Learning patterns of landscape and life, towards a learning framework for environmental adult education

grantor: University of TorontoUsing a historico-contemporary case study methodology based on document analysis this study delves into that "important body of experience" noted in the quotation above. Through an examination of 42 documents produced around the world from 1972 to 1997 under the auspices of the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE) and the Learning for Environmental Action Programme (LEAP), this study identifies essential elements which collectively provide some of the seeds necessary to begin to construct a learning framework for environmental adult education. This study examines the work of particular prominent theoreticians and/or adult educators and highlights some of the inherent anthropocentric biases their ideas contain. Therefore, while the learning framework for environmental adult education developed in this study maintains its base in many of the principles and important issues of adult education such as gender inequities, racism, literacy and knowledge of critical adult, popular and feminist adult education, it challenges the anthropocentric bias of the field, broadening its aims or goals and adding new elements to re-conceptualise the landscape of adult learning. Learning is not neutral, rather it is informed by values. New values in the learning framework for environmental adult education include nature's intrinsic value and ecofeminist values of nurturing, caring and different ways of living, learning and being with the rest of nature. The content and context of the learning framework is broadened to include human/Earth relations, ecological knowledge, nature/culture interactions, the challenges of consumerism and development, and fear, powerlessness and green fatigue. The inequities of class, race and gender are discussed within a broader ecological context. The broader strategies of the learning framework include learning in, about, and with 'place', the role of the rest of nature in the learning and teaching process, nature as a partner in building partnerships for change, understanding the Earth's processes, and ecological adult literacy. New tools and praxis are ecological storytelling, listening to the rest of nature and outdoor sensory learning. Although this learning framework offers new ecological conceptualisations of content, context, values, strategies and tools for adult learning, further inquiry and theorisation are required if the field is to be a space where people learn to live and live to learn with the rest of nature.Ph.D