An Anthropocene opportunity

January 27, 2013 ? No Comments ? Place, Theory

This article by Clive Hamilton on the end of the social sciences has got me thinking about the placelessness of the pre-anthropocene. ?I find the reminder about the separation of humans from nature, and the backdrop of a (presumed) inert nature,?haunting.

Having an interest in spatial theory in education and the influence of place, or a place-conscious curriculum (and pedagogy) I am often battling to bring place and space back into educators thinking. ?It seems so natural to reference Dewey and his concern for a humanist education centred around nature and experience as a basic principle of education. However, the modernist experience of education has been a placeless ?curriculum? of powerful cultural knowledge to be remembered regardless of place. ?Indeed place has often been sidelined as about the past, antiquated and backward: a concern not for these times. ?Instead to get ahead students need to master a placeless curriculum that is about modernity, constant movement, with no time to dwell or consider what learning means for the person engaged in it or the community in which they live. ?Two examples; As we see in the work of people like Michael Corbett education has been about ?leaving, and learning to leave. Similarly the work of Thomas Popkewitz has shown how schooling is about cosmopolitanism, or to be as removed from nature as possible.

It seems on initial thinking that the notion of the anthropocene may be a powerful idea to help bring our curriculum (and pedagogy) back to a more place-conscious form of education. As the logic of Hamilton?s article suggests, we have destroyed the modernist project through our ambivalence to nature, now nature has responded to assert the interconnectedness of everything on this rock. ?It might just prompt the sort of educational reappraisal that has been so long overdue. It might just be the impetus for a return to curriculum.

The content of that curriculum? well we could probably start with the ideas, ?insights? and dispositions outlined by Wade Davis in the Wayfinders or by David Tacey in the Edge of the Sacred.

Source: http://placeandspace.edublogs.org/2013/01/27/an-anthropocene-opportunity/

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