Environmental education doesn't need to be environmental
A problem environmental educators in environmental charities face is the paradigm that environmental education is stuck in. Environmental charities are bound by their charitable objectives to do environmental things. For environmental educators, this means educating - to lesser or greater extents - about the environment.
However to educate for the environment, is to nurture things like creativity, compassion, dialogue, critical and systems thinking. These things can of course be nurtured through the study of 'environmental' issues. But, they don't have to be, and in many cases, it can be more effective to nurture them through the study of other topics. But when environmental charities seek funds to enable young people to practice their critical thinking through the study of - say - product placement in computer games (i.e. something that is part of a young person's lifeworld), we are met with confusion.
If, somehow, a paradigm shift can be brought about so that funders (not to mention schools and young people) understand that education *for* the environment doesn't necessarily need to be *about* the environment, much much more education could be labelled 'environmental education' and environmental charities could be a lot more innovative, expansive and effective.
Global Action Plan is trying to drive this paradigm shift and will be doing it a lot more forcefully this year. Get in touch if you'd like to join us, we're especially keen to talk to partners who don't identify as 'environmental', but do believe that education should be developing young people's compassion, imagination, communication, cooperation, critical and systems thinking, and empathy.