By considering the work and words of some Anishinaabe Elders, Heidegger, and Spinoza we argue that these point at another state of being, a different ontological position, from the one most broadly expressed in modern western culture and in its schools. We call this state attentive receptivity. While leaving the door open for still other states of being, we sketch in some key conditions and qualities including its interdependence with the more-than-human world. We argue that the condition of attentive receptivity can be seen as a different ontological position because of fundamental differences in what is understood and enacted as self, place, community, and the environment. We also think that accompanying arguments for different ways of knowing imply a different way of being. Through this reflexively coupled loop of ontology and epistemology we end by suggesting that education, if it is serious about diversity, would do well to consider both ontology and epistemology in creating a truly diverse education.
Consideration of risk and liability in outdoor educative practice has normally been limited to the narrow risks, usually to physical health, of incidents that can cause a particular injury. In this view of risk management, the more readily controlled the circumstance, the less likelihood of risk and consequent liability. Thus, to reduce risk, learning in the natural world is often avoided because it occurs in far more complex and less controllable contexts than human-created ones. However, wider and more grave risks to physical, emotional and mental health that may accrue through a life that is lived in separation from the natural world are not often considered or evaluated. In part, this may be because these kinds of risks are less immediately evident, and liability for negative outcomes may be more difficult to measure. Thus, there is less incentive to consider them. However, delayed outcomes are still outcomes. To consider easily discerned narrow risk alone, while ignoring more complex and longer-term wide risk, is no excuse for avoiding the ethical responsibility that public education carries to provide both the safest and most fecund context for learning. This paper introduces the concept of wide risk as a counterpoint to the narrow risk calculations now performed, and argues that in incorporating an understanding of wide risk in educative practice, at least two results are likely. The first is that learning outdoors will frequently be discovered to be a less risky alternative, if a broad range of outcomes over time are considered. The second is that the value of embracing risk in all aspects of learning ought to become a part of the learning process, and part of what is taught in public schools.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.