The need for place-based education in South African schools: the case of Greenfields Primary
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Date
2015
Authors
Ontong, Krystle
Le Grange, Lesley
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of Education, University of the Free State
Abstract
The discourses of accountability and global economic competitiveness have impacted
negatively on the quality of education in schools worldwide. Focused attention on
the social and ecological places that people inhabit has been overshadowed by
education’s support for individualistic and nationalistic competition in the global
economy. South African schools are not exempt from this. Despite these dominant
realities, we argue that place-based education (PBE) is a transformative educational
approach for counteracting this tendency. Moreover, we contend that PBE is critical
to the field of environmental education – not only to encourage environmental
conservation ethic among learners, but also to make them aware of the deeper social,
ecological and political forces that are embedded in places. Such consciousness can
only be achieved, however, if teachers are aware of their learners’ sense of place.
In this article, we discuss the case of Greenfields Primary, a school situated in an
eco-village outside Stellenbosch, South Africa. Twelve learners’ sense of place was
investigated. An attempt was also made to determine what two Social Sciences
teachers’ understanding of the concept ‘place’ was, the extent to which they practised
‘a pedagogy of place’, and the influence that the eco-village had on their teaching
approach.
Description
Keywords
Environmental education, Place-based education, Sense of place, Striated space, Smooth space, Lines of flight
Citation
Ontong, K., & Le Grange, L. (2015). The need for place-based education in South African schools: the case of Greenfields Primary. Perspectives in Education, 33(3), 42-57.