Literacy and environmental communications: towards a 'pedagogy of responsibility'.

Literacy and environmental communications: towards a 'pedagogy of responsibility'. In this paper I take up the challenge framed by Martusewicz andEdmundson (2005) and ask whether teachers in primary school classroomscan work to produce a sustainable community Sustainable communities are communities planned, built, or modified to promote sustainable living. They tend to focus on environmental sustainability (including development and agriculture) and economic sustainability. through pedagogical ped��a��gog��ic? also ped��a��gog��i��caladj.1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of pedagogy.2. Characterized by pedantic formality: a haughty, pedagogic manner. practicethat links literacy and the environment. Within the framework of theRiver Literacies project, I outline a call for the development of aneco-ethical consciousness among the population as a whole, and ask howteachers can foreground place-conscious curriculum in their work toencourage their students to examine local knowledges and relationshipswithin their communities around problems that are of concern to thecommunity itself. Questions of situated pedagogy and teacheraccountability in terms of literacy learning in relation to theenvironment are raised. ********** Martusewicz and Edmundson (2005, p. 71) argue that a pedagogy ofresponsibility is 'a fundamental commitment to the recognition thatwe live together on this planet among all kinds of living creatures,human and non-human, in a fragile but essential interdependence. [...]to be human is to live engaged in a vast and complex system of life, andhuman well-being depends on learning how to protect it.' From my research diary: a narrative of environmental action It is a bright cold winter's day in Canberra, crisp and freshin the sunny school playground as Year 4G lines up, pulling on theirhats and jostling to arrange the gardening gloves and water bottles.With them is Jenny, a local Parkcare Group volunteer, who has beencoming to this classroom once each two weeks since the beginning of theyear, and who has brought along a number of pamphlets about 'theRidge' where we are heading, to show me, the visitor researchingthe environmental communications work of this classroom. Jemma, (1)their teacher, is handing out digging forks, shovels and axes: Jemma: ... and you know not everyone will get one. You'll besent back to school, honestly, so you have to hold it very carefully. Child: I'm going to be a weed miner. Child: Like pulling them out! Jemma: And we're going to share them. Where's Pradesh? Child: You're a miner, I do a lot of the dirty work ... Jemma: Okay, where's ... we're going to go where Jennysays. She's got a spot in her head probably, for us to go to,today, so that's where we're going to go. Jenny: So we're not doing the planting? Jemma: No ... the school and I've been in contact with [amember of the local Landcare group] and they've only just emailedme back and I said we want 3 yellow boxes ... I said ASAP (chat) asap - As soon as possible. becauseit's time to plant, isn't it? Jenny: So basically we want the kids to check the verbascum Verbascuma potentially poisonous genus of plants in the family Scrophulariaceae. The plants contain cardiac glycosides similar to digitalis but poisoning is not recorded. Called also mullein. ... Jemma: Yeah, that will do ... Jenny: So I think we'll go up above the ... Jemma: Okay, standing up please. Pradesh, get your hat on your headand your water bottle, come on mate ... The children line up in pairs, pocketing their gloves and drink,and carrying their 'mining' implements with care, out of theschool, under the subway road crossing, and up the path to the walkingtrack on 'the Ridge'. After ten minutes of steep uphillwalking, they reach the information point on the public nature trail atCooleman Ridge, where visitors can collect pamphlets to guide them alongthe walk. The children eagerly check out the box--which last time theyleft was full of the pamphlets they had prepared by hand, modelled onthose provided by ACT Parks and Wildlife. There are none left, and theyare pleased--though someone suggests they should make a sign to askvisitors to read the pamphlets and then return them to the box so thatthey can be used again. Jemma suggests that next time they might producetheir pamphlets on the classroom computers, which would make it easierto replace them. At last we reach the spot that Jenny had in mind, and the childrencommence their work. It is on the side of the mountain ridge, a flatwide rocky area about twenty metres square, with a couple of straggly strag��gly?adj. strag��gli��er, strag��gli��estGrowing or spread out in a disorderly or aimless way: straggly ivy.Adj. 1. trees at the highest point and a view over the southern suburbs ofCanberra The suburbs of Canberra are organised into a hierarchy of districts, town centres, group centres, local suburbs and other industrial areas and villages. While these divisions have no formal role in the governance or administration of the city, they formed a basis for the planning and the purple-blue Brindabella ranges Brindabella Ranges is a mountain range in New South Wales, Australia. The Brindabellas are visible to the west of Canberra and form an important part of the city's landscape.The name is said to mean “two kangaroo rats” in the language of the local Aborigines. . The children are neckhigh in grass, amongst which can be seen the strong, thick stems andleaves of verbascum, an introduced plant that has taken over the locallandscape since the Canberra fires burnt off the Ridge in 2003. Thechildren have been here before, and they know what to do. There is onlyone instruction--to put their water bottles on the rocks under thetree--before the children set to work, digging, twisting, pulling,carrying and placing the verbascum in a growing pile. They work in pairsand threes, cooperatively, energetically, urging each other on when thedigging gets tough in the hard rocky ground, and chattering constantlyas they move through the area: [Sounds of weeding and digging] Child: Did you get it? Child: I just snapped this huge root off. Child: Jack, don't give up. R: That's right, dig down hard with that now, you'll getit. [Sounds of exertion exertion,n vigorous action, a great effort, a strong influence. ] Child: Jack you're close to it, come on! R: You've half got it! Child: It must be down about a hundred feet or something, or maybethere's a rock under there. R: There might be rock under here. Child: Some of them are joined together. R: Yes, and that makes it harder doesn't it? Child: And when they're joined together you have to pull thewhole lot out. Child: We can't pull out the small ones, but we can pull outthe big ones. I stand and survey the Ridge over to the south west, closer to theroad, where the children have been working since the start of the year,and where Jemma's Year 2 class worked last year. There is a visibleline between the weeded area, where the golden grass is swaying in thebreeze, and the rest of the Ridge, where tall spikes of dark greyverbascum spear the sky starkly. They are not ugly, but they seem out ofplace--perfectly 'natural' but somehow unhealthy--like a scaly scal��yadj.1. Covered or partially covered with scales.2. Shedding scales or flakes; flaking.scalyskin condition characterized by scales; scalelike. rash. After the children have built a large pile of pulled weeds, whichJenny says weather will reduce to mulch over time, they sit among therocks, sweaty sweat��y?adj. sweat��i��er, sweat��i��est1. Covered with or smelling of sweat.2. Causing sweat: a sweaty job. and satisfied with their work, swigging from their waterbottles and examining the other living things Living Things may refer to: Life, or things in nature that are alive Living Things (band), a St. Louis musical group Living Things (album) by Matthew Sweet they have dug up with theweeds: Child: You find them under the verbascum. R: And what sort of bugs are they? Child: You can get these worm-looking rubbery things. Child: Caterpillar looking things. R: OK, and so do they eat to roots of the verbascum or do they justlive there? Child: I think they just live underground. Child: Look how much we've pulled out, and look how big thatstone is. As they gather their belongings and start to head home, they havebeen on the Ridge for an hour and a half. As an outsider, I am struck bythe seriousness of the children's activity and the enjoyment oftheir labour. There has not been one argument, not one incident ofplayful warcraft with the implements they have been sharing, and therehas been no instruction or reminder about getting on with the job. Thechildren leave the pile of weeds behind them, pocketing their gear, andcarrying only their weeding tools again. They take the 'longroad' back, around the Ridge Trail, with Jenny pointing out changesto the landscape since their last visit, and checking the areas theyhave already weeded: R: It is, and there's so few verbascum plants here,there's only two... Jenny: That's right, well we've been working here for twoyears. Jemma, you can really notice the difference, can't you? ...How rich it is. Child: Yeah and ... the beehive Beehive(star cluster): see Praesepe. beehiveheraldic and verbal symbol. [Western Folklore: Jobes, 193]See : Industriousness ! Jenny: Oh yes, last time we found a feral feraluntamed; often used in the sense of having escaped from domesticity and run wild. beehive, and whetherhe's ... the bees I don't know ... Jenny: That's where the hive was, wasn't it? Jemma: Yeah I'm sure it was. Jenny: It was because we had the blackened black��en?v. black��ened, black��en��ing, black��ensv.tr.1. To make black.2. To sully or defame: a scandal that blackened the mayor's name.3. ... Child: Oh, there's a bee. He's getting the honey. Connecting classroom to the environment: Literacy work? They arrive back at school at the start of morning recess, andreturn their tools and gloves to the classroom box before gatheringtheir snacks and heading out again. Jenny stays for morning tea in thestaffroom staffroomn → sala de profesoresstaffroomn → salle f des professeursstaffroomstaff n (Scol) → , and then returns to the classroom with Jemma, who connectsthe classroom computer to the Cooleman Ridge Website as the childrenreturn from play. Jenny finds a newsletter recently published on thewebsite of her Park Care Group, using Google, and they search for othersites about the Ridge, looking for information related to theirmorning's work. These are not texts written for nine-year olds, butJemma gives them time to peruse pe��ruse?tr.v. pe��rused, pe��rus��ing, pe��rus��esTo read or examine, typically with great care.[Middle English perusen, to use up : Latin per-, per- , pointing out words as they scan eachtext silently on the screen of the Interactive Whiteboard. She leadsthem as they read aloud from each text, short segments of informationdirectly related to their weeding and the planned tree planting fortheir next visit. They discuss the things they have seen on the Ridge this morning,and Jenny says she will let the Park Care group know about the bees theyhave seen, so that they can include this in their next website report.After this session, Jemma moves the children into a maths activity, andthen, as they pack up for lunch, she lets them know that the plants forthe Drought Resistant Garden have arrived, and that those people who arein the Garden Club will need to bring their gloves and smocks tomorrow,so that they can either begin to plant, or continue to work on the Ridgemural muralPainting applied to and made integral with the surface of a wall or ceiling. Its roots can be found in the universal desire that led prehistoric peoples to create cave paintings—the desire to decorate their surroundings and express their ideas and beliefs. they are painting on the garden wall. The Student Council hasassisted the class to develop this garden area, and it has been stronglysupported by the school caretaker, who has prepared a suitable site andbuilt a walkway walkwayRehabilitation medicine An instrument used to measure the timing of foot contact and or position of the foot on the ground and bridge that will cross a future 'grassriver'. I watch as they leave the room full of talk about theplanting, and the weeding, and I marvel that there has been not onechild in this class of 29 whom Jemma has needed to'discipline' all morning. Nor have there been any who haveneeded to be 'managed'. Their seriousness about the work onthe Ridge is derived from pride and pleasure in their achievement, andreassurance, from Jenny's continued presence, that their work isproductive, useful, and genuinely matters to the world beyond theirclassroom. The children have not written this morning, they have not hada formal reading session, their reading material is not age-appropriate,and they have not worked through a scaffolded writing session to recordtheir work on the ridge. They are full of talk about the Ridge, and howthey will go up there next week, and what sort of plants they will needto select from up there to plant in their new garden area here atschool. I have no work samples to collect for the Case Studyarchive--this does not look like a literacy lesson. Researching environmental communications The observation notes on which my research narrative above is basedwere collected as part of the River Literacies project, (2) wherereports have been produced of the work of eight volunteerteacher-researchers from around the Murray-Darling Basin The Murray-Darling Basin being 3430km long, drains one-seventh of the Australian land mass and is currently by far the most significant agricultural area in Australia. Most of the 1,061,469 km² basin is flat, low-lying and far inland, and receives little rainfall. who work ascoordinators for the Special Forever program. (3) Our aims in theproject included an investigation of: * what can be learned from the project about quality curriculum andteaching in environmental communications * how Special Forever might develop beyond celebration of theenvironment and engage students in critical questions and issues and * how teachers can develop a range of environmental knowledge andskills important for young people who must sustain the MDB (Message-Driven Bean) An Enterprise JavaBean (EJB) generated by the Java Messaging Service. See EJB. in thefuture. These are important questions in a time when at least twoAustralian inland cities have recently faced public political debateabout the feasibility of recycled sewage to serve as drinking water drinking watersupply of water available to animals for drinking supplied via nipples, in troughs, dams, ponds and larger natural water sources; an insufficient supply leads to dehydration; it can be the source of infection, e.g. leptospirosis, salmonellosis, or of poisoning, e.g. fortheir populations, and as we hear that the water drunk by Australiansliving in towns and cities near the mouth of the Murray-Darling is'a lot of recycled wastewater anyway' (Jenkin, 2006). Thenecessity to engage with pedagogical practices relating to relating torelate prep → concernantrelating torelate prep → bez��glich +gen, mit Bezug auf +accthesustainability of our environment is becoming clearer and more urgent.This is the context in which educators concerned with environmentalsustainability and eco-justice have argued for the idea of a pedagogy ofresponsibility in relation to the planet and sustainable futures. Bowers Bowers is a surname, and may refer to Betty Bowers Bryan Bowers Charles Bowers Claude Bowers Dane Bowers David A. Bowers Elizabeth Crocker Bowers Graham Bowers Henry Francis Bowers Henry Robertson Bowers, (1883 - 1912), polar explorer (2001) asserts that we have little alternative but expand the sources ofinformation educators use--for example, to embrace traditional culturaland local knowledges in the education of children--to ensure that thecapacities of our natural systems are sustained into the future. In our analysis and critique of the classroom practices we haveobserved in the Case Study research (Comber comb��er?n.1. One, such as a machine or a worker, that combs something, such as wool.2. A long wave that has reached its peak or broken into foam; a breaker. , Nixon & Reid, 2007, inpress), we have noted the affordances of multi-modal technologies forallowing new forms of networked communication in and about the placeswhere students live and work. We have also noticed that there arepotential risks for teachers who support the development of these oftenephemeral Temporary. Fleeting. Transitory. and informal literacy practices in an educational literacyenvironment of centralised Adj. 1. centralised - drawn toward a center or brought under the control of a central authority; "centralized control of emergency relief efforts"; "centralized government"centralized curriculum and standardised outcomes. Based on our analysis of the teachers' own accounts anddocumentation of their work in Special Forever over three years(2004-2006), interviews with each of them and the other thirteencoordinators, as well as observational accounts of their practice, wehave been able to point to tentative conclusions about the way thatliteracy practices realised as environmental communications appear totake on quite complex, mutable and often public forms of production anduse. Many of these environmental communications practices do not lookconventionally like 'classroom literacy'. The literacyactivities and textual production that Jemma's pupils engage in aspart of their work on Cooleman Ridge have gone far beyond theconventional representations of 'environmentalcommunications', such as the poetry and artwork that has beenpredominantly selected by judges as worthy of inclusion in the SpecialForever anthologies over the past decade and a half (see Cormack, Green& Reid, 2007, in press; Cormack & Green, this issue). Jemma's effort in planning, organising and preparing for thiswork is ongoing, cyclic and ever changing. It is part of the life of 4Gin 2006 as a class, and that of the class in the adjoining room, withtheir teacher, Martina. Last year it was a large part of the life ofJemma's 2G class, and this group had made the first set ofpamphlets about the Ridge, some copies of which are still proudlydisplayed in the school entry foyer for visitors to read. Just like manyof the other teachers who work continuously with the environmental focusand with the idea of Special Forever in their everyday classroompractice, the Ridge work is not a special event, a distinct activity, ora one-off program, even though it may be initiated as such. For exampleJemma's classroom has a large painted mural of a landform land��form?n.One of the features that make up the earth's surface, such as a plain, mountain, or valley.landform?A recognizable, naturally formed feature on the Earth's surface. resembling Cooleman Ridge along the back wall, on which are displayedthe names of flora and fauna, topographical and weather features, and adetailed glossary of environmental terms related to the local ACT area.This has been loaned to Jemma and Martina by the regional scienceconsultant as a trial of the resource, and the two teachers are workingfrom a specific 10 week environmentally-focused program they havedesigned around it (Gascoyne, 2007, in press). Although Jemma says that she does not actually take the children upto the Ridge all the year round, as it is simply too hot in school hoursduring most of February, some children indicate that they have beenweeding on weekends, and introducing their parents and siblings to theissues of exotic weeds in native habitats. As I will describe in thenext section, there is much in the evolving practice of Special Foreverthat can be seen as an emergence of a practical understanding of a'pedagogy of responsibility' (Martusewicz & Edmundson,2005) in primary classrooms, and that the literacy work associated withwork in the environment is a key component of this pedagogy. While notconfined to Special Forever participants, of course, I suggest that theconduct of that program as a support for teacher education and changehas been a significant feature in this emergence. In what follows, Iprovide a brief explanation of the notion of a pedagogy ofresponsibility before examining the inter-relationship of literacy andenvironmental education in its practice. What is a pedagogy of responsibility? As Gruenewald (2003, p. 9) notes, pedagogy is a term used looselyin Educational discourse. Indeed, in recent years effective literacyteaching in Australia has been conceived and described variously interms of 'productive' (Lingard, Hayes & Mills, 2003),'authentic' (Newmann & Associates, 1996),'situated' (McConaghy, 2003), and 'critical'(Comber, 2001) pedagogy. These sorts of attributions of purpose to thework of teachers support the claim of Simon (1987) that: talk about pedagogy is simultaneously talk about the details of what students and others might do together and the cultural politics such practices support. In this perspective, we cannot talk about teaching practices without talking about politics. (cited in Gruenewald, 2003, p. 9) A 'pedagogy of responsibility' is a description ofpractice that is informed and structured by a teacher's commitmentto engaging with questions of diversity, democracy and sustainability inways that are designed to bring about change in the way that humanbeings live in, interact with and use the environment of the planet. Itarises originally from the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas(1998), who claims that all human beings, 'naturally', becausewe are organic beings who depend on more than our selves for life andsustenance SustenanceAmalthaeagoat who provided milk for baby Zeus. [Gk. Myth.: Leach, 41]ambrosiafood of the gods; bestowed immortal youthfulness. [Gk. Myth. , are therefore always in an ethical relation of'responsivity' or 'response-ability' to everythingthat is not the self, that is the 'Other'. We only achieve anindividual identity, and understand who we are because we are alwaysfaced with 'otherness', and so we are always vulnerable to thesustainability of the 'Other' in sustaining our selves.Because of this we are obliged, not as an act of kindness, or evenconsciousness, but as part of our own survival, to help sustain the'Other'. If we do not fulfil this obligation, we endanger en��dan��ger?tr.v. en��dan��gered, en��dan��ger��ing, en��dan��gers1. To expose to harm or danger; imperil.2. To threaten with extinction. ourselves. Commonsense com��mon��sense?adj.Having or exhibiting native good judgment: "commonsense scholarship on the foibles and oversights of a genius"Times Literary Supplement. understandings of the term 'responsibility',which derive from a Conservative discourse of an 'established orderin society and a culture of responsibility among those fortunate enoughto belong to the middle and upper classes' (Forster, 2002, p. 71),are unhelpful here. They imply that 'responsibility' issomething that some people have towards others--and that those whobehave 'responsibly' are doing so because they'want' to, as a matter of their free choice (and of course,that they could choose not to). But as Critchley (1999, p. 64) explains: Ethics is not an obligation towards the other mediated through the formal and procedural universalization of maxims or some appeal to good conscience; rather [...] ethics is lived in the sensibility of corporeal obligation to the other. In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently , for Levinas, people do not have a choice--ourexistence depends on our responsibility to (not 'for') eachother. It is not surprising, as Hardy (2002), notes, that environmentalthinkers have extended this ethics of inherent responsibility to includean eco-ethics, 'developed and justified from an identification ofthe need of the Other in the non-human realm' (Hardy, 2002, p.463). Humans in our 'civilised' society, which has'progressed' so far from the 'natural', must relearn Verb 1. relearn - learn something again, as after having forgotten or neglected it; "After the accident, he could not walk for months and had to relearn how to walk down stairs" our obligations to our natural environment as well as other humans.Hardy cites the words of Llewelyn (1991) and argues that 'thisneedfulness is sufficient to endow en��dow?tr.v. en��dowed, en��dow��ing, en��dows1. To provide with property, income, or a source of income.2. a. me with responsibility: "nospecific characteristic other than its someway some��way? also some��waysadv.In some way or another; somehow.somewayAdverbin some unspecified mannerAdv. 1. needing me is required inorder that I should be directly responsible for anotherthing'" (Hardy, 2002, p. 463). The key aspect of a commitment to a 'pedagogy ofresponsibility', therefore, is that it works at the level of theunconscious, in our bodies and automatic actions rather than our mindsand conscious thoughts. While such an eco-ethical sensibility can beseen to exist in Indigenous knowledges and practices about land andplace, it does need to be 'taught' in cultures that have cometo assume that the 'dominion of Man' over animals and the landcomes with no care for the effects of ecological irresponsibility.Teaching this 'unconscious' responsibility acts to shapestudents as human and social subjects in particular ways, through theacceptance and valuing of diversity and 'otherness' thatinclude the natural world and its non-human elements. The term'pedagogy of responsibility' has been used in relation tosocial justice by other writers in a range of literatures related tocritical/cultural theory (Giroux, 2004), literacy pedagogy (Dyson,1997), human rights education (Reich, 1994) and philosophy (Critchley,1999; Hardy, 2002). In this work it refers to the dynamic relationshipbetween scientific inquiry and action, and is clearly related toGruenewald's (2003) sense, above, of political action and advocacy.Pedagogies of responsibility explicitly recognise what Lemke describesas the 'irony' that: classroom education and the formal curricula [...] are narrowly focused on informational content that is more or less unique to school experience, when the major developmental processes of these years appear to be about the formation of identities that fill larger scale social models [...] Whatever we offer in the classroom becomes an opportunity to pursue this longer-term agenda of identity building. (Lemke, 2000, p. 286) But these critical theorists See also Critical theory (Frankfurt School)A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZATheodor Adorno Giorgio Agamben Louis Althusser Michael W. focus on pedagogy for social justice,highlighting the role of culture in shaping and transforming individualsas social subjects in pre-existing relations of power, and the role ofeducation in providing a basis for the imagination of contestation andchange to existing power relations (Giroux, 2004). Edmundson andMartusewicz (2004, p. 122), like Gruenewald (2003; 2006), argue that weneed to go beyond approaches to social justice 'that do not addressour interdependence as humans upon threatened natural systems'(Gruenewald, 2006, p. 3). In these terms, conceived of as part of a process of identityformation, such a pedagogy can be partially understood as a realisationof the successful achievement of engaging and high quality environmentaleducation, which, as outlined elsewhere (see Editorial), has been theexplicit project of government achieved by the funding of the PrimaryEnglish Teaching Association (PETA Quadrillion (10 to the 15th power). See space/time. ) by the Murray-Darling BasinCommission, since 1993, to run the Special Forever program with schoolsin the Basin. It is also connected to larger and long-standinginternational concerns for global survival, which recognise theinterrelationship in��ter��re��late?tr. & intr.v. in��ter��re��lat��ed, in��ter��re��lat��ing, in��ter��re��latesTo place in or come into mutual relationship.in of the social and the natural world. As Hardy (2002)notes, the United Nations Environment Programme has been working on aWorld Conservation Strategy at the international level for decades. Asthey proclaim, jointly with the International Union for the Conservationof Nature International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources(IUCN) or World Conservation Union,international organization founded in 1948 to encourage the preservation of wildlife, natural environments, and living resources. and the World Wildlife Fund: Ultimately the behaviour of entire societies towards the biosphere must be transformed if the achievement of conservation objective is to be assured. A new ethic, embracing plants and animals as well as people, is required for human societies to live in harmony with the natural world on which they depend for their survival and well-being. The long term task of environmental education is to foster or reinforce attitudes and behaviour compatible with this ethic. (IUCN-UNEP-WWF, 1980 cited in Hardy, 2002, p. 463) Jeronen and Kaikkonen (2002) suggest that there is a hierarchy ofindicators of successful environmental education. This moves from'sensibility' to 'awareness', to'knowledge' and, finally, 'action' on the part ofboth teachers and students. While these 'outcomes' ofenvironmental education may be listed cumulatively in this hierarchicalaccount, they are also inclusive and additive, in that teaching andlearning activity in, on and for the local environment necessarilyinvolves, incorporates and reproduces sensitivity, awareness, andknowledge in 'rich' and 'productive' pedagogicalpractices such as those described by Lingard, Hayes and Mills (2003). AsMartusewicz and Edmundson (2005) see it, pedagogies of responsibilityare both intellectually challenging and environmentally sustaining.While I do not wish to rehearse re��hearse?v. re��hearsed, re��hears��ing, re��hears��esv.tr.1. a. To practice (a part in a play, for example) in preparation for a public performance.b. their argument in its entirety here, thekey aspect for our work, as exemplified in the pedagogy of teachers likeJemma and others in the Special Forever program, has been 'therecognition and emphasis on which local knowledges and practices lead tothe requisite responsibility in communities for leaving the futuregenerations a viable and healthy environment' (Edmundson &Martusewicz, 2004, p. 122). My argument here is that as Jemma's class admires the workthey have done in weeding the verbascum that has overrun 1. overrun - A frequent consequence of data arriving faster than it can be consumed, especially in serial line communications. For example, at 9600 baud there is almost exactly one character per millisecond, so if a silo can hold only two characters and the machine takes the naturalgrassland grasslandsee grazing (2), pasture. on Cooleman Ridge after the Canberra fires of 2003, they aredeveloping an eco-ethical consciousness. But it is through her teaching,and in particular the sorts of literacy activities that Jemma and hercolleagues are beginning to test out and investigate in theirclassrooms, that these students are working towards a pedagogy ofresponsibility in this sense of eco-ethical justice. Special Forever literacy work and pedagogies of responsibility When Jemma's students prepare pamphlets to leave in theinformation box at the start of the walking track around Cooleman Ridge,explaining what can be seen at each of the twelve observation postsaround the track, they are engaging in environmental communications. Thepamphlets are taken away, used by unknown visitors, and their literacywork has unknown effects in the world. They learn that their writingdoes not have to be marked and graded to serve a real, if indeterminate That which is uncertain or not particularly designated. INDETERMINATE. That which is uncertain or not particularly designated; as, if I sell you one hundred bushels of wheat, without stating what wheat. 1 Bouv. Inst. n. 950. ,purpose, and they learn that much of the writing that is marked andgraded has neither purpose nor effect. Their regular observation andongoing conversation about the effects of prolonged drought on the Ridgeover the seasons of the year, and over time, brings them face to facewith the increasing encroachment An illegal intrusion in a highway or navigable river, with or without obstruction. An encroachment upon a street or highway is a fixture, such as a wall or fence, which illegally intrudes into or invades the highway or encloses a portion of it, diminishing its width or area, but of suburban housing on the plants andanimals of the Ridge. As Levinas said, 'to face the Other is to betaught' (Hardy, 2002, p. 462). It ensures that Jemma's pupilsare constituting themselves as individuals who have what Bourdieu (1977)calls a 'habitus' of responsibility for their local area, aspart of the identity they are consciously and unconsciously working toform through their participation in their school and place: One reason why people have difficulty understanding global environmental change and the urgency of addressing problems is that many of the components of an ecosystem's functioning unfold in dimensions of time and space that can easily escape people's notice, or show seasonal patterns that are out of sight and out of synchrony with the pace of increasingly mechanised societies. Yet for those who have learned how to see them, the messages carried by migrating birds, shifting weathers and flowing waters tell the story of an interdependent world. Although representations of the environment in books and on television and computer screens can contribute to this process of learning to see, they can never replace the role of direct experience. (Heft & Chawla, 2006, p. 209) Further, it directly builds on the assumption of the philosophybehind Special Forever articulated in Sobel's (1993, p. 52) claimthat middle childhood is a 'critical period in the development ofthe self and in the individual's relationship to the naturalworld.' As noted in Gruenewald (2003): Sobel wants to 'reclaim the heart' in place-based education, to create experiences where people can build relationships of care for places close to home. This focus on experience with place is a response against both a 'gloom and doom' approach to environmental education and a conventional education that keeps students indoors and thinking about outdoor places only in the abstract. (Gruenewald, 2003, p. 7) Jemma has structured the process of an eco-ethical identityformation for her students through her attention to the organisation,activity and language of the classroom, and she is constantly seekingways to expand and enrich the experiences she is able to provide. As shesupports her students through the difficult reading and sorting ofrelevant information from websites, Landcare brochures, nurserycatalogue descriptions and the mural glossary of local flora necessaryfor the sustained activity of planning, preparing, planting, tending,recording and informing others about the plant life of the Ridge intheir own Drought Resistant Garden, they are also seeing their literacyas productive. Her pedagogy is always in process, always responsive tothe environment and to what their place provides. One example is a narrative writing activity constructed by Jemmainvolving children in building from their face-to-face encounters withthe natural environment of their place, in a different way from thepractices described above. This activity is formally constituted as awriting lesson in which the language features and conventional textualstructure of the narrative text type is revised and practised. This isaesthetic rather than scientific literacy According to the United States National Center for Education Statistics, scientific literacy is the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity. curriculum--and involvescreative expression, art and a Romantic notion of 'English'.This sort of literacy activity engages students in speaking, thinkingand writing that allows them to develop and articulate a personalisedunderstanding of the 'Other' non-human inhabitants :This article is about the video game. For Inhabitants of housing, see Residency Inhabitants is an independently developed commercial puzzle game created by S+F Software. DetailsThe game is based loosely on the concepts from SameGame. of theRidge, and to articulate their understanding of their ecosystem from aperspective 'Other' than their own: Child: On Cooleman Ridge where nobody goes was Wally the Wombat andEd the Echidna echidna, in zoologyechidna(ĭkĭd`nə)or spiny anteater,primitive animal of the order Monotremata, the egg-laying mammals. . One day they were walking along when they felt thetemperature rising, 'Do you feel that?' asked Wally'Yes,' said Ed, 'it's getting hotter.' And thenthey saw the flames coming over the hill. 'Get inside thehole' said Ed. R: Now, what do you think should happen now? It's a very goodopening, a very good opening. Child: They're going to run away. R: So they're going to get inside the hole, did you want themto get in the hole? Or did you want them ... Child: They get in the hole and then they see the flames coming inthrough the door and then they run out the back and then they have torun away ... but the fire is coming ... This is what was described as a key purpose of Special Forever (as'an environmental communications project') from its inception.It was to allow children 'to "bear witness" againstactual or potential environmentally damaging activities' andprovide, through heightened sensitivity, awareness and knowledge, an'intergenerational insurance policy' for sustainable action by'future generations of Murray-Darling Basin residents'(Eastburn, 2001, p. 14). Cheryll, another Special Forever Coordinator involved in the RiverLiteracies project, for instance, articulated these principles in hercommentary on the sort of activity that students and teachers in herlocal area focused on in the name of literacy development: Some of the good things that I've found are the best are the things that happen out of nowhere; the Native Fish Strategy people rang and said 'we're doing a little bit of a push on species of native fish--we're coming out to your region, would you like to coordinate some things with schools where they could have a look at some of the native fish strategies and how we're doing it ... There was only a little bit of water ... the river was so low then. So we had three different schools, Walgett and Brewarrina, we've got the fish traps there ... forty thousand years old natural fish traps, so they talked about those and also they came to Bourke, went on a paddle steamer and talked about ... anglers and other groups ... so that prompted the kids to talk about what's the best environment for fish, what happens when there's a change in the environment, what do we do about that, can we do anything about it, should we be responsible for cleaning up our area of the river, where plastic fits in. So kids know all of those things, but for them to actually do something about it makes them think 'we can do this, we can clean up our area, we can make sure we keep the snags in the river so that the fish can breed, and all those sorts of things. (Cheryll, Bourke). It is this sort of activity with students that highlights two ofthe key questions that pedagogies of responsibility seek to foregroundin human consciousness: 'What do we need to conserve?' and,'What needs to be transformed? As Martusewicz and Edmundson (2005,p. 79) argue: 'Rather than being predisposed pre��dis��pose?v. pre��dis��posed, pre��dis��pos��ing, pre��dis��pos��esv.tr.1. a. To make (someone) inclined to something in advance: to see tradition asoppressive, a pedagogy of responsibility asks what the consequences ofthe traditions are for the community, and what would be lost if thetradition was changed.' Where Indigenous knowledges and traditions,particularly those that have sustained the land and all its inhabitantsover centuries, are in danger of being lost, colonised Adj. 1. colonised - inhabited by colonistscolonized, settledinhabited - having inhabitants; lived in; "the inhabited regions of the earth" , ordecontextualised, these questions are crucially important.Cheryll's certainty that attention to place will provide the basisfor 'any literacy activities you like' is borne out by ouranalysis of the work of the eight volunteer teacher-researchers. Itconforms with contemporary pedagogical theory about 'qualityteaching', in terms of ensuring both relevance and connectedness tostudents' experience, and an insistence on higher-order thinkingand the problematic and partial nature of all knowledge claims (eventheir own). Working in a one-teacher school in a small town where an historicDare's Truss Bridge (4) is being replaced by a wider concretebridge half a kilometre upstream, Kate reflects on the pedagogicaldecisions that have arisen from an excursion she organised with the RoadTransport Authority (RTA) to show the children the building site: Well, we'll continue just adding, because even while the children were talking about what they'd remembered this afternoon, I'd go 'oh, I didn't remember [that], and so there's all those, we'll keep those displays up and just keep adding as it comes to, and then we'll do a multi-modal process to distil what are the key themes; so the environmental stuff will probably come out as important. The building issues seem to take the children's fancy, and the environmental ones with the changed water flow from the Windermere Dam ... that environmental thread came through it the whole time. Whilst it wasn't a particular focus today (it was actually a construction site we went to!), it got a mention of the Indigenous issues and the Wiradjuri people with their artefacts and any time a hole was dug, someone was there for the first metre, so it's just amazing. So I don't think we'll have a lot of trouble in children producing different sorts of ways of recording what they're interested in and what they've learnt. So we'll have factual stuff as best as history is, and the environmental stuff, so there'll be a parallel system of the recorded history, and [...] the oral history and then the parents kicking in their bits as well. But obviously, we're going to hop right onto this issue of the Spotted Purple Gudgeon, so the internet will support our learning there, and other experts that we can call on; the parents have a huge amount of knowledge as well, so I don't know where it's going to stop, honestly. (Kate, Goolma) Over the next few months, Kate's class developed a richwebsite that will be used by the RTA as part of their public relations public relations,activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most reporting of the bridge development, and that reflects all the differentperspectives she notes here as related to the building of the newbridge. They have researched scientific, historical and local culturalinformation in the production and development of their website. Theyhave also learned to spell new words; critique information provided on awebsite that appeared to them to have oversimplified o��ver��sim��pli��fy?v. o��ver��sim��pli��fied, o��ver��sim��pli��fy��ing, o��ver��sim��pli��fiesv.tr.To simplify to the point of causing misrepresentation, misconception, or error.v.intr. the facts about theplatypus platypus(plăt`əpəs), semiaquatic egg-laying mammal, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, of Tasmania and E Australia. Also called duckbill, or duckbilled platypus, it belongs to the order Monotremata (see monotreme), the most primitive group ; and rewrite informational material that they think has'too American' a sound to suit the people in their region whowill be reading their website. Conclusion In this way, I argue, within her practice in Special Forever, andlike many of her colleagues involved in the program, Kate is workingwith the key principles of a pedagogy of responsibility (Martusewicz& Edmundson, 2005). As she notes above, the children'sattention is being drawn to cultural and ecological diversity. It isalso focused on principles of sustainability, which require that alldecisions take account of the good of the lifeworld Lifeworld (German: Lebenswelt) is a concept used in philosophy and in some social sciences, particularly sociology. It means the world "as lived" (German: erlebt) prior to reflective re-presentation or theoretical analysis. ; and that alldecisions recognise this as an ongoing process. The language,organisation and activity of her program attend to principles ofdemocracy, which recognise that everyone in the community has aresponsibility to participate and which stress for these children thatthey, like Jemma's class, can make a difference. Working elsewherein the Basin, another teacher involved in Special Forever comments onthis consciousness that she sees developing among her pupils, and thatindicate how situated, place-based pedagogies for literacy learning andenvironmental communications work to engage practices of mutuality,responsibility and action on the part of the young children involved. As Wendy, a long-time coordinator for Special Forever in herregion, says: I think that I also have become a much stronger advocate of the project--I just think that the more I do, the more involved I become, the more passionate I am, and the more value I see in doing my little share within it, and children taking on board, teaching other kids, and taking responsibilities on board for putting up signs to turn the taps off, ... collecting the food scraps for the compost, caring about the gardens--last night, three little kids had to wait for their mum who was doing a job for the school ... and they walked around the garden, and I didn't say anything to them, but here they are picking out little bits of rubbish that had gone in, and they were cleaning up without saying anything--now those children are already environmentally aware ... 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(1) Jemma Gascoyne teaches at Chapman Primary School in the ACT.Like Kate Charlton, who is Principal at Goolma in NSW, Cheryll Koop,Literacy Consultant at the far west Bourke District Office, WendyRenshaw, who teaches at Beechworth Primary, in Victoria, and DebWangman, an Assistant Principal at Broken Hill, all of whom arementioned in this paper, she is one of the 21 Special Forevercoordinators with whom we have had the pleasure of working on thisproject since late 2004. (2) River Literacies is the plain language title for 'Literacyand the environment: A situated study of multi-mediated literacy,sustainability, local knowledges and educational change', anAustralian Research Council (ARC) Linkage project (No. LP0455537)between the University of South Australia South Australia,state (1991 pop. 1,236,623), 380,070 sq mi (984,381 sq km), S central Australia. It is bounded on the S by the Indian Ocean. Kangaroo Island and many smaller islands off the south coast are included in the state. , Charles Sturt University Charles Sturt University (CSU) is an Australian multi-campus university in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. It has campuses at Bathurst, Albury-Wodonga, Dubbo, Orange and Wagga Wagga. , andThe Primary English Teaching Association, as the Industry Partner. Chiefresearchers are Barbara Comber, Phil Cormack, Bill Green, Helen Nixonand Jo-Anne Reid. (3) A book of teacher case-studies based on this work entitledLiteracies in Place: Teaching Environmental Communications (Comber,Nixon & Reid, 2007, in press) is to be published by the PrimaryEnglish Teaching Association. (4) Harvey Dare was an engineer working for the NSW Public WorksDepartment Many governments worldwide have had departments or ministries referred to as the Public Works Department either formally or informally.In Australia: -New South Wales - Office of Public Works and Services, New South Wales in the early part of the twentieth century. His design for animproved truss structure to provide extra strength to the wooden roadbridges of the time proved very successful, although these bridges havebeen gradually replaced by the RTA over the past 50 years. Jo-Anne Reid CHARLES STURT UNIVERSITY