The Ecology of Hom

eDavid B. Zandvliet

Spine6.579 mm

R E S E A R C H I N G E N V I R O N M E N T A L L E A R N I N G R E S E A R C H I N G E N V I R O N M E N T A L L E A R N I N G

The Ecology of HomeDavid B. Zandvliet

S e n s e P u b l i s h e r s

The Ecology of HomeDavid B. ZandvlietSimon Fraser University, Canada

Education researchers worldwide face a basic question: Is their purpose to use people to develop knowledge, or use knowledge to develop people? This book offers an exploration to this fundamental question by examining what three core disciplines – ecology, economics, and ecumenism – have in common. These disciplines have roots in the ancient Greek notion of the household (oikos). By examining some complementary and competing principles among the disciplines, the book uncovers some commonalities between science, economics and religion, that support a holistic view of ecology or ecological education. The format for the discussion comprises a number of selected academic chapters on each of the topics above as well as a number of other creative media which include drawings figures, prose, poetry and photography which creatively draws connections among the diverse and interdisciplinary concepts and theories presented. In addition, the content of this book has attempted minimize academic jargon to make the ideas more accessible to an audience of academics, teachers and a wider general audience.

ISBN 978-94-6300-577-7

RELE 3

The Ecology of Home

RESEARCHING ENVIRONMENTAL LEARNING

Volume 3

Series Editor

David B. Zandvliet, Simon Fraser University, Canada

Scope

There continues to be growing concern about the state of the environment, yet we are often confused by the complexities of economic, ethical, political, and social issues related to it. Daily, there are references in the news media to environmental issues such as global climate change, ozone depletion, dwindling resources, famine, disease, loss of biodiversity, pollution, and continuing job losses in many BC communities. The problems we face both as individuals and within our broader society are now so pervasive and ingrained within our cultural ways of being that we can no longer look to education about science and technology alone to solve these problems. Resultantly, environmental learning can and should include a sustained critique on dominant societal and industrial practices that often contribute to widespread and localized environmental problems.

We must also turn to ourselves as individuals, and as educational professionals to make change and develop a new ethic – a responsible attitude toward caring for the earth. Working to integrate environmental learning within all subject areas promotes this change in attitude by providing students with opportunities to experience and investigate the relationships linking individuals, societies, and natural surroundings. Education ‘about’, ‘in’ and ‘for’ the environment provides students with opportunities to learn about the functioning of natural systems, to identify their beliefs and opinions, consider a range of views, and ultimately make informed and responsible choices for themselves, their families and communities. This book series aims to look at environmental learning and the associated educational research related to these practices from a broad and international perspective.

The Ecology of Home

David B. ZandvlietSimon Fraser University, Canada

A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978-94-6300-577-7 (paperback)ISBN: 978-94-6300-578-4 (hardback)ISBN: 978-94-6300-579-1 (e-book)

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For my wife, Vajiramalie and the homes we will inhabit together

now and in the future …

Home is a word – and an idea – as elusive as it is universal. It’s a place that offers shelter, protection, privacy, but it’s also a state of mind … Both physically and spiritually, home is where we live – a notion at once simple, powerful, and profoundly mysterious …

K.M. Kostyal (n.d.)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Biography xi

Four Words xiii

The Rediscovery xv

Chapter 1: Rediscovering Home 1

Educating on an Ecology of Home 2An Ecological Framework 4The Construction 6

Chapter 2: Lost in the ‘Technosphere’ 9

Technology’s Influence 9

Chapter 3: Ecology 15

We Have Issues? 16Sustainability 17Eco-Thinking 20Eco-Logue 24

Chapter 4: Growing a Home 27

Preparing the Ground 27The Island 28Eco-Logue 34

Chapter 5: Economy 37

How Big Is the Household? 38Economy’s Link to Ecology 40Ecological Economics 41Eco-Logue 49

Chapter 6: Rumah Kedua 51

‘At Home’ and Away 51Learning ‘In Place’ 52Critical Approaches 56City Life 57Eco-Logue 59

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Chapter 7: Ecumene 61

Other Members of the Household? 63Science and Spirituality 63Social Ecology 65Teaching as/for Social Transformation 65Decolonizing and Reinhabiting Home 66Economizing Learning 67Global Communities 67Education as Transformation 68

Chapter 8: Inhabitation 71

First Inhabitants 72Decolonization 74Immigration 76The ‘New’ Urbanism 78Eco-Logue 81

Chapter 9: The Ecology of Home 83

Eco-Thinking 83The City as a Living Organism 87

Chapter 10: A Living Home 91

Future/Smart Homes 91Getting to the Point 94Point Roberts 94A Place without Place 95Living (in) a Dream 96

References 101

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Figure 1. Entrance to a Masai Home (Western Kenya)

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BIOGRAPHY

As the storyteller in this book I thought I should begin by first telling you a little bit about myself. Currently, I am an Associate Professor and Director of the Institute for Environmental Learning at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada). In truth, my work has involved the practice of ecological education and the development of the curriculum for both the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Environment at my home institution and at others around the world. However, this is not how it all started …

As a child, I grew up within a stone’s throw of the Toronto airport – right in the heart of suburbia. Here, I was well acquainted with ‘progress’ as I watched the expanding shopping centres, highrises and subdivisions going up all around me. The parks and playgrounds of my youth were literally being ‘paved under’ on a daily basis. To counteract this phenomenon, most Torontonians took refuge in their television sets (especially in winter) – a simulated or virtual environment I suppose. In this, I was no exception as one of my favourite pastimes was watching the Jacques Cousteau specials. Then as now, the ocean held a strange fascination for me and I dreamed of one day playing the adventurous Marine Biologist.

Eventually, I did enroll in a marine sciences program at a nearby university. As I left my childhood home for the first time, it seemed as though my dreams were about to be realized. Indeed, university was an important time and place for me and I remember walking on campus and enjoying the trees and their vibrant autumn colours – it was great to be away from the city with all of its concrete and noise. And so, as my identity formed – so did my interest in the environment.

Eventually, the draw of the ocean became too much for me to resist and I left my home in Toronto to make a new home for myself in coastal British Columbia. In remaking my home on the West Coast, I have had the opportunity to rediscover myself a number of times in my various careers as a marine biologist, school teacher, college and now university professor. However, as the topic of this book suggests, the idea and practice of ‘re-making a home’ for oneself is a complex and constantly evolving practice. So, this book is at once both a theory about education – and a story about my attempts at rediscovering ‘home.’

If you follow the trail of your own enthusiastically repeated stories, you will begin to rediscover the things that invigorate and enliven you … (n.d. attributed to M. Radmacher)

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FOUR WORDS

house Home habits Habitat

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THE REDISCOVERY

To rediscover home, but what would that mean? Concepts ancient and new, though not clearly seen.Household can be home, so sheltered and clean A managed economy, though not always green.Then ecology of home, this deepens the scene Relations in place, and things in-between.To inhabit this home, a true ‘ecu-mean’ Life and love (safely inside) a future serene.

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CHAPTER 1

REDISCOVERING HOME

The art and science of educating about the environment (or building a home) is a complex and personal practice. As an experienced teacher and academic who writes extensively on topics such as ecological education or environmental learning, I can see how readers might get lost in the jargon, hype or even misinformation that often find its way into educational research on learning. In putting together this book, I wanted to provide a comfortable way to tell the story of my own research and practice and to provide a wider view of how these might connect more closely to everyday experience and just maybe – allow insight to more sustainable living.

It can be said that the environmental field, like many others, can be mired in controversy, and that people of all walks of life can hold vastly divergent views about what might be ‘best practice’ in creating a more sustainable world. In theory, many of these views are informed by divergent, but actual real-life experiences that have shaped a persons values or perceptions. Sometimes, these values and perceptions are at odds with others around us and can create conflict. So where to start in creating a healthy discussion about sustainability? What experiences do we share? What is the common ground? These questions lead me down a path that is now both the topic and theme of this book: the idea that we should closely examine ‘the ecology of home.’

For me, the concept of home is a powerful metaphor for that which we value most in our lives. It’s the thing we work to both create and sustain – and it gives us an opportunity to create wealth while also inspiring creativity and personal expression. While it may be true that homes are a reflection of what we both value and aspire to – they also sustain us.

We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for a vulnerability. We need a refuge to shore up our states of mind, because so much of the world is opposed to our allegiances. We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and to keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us. (Alain de Botton, 2006)

Homes can take many shapes and sizes – but without one, little else is possible in our lives. We need the shelter and sustenance of the home to prepare us for our busy lives – the proverbial ‘home base’. For many, we also need the social interaction (even love) and moral support from others who share our homes to help us through challenging times. It is that special social glue that can hold our lives together and make us feel truly ‘at home’ within ourselves.

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As I write this paragraph, I can relate that I am seated on a couch in the living room of my own home – standing in a small community about 100 kilometres outside of Vancouver, BC. By all accounts, it is a nice home: warm and dry, with views of neighbouring homes and the surrounding mountains and countryside. Inside, ‘my’ home is furnished with the many trinkets that my wife and I have collected here in the Pacific Northwest, or from other places like Toronto, Indonesia, Sri Lanka or the places ‘in-between’ where we have lived, worked or travelled. If you could visualize these – you might say that these photos, art or artifacts make the place seem ‘homey.’ In truth, they are – but they also deeply informed my thinking on this topic.

The concept of home discussed in this book goes beyond a metaphor to further consider deep, forgotten meanings on the interconnectedness of what are often divergent fields of practice. When taken together, these ideas might allow for a more sustainable way of life. This concept – I like to call it Eco-thinking, is beyond a collection of simple facts but instead challenges the traditional ways of thinking that we normally encounter in our over complicated lives (as people, or as educators). In summary, the point of this is to consider how we each might ‘rediscover’ our own deeper meaning of the places we call ‘home.’

Houses are amazingly complex repositories. What I found … is that whatever happens in the world – whatever is discovered or created or bitterly fought over – eventually ends up, in one way or another, in your house … Houses aren’t refuges from history. They are where history ends up. (Bryson, 2010, p. 23)

EDUCATING ON AN ECOLOGY OF HOME

It can be said that educators worldwide face a basic question: Is their purpose to use people to develop knowledge? or instead is it to use knowledge to develop people? Each of us faces this question in our daily practice. While some make a clear choice to excel at teaching or research, still others shift back and forth in painful ambiguity about this mission. For me, this question really amounts to a false choice as the processes of teaching and research (for me) are deeply connected. This book recounts an exploration into how ones teaching and research can be offered as a service to the wider community. I would argue that educators can and should have a unique and sound perspective on this.

The book develops its main ideas by exploring first what are often described as three divergent disciplines – ecology, economics, and ecumenism – and what each of these ideas have in common. While these three areas of study are often perceived first as philosophic enemies, these core disciplines actually share common roots in the ancient Greek notion of the household or Oikos. In their etymological meanings, these disciplines were originally defined as:

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Figure 2. Bajo fisherman’s temporary home (Sulawesi, Indonesia)

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• Ecology – the study of the home’s physical resources;• Economics – the management of a home’s financial resources;• Ecumenism – a description of the home’s moral, ethical, or spiritual resources.

In a sense, the Greek notion of home as the root for Eco (for Ecology) referred at once to the household broadly conceived, and the earthly ‘home.’ I return to the metaphor again to ask possibly the most important philosophical question: How is the size or purpose of your home defined? Does its physical structure (four walls and a roof) constrain it as a shelter (only), or does its influence instead extend more broadly to your yard, garden and lands that surround these? Is your home a social space that sometimes offer up places for friends and family to interact and visit with each other? Finally, what values does your home reveal or offer to the community where you live – is it an inclusive place where tolerance and diversity are encouraged? If so, then you may have a pretty good idea about what those ancient Greeks were writing and talking about.

In terms of exploring this root metaphor: it is also important to explore the ecology of relationships that may exist among entities that at first glance may seem unrelated. This practice involves looking for and describing possible relationships before we categorize these ideas or practices according to perceived differences. Here the reader should take as a first assumption that when you are at home: All things are related and may have a useful role.

Still, not all relationships are positive and this book takes a pragmatic view by examining competing and complementary principles as they may relate to management of the earthly household. These principles explore possible larger commonalities and a holistic wisdom that I propose as an educator’s alternative mission. After exposing the root metaphor of economics, ecology and ecumenism, I will go on to describe a complete household that is at once research-based and transformative. This proposed ecology of home may function as a new foundation for ecologically persuasive practice.

AN ECOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

Before beginning with a new foundation, it is also important to have a plan, even a framework, for the type of home you might want to design, describe and inhabit. This book reviews and critiques a variety of practices in education using an ecological framework as its guide. The development of these ideas began early in my career as I studied in Australia. Since that time, I have had the opportunity to work in a variety of different settings including Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and the US – in many of these places I also had opportunity to work in smaller indigenous communities: a privilege that was particularly transformative for my own educational practice. While I have had opportunities to observe similarities among the practices of education worldwide, there are noted differences I will describe. In my own experience, most of these can be attributed to different spheres

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or relationships that I describe in the framework. The model: Figure One, describes a range of ecological, socio-cultural and technical factors that can act as a guide for diverse interpretations on educational practice.

We have come a long way from that home that the Greeks wrote about when they referred to Oikos. This new world continually advances technologically – and many societies and cultures around the world cope with a barrage of scientific or technological developments on a daily basis. Despite ‘progress’ – our environmental or social problems are presenting themselves with increasing frequency. Some theorists suggest that due to the accelerated pace of technological change, most societies are forced to cope reactively rather than proactively and are adapting to changing conditions only when these become intolerable. I believe this is also true in a general way for education, which has had to manage the introduction of technological perspectives and at the same time is subjected to a variety of other factors.

The ecological framework provides a guide for thinking about these pressures, which may be driving change in our increasingly technological lives. The model described here consists of three spheres of influence, which I relate as ecosphere, sociosphere and technosphere. The ecosphere refers simply to a person or group’s physical environment and surroundings (physical spaces), whereas the sociosphere relates to an individual’s net interactions with other people within that environment (socio-cultural places). Lastly, technosphere derived from its Greek root: Technos meaning tools, can be described as the total of all person-made things in the world. This last sphere is both created by, and deeply influenced by, human practice. In an

Figure 3. The ecological framework

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ecological sense, the model describes a range of influences that act together on us where we live.

If we relate this model back to our metaphor of home, it might go something like this: the ecosphere refers to the physical spaces (indoors and out) that make up the structure of the home, whereas the sociosphere refers to our interrelationship with other people over time that occurs within that home. Lastly, technosphere refers to the ‘practices’ occurring in the home according to those who ‘inhabit” it (e.g. how we choose to make a living or whether or not we recycle). I will leave it to the reader to decide for themselves whether home in this context means only your own home, your home within the broader community, your professional home, or the entire planet.

THE CONSTRUCTION

Now that we have described a plan for looking at our home and our practice, it is time to consider what the various pieces of the home will be and how these are to be put together. First, we need to locate the home in the community and wider landscape and determine the steps taken in its construction. When we are finished with this, we will also need to determine how the home is to be financed and how we hope to maintain it. The final act will be to just move in and ‘inhabit’ our home when we are done with this construction. It sounds simple, but my own experiences have taught me that ‘inhabiting’ a home is the most difficult part of the process. Finding your niche involves tolerance to a number of different factors while allowing space for others to reside.

To facilitate this holistic and complex discussion on the Ecology of Home, the remainder of this book will comprise a number of selected chapters on topics such as Ecology, Economy or Ecumene and the interconnections among these concepts. Wherever possible, I have attempted to use creative media in the form of drawings, figures, prose, poetry or photography to assist me in creatively describing connections among concepts. In addition to the content, I hope that I have also minimized the use of academic jargon (big words) so that my ideas come across as clear and succinct.

Finally, I have drawn on a range of personal experiences as a teacher and a researcher that I hope will personalize this book for the reader and also model good practice. Noted scholar, Parker Palmer (1999) once wrote: “we teach who we are.” So, it is my hope that the resulting chapters are as much about my home as they are about yours. My other goal is that the writing models a little of what it preaches, that is: that good research mirrors good teaching, which mirrors good living. In any case, there will certainly be a lot of reflection going on. With that said, welcome to the Ecology of Home.

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Figure 4. Construction site – Sulawesi, Indonesia

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CHAPTER 2

LOST IN THE ‘TECHNOSPHERE’

When I first began my university teaching career, I worked in the field of technology education – despite previously working as an ecologist with deep roots in biology. Still, at the time there were many opportunities to work in the field and I was particularly proficient in this role. My first academic post at the university had the title ‘managing director’ and as such I was responsible for managing the many aspects of technology at my institutional home – including the design of classrooms and lab spaces, and the purchase and implementation of various forms of IT at the university.

At the same time (in a different place), I was also engaged in the goal of building my first home – a monumental set of tasks that I also turned out to be fairly proficient at. My title in this endeavor was that of ‘Building-Contractor’ and as I will describe, the process of building a home is also literally about ‘tools’ and ‘techniques.’ It is also about managing the many steps in a complex process that unfolds gradually and has no discernable end-point or budget. This is literally how I came to find myself “lost in the technosphere.” It took me quite some time to regain my senses and come home in the holistic sense of the word.

TECHNOLOGY’S INFLUENCE

As I noted earlier, realistic interpretations of societal change incorporate a balance among physical, social and technological factors. However, for many individuals or organizations, the influence of the technosphere often drives the dominant changes in our homes or workplaces. In relating my own life to this model, the technosphere related effectively to my role in ‘teaching about the tools.’ The take-home message here was that we can indeed become obsessed with our tools and techniques at the expense of other mediating influences, include our local geographies (ecosphere) as well as local cultural/social norms (sociosphere).

The expanding influence of the technosphere in society has been noted by many theorists and while many factors are involved they can be roughly categorised into two types: (1) the idea that the increasing use of technology in society alone justifies its use; and (2) the idea that the unique features of technology offers great potential to enhance our lives. To interrogate this last idea I would ask you to consider first how you use technology today. Are these uses consistent with your own personal goals and objectives or have these been impacted by other wider ideas or trends in society?

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Finally, has the concept of ‘home’ changed in this developing information age? Have we adapted to a pluralism of thinking (informed by theorists such as Dewey and Freire) or have other technical and bureaucratic influences been allowed to take centre-stage and redefine the concept of home? Have we left enough room for our own creativity in its design? This point helps us to describe another vision for the developmental use of technology: one where it is conceived to directly support the process of home-making and where we (as individuals or community-members) control how and when a technology is to be used.

Techniques in House-Building

When I first undertook the assignment of building a house, I opted to take a “building contractor” course and in so doing, I came to learn all of the proper terms and regulations regarding the development process. These included building codes, steps in building construction (including timing of inspections) and most importantly – how to write good contracts. I do remember feeling overwhelmed on more than one occasion, during the lessons and so I was relieved that I was provided a number of tools and templates that could assist me in the process as it would eventually unfold.

To briefly summarise, the process of building involves a number of complicated steps in the construction of a building – each of which must be completed before a next phase is to begin. Typically the ‘contractor’ hires a ‘sub-contractor’ for each of these tasks and the contract between them will stipulate a timeframe for the work, materials to be used and include provision for an inspection. In this way, all of the various steps in the process can be managed according to a master plan that culminates in completion of the final ‘home’.

For me, this process went very smoothly as I proved very adept at using the technologies and tools that had been provided to me in my ‘contractor’ course. The first steps involved purchasing a building lot, selecting a house plan from the myriad of ‘stock’ plans available for purchase and then obtaining financing for the project. Following that, the building process itself began to unfold. Sub-contractors were hired and scheduled, a myriad of building materials were ordered from my ‘suppliers’ including lumber, concrete, windows, flooring and roofing and so, a complex process was set into motion.

The first step in the actual building process is the ‘survey.’ In this process, engineers locate the physical site of the eventual home on the building lot with great precision and mark the location with pins. Following this, footings and foundations are formed and most of the services to the home roughed in. These include water, sewer, electricity, telephone and cable. Eventually, the grid of services is connected and the lot can be backfilled in an effort to restore it to a version its previous state.

I remember being shocked at the impacts that these initial processes had on the building site I had selected and though I did my best to minimize damage, a

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straightforward (technical) approach towards house-building can be very destructive to the ecology of a site and also to the social relationships of those involved in the building process. In this case, there were a number of conflicts that arose during building, but these were largely mitigated by the iron-clad contracts I developed to tightly manage the building process.

Finally, I can state that this – my initial foray into home-building – was a ‘technical’ success as the ensuing steps of framing the house, enclosing the structure with roof and four walls and then eventually ‘finishing it’ with a variety of fixtures, appliances and furniture went flawlessly according to the schedule. The house was built on budget, in a period of only six months. Still, though the building itself was complete, I had since taken a job in another city and was not going to be calling that place ‘home’ anytime soon. Instead, my thinking had been transported to another location where I continued to interact deeply with other kinds of technology.

Figure 5. House construction 101 – A ‘Technical’ success

So much of what we desire for our happiness and need for our survival comes at a heavy cost. We kill to eat, we cut down trees to build our homes, we exploit other people and the earth. Sacrifice – of nature, of the interests of others, even of our earlier selves – appears to be an inescapable part of our condition, the

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unavoidable price of all our achievements … Perhaps it’s not surprising that most of us today bring one of those attitudes or the other to our conduct in nature. (Pollan, 1997)

Thinking through Technology

As I mentioned in the preceding story – technically speaking, my house construction process was a success as all the requisite steps in the building process were completed and the project completed on time and on budget. This line of thinking is reflective of many design processes as we think that the tools we use are useful and neutral in the sense that they simply await our human use – in this case house building. In my professional life, I was also exposed to this (limited) techno-centric view of the world.

A powerful idea that arose for me after the house-building experience was the thought that technology could influence my thinking. For many theorists, the promise of technology is in the idea that our learning is itself mediated or changed through the use of technology. This idea was first espoused by Vygotsky (1978) who proposed two means that could influence the nature or quality of an action: technical tools (e.g. hardware) and semiotic tools (e.g. symbols or text). The distinction between these two forms is difficult in the case of a house building metaphor as the process incorporates both forms.

Vygotsky’s basic idea was that the invention or use of a tool doesn’t simply facilitate forms of action that would occur anyway; instead it could change the form, structure or character of the activity. This was certainly true for me in the techniques of house construction as the tools themselves lead me down a rather sequential (technical) road map in the process of house construction. In this case, my learning (mediated by technology as it was) had both positive and negative implications for my life.

Cognitive Tools?

More recent discourse about technology has attempted to describe them as cognitive tools. Many theorists (e.g. Jonassen, 1998) have argued that technologies, from an ecological perspective, afford the most meaningful thinking when used as ‘mind tools’. These tools are viewed as both mental and technological devices that can support, guide, and extend our thinking processes and can be applied to a variety of subject domains. Theorists argue that we cannot use these tools without thinking deeply about the content that we are learning, and second, if that if we choose to use these tools to help us learn, the tools will facilitate the learning process.

Such ecological/relational notions would seem to reclaim the notion of technological neutrality in the educational process where a technology simply “awaits our human purpose” (Pitt, 1995). To this end, planning, decision-making, and self-regulation of learning all remain the responsibility of the learner, not

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of our technology. Also important in this is that technology can in fact never be neutral in that it will always reproduce the cultural assumptions and languages of its creators (Bowers, 1998). He asserts that the cultural assumptions that underlie our technologies further reinforce the spread of an industrial culture. Because so much of our culture is learned at a taken for granted level as we acquire the language of our culture – the challenge for educators is in being able to ask the appropriate questions that will expand our awareness and our competence at home. As such, the selection and use of technologies, and the physical context where it will be used represent a special challenge.

Finally, as a way to wrap up my earlier thinking about and with technology, I share a story that formed somewhat of a turning point in my personal and professional life. Here, I began to navigate my way out of the technosphere. The story, reprinted here verbatim from a blog hosted by the Sustainability office at my university wraps up this story about my initial attempts to bring my practice home.

Sustain-Ability

I remember designing my first environmental course at (the university): the excitement I felt when the course was listed. Soon, scores of students contacted me to learn about the course. I couldn’t wait to be teaching about sustainability, and made sure that the course included experiential learning – despite its urban focus. Then one day, a student approached me with a bewildered expression as we chatted casually in the computer lab:

Dr. Z … you need to fix a big problem … I was registering for that new environmental education course and they had YOUR name listed as the course instructor … you better go talk to them and fix the mistake …

This innocent comment by a confused student caused a (mini) identity crisis within myself. Did I not look ‘environmental’? Didn’t I ride my bike to campus? Didn’t I use a recyclable coffee mug? Had I allowed myself to be stereotyped as the ‘technology guy’?

“I AM the environmental education instructor,” I gently replied to the student. But the look on his face, suggested skepticism …

Reflecting on this years later, I recall feeling insulted by the incident. I suppose it was because I took my own ethic seriously and wanted to be seen by students to ‘walk the talk.’ Also I learned that (for me) sustainability is about personal values. This fact brought my early childhood outdoor experiences and my formal university training back into focus. This is really where I wanted my academic interests to be.

Since those early days, I have focused my efforts exclusively on developing/teaching sustainability related courses in the Faculty of Education and in the

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Faculty of Environment. I can say honestly that this “feels right” for me and each year I learn new things about what it means to be “sustain-ABLE” from both students and colleagues in the various communities that I live and work.

Understanding and modeling what it means to be sustainable, is informed by our personal and family values, as well as the cultural norms of society. This point has become clearer to me as I have worked in diverse locations such as Vancouver, Haida Gwaii or Indonesia. Still, in the end, we (students and teachers) are all in the ‘sustainability game’ together and there is still just so much for us to learn …

The next chapter in the journey towards the ecology of home – considers more deeply the meaning of ecology as a possible unifying concept for living sustainably.