{"id":6230,"date":"2015-02-17T08:28:36","date_gmt":"2015-02-17T08:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6230"},"modified":"2015-02-17T08:28:36","modified_gmt":"2015-02-17T08:28:36","slug":"education-nature-and-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/02\/17\/education-nature-and-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Education, Nature, and Society"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>'Education, Nature, and Society' is the title of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bath.ac.uk\/hss\/staff\/stephen-gough\/\">Steve Gough<\/a>'s latest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sponpress.com\/books\/details\/9780415659482\/\">book<\/a> for Routledge, and\u00a0he generously gave me a copy last week. \u00a0Here's a taste of the book, from the website:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\"Environmental issues continue to divide opinion, sometimes in extreme ways. \u00a0Almost everyone agrees that education has a role to play in ensuring the future of humanity on Earth. \u00a0Some think we should all learn to leave a minimal environmental footprint; others argue that education should promote economic growth, because only growth can generate the capital needed to develop solutions to environmental problems. \u00a0Advocates on each side often find the views of their opponents simply incredible, giving rise to accusations of bad faith or poor science.<\/p>\n<p>This book explores the foundations of the debate by examining human interrelations with Nature. \u00a0It takes an educational perspective, but also draws on evidence from anthropology, economics, ecology, policy sciences and natural history. \u00a0The case presented is that any coherent view of the purposes and potential of education requires a theory of human society in the natural world. \u00a0For such a theory, education (and, more broadly, learning) must be more than an instrument for the achievement of personal or policy goals. \u00a0Rather, it is an integral, continuing and necessary component of personal and policy development. \u00a0On this basis, a novel approach to curriculum design and implementation is outlined.\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This made me want to abandon my plans and just read.\u00a0\u00a0I did this\u00a0and got half-way through before life intervened meaning I had to finish it later on. \u00a0The book promised both wit and wisdom, and I wasn't disappointed. \u00a0This is a book that will be appreciated\u00a0by those\u00a0who like disparate ideas being brought constructively together, and one that should be read by those who are much too certain about things as minds may\u00a0well be changed: \u00a0In particular, I'd recommend it to those who ...<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>think that ESD is the answer, as they might come to wonder if\u00a0they have posed the right question.<\/li>\n<li>describe everything they don't like as \"neoliberal\", as they might\u00a0pause for thought<\/li>\n<li>go on about \"future-proofing\", as they might\u00a0just hang their heads<\/li>\n<li>think they have <em>the<\/em> plan for all our\u00a0futures, as they might\u00a0sober up<\/li>\n<li>confuse 'nature' and 'environment', as they might\u00a0pop outside and think more carefully<\/li>\n<li>think that basic economic ideas are amenable to being recast to suit circumstance, prejudice or purpose, as they might\u00a0read more widely<\/li>\n<li>think that just because our world is socially constructed, we can construct it any way we like, as they might\u00a0reflect on their excessive\u00a0potty training<\/li>\n<li>...<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I'll let you continue this list yourselves when you've read it \u2013 as you surely must.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>'Education, Nature, and Society' is the title of Steve Gough's latest book for Routledge, and\u00a0he generously gave me a copy last week. \u00a0Here's a taste of the book, from the website: \"Environmental issues continue to divide opinion, sometimes in extreme...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-new-publications"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}