Eric Peterson Here are some thoughts and ideas: You write «radical» and «highly experiental» and I get associations to Müllert and Jungk, Kurt Lewin, Paulo Freire, Whitehead and McNiff, Arne Næss and Otto Negt. I imagine strong participation, democratic processess and real experiments were both action research and «hard» science meet. I also imagine inclusion with local communities, respect for the people that live were you experiment and relevance for the students and the lives they live. Participation and inclusion is not enough because we often lack the imagination for real change. We need examples to widen our horizon of ideas. I think of Takoa Furuno and his radical ideas about rice production in Japan (The Power of Duck). I think of Arne Næss eco-philosophy. I think og Paulo Freire’s radical approaches to teaching. I think of the FoxFire experiments in Georgia with Eliot Wigginton. I think of Mahatma Gandhi and his radical idead about local production and ways to change. I think ofnhte wonderful American educator William Ayers and his ideas about changing schools. What about the radical ideas of the city Curitiba in South America: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/06/story-of-cities-37-mayor-jaime-lerner-curitiba-brazil-green-capital-global-icon

Kjartan Skogly Kversøy Thank you for this generative response! It appears we share some ways of thinking and approaching this inquiry. I'm familiar with Lewin, Freire, Whitehead, Furuno, and Gandhi, and already focusing on Freire and Gandhi, but not the others. I will take a closer look at Furuno and the others you have noted here. I'm also utilizing Freire's contemporary, bell hooks, who has some great work on liberatory pedagogy. Another prolific scholar in this area is C. A. Bowers. Bowers has been working on education reform through an ecological lens for nearly 40 years. He has some great work! Some of the others I'm including are: Richard Kahn, Peter McLaren, Henry Giroux, Lewis Mumford, Ivan Illich, Vandana Shiva, Val Plumwood, and Mitchell Thomashow. This is a transdisciplinary approach. I plan on sharing more of my recent work here, and welcome feedback.

Thank you, again!

Eric

Eric Peterson Good luck with your project. It is a very important quest! I have interesting experiences with what happens when »ordinary people» of all ages start to do stuff with direction. I have just published (full text on RG) an article with my daughter who has an intellectual disability. Together we have shown tjat microfinance is a possible vocation for someone with this type of challenge. We are both strong believers in change and making the world better lne person at a time and one inch at a time. The very best of luck to you. Looking forward to updates.

Kjartan Skogly Kversøy I appreciate your support! I agree with you that this is an important quest, and I'm honored to be walking it. I'm inspired by your story. Thank you for sharing about your own journey. Here's to a life with Deep Purpose.

All the best to you and yours,

Eric

Eric, what specifically are you referinng to when you use the term, radical? Are you implying a radical change in ecopedagogy, i.e., a change right from the roots, or something else radical about it? When I read the question, I want to understand what roots you're indicating.

Ellen Cothran thank you for your clarifying question. Yes, to the "getting to the root" of our 'wicked problems' (e.g., ecological crises, climate change, mass extinction, social injustice, etc.) and possibly yes to the radical approach to ecopedagogy, but I will not know the answer to that second part until I get deeper into the research. Overall, the radical nature of what I envision is much more experiential - including spending much more time "outside" the tradition 'box of a classroom' - than mainstream education systems are designed to accommodate.

Bryan Higgins I like the way you think! Thank you so much for this generative and thoughtful response. Having been raised in southern Oregon, and gone through the public school system, I now see the lack of Native American Studies as an instrumental tool of the ongoing oppression of the Native Peoples of the US. The radical ecopedagogy I'm working on will certainly include a theme of "restorative justice" that addresses the omission of the Native Peoples voice of this land. I hope you will chime in as this project is updated.