Becoming a socio-ecological educator
- Authors: O'Connor, Justen , Jeanes, Raymond , Alfrey, Lauren , Wattchow, Brian
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: The Socioecological Educator: A 21st Century Renewal of Physical, Health, Environment and Outdoor Education Chapter 3 p. 47-68
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Acknowledging the multi-layered nature of a socio-ecological frame, this chapter highlights explicitly how to develop socio-ecological understandings and practices in educational contexts. We begin by providing a series of vignettes based on practice. These vignettes serve to disturb assumptions that researchers and practitioners bring to physical, health, environmental or outdoor education and, in doing so, open a reflective door for research on practice. The foundational concepts introduced in Chap. 2: (a) lived experience, (b) place, (c) experiential pedagogies and (d) agency and participation, are discussed in relation to these vignettes to continue to develop them more fully, particularly how they might work in concert rather than as separate entities. We have argued that a socio-ecological approach provides a mechanism through which educators and researchers can acknowledge the relationships between the personal, social and environmental layers of social ecologies and these are explored further in the following vignettes. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014. All rights are reserved.
Through curriculum renewal : An Aotearoa-New Zealand case study
- Authors: Wattchow, Brian , Boyes, Mike
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: The socioecological educator : A 21st century renewal of physical, health, environment and outdoor education 4 p. 71-87
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: The first of the case study chapters provides a compelling example of how a socio-ecologically inspired vision for education and policy initiatives can develop and ultimately change the very foundations of approaches to teaching and learning. All school teachers and teachers in training will be familiar with curriculum documents that present the aims, objectives and structure of school curricula. These documents are usually organised around key learning areas such as English, Science, Mathematics, Health and Physical Education and so on. Curriculum documents establish the boundaries of content and levels of attainment required by students as they progress through the various levels of schooling from a preparatory year, through primary and secondary schools. They reflect the philosophies of the government of the day and are in a more or less constant state of review and renewal. Committees are established and representation called for from key stakeholders such as politicians, academics with expertise in varying disciplines, members of the community and from teachers themselves. Interestingly, we have never heard of students being represented as the ultimate key stakeholder in the curriculum development process at its most fundamental level. The stakeholders argue, discuss and debate what should or shouldn’t be taught in a state or nation’s schools. Inevitably, curriculum documents shape, and are shaped by, a nation of people. But not all people are equally in a position to shape curriculum in this way. Curriculum documents are artifacts of history, political conventions, historical and contemporary views of knowledge and pedagogy. They are also aspirational statements about the purpose and function of schooling in the ongoing work of societal change. This chapter outlines a remarkable process whereby socio-ecological principles were used, and came to have a major presence, in the development of the New Zealand Health and Physical Education curriculum.