis
generated at the consultations, and, with a professional artist, collectively designed
the final concept – the hands. The project was a huge success, both in terms of the
process and the quality of the beautiful, high-energy artwork. Once all the hands
had been painted, they were put together in a huge spiral, with a trailing tail like a
comet and attached to a fence around a park and Myths and Mirrors organised an
unveiling. But installation site proved to be too vulnerable to weather damage so
the community came together again to decide where to re-install their work of art.
More than 50 people took part in public fora to decide what to do with the artworks.
In the end, the public library seemed the best place and A Show of Hands now
resides permanently on the walls of that building.

(Source: Clover, D.E. (2007). Feminist aesthetic practices of community


development, education and activism in Canada: The case of Myths and Mirrors.
Community Development Journal, 42(4), 1–1)

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POSTSCRIPT

With these lessons in hand, we go forward stumbling, colliding and in the end,
learning to dance.
Keough, Carmona & Grandinetti, 2005
In this final chapter, we provide some after thoughts as well as some of the lessons
we learned facilitating environmental adult education workshops worldwide. There
is of course, always much more to say, but we hope this chapter answers any further
questions you may have had as you read through the book or used the activities in
your own work.

RESISTANCE AND FEAR

Since adult education did not include the rest of nature in its theory or practice, and
much of the outdoor experiential learning materials, as noted in Chapter Two, were
for children. We truly hesitated when we first began this work in the early 1990s to
take adults outside. We also had no training or understanding of using the ‘outside’.
At first we used the out-of-doors simply as an add-on to the other activities. For
example, we suggested the participants collect something from outside on their
lunch break and bring it to the afternoon session for discussion. Few if anyone did.
We had left it to learning and not inspired it through education. From that point on,
we consciously and intentionally developed activities in and with the out-of-doors
and integrated them fully in to the workshop or class. And it worked.
Adults will go outside and sometimes it is difficult to coax them back indoors.
Indeed as our practice progressed and we began to tour the world, we became ever
more dependent on the wisdom of the out-of-doors. The same is true of the arts.
Although we recognised that participants would be fearful or at least cautious around
the arts, we used them at every turn. Whenever things became difficult or testy, when
issues were complex and ‘felt’ and we were unsure where to go or what to do, we
had the participants create and sing a song or we ventured forth into the park. Neither
the rest of nature nor the arts ever failed to be the catalysts that moved us forward.
Yet while adults will go outside and they will engage in artistic practice, from time
to time, someone will refuse. There is an innate fear, particularly among urbanites
and older adults, of the rest of nature, which they do not wish to articulate but feel
its control. The fear of insects or the dark may be attributed to a bad experience
or simply a phobia. Fears of the rest of nature are often fed and nurtured by films,
which, ‘for entertainment’ purposes, portray nature as violent and threatening,

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creating an “us against it” scenario. But what looks like fear can also be simpler: the
person did not wear suitable clothing or shoes or they do not wish to get dirty as they
have an evening meeting. Going further, for many older adults, life has been lived
as a struggle of forces and a competition for space, resources, land, and so on. They
have experienced destructive forces of nature such as hurricanes, cyclones, drought
and tidal waves and this has left its mark.
Fear of the arts, as we discussed in Chapter three, often comes from a variety
of sources such as past negative experiences in school. But it also comes from the
‘genius artist in the garret’ syndrome and also, from a ‘consumer’ mentality of where
adults are expected to ‘consume’ the arts but seldom be active agents in creating
culture.
All forms of resistance and fear are real and they must be acknowledged and dealt
with before or within any activity. It is important, therefore, to shape educational
activities in a way that helps people overcome fears and discover new perceptions
of nature. Three specific examples of activities that attempt to deal with fear in
this book are the Night Walk and Nature as Foe. Below we provide a few other
suggestions:

Before the workshop


1. Prepare people ahead of time by sending out notices if possible. Make sure
information about the workshop mentions all outdoor activities, the use of
creativity and the arts (or use of technology), stressing their importance or
centrality to workshop. Ask that people wear or bring specific clothing.

During the workshop


1. Do not force anyone to go outdoors. If someone resists, have this person prepare
flip–charts, gather up markers, change the furniture or whatever else needs to take
place for the next session when the other participants return.
2. Designate this person as a co–facilitator of the next session where what was
learned outside or where the skits and poems will be presented. Let them ‘curate’
and set up the space for the presentations, or ask them to record responses on
flip–chart paper as you move through the activity. In other words, give them
something to do.

SILENCED VOICES: WOMEN AND THE REST OF NATURE

There can be a number of silenced voices but let us use women as an example.
Women have often been socialised – yes, this continues today as feminist adult
educators know so well – to remain silent in large meetings and distrust their
own contributions. Their views and experiences have not always been valued.
An important role of the educator is to include a variety of activities within any
workshop that encourage and promote the voices, feelings and lived experiences of

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POSTSCRIPT

women. Having said this, it is of course not only women who are excluded. People
whose first language, as we noted in Chapter Three, are often marginalised, even in
small groups. Aboriginal and other minorities in a workshop or classroom may also
experience exclusion. Be vigilant by taking part in the group discussions, listening,
and observing. This is often easier done when there is more than one facilitator and
we shall speak to this shortly. Although there are others, some of the activities in this
book that attempt to deal specifically with women’s learning needs are Living Gender,
Women’s Ways of Knowing and Being with Nature. You can adapt these to other
minorities too.
The rest of nature cannot state in words or in the workshop space its case or
needs. No creating or nurturing safe and supportive environment or the use of small
group discussions, poetry or song will change that. For this reason it is critical to
continually use examples from the rest of nature, nature inclusive language, re–
enforce its existence, engage with it directly, and use a natural metaphors such as
trees, rivers, as we did in the activities in Chapters Four and Five.
There are many examples in this book, particularly under introductory activities
that encourage re–connecting with and identifying through the rest of nature. Other
specific activities include Ecological Autobiography, and other “sensing” and
“feeling” outdoor activities such as Living with Nature.

LEARNING EXPERIENCE: THE POSITIVE, NEGATIVE, AND UNEXPECTED

Lessons can be learned from both negative and positive experiences. However,
society in general and the educational system in particular, have avoided and/
or ignored learning from negative experiences. For many adults, being wrong or
incorrect is solely a bad because they carry memories of an educational system
focused almost exclusively on the importance of being correct.
We have found that a positive attitude around negative or unexpected
occurrences is an important component of any workshop. Moreover, taking the
time to seek alternatives immediately when something appears to be going badly,
by engaging the group in identifying what went wrong, why it occurred and how
it can be remedied, moves the process forward in healthy way while serving as a
positive learning model. Reflection after the workshop on these experiences helps
the facilitator to return to his or her own feelings about what took place and begin
to understand them as learning continually in process and a way of strengthening
future work.
Facilitators or educators can also model a positive attitude towards negative
learning by taking chances, acknowledging that something is being tried for the first
time and providing a safe space for so-cal led “stupid” questions.
Over the years we have had a number of challenging experiences. There is no
magic formula to deal with these because each incident is unique, never occurring
again in exactly the same way. Below is a list of unanticipated events, which we
chose to see as positive and dealt with on the spot or through follow–up reflection.

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KEEPING ON TRACK

A challenge that almost always arises in a workshop or learning situation is the


tension between a) ensuring that each participant has sufficient time to share ideas,
b) losing focus and c) going off topic. The facilitator can also go or be lead off
topic. The question, of course, is what should be considered off track? Who decides
and how?
One way to deal with this without rudely cutting the participant off is to listen
carefully and pick up on a word, idea or phrase that can be used to bring the discussion
back. This requires a great deal of patience, insight, and confidence on the part of
the facilitator. But perhaps more importantly, and we have alluded to this earlier in
this book, it requires what Butterwick and Selman (2003) call deep listening. This is
an active process of hearing what is said, but also, of what is not said and by whom.
Conversely, it is sometimes advantageous to allow the discussion to flow even
though it may appear to be off topic. This is important because new and fresh ideas
can emerge which not only help to re-shape ways of understanding an issue or
concept but also allow for different levels of learning. The challenge to facilitators is
to balance between missing out on this opportunity, frustrating the participants and
losing the focus.

FOLLOW NATURE’S LEAD: THE VIRTUE AND CHALLENGES OF DIVERSITY

Diversity in nature is a vital, positive and healthy attribute. Natural processes are
built on the proliferation of diversity. This diversity is found in our daily lives and
also exists in workshop settings and provides the sparkle, the learning dimension
that is exciting and positive. It is only by respecting, including and encouraging
diverse perspectives and attitudes that more healthy and sustainable communities
will be realised. There are a variety of ways in a workshop to encourage and support
diverse learning styles, ways of viewing social issues, the rest of nature, and needs
and concerns which arise from differences such as class, gender, income level,
education, and race and culture.
The Inclusion and Exclusion activity is effective in encouraging consciousness
around what and who are missing from the discussions and learning more from the
variety of views, needs and concerns of those who are present.

NOT EVERYONE THINKS YOUR WORKSHOP IS GREAT

As we noted in Chapter Four, when we were using community activities such as


Consumerism R Us? we encountered harassment and antagonism by store personnel.
While identifying objects and marking down prices our groups were questioned
about the purpose, the legitimacy. We as the facilitators would try to step in and
explain but we were often tersely informed that we had no right to be there and were
asked either to purchase something or to leave.

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POSTSCRIPT

In spite of this, we are opposed to asking permission of any personnel beforehand


for two reasons. Firstly, we are not doing anything wrong and have as much right
to be in the store as anyone else. Secondly, resistance to what we are doing simply
adds an interesting dimension to the learning process and discussions, which follow
the activity.
There are two key things important and interlinked that must be taken into account
during any a debriefing. Firstly, remember the humanity of the store personnel.
Always be respectful (during and after) as they simply work there and are doing
what they feel they should. Secondly, discuss what happened within the larger socio-
political context, not as an individual failing.

WORKING AS A TEAM

There no doubt have been many successful one-person facilitated workshops. But
we feel that working in pairs, or a threesome as we have, assures diverse support, and
those extra pair of ears and eyes important to group participation. We brought to our
workshops varied, complementing backgrounds and experience in adult, feminist
and environmental adult education. Although this particular experience combination
is not a criteria for a successful environmental adult education workshop some
background and experience in at least one or two of these areas is important. Also
vital to success is a determination by each facilitator to be supportive, flexible,
trusting and willing to learn. However, these latter ingredients of a team are not
always immediately available and may require some encouragement to become a
reality.
On one occasion we combined with another group of facilitators. However,
we had never met before the workshop and had no time to get to know each
other or to prepare. Our styles of working were profoundly different. The result
was disconnectedness in terms of the activities they had designed and the ones we
used, culminating in an overall feeling – by us as well as the participants – that
two separate workshops had taken place at the same time. The lesson we have
learned from this experience was that when you are invited to facilitate a workshop
with another group, pre–planning the activities and the purpose collectively is
fundamental.
Turning back to our own situation, although applicable to working with others,
educator team- building takes time, patience and practise. Spending time together
and asking questions of each other helps to uncover each person’s particular abilities
to be shared in the workshop process. For, in addition to theoretical knowledge and
practical experience, there are some important “workshop” roles such as planning,
note-taking, responding to participants, questioning and probing, summarising, and
gathering together materials for the workshop which need to be shared, but usually
are taken on by the person(s) most skilful in the area. Having said this, it is equally
important that people be placed in specific roles and not allowed to learn other
aspects of workshop design and facilitation.

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FURTHER LESSONS LEARNED

We have been peppering this volume with lessons we learned or challenges we faced
over the years but let us take the time to provide a few more.
The first challenge came about when the activity we had planned was not
sufficiently challenging for the learning level of the group. Unable to deal with it
effectively during the workshop, we have spent a great deal of time reflecting on
this incident. As a result, we have managed to avoid a re–occurrence by researching
participant make–up ahead of time. We have also decided that if it happens again,
we will immediately stop the activity, discuss it with the group, and together, change
direction.
The second revolved around our expectation of a room full of adults but various
high school students had been invited. As a result, the entire process had to be
changed in order to give these young people a prominent voice throughout the
workshop. We handled this by identifying specific environmental issues around
which we would work through small groups: adults in two or three and the young
people in another. The environmental concerns of the young people, which were
radically different from the adults, brought about a complete and exciting change of
focus in the workshop.
A third was when a group of elderly people was asked to share stories about an
experience with the rest of nature. The result was that almost all the stories were
based on frightening and horrible experiences they had had in the past. Nature for
them was unfriendly and often cruel. Usually the stories shared in workshops are
positive. The solution was dealt with immediately by stopping and talking about
how/why negative feelings arise. It has re–enforced that environmental education
must be continually re-shaped to meet the specific and diverse needs of people.
When working with adults and alternative learning processes the unexpected is
inevitable. The best defence is to have a warehouse of ideas and activities upon
which you can draw. So do no go to a workshop only with what is on your agenda.
Bring other supplies and ideas.

EASY ANSWERS?: YOU MAKE THE ROAD BY WALKING

The activities in this book are aimed to be enjoyable, respectful, energising and
productive. Equally, they are aimed to be probing and unsettling. While some may
seem like they were easy, they were not. We challenged ourselves to move beyond
the idea of delivering or creating easy answers to complex questions especially
when easy answers produced difficult and unwanted alliances, hide historical
or contemporary conflicts and barred participants from truly engaging in honest
accounts of their experiences.
One thing we mentioned in the Introduction, and you will have noticed as you
read through or attempted the activities outlined in this book, is that it is not wise
to simply implement them exactly as they are presented. We deliberately left them

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POSTSCRIPT

vague. They are a guide, a meandering, unfinished stream and not an architectural
drawing to be followed to the letter. You were/will be in a different time and place,
you will have/had a different focus, you will have/had a different set of participants.
You must respond to your own circumstances, use your own imagination and
adapt the activities to suit. We made, borrowing from the poet Machado, our road by
walking and no matter how you use this book so must you.

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