By
starting his essay off by comparing post-WWII social transformations to what we
are going through today Richard Kahn is able to grab the reader’s attention and
make his arguments seem very relevant. Even though it seems like he sometimes
gets a little extreme with his opinions for the most part he makes good points,
and the world would be in a better place if we took some of his ideas into
consideration. After reading Kahn’s essay there are three words that have the
potential to summarize the main points that he made: ecopedagogy, pedagogy, and
ecology.
According
to practicingfreedom.org
“ecopedagogy is a
discourse, a movement, and an approach to education that has emerged from
leftist educators in Central and South America including Paulo Freire, Moacir
Gadotti and Leonardo Boff that seeks to re-educate “planetary citizens” to care
for, respect and take action for all life” which is the main idea that Kahn is trying
to get his readers to buy into. If more people would practice this idea in
everyday life as a whole we would do much less damage to the planet that we
live on.
As defined by http://www.bcb.uwc.ac.za “ecology is the scientific study of interactions of
organisms with one another and with the physical and chemical environment”. Kahn
makes a valid point on this topic when he states that “a threat to either the
organism or its environment is a movement towards the ecology of death” because
if you harm an organism’s environment you are in turn harming the organism
itself.
Pedagogy refers to the method of which something
is taught; in his essay Kahn states that “Just as there is now a
socio-ecological crisis of serious proportions, there is also a crisis in
environmental education over what must be done about it” and continues on to
talk about the way things have been, are, and possibly should be taught in the
future. I would consider this the most important topic that Kahn covered in the
entire essay. It doesn’t matter if there are a few people who know what needs to
be done if they do not successfully convey their knowledge to enough people
then nothing will be accomplished. And on that same note if people are not
taught about something in the proper manner they will either not be convinced
that they to take action or they will not know how to take action.
Through all of his examples and explanations Kahn
made a good case for something that he believes strongly in which is changing
our ways to preserve the environment. In the end it is clear that weather or
not you agree with everything he states the issues he talks about are real and
they do need to be dealt with. The first step to dealing with our problems is
to make everyone aware that there is a problem and educated them on how to fix
it.
