by Frank Traina
This piece was originally published in Home! A Bioregional Reader, edited by Van Andruss, Christopher Plant, Judith Plant, and Eleanor Wright, New Society Publishers, copyright 1990.
In his recent book, The Dream of the Earth, Thomas Berry states: “There is presently no other way for humans to educate themselves for either survival or fulfillment than through the instruction available through the natural world.” (p.167). Some people make the case that our present educational system is anti-nature, others say it ignores nature. Certainly, most school education is very removed from nature, and this leads to the ignoring of, or hostility toward, nature. What are some ways to correct this?
First, it is widely held that nature education involves direct contact and experience with the natural world, that is, it involves a great deal of sensory experience: touching, smelling, seeing, hearing, tasting and more—feeling with the whole body rather than just understanding something with the mind. This demands that a lot more of school education take place out-of-doors, and a lot more of the out-of-doors get into the classroom. And to help save a planet this cannot be done at a peripheral level, but must become central to school education. Present priorities need to be shifted in favor of increased nature education in the out-of-doors.
Moreover, getting a nature education to help save a planet means a lot more than simply learning facts about nature. It means developing a relationship with nature that embodies respect and reverence—nurturing a special affinity with nature that our present society seems to lack. And the relationship cannot be one of dominance over nature since this is the root cause of our present dilemma. Incorporating “nature quests” or “vision quests” which entail spending days alone in the out-of-doors are proven ways of nurturing a close relationship with nature. In this we have much to learn from the Native American experience.
In terms of content, ecology must assume a pivotal position. It needs to be a required subject even in primary school and must be integrated in virtually all subjects: history, geography, reading, writing, art, all the sciences. The ecology of the local bioregion needs special treatment with emphasis on how local culture (housing, consumption, etc.) can promote the Earth community in a particular bioregion. (Housing in desert bioregions has different architecture than housing in forest bioregions.) In order to truly prepare students for life in an ecological society, education will have to be integrated with all aspects of the total society.
Such education has to be directed at all age groups in the population, not merely those attending formal school. Moreover, it needs to be life-long. In short, it necessarily must be revolutionary in content and method and in its consequences, since its purpose is to allow the development of humankind alongside of the development of the entire Earth community. Such education must fill its teachers and students with a resolute distaste for the lifestyles, economies, politics, religions, and cultures which foster destruction and disruptions of the natural ecosystems on planet Earth. Are we ready to support a revolution? Nothing else will save our endangered planet.
Excerpted from Pollen: Journal of Bioregional Education, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 1990.
“Farmer” Frank Traina (1943-2014) was an educator and writer. After earning his PhD in sociology from Cornell, he moved to Kentucky to teach at Northern Kentucky University, but ended up devoting himself instead to the farm he purchased in Wilder, KY in 1978. Sunrock Farm hosted educational programs that “raised consciousness,” serving mostly Cincinnati-area children. About 25,000 people visited annually for decades. Farmer Frank also published Pollen, a journal of the North American Bioregional Congress Bioregional Education Committee.
