Soil, Soul & Society in the Educational Encounter

The study sets out a vision of education that is rooted in the importance of connection, existentially, ecologically and in terms of community. The work opens with a critique of what I refer to as product-orientated education which I suggest is no longer sufficient for current times and context. I argue that such a view of education is problematic and especially in a wider economic culture that valorises growth, autonomy and freedom. The thesis is interested in developing an additional view of education that is based on encounter which is orientated to soil, soul and society. The intention is to discover what are the implications for the teacher, student and education itself, when connection with these three dimensions become the focus of the educational task. In doing so I pay attention to emancipation, homonomy and sufficiency, the experiences of arrival, liminality and harvest, in relation to education. Alongside the philosophical envisioning of education, I weave a range of narrative materials, the central one being concerned with a personal education experience which serves to illuminate much of the theoretical discussion. However, the importance of story has broader implications for the study in terms of my research methodology. Vocative text, narratives from both formal and informal educational contexts are incorporated throughout as a way of breaking into, or opening up, the phenomenological terrain of education which seeks reconnection with soil, soul and society