ABSTRACT
Firstly, geography teachers convinced of my argument should regard themselves as transformative intellectuals seeking the further democratisation of society alongside progressive elements of civil society. They should engage in forms of professional development that extend their grasp of the kinds of critical social theory outlined in this chapter, its development and application by academic geographers, and the ways in which it might reform the contents of their lessons. They should become familiar with environmental politics (Elliott, 1998; Connelly and Smith, 1999), social theory and the environment (Goldblatt, 1996), alternative models of democracy (Held, 1987), and the ways in which nature is being increasingly capitalised and enframed by new forms of economic production and consumption (Braun and Castree, 1998). They should also develop their abilities to engage students as researchers in praxis or socially critical action research in democratic institutions that have extensive links with the community and the wider world. This means running schools and classrooms in democratic and sustainable ways and applying the extensive range of experiential teaching and learning strategies used by progressive social, development and environmental educators (Huckle and Sterling, 1996). Children and young people have the right to participate in their learning and in the social construction of environments and sustainability, and there is a wealth of advice encouraging teachers to educate them in primary environmental care (Hart, 1997; Adams and Ingham, 1998; Johnson et al., 1998). Local Agenda 21 has revived the theory and practice of community planning and development (Selman, 1996) and
Critical theory draws on both Marx and Weber and shifts the focus from labour and the social relations of production to social interaction and the nature of language and morals. The principal claim of Jurgen Habermas, the foremost contemporary critical theorist, is that interaction has become distorted by the rise of positivism and instrumental reason that promotes science as universal and value-free knowledge and so fosters a distorted and incomplete understanding of our relations with one another and the rest of nature. His critical theories seek to reveal this distorted and incomplete rationality and empower people to think and act in genuinely rational and autonomous ways.
