Conference paper
Re-imagining teachers' work for the 21st century
Australian Association for Environmental Education
2006 Conference of the Australian Association for Environmental Education (Bunbury, Western Australia, 03/10/2006–06/10/2006)
2006
Abstract
In thinking about how I might usefully contribute to the conference I was reminded of a comment by Stephen Brookfield (1994) who described the sense of impostership he felt when speaking publicly to groups of educators: "The more I know about their work, the more I feel humbled by their abilities ... If I know too much about who they are and what they have done as educators, I start to say to myself 'what on earth can I say to these people that has any chance of being taken seriously, or considered important, by them?'" (1994: 207).
Despite these reservations, I suspect that there are two things that bring us together and provide a point of mutual engagement: first, a shared feeling that things aren't right; and second, a desire to change the way it is. In the case of the former, we could spend a considerable amount of time sharing stories of despair, frustration, outrage and even anger about the events, troubles and crises in our world and daily lives. Thankfully, each of us will also be able to share stories of success, joy, inspiration, and hope to nourish our sense of civic engagement. In the case of the latter, we all bring a different set of life trajectories, experiences and expertise to the task of changing our places and world. This conference provides a significant opportunity to both publicly and privately share these stories and in the process, articulate a more just, democratic and sustainable future for our children.
Details
- Title
- Re-imagining teachers' work for the 21st century
- Authors/Creators
- B. Down (Author/Creator)
- Conference
- 2006 Conference of the Australian Association for Environmental Education (Bunbury, Western Australia, 03/10/2006–06/10/2006)
- Publisher
- Australian Association for Environmental Education
- Identifiers
- 991005544712807891
- Murdoch Affiliation
- School of Education
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Conference paper
- Note
- Appears in Wooltorton, S. and Marinova, D. (Eds) Sharing wisdom for our future. Environmental education in action: Proceedings of the 2006 Conference of the Australian Association of Environmental Education, pp 37-52
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