Ethical commitments of educators -- and their intersections with environmental problems.

• The North American Association for Environmental Education has guidelines for the preparation of environmental educators. These guidelines contain a clear statement of some values NAAEE feels environmental educators should follow. According to the guidelines,environmental educators should engage in education that is "appropriate and helpful to the community (item 3.1), and "Model responsible, respectful, and reasoned behavior during instruction."  Item 3.2 reads as follows
3.2 Emphasis on education, not advocacy
Pre-service educators understand than their commitment as environmental educators is to provide accurate, balanced, and effective instruction - not to promote a particular view about environmental conditions, issues or actions.
To do so, the guildelines say they should do things like select materials that cover a variety of viewpoints, interpretations or opinions (including those regarding scientific explanations), and weigh evidence based on the validity of data.  They should encourage learners to explore these different views, and form and explain their own judgments.  To do otherwise undermines the credibility of the educator, in much the same way as we have discussed bias does in science.
 
• Few educational philosophies make any pretense of value neutrality, nor should they. Education is utterly concerned with values.  Primary among these must be ones concerning:
• The relation between individual and society.  The form education takes is always relative to the social context.  In some societies education emphasizes obedience to authorities that are assumed to know what is best for all.  In democracies, however, informed individuals are held to be the ones that know best -- and not only for themselves. They must also collectively make decisions for the good of the whole. Because of this, free and open inquiry and exchange of ideas must prevail. Popular beliefs must be open to criticism, and unpopular beliefs must have a hearing. The most carefully considered and best opinions must have a hearing, whether they are liked or not.  This is one reason academic freedom is so closely protected at the highest centers of learning.  Clearly, to educate in a way that encourages the ability to form good judgments on key issues is a central value in societies like these.  In this perspective, environmental education contributes most of all not because of any stress on environmental values but because it builds capacity for democratic participation that will enhance our progress on many issues.
• Society also requires conformity to certain 'basic values' that are essential to the conduct of social life.  These include values like respect of persons, honesty, general cooperativeness, inhibition of violence, respect of property, obedience to law, patriotism, and many others.  (These have varying and specific justifications--also open to criticism.) Education always does play a role in socializing young people into these values. (This is not to say it necessarily should play such a role--that must be judged carefully.) In this sense education is not value-neutral.
• Education also always necessarily embodies assumptions about the person. In some philosophies, the person is seen mostly as defined by the social roles for which they must be prepared (wife, worker, citizen). In others, the person is also believed to have intrinsic value apart from these roles.  The overall development of that person - the realization of potentials the person has to become more of a human being - is seen as a goal of education in these philosophies.  Either way, this aspect of education is also clearly value-based.
• The values education promotes (as above), are generally ones on which society feels consensus.  They are not contentious.  When values are contentious--when there is disagreement about them--educators would put themselves in the midst of controversy if they tried to promote values on either side of the controversy.  This is generally the case with many social issues. On these issues, many educators feel that teachers should give unbiased information, respect students regardless of their views, be careful not to teach the material at a level students cannot comprehend; not leave students with despair, fear, guilt or other coercive emotions.  This is consistent with the social values that should prevail in democracies.
• One exception to not using "propaganda" or manipulative tactics such as above is when the student's self-interest is at stake, and the student is at danger of not acting in his or her own best interest.  For example, smoking, unprotected  sex, and drunken driving are all things young people are tempted to engage in, but which society agrees are against not only society's interest, but more imporantly, are against the young person's own self-interest. In such matters, propaganda may be justified.
• Environmental issues clearly fit within the category of contentious social issues. They will as long as solving them requires putting constraints on the ability of some individuals to pursue what they perceive as their otherwise unfettered self-interest, for example by benefitting from consumption, exploitation and pollution.  While there is increasing consensus about environmental issues, it is clearly limited by how much infringement of individual liberty people will tolerate. Look at the recent reactions to energy shortages. Such confrontations between individual and social-environmental interests probably will only increase as population, consumption increase, and thus also the ways that people's actions infringe on each others' needs from the environment.
• Destructive environmental behaviors seldom fit in the category of things that directly harm the health or basic self-interests of the party doing them. The majority of the harm in such actions falls on others, and on the general social good.  For example, calling pollution an 'externality' recognizes that the negative effects of a transaction are often external to the immediate interests of parties that undertake it; the analysis of the 'tragedy of the commons' also expresses this reality. Following such lines of reasoning suggests that education about environmental problems is not exempted from the ban on propaganda.  How far does this extend? Does it mean env. ed should be entirely neutral in terms of values? Is any persuasion justified?
• Another perpective would be that although individual, short-term self-interest may not justify persuasive educational strategies, some actions are so likely to be deleterious to large numbers of people, and indirectly to the actor him or herself, that it should be okay to use such strategies to dissuade people from undertaking them.  Indeed, this is what we do when we enact laws that punish people for doing things that are harmful to the whole.  So education of this sort may be justified also, especially when a changed behavior is urgently needed and the collective costs of not changing are high.
• As environmental quality becomes (over time) a value on which there is strong social consensus, the issue may become less controversial. As long as educators merely reinforce, build on, or help prioritize such existing socially shared values, they would be less likely to be accused of being out of line with society ("biased") in their educational practice. Environment then becomes something more like honesty, on which all agree children should be socialized.  (It may be that an already high social consensus underlies the ability of the NAAEE (cited above) to say teachers should be value-neutral. Teachers can be utterly value-neutral, but the students bring environmental values along, and end up exposing each other to these as they do projects together... that is, in some communities only.)
• The last point implies that those who oppose environmental education can limit its scope by increasing the level of controversy, or even just the perceived level of controversy, over such issues.
• To the extent that environmental educators do not act as strong advocates, given the course of present society, the long run consequences of our present course of action will only get worse.  The conflicts between individual and social-environmental interests will only become more acute. If this continues, at some point perhaps there will be a  consensus that environmentally harmful behavior is strongly proscribed (forbidden). Then there may be a call for aggressive environmental education.  But by that time, we may have lost critical environmental services, or at least irreplaceable environmental amenities that make life worthwhile.
• Note in the last point above, a parallel issue to one we noted in discussing science: if someone has knowledge, an obligation may exist to act on any morally significant parts of that knowledge. Is this the case with environmental educators--they have been educated to understand environmental problems; are they now obligated to act on it? If they are not, how can they consistently expect childern or others to do so to? So the issue of consistncy and integrity comes up here too.

• Scientists, policy people, and others, often comment that education is vital to environmental solutions. They believe that education helps change basic beliefs and values, so that temporary fixes like laws, penalties, and so on become less necessary. Implicitly at least they are assuming that education deals with value issues, with expanding acceptance of norms about what is right and wrong. It is sometimes difficult for other professions to deal with values directly. If there is one place where values can be dealt with and even promoted, many feel it is in education. Many environmental educators feel the same -- that their profession is clearly defined by their environmental value commitments.
• If it is true that EE is defined by strong environmental value commitments (as well as the above social and personal-developmental values), then environmental education is inevitably in part advocacy--advocacy in in promoting values, if not specific positions on issues.
• It is thus incumbent upon environmental educators who feel they should advocate values to be able to provide an explicit justification for those specific values, and why it is okay for them to promote them. The burden of justification is likely to be strong because the changes entailed by environmental values imply substantial changes int eh status quo. Therefore environmental educators should be well versed in environmental ethics, and understand the counter-arguments and perspectives of their opponents.
• Some psychologists are trying to show that environmental qualities beyond those directly related to physical health (ie, clean water & air) are important in individual psychological well-being.  If this is the case, does it justify environmental education as part of education's mission to further individuals' realization of potentials?
• Related to this line of thinking is some research that shows educational programs that address all of the democratic-capacity-building facets discussed above, but DOES NOT  increase recipients' sensitivity toward,and caring about the environment, does not increase environmental action. The critical motivational component appears to be missing.
• Stemming from both these lines of argument is the idea that people need to be helped to enjoy, appreciate and value natural systems, by direct exposure and by learning about interdependencies, and about their own relationships to a specific place.
• These possibilities add more values to those already available for environmental educators to defend their practices.
• The Lake Whatcom Pledge program does not strongly advocate values, except by highlighting values many people may already have, and inviting people to re-consider their prioritization of these values in relation to other ones they hold, such as for a greener lawn, shiny car, cement driveway, etc. It also offers a small incentive--social approval. Placing the pledge plaque in ones' yard declares publically that one has made this commitment, thus increasing the commitment.
• The pledge allows individuals to approach the problem from within their own value system, not attempting to persuade much at all.  Is this really effective? Research suggests yes, but high level of education was a strong predictor; these may have been people who were more so-disposed already. What about all the others? 
• Environmental knowledge and values are often not the key 'limiting factors' behind the absence of many environmental behaviors. People are often prevented by cost, by convenience, by lack of sound alternatives, by structural constraints (location of developments, provision of public transit), etc. Asking them to change behavior without addressing these is unlikely to succeed, even among those who care.  How can such changes happen? (Think budgets, personnel training, taxes, political decisions.)  What role could education (and other areas) play in encouraging such changes?
• Regulations often provide key ingredients in such situations, because the penalties they impose provide a new motivation for people to learn. Environmental educators have done very well in some regulated industries when they can offer useful information to the regulated industries or individuals.

• Your environmental education group, which does advocacy-style env. ed., is offered money from a corporation that is operating in your area, and has been trying to improve its environmental image and practices. They want to support a program in which kids would gather data, which could potentially show the company was polluting more. You think you could accomplish a lot more with their money.  What should  you do? What questions would you ask in thinking about this?  What if there reputation for environmental management was quite weak?
• Environmental education has been subjected to 'backlash' in recent years. The main backlash forces came to Washington State two years ago, and in cooperation with the conservative Evergreen Freedom Foundation, issued K-12 Environmental Education Report Card for Washington State (download copy as pdf file) attacking EE in Washington, and increasing the perception of controversy about EE.  The state professional EE organization (EEAW) and its allies mounted a pro-active campaign before the report was even issued.  They formed a new group to do this, Citizens for Environmental Education. This protected EEAW from accusations of advocacy. What ethical issues do you see in this situation?
• You are teaching a group, and discover that it contains only children (or adults) that agree with your strong environmental values.  How should you gear your teaching?  Would you let out all the stops and preach loudly from your pulpit? Or would  you challenge them to not take their perspective for granted? Would you try to balance these tendencies? What would be your rationale for either course?
• You are an educator, and your audience is members of resource-extraction industries (miners, foresters, fishers, heavy-agriculture, chemical industry, etc.). It is clear you have different values than theirs. What would be your approach to the value differences? Would you hide them, and try to present objective analyses? Or acknowledge them and discuss the differences? Or look for common ground? Why?
• Would you pick apparently tough audiences for your environmental messages? I.e, auto mechanics, dry cleaners, other "dirty industries"? Why or why not?
• Your advocacy-style environmental education group decides to move into such audiences. It finds it has no credibility. Is this a reasonable cost for your group to pay?