Learning to speak Franklin: nature as co-teacher

Abstract

Through the personal this article seeks to extend the lived experience felt by the authors that all-inclusive nature, the more-than-human world, is agential and possesses the potential to be considered as guide and co-teacher. As a combination of vignettes and reflections it is auto-ethnographic (Holman-Jones 2013) in tone and method. Yet this personal ethnography is extended by an attempt to include the voice of the river and its more-than-human inhabitants. Throughout the paper there is a persistent concern for the etymological roots of the terms wild and pedagogy that anchors the article in its core concerns of self-will and agency. Twin voices are utilised in parallel to explore several touchstones of wild pedagogies.