This excerpt from our collective biography emerges from a dialogue that commenced when Noel interjected the concept of ‘becoming-cyborg’ into our conversations about Annette’s experiences of breast cancer, which initially prompted her to interpret her experiences as a ‘chaos narrative’ of cyborgian and environmental embodiment in education contexts. The materialisation of Donna Haraway’s figuration of the cyborg in Annette’s changing body enabled new appreciations of its interpretive power, and functioned in some ways as a successor project to Noel’s earlier deployment (...) of cyborgs in what he now recognises as a ‘posthumanising’ of curriculum inquiry. Noel’s subsequent experiences with throat cancer drew us towards exploring the possibilities that concepts such as Deleuze and Guattari’s machinic assemblage and Karen Barad’s ontoepistemology offer as a mean of thinking the meetings of bodies and technologies in educational inquiry beyond Haraway’s hybrid cyborg. Through both collective biography and playfully scripted conversations with other theorists we explore what it means to perform diffractive interpretations and analyses in posthumanist educational inquiry. Our essay also contributes to contemporary conversations about the uses of collaborative biographical writing as a method of inquiry in educational research. (shrink)

This essay responds to recent philosophical interest in the Anthropocene by asking : Can and should educators adopt, form, transmit, teach ways of living to maintain, if not enhance Earth’s habitability, especially its habitability for diverse children? This inquiry therefore calls for conceptual study of learning to live through the Anthropocene—with, despite, after, before, amid, among, away from, and against its myriad harms, possible and actual, especially its harms to children. Examining cases of environmental racism in Checker’s Polluted Promises, and (...) other cases of environmental threats to children’s health, in Steingraber’s Raising Elijah, this study begins by proposing the ecological gap in philosophy of education consequential for children resides within another epistemological gap, variously designated gender gap, love gap, care gap. Ruddick’s maternal thinking provides a conceptual frame for theorizing three moral aims of learning to live in the Anthropocene that might inform public schooling. (shrink)

Providing an indigenous opinion on anything is a difficult task. To be sure, there is a multitude of possible indigenous responses to dominant Western philosophy. My aim in this paper is to assess dominant analytic Western philosophy in light of the general insistence of most indigenous authors that indigenous metaphysics is holistic, and to make some bold claims about both dominant Western philosophy in line with an indigenous metaphysics of holism. There will, of course, be different ways of expressing holism (...) according to the indigenous group, but most of the literature states, as a most basic concern, that a general indigenous philosophy is concerned with the groundedness of an individual as an entity related to and indivisible from the rest of the world.1 The consequences of any assertion about the holistic nature of metaphysics are vast, including for the interpretation of what is often perceived of as the antithesis: Western philosophy. (shrink)

This paper argues that the bias in Western philosophy is tied to its humanist ideology that pictures itself as central to the natural history of humanity and is historically linked to the emergence of humanism as pedagogy.

This paper begins with a recognition that questions of climate change, environmental degradation, and our relations to the natural world are increasingly significant and requiring of a response not only as philosophers of education but also as citizens of the planet. As such the paper explores five of the key journals in philosophy of education in order to identify the extent, range, and content of current discussions related to the environment. It then organizes and summaries the articles that were located (...) while seeking to identify the extent, possibilities, and limitations of current discussions relating to the environment in the philosophy of education community. The hope is that ultimately this work is an invitation to anyone, regardless of tradition, orientation, and expertise, to contribute to the expansion and deepening of both theory and practice in the face of this most serious of challenges. (shrink)

This study was conducted to address the concept of higher education curricula and its practice from an ecological perspective. First, the significance of ecology is investigated based on two streams of thought; the ecological concept of the university proposed by Ronald Barnett; and the text, The Three Ecologies authored by the Italian philosopher Félix Guattari. Second, the notion of ecology is explored, and thoughts on the ecological curriculum and its feasibility are elaborated. Third, outcome-based education is currently the predominant curriculum (...) practice applied in higher education. From an ecological perspective, this learning approach is insufficient. Finally, the practices used for achieving an ecological connection of curricula in higher education are discussed with particular regard to curriculum organisation, the learning process and students’ role as global citizens. (shrink)

This article draws on different bodies of knowledge in order to review the potential role of outdoor education in providing nature-based experiences that might contribute to sustainable living. A pragmatic perspective is adopted to critique what outdoor education is, and then what it might be. Phenomenology is used to challenge the belief that there is a causal relationship between activities and learning outcomes but foremost to consider what it is to be in nature in the first place. Aspects of both (...) realism and social constructionism are presented as essential to environmental philosophy and the concomitant, but contested, relationship between people and planet. Through these multiple realities the moral significance of nature emerges not only as a theoretical consideration but as a practical one too. In this way I challenge dualisms that provide stumbling blocks to practice and celebrate instead pluralistic thinking where starting points are based on real-life work settings where theory and practice can emerge together through place-specific solutions. (shrink)

Education needs to prepare students to have understanding of themselves, of their relationships to others, to have an ability to make good moral and other judgements and to act on these. If education has a role to play in the alleviation of the crises facing the world, then there is some urgency in reflecting on what kind of education is needed in order to prepare young people to tackle these many crises. It is our contention that the major problem with (...) modern education is that it has forgotten that its main task is helping students to learn to be wise. That is, in considering the aims of education, it is proposed that it is wisdom which is the main aim of education. This will be so whatever level of education we are discussing, though much of our discussion refers to higher education. (shrink)

You have to be careful, very careful, introducing the truth to the Black man who has never previously heard the truth about himself, his own kind, and the white man … The Black brother is so brainw...

This study examines the concepts of self-realisation and the ecological self in Arne Naess’s ecosophy, which considers the manner in which human inherent potentialities are realised in educational practices. This article first elucidates the meaning of the concepts of self-realisation and the ecological self according to Naess’s work. Second, the manner of developing the ecological self is discussed by drawing on Buddhist concepts, specifically the advice in the Diamond Sutra. Third, the means of achieving self-realisation is further considered from the (...) view of the Chinese philosophy of Taoism. Both of these Eastern philosophies posit that a clear and peaceful mind can realise the inherent potentialities of the self. With the rapid development of science and technology, education has been unconsciously jeopardised by instrumentalism and consumerism. This has endangered the constitution of modern subjectivity, and engendered an alienated relationship with nature. This article concludes with some thoughts related to this crisis. I conceive of an educational engagement for self-realisation, and argue that a bridge from self-centred to self-realisation is necessary in education. (shrink)