An Ecological Pedagogy of Joy: On Relations, Aliveness and Love

An Ecological Pedagogy of Joy is an interweaving that explores the conduct of pedagogy in these ecologically sorrowful times. Drawing upon the authors collective experiences as teachers and students, as well as Indigenous ancestries and knowledge, ecological images and ideas and threads of thought from interpretive traditions, the book not only speaks about these matters, but is organized to provide readers with pathways, alternating voices, deep philosophical ventures and personal and practice examples. This book is a valuable resource for any practicing teacher or education student (graduate or undergraduate) who is interested in exploring emerging ventures into relations, aliveness and love as keys to the well-being of schools. It also provides examples of how interpretive work can be done in a rigorous and scholarly manner, and carefully threads into this Indigenous ideas and practices that enhance and elaborate the pathways the authors have taken.

An Ecological Pedagogy of Joy supports exploration of how ecological pedagogy lives in the world and, as such, carries tenets of life writing, Indigenous and literary métissage, and ecological notions of interweaving. Featuring contemporary research while inviting readers to consider the ancestries informing the work, it evidences how pedagogy can be understood as organized around relationality and living inquiry. Scholars and teachers of eco-sustainability, Indigenous and community-based research, and post/qualitative ways of knowing will find this a valuable resource.

Ellyn Lyle, Dean, Faculty of Education, Yorkville University

After many years of work, study, and community service, I have learned that the most important guidance that I can provide is to help human beings connect with the many gifts that exist in the place where they live. Guiding people to attend to such sacred ecology insights helps them understand more deeply the multiple and complex ways that we are all unified by what gives us life. This book is a beautiful recounting of this wisdom teaching and also a poignant reminder of the critical need to express gratefulness for these gifts as a fundamental part of what it means to live as a real human being.

Dwayne Donald, Professor & Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, Faculty of Education, University of Alberta