Teaching in the Anthropocene: Education in the Face of Environmental Crisis ed. by Alysha Farrell, Candy Skyhar, and Michelle Lam (review)

Reviewed by: Teaching in the Anthropocene: Education in the Face of Environmental Crisis ed. by Alysha Farrell, Candy Skyhar, and Michelle Lam Victoria Derr (bio) Teaching in the Anthropocene: Education in the Face of Environmental Crisis Alysha Farrell, Candy Skyhar, and Michelle Lam (Editors) (2022) Toronto: Canadian Scholars, 338 pages $64.95 Canadian (Print, Softcover), ISBN 9781773382821 $59.95 Canadian (eBook), ISBN 9781773382838 "How should we humans live well in our world?" "Who and what is our teaching for in this time?" These are central questions that open and guide the edited volume Teaching in the Anthropocene: Education in the Face of Environmental Crisis. The primary audience for this book is those engaged in teacher education, but this book is also relevant for anyone involved in training environmental educators in any context, as well as academics and practitioners interested in central questions of how we work with children and youth to live well in this world, today. The editors (and most chapter authors) are scholars at Canadian institutions in education disciplines, with academic emphases on ecosophical education, rural education and capacity building, identity, and Aboriginal studies. Critical pedagogy, as articulated by Freire (1968/2009) is a unifying theoretical thread. Grounded in the everyday world of children and educators of diverse gender identities, geographies, and ethnic, racial, and cultural contexts, not only in Canada but also internationally, this book shows how critical reflection and critical pedagogy can lead us forward. Rather than deconstructing what has not worked and then asking, "now what?", the authors and editors lead with this question and show us practical approaches and examples that are deeply contextualized in contemporary theory. The book is organized into four sections with a total of 24 chapters that lay a foundation in challenges for teacher education, emotional contexts of environmental crises, "relational pedagogies," and strategies to help ignite "empathic imaginations" of future professionals. Each chapter provides theoretical concepts with accessible definitions and end-of-chapter discussion prompts that make this text particularly useful for integration into environmental education or teacher preparation courses. The book's glossary is particularly helpful for reinforcing learning of theoretical terms. The text will be accessible to undergraduate students but also provides insightful content for more advanced studies. Teaching in the Anthropocene is most similar in its construction and framing to Education in Times of Crises: Teaching Children to Be Agents of Change, a collection edited by Ken Winograd and published in 2016. The texts are similar in that they both recognize the potentially devasting consequences of environmental degradation and catastrophe on young people in particular, and both texts provide [End Page 207] practical approaches to engaging in meaningful and place-based educational experiences in which children and youth are central actors in their own education. However, our world has shifted significantly since 2016, and Teaching in the Anthropocene more centrally brings forward the imperative that addressing environmental crises in the Anthropocene also requires confronting social injustices and bringing forward approaches from critical pedagogy that are intercultural, decolonial, and global, with a deeper engagement of the intersections between theory and practice. I appreciated the editors' deliberate critical engagement with all terms, including the Anthropocene itself, which they problematize from a diversity of viewpoints of the Global North and South in Chapter 1. The book successfully addresses challenges today's generation of learners must face, including increasing pollution, species extinctions, the climate crisis, refugee crises, and global health pandemics, while consistently identifying how these issues are experienced in embodied and contextualized ways. The book emphasizes in Chapter 1, and holds consistently throughout, that while "complex theories and concepts may seem daunting to the reader…," "their foundations are common sense" (p.5). Part I of the book, "Challenges to Teacher Education Practice and Praxis," provides important theoretical and practical considerations, beginning with critical pedagogy and allied theoretical frameworks (Chapter 1), then weaving in socio-ecological frameworks (Chapter 2) and root metaphors that serve to reorient education (Chapter 3). These chapters will be helpful to a range of audiences who are interested in broadening and deepening their ability to integrate environmental practice with social justice theory. Three chapters in particular address gaps in existing literature. Chapter 4 is a much...

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