Educating for the Earth?: environmental education in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Abstract

This paper examines the way education contributes to the environmental crisis by perpetuating a mechanistic worldview which is outdated and incomplete. It argues that the environmental education initiatives of New Zealand organisations contribute to this process. Their programmes reflect the assumptions of the mechanistic worldview and do not challenge its influence in education generally. I begin by first, identifying the main assumptions of the mechanistic worldview and second, discussing how these form a system of knowledge which contributes to the environmental crisis. I then describe how schools perpetuate this worldview, by producing students who view the world in a mechanistic way. Next, I critically assess the environmental education initiatives of New Zealand organisations. The final part of the paper sets out some general principles for an alternative environmental education I have termed 'ecocentric'. I conclude that education may have a role in helping to solve the environmental crisis if it challenges the assumptions of the mechanistic worldview and encourages the development of ecocentric wisdom in students.