Critical environmental education 'Justice in Trade' and the no-global movement

Abstract

Vincent Caruana is a deeply committed social activist from Malta who is very much involved in the international environmental movement and the movement for 'justice in trade.' In this interview, he discusses such issues as critical environmental education, the notion of 'sustainable development,' 'justice in trade,' the issue of 'development' , learning from the South and the relationship between religions and the environment. He also speaks about his formation as an educator and the impact of critical pedagogy on this formation. He combines his social activism with his teaching of environmental education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Malta. When did you make the personal shift from the conventionally pedagogical to the deeply political? During my university years - while I was studying to become a teacher - I used to volunteer once a week with an NGO working with children living in an urban zone with a particular concentration of social problems. I could see at first hand the failures of the then current educational system - in spite of the inspiring commitment of some individual educators working at the primary school which most of these children used to attend. Overcoming the failures within the system required a step beyond what committed individuals could do within the realms of the classroom. During my final years at university I was exposed to critical pedagogy and this exposure helped me to understand and put into words what I had already observed but which hitherto I had not been able to express. I started to understand how the classroom, and the Maltese education system based on streaming at an early age, both echoed and reinforced a social structure which privileged particular groupings to the exclusion of others. I found the whole debate regarding a shift in power from "teacher" to "teacher and student together" very inspiring, and the aims of educating for social justice and the creation of a more just and democratic society through working to model those same principles in the classroom very stimulating.