ERIC Number: EJ952018
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1205-5352
EISSN: N/A
What Tashi Taught Me: "Petagogy" and the Education of Emotions
MacPherson, Seonaigh
Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, v16 p76-92 2011
Begun as a eulogy to the author's late companion dog, Tashi, this paper presents a "petagogy" of emotions as a strategy to enhance human apprehension of our impact on the greater-than-human-world. Occupying the null curriculum of modern education, both emotions and non-human animals have been ill-served by science and the disciplinary organization of modern formal education. Drawing on ecological perspectives of symbiosis and mutual interdependence and a narrative inquiry into her relations with Tashi, the author considers six areas for the education of emotions through petagogy: mutual social bonding, self-regulating negative impulses, enhancing positive feelings, developing empathy, communicating to cooperate, and responding to suffering and death. With these foci, inquiry into animal-human companionship offers reciprocal opportunities to deepen and develop our emotional lives and empathic capacities across species. (Contains 1 figure.)
Descriptors: Animals, Psychological Patterns, Self Control, Empathy, Cooperation, Communication (Thought Transfer), Death, Environmental Education
Lakehead University and Canadian Network for Environmental Education and Communication. Lakehead University Faculty of Education, 955 Oliver Road, Thunder Bay, ON P7B 5E1, Canada. Fax: 807-346-7771; e-mail: cjee@lakeheadu.ca; Web site: http://cjee.lakeheadu.ca
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A