Hi all
I recommend a visit to this web site.
http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~tlcentre/
the link will take you to the Centre for Transformative Learning at Ontario
University - a pick me up to see that something is happening in education!
Its central premise is that education requires a radical change if we are to
develop a society in line with rather than at odds with the planet. It has
roots in radical environmentalism, feminism and liberation pedagogys. The
site can explain better than I.
I can also recommend Transformative Learning: Educational Vision for the
21st Century by the centre director Ed O'Sullivan. It draws on the radical
thinkers in line with these ideas such as Thomas Berry and Charlene Spretnak
(great bibliography if a bit north American in focus) and brings their views
into the educational context. The main point is that education needs to
teach a planetary cosmology if society is to shift. There are some good
sections on reflexivity (seen as essential if we are to act planetary as
well as locally in our choices), sensuality (to recover place and community
but with a reflexive dimension) and spirituality (unattached to religion and
understood as vital as a way forward and out of authoritarian structures and
the pathology of modernism).
Happy turning of the year.
Chris Loynes
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