Environmental education should transmit an ethic by showing possibilities, not by preaching obligations

Evidence

Tilden did not envision environmental education as a sequential pedagogical enterprise targeted at students as was then being practiced in the NPS. For him, environmental education meant the communication of an ethic. And while the NPS should not “teach morals as such,” he believed the bureau could use its “vast natural and historical resources to show what true morals are.” By doing so, urged Tilden, “we do not tell people what they must do, but what they can do; not what they must be, but what they can be; and this by working with nature instead of against nature, and by following nature’s order, with man instead of against man.” — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 60

Categorization

• DEFINE: Tilden’s expanded definition of environmental education as ethic-communication rather than sequential instruction.
• SEED: The must-do versus can-do distinction is a transferable pedagogical frame for any values-laden teaching, nature or otherwise.
• XREF: connects to: A well-organized critique accuses environmental educators of fear-mongering over facts — David Sobel, Place-Based Education: Connecting…, 63; Environmental education can alienate resource-dependent rural communities when it condemns local livelihoods. — David Sobel, Place-Based Education: Connecting…, 68; The label ‘environmental education’ itself repels some communities where neutral terms succeed. — David Sobel, Place-Based Education: Connecting…, 72 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Sustainability can mean transforming, not adding to, education #qualifies (0.78) — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 251