An Exploration of the Transformative Praxis of Teachers in Environmental Non-governmental Organization Activities

[[abstract]]Teachers’ capacity is the key to promoting environmental education. However, on the part of environmental actions, teachers face many predicaments. Based on the researcher’s practical experiences in the teaching field and reflections from the participation in environmental non-governmental organization activities, the researcher studied the responsibility that people in the role of a teacher have for the society and ecology and figured out the activator that facilitates teachers’ transformation of viewpoints and their environmental actions. Accordingly, the purposes of the present study are to explore the relationship between teachers’ participation in environmental non-governmental organization activities, their environmental actions, and implementation of environmental education at school as well as to examine teachers’ transformative praxis for environment in the context of Taiwanese society with the aspects of critical pedagogy and environmental education taken into consideration. The subjects of the present study are teachers who had participated environmental non-governmental organization activities in Taiwan. Qualitative methods are applied. Research data are obtained from interviews, questionnaires, collection of documents, and participatory observation. Fourteen teachers with environmental action are selected from the sixty six teachers who returned valid questionnaires and are given in-depth interviews. The interview data are then generalized and analyzed. Results of the present study are as follow. 1. The results of the questionnaires reveal that teachers raise their environmental knowledge through participation in environmental organization activities, that teachers think their expertise in environmental education still needs development, that a consensus on the promotion of environmental education at school needs to be achieved, and that teachers of environmental actions are more active in promoting environmental education at school and more capable of practicing transformative teaching from the aspect of critical thinking. 2. Teachers’ transformative praxis is generalized into the following four types: praxis out of interest, praxis out of expertise, praxis out of active participation, and praxis out of public justice. 3. Factors that affect teachers’ transformative praxis include different perspectives and ideals of ways to promote environmental issues, the stress from the role of being a teacher, as well as the pressure from school organizations and culture, parents’ viewpoints, and students’ performance on entrance exams. Last but not least, the influence from the teacher’s body, mind and spirit, his/her career plan and his/her family cannot be overemphasized. 4. An examination of teachers’ professional development and pronesis: teachers connect individuals with places, create identity and alliance with environmental protection advocators, and accumulate their own life experiences by starting to explore the natural environment. Then, they return to the teaching field of environmental education, place students as the center of teaching, and deepen learners’ comprehension. The concept that teachers of environmental actions serve as transformative intellectuals means to increase environmental knowledge, to take transformative actions of the ecological environment in this society, to use strategies of border crossing, to take actions to transform the environmental education at school, and to increase the mobility of teachers’ role. Finally, the present study, according to the above research results, offers inspiration for teachers and environmental non-governmental organizations. It also provides suggestions for further studies in the future.