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Paper short abstract:

An exploration of how we teach/learn ecology with attentiveness towards (re)generative classrooms as “locations of possibility” that engage the “re-enchantment of the world.” Situated knowledge as praxis of critical eco-pedagogy to support the flourishing of kinship, community, and emergence.

Paper long abstract:

The ways we educate in the age of the so-called Anthropocene will dictate how we move through the emerging polycrisis. Pedagogical choices are part of shifting away from dominator cultures of supremacy into partnership with the living earth. As such, classrooms and educational experiences that revitalize our notions of care, commitment, reciprocity, and belonging are part of unlearning the nature/culture bind that has been fueling the current ecocide.

What is the value of education in this current time of systemic and ecological upheaval? What do we need to un-learn and re-learn about education, ourselves, and each other in order to thrive? How can we hold liberatory classroom spaces in ways that honor pluralism and challenge the hegemony of human exceptionalism, racial capitalist hetero-patriarchy, settler colonialism, and the rhetoric of empire as we engage with ecology?

This is an exploration of how we teach/learn about and with the earth, with attentiveness towards (re)generative classrooms as “locations of possibility” that engage the “re-enchantment of the world” and honor situated knowledge and diverse ways of knowing. Inspired by the work of Paulo Freire and bell hooks, I explore engaged eco-pedagogy that seeks to reconstitute the commons through participatory and liberatory education. Students and teachers are constantly learning from each other, and more-than-human agents, including place, are included among those teachers. I will discuss how we engage critical eco-pedagogy as a re-worlding practice to embody decolonization and multispecies justice and support the flourishing of kinship, community, and emergence.