The influence of the environmental education on the prosess of socialization of the school children
Pogribna L, aspirant of the UMe
The key words: environment, outdoor education, experiential education,
environmental literary people, socialization, philosophy, sociological and psychological
theories, development, size entities, influence
Abstract:In the article the
influence of the environmental education in the prosses of socialosation ia analysed. The roots of the environmental
education are watched.The importance of
the environmental education in the prosess of the socialization is proved.
Author:Mrs Larisa
Pogribna,postgraduate student of UME in Kiev,Ukraine.Has an experience of
teaching English (about 15 years).now partly works in the UKRAINE university
and is enroled to UME on postgraduate course.
Environmental education is a learning process that increases people's
knowledge and awareness about the environment and associated challenges,
develops the necessary skills and expertise to address the challenges, and
fosters attitudes, motivations, and commitments to make informed decisions and
take responsible action (UNESCO, Tbilisi Declaration, 1978). It is necessary to think of environmental care seriously enough to
reverse the habits that caused damage to date, to our planet. It is necessary
to incorporate the idea that, over time and keeping harmful behaviors towards
the environment we are losing the opportunity to have a better quality of life,
we are deteriorating our planet and the creatures that inhabit it. [1]
It is necessary to have environmental literary people. The best result
can be reached if schools which would provide environmental education. The
adoption of a conscious attitude to the environment that surrounds us and of
which we are an inseparable part, depends heavily on education and education of
children and youth. Pedagogy and school
play a major role in this process.
Beyond traditional education, it is the mere fact of providing
knowledge, environmental education related to the man and his environment, his
surroundings and looking for a change of attitude, an awareness of the
importance of preserving for the future and to improve our quality of life.
This education goes beyond the traditional formal education, not be confined only
to schools, but employees also at work in the enterprise or workplace, which
offers an excellent vehicle for communicating values for the environment ,
relating to production characteristics. Moreover, the effective development of
environmental education demands the full use of all public and private
resources that society has, through various application systems and subsystems,
linked with legislation, policies, plans and programs implementing the measures
and control mechanisms and the decisions that governments take on the
environment. Environmental education is an educational process, comprehensive
and interdisciplinary approach that considers the environment as a whole and
that seeks to involve the general public in identifying and solving problems through
the acquisition of knowledge, values, attitudes and skills, making decisions
and active and organized. [1]
In its definition of Environmental Education, United Nations tells us
that it aims at training of individuals to know and recognize the interactions
between what is natural and social in their environment and to act in that
environment. Trying not to print their guidance activities posing a serious
deterioration in the balance of natural processes have been developed, making
possible the existence of a sound environmental quality for the development of
human life.
Environmental education has crossover with outdoor
education and experiential education.[1] These fields of
education complement environmental education
have unique philosophies.
While each of these educational fields has their
own objectives, there are points where they overlap with the intentions and
philosophy of environmental education.[3]
The roots of environmental education can be whatch
out in the 18th century when Jean-Jacques Rousseau stressed the
importance of an education that focuses on the environment in Emile: or, On Education. Several
decades later, Louis Agassiz, a Swiss-born naturalist, echoed
Rousseau’s philosophy as he encouraged students to “Study nature, not books.”
These two influential scholars helped to lay the foundation for a concrete
environmental education program, known as nature study,
which took place in the late 19th century and early 20th century.[4]
The lessons of
nature study helped pupils to develop an appreciation of nature. Anna
Botsford Comstock, the head of the Department of Nature Study at Cornell
University wrote the Handbook for Nature Study in 1911, which used nature to
educate children on cultural values. Comstock and Liberty Hyde Bailey, helped
Nature Study garner tremendous amounts of support from community leaders,
teachers, and scientists .[5]
The modern environmental education movement, which
gained significant momentum in the late 1960s and early 1970s, stems from
Nature Study and Conservation Education. One of the first articles about
environmental education as a new movement appeared in the Phi Delta
Kappan in 1969, authored by James A. Swan.[6] A definition of
"Environmental Education" first appeared in The Journal
of Environmental Education in 1969, authored by William B. Stapp.[7] Stapp later went on to
become the first Director of Environmental Education for UNESCO, and
then the Global Rivers
International Network.[6]
Ultimately, the first Earth Day
on April 22, 1970 – a national teach-in about environmental problems – paved
the way for the modern environmental education movement.Then, in 1971, the
National Association for Environmental Education was created to improve
environmental literacy by providing resources to teachers and promoting
environmental education programs.
Internationally, environmental education gained
recognition when the UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm,
Sweden, in 1972, declared environmental education must be used as a tool to
address global environmental problems. The United Nations Education Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and United Nations Environment Program
(UNEP) created
three major declarations that have guided the course of environmental
education.
June 5–16, 1972 - The Declaration
of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. The
document was made up of 7 proclamations and 26 principles "to inspire and
guide the peoples of the world in the preservation and enhancement of the human
environment."
October 13–22, 1975 - The Belgrade Charter[9] was
the outcome of the International Workshop on Environmental Education held in
Belgrade, Jugoslavia (now Serbia). The Belgrade Charter was built upon the Stockholm Declaration and adds goals,
objectives, and guiding principles of environmental education programs. It
defines an audience for environmental education, which includes the general
public.
October 14–26, 1977 - The Tbilisi
Declaration "noted the unanimous accord in the important role of
environmental education in the preservation and improvement of the world's
environment, as well as in the sound and balanced development of the world's
communities." The Tbilisi Declaration updated and clarified The Stockholm
Declaration and The Belgrade Charter by including new goals, objectives,
characteristics, and guiding principles of environmental education.
Later that decade, in 1977, the Intergovernmental
Conference on Environmental Education in Tbilisi, Georgia
, emphasized the role of Environmental Education in preserving and improving
the global environment and sought to provide the framework and guidelines for
environmental education. The Conference laid out the role, objectives, and
characteristics of environmental education, and provided several goals and
principles for environmental education.
Environmental education has been considered an
additional or elective subject in much of traditional curriculum.
At the elementary school level, environmental
education can take the form of science enrichment curriculum, natural
history field trips, community service projects, and participation
in outdoor science schools. EE policies assist schools and organizations in
developing and improving environmental education programs that provide citizens
with an in-depth understanding of the environment
Schools can integrate environmental education into
their curricula with sufficient funding from policies. This approach – known as
using the “environment as an integrating context” for learning – uses the local
environment as a framework for teaching state and district education standards.
In secondary school, environmental curriculum can
be a focused subject within the sciences or is a part of student interest
groups or clubs. At the undergraduate and graduate level, it can be considered
its own field within education, environmental studies, environmental science
and policy, ecology, or human/cultural ecology programs.
In schools tnvironmental education is not
restricted to in-class lesson plans. There are numerous ways children can learn
about the environment in which they live. From experiential lessons in the
school yard and field trips to national parks to after-school green clubs and
school wide sustainability projects, the environment is a topic which is
readily and easily accessible. Even more, celebration of The Earth Day
or participation in week of ecology
,which must be compulsolary in every school,
is a great way to dedicate
lessons to environmental education. The education should strive for a desire to understand
the existence of objects in nature, to respect them and appreciate them.
The final aspect of environmental education , and
certainly not less important, is training individuals to live in a sustainable
society. In addition to building a strong relationship with nature, citizens
must have the skills and knowledge to succeed in a 21st-century workforce.
Thus, environmental education fund both
teacher training and worker training initiatives. Teachers must be trained to
effectively teach and incorporate environmental studies in their curriculum. On
the other hand, the current workforce must be trained or re-trained so that
they can adapt to the new green society.
A good environmental education is the combination of, among other aspects,
a sense of appreciation for the natural world around us, realization of one’s
existence within a community, practice of appropriate environmental ethics,
identifying where man’s influence on nature is unreciprocated, and an eventual
understanding of how to practice conservation methods.[12]
When a baby sees the world for the first
time it does not have skills of the right behavior. A baby is born with no knowledge on what conduct is
considered proper or improper until he is taught by parents and peers. Unlike other living species, whose
behavior is biologically set, humans need social experiences to learn their
culture and to survive[7].
Environmental education refers
to organized efforts to teach about how natural environments function.. The
term is often used to imply education within the school system, from primary to
post-secondary. However, it is sometimes used more broadly to include all
efforts to educate the public and other audiences, including print materials,
websites, media campaigns, etc. As It was said environmental education provides explanation
for human beliefs and behaviors, helps to find the human’s place in the
society. So with the help of the environmental education society gives the
examples of right behavior. In other words environmental education is the processes by which human infants
begin to acquire the skills necessary to perform as a functioning member of
their society, and is the most influential learning process one can
experience.[8]
The child grows and develops under the influence of a complex
educational process, in which the school plays a social role that has the
objective that the future citizen to receive education and training, and
integrated into the society we live in a harmonious way, politically and
ideologically formed in correspondence with the principles of our society. . Many scientists say that the prosses of socialization essentially
represents the whole process of learning .[10]We agree with it. But we could
say that environmental education is a condition
and the tool for the most sucssesfull socialisation .
Socialization (or
socialisation) is a term used by
sociologists,
social psychologists, anthropologists,
political scientists and educationalists
to refer to the lifelong process of inheriting and disseminating norms,
customs
and ideologies,
providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating
within his or her own society.[11] There are some theories of socialization :
Macro
level theories of socialization try to explain how society as a whole
works, not necessarily the individual
parts. The main macro level theories of socialization consist of functionalism
or conflict theory. According to "Human Behavior and The Social
Environment, Macro Level," functionalism believes that all parts of
society are necessary for the system to function
The mezzo level of analysis
in socialization theories involves how a person reacts to other members of
society. The dominant theory is social reaction, or labeling theory. Social
Reaction Theory believes that people become what others in society want them to
become. Selective exposure, modeling, identification, positive reinforcement,
negative reinforcement and nurturance are all methods of socialization.
o
Selective exposure
is a socialization method that controls what influences a person is exposed to.
This is also known as planned socialization, because it takes effort to decide
and implement positive influences only. It involves removing negative
influences from the person being socialized.
o
Another method of
socialization is modeling, which means the person being socialized sees a
person she admires and chooses to imitate his behavior. This is also known as
natural socialization, because the person being socialized decides on their own
who is worthy of modeling and who is not.
o
o
Identification takes
modeling a step further. Instead of simply imitating a person's behavior, the
person being socialized starts to identify with that person. They see
themselves as having the same characteristics as the person they are modeling.
o
Positive
reinforcement teaches a person which behaviors are socially acceptable because
they are rewarded for those behaviors with affection or praise. For example,
softball team members give a person high-fives when they hit a home run.
o
Negative
reinforcement teaches people which behaviors are not acceptable based on
negative feedback. For example, if children make fun of a kid because of a
particular pair of shoes he's wearing, he won't wear those shoes again.
o
Nurturance is
similar to negative and positive reinforcement because it involves both
negative and positive feedback, and that feedback comes from a person who the
subject greatly admires, so their. In his book "Social
Structure and Personality Development"
reaction to a particular
behavior has a bigger impact.[3]
Social science concerns the nature of the
institutions and behaviors that lead one from childhood to useful social roles.
Environmental education influences a child with the help of all theses methods.
Selective Exposure is used to implement positive influences when the examples
of the right behavior are given, Modeling is used when a
teacher, usually a person whom a child sees and admires, shows how to imitate
his/her behavior. Identification another step of modeling when a child starts to identify with that a
teacher. Positive Reinforcement
recommends which behaviors are socially acceptable, Negative
Reinforcement teaches children which behaviors are not acceptable in the
society, Nurturance involves both negative and positive feedback, and that
feedback comes from a teacher who the child usually greatly admires and has
bigger impact on the child. So realizing the aim of the environmental education
teachers always develop a
sense of community between child and nature, demonstrates problem solving
skills and flexibility when caring for the environment. Evidently developing an
environmental education which gives not
only an exploration into the ecological perspective itself, and opens a new
world of natural beauty to those who seek to discover it, it is the way to
involve children into society and lead the process of socialization more
complex. There were many scientists who
worked with the problem of socialisation.
Refferences:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_education
2.UNESCO, Tbilisi
Declaration, 1978
3.Hammerman, 1980, p. 33
4. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/agassiz.html
5. Bill Cronon, WilliamCronon.net
6.
http://what-when-how.com/child-development/socialization-child-development/
7.
3 http://www.ehow.com/list_6541650_six-methods-socialization_.html#ixzz2fnQieXHd
8.
Macionis, John J., and Linda M. Gerber. Sociology. Toronto: Pearson Canada,
2011.
9.
Billingham, M. (2007) Sociological
Perspectives p.336 In Stretch,
B. and Whitehouse, M. (eds.) (2007) Health and Social Care Book 1. Oxford:
Heinemann
10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialising
11.Clausen, John A. (ed.) (1968) Socialization and Society, Boston: Little Brown and Company. p5
12. Leopold, Aldo. A Sand
County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford University Press,
1949.