Wachstumshormone

May

3

Bias and the Educator in the Mirror

Filed Under Perspectives, Programs 

Our inherent perspectives color the world we share with our students.

by Victor Elderton

Many of us in environmental education strive to create lessons and activities which we hope will facilitate greater understanding and stimulate higher levels of environmental inquiry among our students. The number of positive programs and initiatives which have been started is not vast compared to Language, Social Studies or Mathematics curriculum materials, but at the same time there are enough representative samples around to say there is significant interest in the field.

The very fact that Clearing can publish articles about different points of view as to the most effective ways of teaching and learning about the environment is testament to how interested a number of us are in how we teach and how students should be instructed about the environment. I have found this a very healthy debate, which has led me to question my own teaching and methodology. How often in our teaching zeal do we question what we are actually teaching, though? We often discuss at length and with passion how we teach, but do we really ask the question: what are we teaching? What are the biases we inherently teach as environmental educators?

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Victor Elderton is principal at the North Vancouver Outdoor School, in addition to being a member of the Board of the Environmental Educators of BC and director of the Pacific Foundation for Understanding Nature Society.

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