The interview questions for the principal are presented in Appendix D. 4.5.1 Socio-ontology and situated identity.
Kara was appointed as principal at Bunjil in 2009, having held a similar position for eight years at another secondary college. The sustainability program at Bunjil was established
when Kara arrived, and it was evident from her interview that she embraced the environment club and the responsibilities of maintaining a sustainability culture at the school. While Kara was unaware that the sustainability coordinator position was at a Leading Teacher level, the highest teacher classification in Victorian state secondary schools, she clearly gave
unequivocal support to Wayne.
4.5.2 Student environmental achievements and Kara’s son.
Question 2 asked for a response to the achievements of the students in the environment club, and here Kara mentioned her own son;
I have a son who’s seven, so obviously as a parent as well as an educator, I think it’s really critical that we talk about these things. But also [to] normalise some of the things that we’re trying to put into action, so that they just see it as a part of everyday life that we need to conserve things, and recycle things, and take care of what we’ve got. (Kara, 00:03:05) This was an interesting statement because it highlighted the principal’s own parent/child relationship in the context of the environment, indicating that the points of focus for the sustainability milieu were not always at the school. The use of the word normalise also sent a significant message by seeing this as a desired direction for sustainability education. There was some danger in attempting to define what was normal and what was abnormal; however, in the context of Kara’s response she seemed to be promoting the idea of living sustainably as an everyday thing; a daily routine.
4.5.3 Kara’s initiative: working bees.
Kara’s interview was brief because of her commitments as principal. The interview questions (see Appendix D) for her were therefore designed to get a broader view of her role in the sustainability program at Bunjil, and how this might shape her deep ecology philosophy.
Kara introduced working bees at Bunjil and reflected on their success at attracting parents and students to do environmental work:
I was involved in all of the [urban forest] planting [there]. So, when I came here I introduced working bees. We hadn’t had them before at [Bunjil], so that’s been a really critical part of that whole process and it’s something I’m really proud of. And I haven’t seen in my previous school, where students will turn up to working bees without their parents. … Normally they’ll come with their families, but here I’ve actually seen students coming by themselves, which says something about the work that [Wayne] has been doing as well. So, that’s really good. (Kara, 00:05:18)
She was quite proud of this move and she participated with her son in the working bees. This outcome was to her, a measure of the success of the initiative:
Yeah, there’s a real camaraderie [at the] working bees. We’ve got lots of the same families turning up with their children. I bring my son [to] every working bee. So, he’s always out there as well. It’s just lovely to see staff, students and parents working together. And when we planted in the urban forest [it] was very exciting, because we could just see how many trees we’d planted in one sitting. And I think at that time we had about 80 or 90 people turn up to that one, so that was a really amazing thing. But also the wetlands, all of that was planted out through working bees and the front gardens [as well]. So, it’s just wonderful to see those areas coming along, and often people have their favourite spot that they want to work in when they come to working bees. Because they’ve worked in there before, so it’s a great
community feel. (Kara, 00:06:27)
Another benefit for students getting involved in sustainability working bees was feeling ownership of the forest and protecting the trees from vandalism:
Yeah, there needs to be that ownership of everything of the grounds; the facilities. And if you can get students involved in that ownership, that’s really important. They’ll all take care of it. (Kara, 00:07:40)
4.5.4 Student as ecophilosopher.
In Question 3, I asked Kara to reflect on the capacity of students to have a deeper, more philosophical connection to the Earth. Kara agreed that it was possible but that it was more difficult in secondary schools than in primary schools:
I’m not a philosopher but I know that VCE philosophy is not taught in a lot of schools, [and] some of our students in the past have studied that as a university subject in Year 12. I’m sure that they can think deeply about issues. I don’t know that we give students enough credit sometimes for how deep they can think about certain things. (Kara, 00:08:21)
4.5.5 Managing the sustainability program.
In Question 4, I asked Kara to comment on the sustainability leadership team and which factors were important to the success of the environment program:
I think you’ve got to get your teams on board, and I guess that’s [Wayne]’s challenge as well as the head of sustainable practices. So, it’s a matter of working with area of learning heads to have a look for those links where they can incorporate it into a busy curriculum already. It’s a challenge, but it’s something that can be done. And I think here at [Bunjil] we’ve been working on [the] three cross-curriculum aims [including] sustainability. So, it’s nice to see that the things that we’ve been working on over the last five years fit in with these documents, and with the aims of AusVELS. But it is a challenge because of time for planning and looking at the bigger picture. (Kara, 00:11:02)
Kara was interested in encouraging teachers to source inspiration for sustainability learning materials from within their own textbooks and existing resource pool. Kara explained:
For example, science teachers are already developing their new curriculum because AusVELS has meant more work because it’s new curriculum documentation. So, people, when they’re faced with that challenge, will plan what they know first. In the other learning areas they need some ideas about how they can incorporate those things into their curriculum. (Kara, 00:12:38)
Kara offered some reasons for why teachers might find it daunting to incorporate
sustainability into their teaching, and she explained that teachers put the task aside in favour of known curriculum territory. According to Kara, Wayne provided teaching materials about sustainability for other teachers to use but that teachers’ commitments to writing the new AusVELS curriculum, for example, took priority. It appeared that the efforts by Wayne to utilise the learning area heads was not an effective strategy, and that it was not trickling down to classroom teachers.
4.5.6 The deep ecology spectrum.
Kara gave herself a DES score of 9.5 because:
My beliefs [are] just to have concern for all in nature, and it’s been part of my grandma’s family upbringing as well. Because as I said before, we’re all linked in the ecosystem … So, when something does become extinct there’s going to be other issues with other parts of the chain, I guess. (Kara, 00:33:05)
Kara said that she was religious and that she did not necessarily agree with humans
dominating the Earth. Her response was consistent with biospherical egalitarianism and she understood the interconnectedness of nature.