This theoretical paper speaks to the need for re-designing early childhood education in a way that builds on and strengthens children's innate relational way of being in the world. The current system of education makes unsustainability the default in our society. This paper argues for the opposite – that is, making sustainability the default mode of being in and relating to the world.
Children learn through the current system of education to see themselves and the rest of humankind as separate from the rest of the natural world. While young children demonstrate an innate capacity for relating to the non-human and more-than-human world in a caring and empathic way, the current educational system steers them toward a mechanistic and reductionist way of seeing and being in the world.
A “sustainability by default” approach to early childhood education rejects human dominance over the environment and offers an alternative way of thinking about our relationship with the physical world. This alternative approach draws from Martin Buber's work on relational ways of being in the world, Nell Nodding's ideas of care, and George Siemen's philosophy of learning ecologies. The integration of these ideas calls for the provision of learning spaces and places that afford relationality, sense of place, belonging, empathy and care. Challenges for the early childhood education community include developing the “how to” of this approach and adding missing voices (e.g. Indigenous communities) to the discussion. Addressing these challenges can result in the provision of learning environments that are conducive to the well-being of children, adults, other species, and Planet Earth.
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