The Journey towards a Teacher’s Ecological Self: A Case Study of a Student Teacher

• Authors: Rea Raus , Thomas Falkenberg
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Transforming our educational systems to support sustainable development is a challenge that involves all levels of education – policy, curriculum and pedagogical practice. One critical dimension to look at is a teacher’s identity as it influences a teacher’s decision-making, behaviour and action. The ecological self is the concept that is used in the context of sustainability. This paper discusses the emerging ecological self of one student teacher during her initial teacher education programme. The concepts of the teacher’s self and the ecological self form a lens through which the story of this student teacher is examined. The paper focuses on one part of a broader, longitudinal study of student teachers and their understanding of pedagogy and connectedness with nature in the context of the need for reorienting teacher education towards sustainability. Sterling’s (2001) conceptual framework of ecological view on education is taken as a tool to analyse the collected data. The results indicate that deep connectedness to nature and empathy are framing the holistic view on learning, teaching and a teacher’s self.

Keywords

EN

teacher education; student teacher’s identity; ecological self; sustainability; worldviews

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Journal of Teacher Education for Sustainability
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 16
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 103-114

Dates

published

2014-12-01

online

2015-03-11

Contributors

author

Rea Raus

• Tallinn University, Estonia

author

Thomas Falkenberg

• University of Manitoba, Canada

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/jtes-2014-0014