Paper short abstract:

Pope Francis' 'Laudato Sì' is an invaluable document for educational practitioners. The Encyclical suggests a new paradigm for educators - Integral Ecology, according to which everything is connected, everything is interdependent - which shares a lot with the Capability Approach. They both aim at Human Development, Equality and Justice for human beings and for the Enviroment.

Paper long abstract:

Pope Francis' 'Laudato Sì' is an invaluable document for educational practitioners. The Encyclical suggests a new paradigm for educators.

The encyclical proposes the theme of integral ecology: what does integral mean? It means that it invests the totality of existence insofar as everything is connected, everything is interdependent.

It announces the crisis of anthropocentrism understood as man at the centre of the universe: at the centre is not man, but the relationship between man and his neighbour, man and the environment, man and God for believers; these are the three fundamental relationships of existence, interdependent on each other.

The encyclical proposes 7 goals that are not intended to replace the 2030 Agenda, but rather to complement it in light of the construct of integral ecology.

They are:

1. Response to the cry of the earth

2. Answer the cry of the poor

3. Ecological economy

4. Adoption of sustainable lifestyles

5. Ecological education

6. Ecological spirituality

7. Resilience and community enhancement

Together with the objectives, the encyclical proposes 7 ecological virtues:

1. Sobriety

2. Simplicity

3. Humility

4. Solidarity

5. Gratuity

6. Justice

7. Love

There is a responsibility of man towards Nature, towards the Neighbour (and towards God for believers) that man can decide to assume if he/she converts ecologically; it implies an existential posture marked by respect and care for the relationship with Nature, with the Neighbour and with God for believers.

According to the capability approach, virtues are chosen by the subject according to the kind of life they want to live. They foster human development insofar as they give self-determined direction to one’s life.

Justice for the poor and justice for the earth are two faces of the same coin and correspond the the same goal of the human development paradigm.

Ecological conversion in fact challenges the spiritual dimension of existence, beyond religions and beliefs. Spirituality, among many definitions, is the awareness that there is Something greater than ourselves, which has preceded us in our existence : it is God for the believer, it is nature for the non-believer.

But the task before us is a common one : what shape to give to the future of our planet.

Ecological conversion makes man no longer the centre of the universe, no longer the owner of the earth: we own nothing, that is the revolutionary aspect. The earth has been given to us as stewards, not as owners, and our responsibility is to return it as undamaged as possible, if not better than we received it.

The ecological approach is both a social and an economic approach: man's responsibility is also towards his neighbour, considering past behaviour that has caused poverty, inequality, exclusion.

The encyclical invites man not only to contemplate nature, therefore, but to act: there is an ethical imperative to transform ideas into action.

Change also comes through education, which is invested by the integral ecology paradigm in quantitative and qualitative terms.

Quantitatively, there are new disciplines, there are new skills to work on: green skills, ecological virtues to deal with the digital and ecological transition underway.

On a qualitative level, the way of doing education would also radically change.

Four are the fundamental points of this educational revolution:

1. Interdisciplinarity.

If everything is connected, if everything is interdependent, so are the disciplines: in reality outside the classroom, there is no mathematics, there is no history, there is no geography as separate sectors of existence, but there is life, which is also made up of mathematics, history, geography.

2. Experiential learning: ecological conversion imposes a re-learning of the world from a different perspective, which necessarily passes through the subject's experience of the world. Experiential learning corresponds to this process of revising one's worldview.

3. Social learning: If everything is interconnected, learning is also interdependent in that man learns within a context. The crisis of anthropocentrism also implies a move away from the individualistic view of learning towards a contextualised, situated, social view.

4. Self-learning: changing the world according to this perspective entrusts the subject with the acceptance of his responsibility towards others, towards the world, towards God. This responsibility also involves learning: the subject, acting out personal agency, also takes responsibility for his or her own learning according to directions of meaning and personal values: the educational model that best corresponds to this process is self-directed learning or self-learning.

Putting in connection Integral Ecology and Capability Approach means to highlight some common directions:

1. Learning is always in context; the learner is always within a life context which determines individual opportunities and functioning.

2. Human Development depends on Environmental Development too, source of each and every resource which allows human existence: being man and nature bonded together, the cure of the one implies the care of the other and vice-versa.

3. Man has the freedom of making value-oriented choices, i.e. life choices which determine own life’s direction. Values are essential for the Integral Ecology, as only by assuming values people would take care of their neighbour and of the planet; values are essential for the Capability Approach, as they are expression of the freedom of making life choices.

4. The relationship man-nature implies an informal learning: man learns the world in the world, by living and experimenting. Capabilities and functioning emerge from informal learning.

5. The subject is responsible for own learning: self-learning corresponds to the Integral Ecology vision (responsibility towards oneself, the neighbour, the planet) and to the Capability Approach vision (self-directed learning according to own assumptions, beliefs, values).

Through a mixed method research - quantitive and qualitative - aim of this paper is to investigate this new way of educating, focusing on common directions of Integral Ecology and Capability Approach.