Green Pedagogy deconstructed

The University College for Environmental and Agrarian Pedagogy in Vienna created the concept of Green Pedagogy.

It is a challenge to translate the Green Pedagogy model from German to English so I interviewed Johanna Michenthaler, project coordinator of the Prof E Sus project and professor at the university, about the approach and she used a sample lesson or learning activity plan [docx] to illustrate the six stages of Green Pedagogy.

Keep the following graphic in mind as you listen to the 50-minute conversation:

Below you will find a summary of the 50-minute interview.

The Green Pedagogy approach is a pedagogical approach that should be practiced regularly over the long term, rather than in a one lesson or one project approach. In the same way that critical thinking, growth mindsets or project-based learning needs to be practiced, the same goes for Green Pedagogy (GP).

There are six steps to the GP approach but the six don’t have to be slavishly followed every time. GP is based around confronting students with alternatives.

Learners can be overwhelmed by the bad state of the world and GP offers a way of countering this.

GP is not about imposing teacher values on learners. So an important aspect of GP is to allow learners to form their own values as a result of what they have been exposed to in the GP approach.

An important part of GP is to end learning activities with an actionable vision that learners can act on rather than leaving the classroom feeling that all is hopeless.

We can demonstrate the GP approach using a sample learning activity:

“The menu today can change your world tomorrow”

Link [docx]

The Prof E Sus project was aimed at home economics teachers and trainers so this sample learning activity centred on food preparation.

The aim of the lesson was to consider how to create menu plans for different target groups such as kindergartens, schools, elderly home or hospitals that are more sustainable.

One aspect of lesson planning is to state the targeted competences. An important conclusion the Prof E Sus project came to was that to promote sustainability, every learning activity should target both vocational and sustainability competencies. This means that we do not have special sustainability lessons or courses but that we combine professional/vocational skills with sustainability skills continuously.

GP Lesson stages

  1. Confrontation and problem analysis

The purpose of this stage is to find out what learners already know about the topic. In this lesson, this was done by showing learners a series of pictures of meals. The purpose was to elicit their reactions, feelings and emotions about the meals presented. The pictures included healthy unhealthy, traditional, provocative and futuristic.

  • Traditional meals
  • Insect dishes
  • Hospital meals on a tray
  • Designer food which is 3D food created with a 3D printer.
  • Vegan dishes

There were very different reactions to the same meals/dishes. Learners were amused to see the variety of reactions and thought about the question: What do these reactions say to you?

They concluded that people have very different ideas about what is good food, healthy food and so on.

This is provocative but stage 3 is provocation? This is one source of confusion in English over the names of the different stages.

Stage 2: Reconstruction

What are we reconstructing? We take a look at learners’ conceptions to see if they are right or wrong. This reflects conceptual change, an evidence-based approach. Now we try to confront learners with these wrong conceptions and help them to open their minds to other ways of looking at the topic. So in some cases they must destroy their old ideas and reconstruct them.

In the sample lesson, this stage was done by presenting anonymised menu plans from the different organisations and ask students to analyse the menus according to needs such as nutrition, easy chewability etc. At this stage nobody thought about sustainability, so learners were now ready for the next stage which is an intervention or provocation.

Stage 3: Provocation (to think out of the box)

In the sample lesson, the learners were then shown a set of information posters describing the production, consumption and waste management of the food mentioned in the menus.

Examples included factory farmed meat and organically farmed meat, use of detergents, chemicals and so on. There were also posters on long distance and local distribution options. Consumption in different settings and finally waste management.

Learners were asked to take a view on these posters in a silent session and take a view on their menus as a result of seeing these posters.

This step overcomes the problem that menu plans are usually only produced to meet individual needs rather than looking at the needs of other stakeholders at the same time.

The result is that the learners realise they need to evaluate menus using additional criteria

Stage 4: Interaction

In the sample lesson this was done as a plenary discussion to discuss which criteria are relevant to consider when making menu plans. They return to the pictures in stage 1 and are invited to add questions they want to know the answers to. Because stage 3 was silent, this stage was full of pent-up feelings. This needs to be carefully facilitated for example by going from poster to poster once again but this time as a talking group.

This would not have been an appropriate stage at which to stop the lesson as there would be many unresolved questions and feelings.

Stage 5: Deconstruction

How do we overcome this problem?

By putting it at a local level for example thinking about their upcoming lunch in the school canteen. In this example the students came up with the idea to create a set of icons to signpost good and bad aspects of the food on the menu. The icons could address social and environmental aspects. Sample icons included organic, vegetarian, vegan, locally grown and so on.

Stage 6: Reflection

This stage is about creating actionable visions.

In the sample lesson learners were asked to consider these two questions.

  1. What will be the effect if all guest-oriented businesses supported healthy and sustainable menu plans? Led to the realisation that if this took place across all guest-oriented organisations in a local region then the effects would be far-ranging.
  2. What have you learned today? To bring it back to the individual.

Conclusion

This approach’s six steps can be followed in 99% of learning activities. Sometimes a stage only needs a couple of minutes. Provocation must always be coupled with co-creation of a realistic vision otherwise learners will be overwhelmed and feel powerless. This approach also avoids the trap of teachers presenting the correct set of values to hold since the learners come to their own conclusions.

You can find a great deal of background information and many other sample learning activity plans on the Prof E Sus website.