ABSTRACT
This chapter distils the most relevant themes in the sub-discipline of “environmental education” (EE) since the Tbilisi Declaration in 1977. It discusses the choice of terms (EE, Education for Sustainable Development and Education for Sustainability); the objectives of EE; and the location of EE in schools. This book uses the term EE because it is known in Indonesia and because “sustainable development” often leads to the neglect of environmental sustainability in favour of sustained development. One issue is that, as schools are part of the system that created the world’s environmental problems, we cannot expect them to deliver education that will critique and transform the larger structures of capitalism, inequality and injustice that produce environmental destruction. Can schools produce responsible environmental citizens? Our response is simply that they must, because the problems are so urgent. The chapter examines four problematic aspects of pedagogy in Indonesia and many other developing countries:
The continuing dominance of rote learning
The focus on the transmission of facts
The gap between environmental awareness and knowledge on the one hand and pro-environmental behaviour on the other
The effect of learned helplessness and apathy. Finally the chapter proposes “critical ecopedagogy” as an ideal.
