The Pedagogy of Place: Reinterpreting Ecological Education Through the Language Arts

Abstract

The impetus for this article was research I conducted while living with children on the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, during the culmination of decades of blatant disregard for the marine ecosystem. At the heart of the social and ecological devastation happening in Canada's Newfoundland and Labrador communities are matters of environmental justice and ecological rights. The research project was born of a belief that education, in its present form, may be an obstacle to a new understanding of our place in the living world. The project proposes to see bioregional literature as a way to re-vision what it means to dwell in place. This article records the disruption in children's lives characterized as a deep-felt homelessness in response to the out-migration brought about by environmental degradation. It is hoped that the inquiry is part of a future direction in curriculum studies that is driven by an understanding of the principles of ecology.