Facilitating transformative learning for ecological consciousness ...

Facilitating transformative learning for
ecological consciousness through mindful
design of ecologies of learning


A joint paper for Ecology of Learning (101068)
and Transformative Learning (100651)








Student name: Faith Thomas
Student number: 16478086

Due date: Monday 2nd June 2008
Lecturer: Dr. David Wright

Submitted in accordance with the requirements of the
Masters in Social Ecology on Monday 2nd June 2008.

Word count: 9,299

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‘When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it
hitched to everything else in the universe’ John Muir

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Table of contents


Introduction ............................................................................................................. 4

Part 1 - Understanding transformative learning.................................................... 5

Part 2 - Understanding our ecology of learning.................................................... 7

Part 3 - Understanding the process of transformative learning........................... 9

A. The catalyst .......................................................................................................... 9
B. Critical reflection ..................................................................................................10
C. Transformative dialogue ......................................................................................11
D. Breakthrough.......................................................................................................13

Part 4 - Transformative learning for ecological consciousness .........................15

Part 5 - A learning ecology for ecological consciousness..................................16

A. The learning environment ....................................................................................17
B. The learning community.......................................................................................20
C. The role of the educator.......................................................................................23

Part 6 - Overcoming barriers to transformative learning ....................................27

Conclusion .............................................................................................................28

References..............................................................................................................30

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Introduction
In this paper I will explore the ways in which transformative learning towards an
ecological consciousness can be facilitated or invoked within the framework of a
carefully designed ecology of learning.

In doing so I am in agreement with Stuart Hill, Steve Wilson and Kevin Watson when
they write that transformative learning aimed at raising ecological consciousness ‘will
be much more effectively achieved if our particular approaches to teaching (and)
learning are informed by ecology’ (Hill, Wilson & Watson 2004).

I will seek to understand the processes, structures and practices that catalyse
transformative learning as it applies to the expansion of our consciousness into what
Edmund Sullivan and Marilyn Taylor call ‘ecological consciousness’ (O’Sullivan &
Taylor 2004), and Fritjof Capra, David Orr and others refer to as ‘ecological literacy’
(Capra 1999, Orr 2004). How can the educator create an environment and an
educational practice where the learner is stimulated to rediscover the deeper
ecological self?

I do not intend to pose a hypothesis but merely to explore relationships: relationships
between inner and outer worlds, between people in community, between the learner
and the various elements of their ecology of learning. Relationships are the building
block, the very foundation of ecology. In exploring why current models of learning fail
to support ecological consciousness, and how an educational model that does might
be developed, I need to examine these foundations closely.

In the process of this exploration, I will seek to answer the following questions:

1. How can an educator engage participants in such a way that transformative
learning towards ecological consciousness occurs?
2. What experiences and activities can be used to facilitate this response?
3. What affect does the environment in which learning occurs have on the
process of transformative learning?
4. How does one incorporate critical reflection into this process or give it
intellectual meaning apart from, or connected to, experiential knowledge?
5. How does the learning community, as a part of the broader ecology of
learning, facilitate (or inhibit) the transformative learning process?

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I wish to position my ideas within a theoretical framework which considers education
as part of a greater whole, and in which it plays a role of deepening and expanding
the evolutionary experience of the human being. My perspective is both humanistic
and constructivist, believing as I do that we ‘all have the extraordinary coded within
us, waiting to be released’ (Houston 2004).

In my exploration I wish to look at transformative learning as more than just social
critique. In this sense I refer to critique as helping learners to see how their value and
beliefs might be ‘ideological illusions’ aimed at preserving a status quo that is ‘alien
to their collective experiences and needs’ (Carr & Kemmis 1986). I want to go a step
further to explore the ways in which transformative learning can be not only a
process of dismantling the old, but also the catalyst for creating a whole new way of
seeing and relating with the world and ourselves.

As such, I am most interested in those aspects of transformative education that
O’Sullivan terms ‘visionary’, and the process by which human kind can develop an
entirely new way of being. A way of being within a ‘planetary consciousness’ with
social and organisational structures that integrate with our physical ecology, and a
lifestyle that meets to the physical, social and spiritual needs of all (O’Sullivan 2000).

Through this paper I aim to develop my professional practice as an educator, as well
as become a more skilled learner, hastening my own personal and spiritual evolution.
The theoretical frameworks that I explore can be practically applied both to my
profession and to the personal sphere of relationships and personal creativity, two
areas where transformative learning can open life up to become a blossoming, a
continuous inspiring journey of exploration and growth. Thus I follow Roben
Torosyan who writes ‘I teach both to change the world and to transform myself’
(Torosyan 1999).


Part 1 - Understanding transformative learning
Transformative learning is a process and as such can be compared to a journey. It is
a process of rethinking, redesigning and recreating ourselves and our world-views,
with the result that everything that we are connected to is also transformed as well.
As Dean Elias states so simply and succinctly, transformative learning is ‘learning
that changes the nature of consciousness’ (Elias 1997).

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More specifically, my experience of transformative learning is most closely
encapsulated by the writing of Edmund Sullivan, who puts a firm emphasis on
connectedness as essential to the learning process. In O’Sullivan’s definition:

Transformative learning involves experiencing a deep, structural shift in the
basic premises of thought, feelings, and actions. It is a shift of consciousness
that dramatical y and irreversibly alters our way of being in the world. Such a
shift involves our understanding of ourselves and our self-locations; our
relationships with other humans and with the natural world; our understanding
of relations of power in interlocking structures of class, race and gender; our
body awarenesses, our visions of alternative approaches to living; and our
sense of possibilities for social justice and peace and personal joy (O’Sul ivan
and Taylor 2004).

O’Sullivan suggests that to achieve this ‘we need to expand our horizon of
consciousness to the universe itself’. The process by which this is to be achieved he
calls ‘integral planetary education’ (O’Sullivan 2000).

As stated above I have chosen to use O’Sullivan’s definition of transformative
learning in my explorations here, however a brief discussion of other theorists is
warranted.

John Mezirow, the father of transformative learning theory, sees transformative
learning as ‘a process by which critically assimilated assumptions, beliefs, values,
and perspectives are questioned and thereby become more open, permeable, and
better validated’ For Mezirow, this process is primary rational and cognitive,
catalyzed by a ‘disorienting dilemma’ which results in a process of self-examination
and critical reflection (Cranton 2006, Meizirow 1991, 2000). As such its primary aim
is ideological critique.

This rational approach has been built upon by several theorists, who suggest that the
process of transformative learning is also dependent upon a range of other faculties,
including imagination, artistic expression and receptivity. For Jungian theorists,
Robert D. Boyd and J. Gordon Myers, transformative learning is a process of
‘psychic integration and active realisation of their true being’ (Boyd in Waithe 2006).
John Dirkx posits a related theory of transformative learning that aims to nurture the
essential self or soul.

Despite some theorists suggesting that these two definitions of transformative
learning are oppositional, I agree with Waithe, Dean and Cranton in seeing them as

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complimentary. In my view, both the critical and rational capacities of the conscious
mind, and the imaginative and intuitive aspects of the unconscious are as essential
as each other in evoking transformative learning, and agree with Taylor in
appreciating the ‘varying nature of the catalyst of the learning process’ (Taylor in
Waithe 2006). This process will be explored in detail later in this essay.

In summing up this brief overview, I would like to quote Joanna Macy when she says:

...things do not produce each other or make each other happen, as in
linear causality. They help each other happen by providing occasion or
locus or context, and in doing so, they in turn are affected. There is a
reciprocal dynamic at play (Macy 2007).

When we apply this to our understanding of transformative learning, we give it an
ecological dimension based on relationship and the interdependence of elements.
We position transformative learning within an ecology of learning.


Part 2 - Understanding our ecology of learning
Every one of use is ‘interconnected to the systems of nature, society, and thoughts
that surround and flow through us’ (Briggs & Peat 1999). Capra describes this as ‘the
complex webs of being and knowing that underpin life’ and I have come to
understand it as an ecology of learning.

Our ecology of learning is the context in which we learn, including the influences and
assumptions we develop from our social background, and the resulting fears,
motivators, barriers and needs that result from these assumptions. Our ecology of
learning is both a social and philosophical structure and a series of relationships with
ourselves, our community and our environment.

Hill, Wilson and Watson write that the study of ecology of learning is constructivist in
nature, acknowledging how previous life experiences have shaped us. The result is
that each individual has an entirely unique ecology of learning (Hill, Wilson & Watson
2004). We are a product of our context, yet we maintain agency, or free will.

In his writings on transformative learning, Mezirow discusses what he calls ‘meaning
structures’ which is another interesting way of thinking about an ecology of learning.
Meaning structures are essentially frames of reference, based on a person's cultural

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context and experiences, which determine how a person behaves and how they
interpret the world around them (Mezirow, 1991).

Force field analysis, developed by Kurt Lewin, is another useful concept for
understanding an ecology of learning. Force field analysis is a framework that looks
at all the factors (or forces) that affect a person in order to fully understand them, and
to interpret their behaviour, emotions and reasoning (Smith 2001).

Our ecology of learning is not always conducive to the development of ecological
consciousness, in fact most of us who have grown into adulthood within the
modernist paradigm have ecologies of learning that have given us a sense of
separateness from the natural world.

Most people today see life as differentiated and fragmented; ‘modern life is...
considered to exist in discrete spheres or compartments, such as family life, work,
social life and so on’ (Spretnak 1999). Even learning is strictly divided into
departments and disciplines, which are not always logically connected in the mind of
learners. The connection between ecology and economy is one example. The result,
David Orr argues, is that generally speaking even the most highly educated among
us are ‘without any broad integrated sense of the unity of things’ (Orr 2004).

This perception of fragmentation is affecting our world fundamentally, as it leaves us
without an understanding of the feedback loops, or strings of consequence, that are
set off by our actions. Richard Tarnas puts it beautifully when he writes that our
objective civilisation has become a force of destruction ‘in a world too intimately
interconnected to accommodate such a titanic juggernaut so out of balance with the
whole’ (Tarnas 2007).

This problem is compounded by society’s reluctance to question or critique this
paradigm, due to an entrenched reverence for the ideal of objectivism. Objectivism
assumes that there is one truth and that this truth is discovered through observation;
truth exists in and of itself, independent of the individual’s perspective or worldview.
Having convinced itself that it has discovered truth, our society tends to be largely
uncritical of its underlying assumptions (Spretnak 1999).

In contrast, ecological consciousness goes ‘beyond subject and object’ (Christie
1992) because it considers everything that exists to be part of a whole.

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Part 3 - Understanding the process of transformative learning
Many writers, including David Kolb and Kurt Lewin, have described the process of
learning as cyclical or spiral-like in nature. Action research learning, designed by Kurt
Lewin, involves a spiral of steps, ‘composed of a circle of planning, action and fact-
finding about the result of the action’ (Smith 2001). David Kolb’s learning cycle is
similar and has also been highly influential (Kolb et al. 1984).
The process of transformative learning is also cyclical in nature, and to my mind
consists of four key processes: the catalyst, critical reflection, meaningful dialogue
and finally a breakthrough that may, if allowed, catalyse further transformative
learning. This process is explored in detail in the following pages.
A. The catalyst
Depending on the individual and the specific context or ecology of learning that they
find themselves in, the catalyst for transformative learning can be one of several
things, including:

• A ‘disorientating dilemma’ or crisis that create a temporary sense of
meaninglessness, disconnection, fear or loss of security (Mezirow 1991);
• An alternative perspective expressed passionately by another that lead the
learner to question the objective nature of truth;
• What Freire refers to as ‘coded situations’ being photos, film, narratives etc
(Freire 1993);
• Story-telling or the sharing of imagery or experiences;
• The humour of a trusted individual which may jolt us out of a negative outlook
that is impinging on our ability to see things clearly;
• The experience of a loving and safe space where it is okay to explore other
options and the possibly unpleasant emotions this may evoke;
• Archetypal dilemmas that awaken a new way of being within the learner;
• Strategic questioning that compels the learner to consider options that had
previously not thought of;
• Problem solving situations where learners must develop and design a solution
for themselves;
• Individual or group visioning processes that create a renewed sense of hope
through the conception of a new or previously unforeseen possibility or future;
• Activities that encourage right-brain or non-rational, imaginative brain
function, such as art, music or drama;

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• Experience or experiential learning that stimulate new or rarely accessed
neuromuscular pathways, releasing brain chemicals that promote different
spatial or bodily awareness; and
• Meaningful interaction with the natural world and the sense of wonder and
interconnection that this engenders.

A skilled educator can learn to use these catalysts through the thoughtful design of
an ecology of learning, discussed further in the latter part of this essay.
B. Critical reflection
If transformative learning is catalysed, critical reflection may result, however as John
Dewey points out this does not always occur. A person may choose to avoid the
process by abandoning the activity or situation that initiated it, or by indulging in
fantasy. It is only when he chooses to courageously face the situation and his own
fear of it that he begins to critically reflect (Dewey in Waithe 2006).

Some mention should be made at this point with regard to the concept of
‘discernment’ which Boyd and Myers posit as an alternative to critical reflection in the
process of transformative learning. From my own perspective, I do not see that
critical reflection need be only rational in nature, although I appreciate that this is the
way in which it was originally conceived by Mezirow. In my definition of critical
reflection I see both rational and imaginative faculties playing a role, depending upon
the context and the individual or individuals involved.

Griff Foley writes that critical reflection aims to challenge people assumptions in
order to bring about radical social change (Foley 1995); it has, as I see it, three
distinct yet interrelated aspects. These are critical self-reflection, which examines our
personal beliefs and underlying assumptions, critical reflection on others, including
the guidance they give and in particular our ways of relating to others, and finally,
critical reflection on external reality and the accepted norms or perspective that
shape our view of community and environment.

Critically reflection may occur spontaneously or it may be built in to learning by a
skilled facilitator, this later aspect will be further explored later in this essay.

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