Geography: the Ethical Geographer
Lecture and creator of this module, Martin Haigh, considers education for sustainable development to be ‘a very personal issue’. He views it as a move away from the traditional higher educational learning format of impartiality and detached observation. In the context of education for sustainable development, Martin considers that students are moving in the opposite direction; they are learning ‘how to take it personally’, developing a real, subjective relationship with the world around them.
‘The Ethical Geographer’ is a final year, final term module designed to facilitate the student’s transition to employment. Hence part of it is learning how to write job applications and personal statements. However, a large part of it is devoted to personal development, personal awareness and personal reflection. In the introduction, students are told that
‘this module is about you [entering] the big wide world’
Multicultural spin
Using an active learning pedagogy, Martin starts by inviting the students to explore the way that local places affect them emotionally. Taking a ‘multicultural spin’ they are introduced to the Hindu concept that the entire universe is made up of three strands: Zadpher which is contentment, purity and harmony, Tamas which is dullness, laziness, and veiledness, and Ragas which is the active ingredient: desire, action, greed, inspiration for words. The students form teams and each chooses a part of the campus or local town to interpret in terms of these three different constituents. Managing to reach a shared opinion with their team is part of the challenge. Following this, each student is asked to redesign the space/area which they have dissected, with sustainability principles in mind, for example energy efficiency, or the promotion of harmony and peace.
Tree planting
The next section of the module introduces students to the three levels of deep ecology: egocentricity, anthropocentricity and ecocentricity. Their learning in this section is based around a group tree planting activity, a symbolic act aspiring to offset the carbon that each student will produce throughout their own lifetimes. This particular activity is inspired by the teachings of Mahatma Ghandi, who criticised modern education for educating people to use the pen but not to use their hands. Martin considers that getting the students to do something physical, something that gets their hands dirty and is not just intellectual, is part of the process of learning how to take sustainable development personally.
Next the students are asked to write their own message on tree plant labels and hang them on their trees. This idea is taken from the Buddhist tradition of prayer flags, and is an opportunity for students to reflect upon their own priorities and make a wish or a prayer for the future. They are asked to reflect upon their tree planting project, asking questions such as ‘what does it all mean?’ and ‘does it make a difference?’ Through the discussions stimulated by these questions, priorities across the personal, social and ecological scale are further defined, some saying that the money would have been better spent on poverty problems in Africa, others being only concerned with their personal prospects and other still who are most worried about the planet. Through doing this they position themselves upon the deep ecology scale mentioned above.
Reflective Practitioners
Through these activities, Martin aims to create reflective practitioners, people who don’t just do things, but rather ‘they’ve thought about what they are doing and they believe it is the correct thing.’
This learning outcome is based around the Buddhist concept of Darma, which means ‘Right action’. Martin wants his students to graduate with more than just knowledge and understandings; he wants them to engage with the real world consciously and critically, choosing careers with an ethical understanding of their implications. |
Interviewee: Martin Haigh