HOW CAN SCHOOLS EDUCATE FOR CHANGE? FROM ECOLOGY TO ECOSOPHY

The environment is the ‘Great Container’ in which humans, animals, plants and objects are ‘guests’. In this Great Container, Man has discovered himself, the Other, things, succeeding, since the dawn of time, in establishing relationships of balance with ‘Otherness’. With the advent of technology, the balance that was at the basis of the man-nature relationship has been shattered by the ever more pervasive desire to possess, owning more and more Nature and destroying more and more of our Large Container. So what then? How do we cope with the environmental woes we have brought upon ourselves? In this context, schools have a fundamentally important role to play in guiding young people towards a responsible rationalisation of natural resources and leading them to the formation of an ecological conscience.