A Pedagogy of Place: Outdoor Education for a Changing World
Brian Wattchow · Mike Brown
Feb 2011 · Monash University Publishing
Ebook
244
Pages
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About this ebook
A Pedagogy of Place offers an alternative vision for outdoor education practice. This timely book calls into question some of the underlying assumptions and ‘truths’ about outdoor education, putting forward alternatives to current practice that are responsive to local conditions and cultural traditions. In this renewal of outdoor education philosophy and practice, the emphasis is upon responding to, and empathising with, the outdoors as particular places, rich in local meaning and significance. Current outdoor education theory and practice is influenced by cultural ideas about risk and adventure, and by psychological theories of personal and social development. However, in recent decades the professional discourse of outdoor education has made a noticeable shift to include education for the ‘environment’ and ‘nature’. This has resulted in a mismatch between theory and practice: traditional notions of proving oneself ‘against’ the challenges of the outdoors are antithetical to the development of an empathetic relationship with outdoor places, which growing concern with today’s environment demands. This book is the first of its kind to articulate a renewal of philosophy and practice for outdoor education that is in keeping with the educational needs of today’s young people as they grapple with considerable social and ecological changes in a rapidly changing world. The authors draw extensively on international, national and local literature and provide compelling case studies drawn from the Australian and New Zealand contexts.
About the author
Brian Wattchow is a Senior Lecturer and Course Director of Sport and Outdoor Recreation (SOR) in the Faculty of Education, Monash University. He is a foundation member of the Movement, Environment and Community (MEC) research group at Monash. Brian has over 30 publications in academic journals, scholarly book chapters and in the public domain, most often centring on his interests in outdoor pedagogy, sense of place and land identity. He co-authored Group Management in the Wilderness (University of Calgary, 1989) with Bill March and has recently published his first collection of poetry titled The Song of the Wounded River (Ginninderra Press, 2010). Away from work Brian is an avid golfer and reader, and enjoys camping, travelling and ‘toiling’ under the hot Australian sun on the small Gippsland farmlet where he lives with his family. Mike Brown is a Senior Lecturer in the Sport and Leisure Studies Department, Faculty of Education, University of Waikato. He has worked in the outdoors in the UK, Australia and New Zealand over a twenty year period. During this time he has combined field positions with tertiary appointments which have proven to be useful opportunities for seeing outdoor education practice and theory from a variety of contexts. His research has appeared in a number of outdoor education peer reviewed and professional journals as well as in a number of edited books. He has examined some of the fundamental assumptions on which much outdoor education practice is based with a view to strengthening outdoor educators’ understanding of the teaching and learning process. He serves on the board of several outdoor education trusts and is the editor of the New Zealand Journal of Outdoor Education. Outside of work Mike keeps active by competing in triathlons, undertaking the occasional sea kayaking trip and more recently ‘family camping’ – oh the joys of a thick airbed and a trailer to carry stuff, as compared to a thin foam mattress and a backpack!
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