Critical caring for people and place

A teacher’s authentic caring played a critical role in how students related to their environmental learning experiences.

This case study examines the role of caring relationships between people and place consistent with social and environmental justice goals. While previous research has studied the role of caring in school settings generally, it has received little attention in environmental education research. This study focuses specifically on the role that authentic caring plays in an environmental science teacher’s practice and students’ environmental learning experiences.

The site of this study was an urban high school in the northeastern United States serving a racially and ethnically diverse population. The community around the school was characterized by high poverty rates, environmental degradation, and housing abandonment. The 18 students participating in this study were representative of the school population. Observations and interviews were used to capture the perspectives of the teacher and his students in relation to their engagement with environmental learning experiences both in and outside of the classroom. The data collection process included approximately 30 classroom observations, six group interviews with students, four interviews with the teacher, samples of students’ work, and observations of extracurricular environmental activities, including park restoration work.

Results indicated that the teacher, while caring for the students’ academic success, also cared for them as individual persons. The importance of this type of authentic caring was noted by both the students and the teacher. Knowing that a teacher really cared for them in an authentic way made academic-related caring more agreeable to the students. For purposes of this study, academic-related caring focused on such aesthetic values as student attendance, use of profanity, and the type of clothing students wore. Authentic caring, on the other hand, focuses on concern for the whole person. During a park restoration project, authentic caring was expressed in such teacher behaviors as feeding the students, lending clothing to keep them warm, encouraging them to have fun, and watching out for their safety. The park restoration project thus served as a context in caring for both the natural environment and for the students. The teacher also linked caring for the environment with caring for the community. In addition to the park restoration work which benefited the entire community, the teacher also initiated class discussions focusing on relationships between economics, environment and health within their own community.

Three primary care-related themes became evident as students talked about their work with the environment and their relationship with a teacher who cared for them in an authentic way. These three themes were care for or about themselves, other people, and their community. The caring role of the environmental science teacher was critical in how students related to their environmental learning experiences. Based on these finding, the authors “propose that environmental concerns might be more readily addressed by students in economically oppressed communities when they are mediated through and within the context of authentic and critically caring relationships.”