Nature as a peace educator : Toward inner peace through learning and being in natural environments (Journal Article)

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Abstract: Today the hope for education goes well beyond a reductionist and modernist approach of knowledge transfer. This research suggests that the experience of being immersed in natural environments can lead to embodied ways of learning and being beyond the Anthropocene and can shape children’s innate relationship with nature. We bring together two ethnographic case studies – in India and Germany - in alternative schools, which actively incorporate nature in their learning processes for children aged 6–13 years old. We find that, across both contexts, nature is considered as a peace educator: teaching key concepts and skills, promoting ecological ways of living and being, enabling conditions for wellbeing and inner-peace, and a reciprocal student-nature relationship of care. We call for an ontological and epistemological shift where nature is not just instrumentalized, but rather to recognize the intrinsic value for children being in nature, learning with and from nature rather than about it.