Textual and Functional Interstices: Notes from the Ground on Environmental Education Curriculum and Pedagogy

Political possibilities are shaped by how a problem is defined. When it comes to the environmental crisis, the defined contours of growth, development, and scarcity drive the conversation in predetermined directions. (D’Souza, 2019) Democratic processes can be compromised when these contours are narrowly traced and closed off to questioning. When outlined as categories liable to be influenced by culture, context, and power structures, their study can serve as a searching tool that illuminates complex dynamics. Environmental education influences and is influenced by the prevailing discourses in environmentalism. The discourse privileged by the curriculum's language frame depends on the text's location, who it is aimed at, and the concomitant priorities. In this exploratory paper, practitioners working in the fields of environmental education (EE) pedagogy, teaching, curriculum design, and activism were interviewed. The idea was to get a sense of what people in different fields working towards the common goal of better care for the environment and an ethic of sustainability had to say about the EE curriculum. What was their vision for it, and what was the reality they had encountered in these technology-driven, fast-paced times? Special attention was paid to interlocutors' thoughts on the significance of the words and language used in the curriculum.