An exploration of how the disruption of mainstream schooling during the COVID-19 crisis provided opportunities that we can learn from so that we may improve our future relationship with the more-than-human world

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis forced educators globally to reassess delivery of their curricula and educational priorities. Already the worsening climate crisis amid human beings’ deleterious relationship with the more-than-human world has caused many educators to demand radical reconsiderations as to the purpose and meaning of education. We ask: how did the disruption of mainstream schooling, during the COVID-19 crisis, provide opportunities that we can learn from so that we may improve our future relationship with the more-than-human world? We examine research that shows children can benefit from outdoor, contemplative pedagogical approaches that differ from their usual indoor classroom experience. Outdoor, contemplative pedagogical approaches involving freedom from “clock-time”, as were experienced by some children during the lockdowns, can allow for ways of knowing and states of being that are often marginalised or excluded from mainstream schools in industrial growth societies. We draw on underpinning theory that argues the status quo in schools conforms to a factory model of schooling that prioritises limited ways of knowing and states of being, thus, lacking the perspectives needed to enable children to cultivate a sustained, healthy relationship with nature. We suggest that outdoor contemplative approaches are required that allow children to dwell pedagogically and experience their relationship with the more-than-human world.

Does growth in the outdoors stay in the outdoors? The impact of an extended residential and outdoor learning experience on student motivation, engagement and 21st century capabilities

“…These capabilities have always been important, of course, but recent challenges like automation of lower order tasks, globalization of the workforce, rising mental health issues, climate change and mass migration make them particularly relevant to this century ( Lambert, 2017 ). The emerging economic, educational and social ripples of the COVID-19 pandemic can be added to this list of 21st Century challenges ( Pendergast, 2022 ; Mann et al, 2022a ; Adams and Gray, 2023 ). Anderson and Jefferson (2018) suggested that “the skills which equip young people to engage with the world of work are the same skills that will help them live life to the full as 21st Century citizens” (p. 14).…”