Making the implicit explicit: environmental teacher as a “reflective practitioner”

Abstract

This forum article consists on a commentary on the article by Alandeom W. Oliveira, Patterson Rogers, Cassie F. Quigley, Denis Samburskiy, Kimberly Barss and Seema Rivera. The authors emphasized the need for environmental teachers to expand the focus of their instructional efforts beyond rational argumentation and reasoning, taking into account the complex emotional aspects of the human relationship with nature. In this commentary, I attempt to extend the conversation regarding these issues to the need for teachers to be aware about their own environmental beliefs, which could be guiding their teaching. I close with a consideration for the need for environmental teachers to be reflective practitioners, using reflection upon the ends of education, their environmental values and ideas and the moral and ethical aspects of teaching, for challenging students’ beliefs and empowering them to make informed environmental decisions, contributing thereby to the building of more just and environmental sustained societies.