%0 Journal Article
%T Learning nature in schools: Benjamin contra Dietzgen on nature¡¯s ¡®free gifts¡¯
%A Simon Boxley
%J Policy Futures in Education
%@ 1478-2103
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/1478210318824248
%X When we learn nature, do we encounter her as ¡®free¡¯ in the sense of having neither cost nor price? Is she something ¡®given¡¯? And is that which nature offers us ¡®gratis¡¯? In the UK, many schoolchildren have been encouraged to ¡®give thanks¡¯ for nature¡¯s gifts. But why, if she is free, give thanks; and thanks to whom? If one learns to encounter nature as ¡®free¡¯, is she then really free for the taking? Walter Benjamin notably derided Joseph Dietzgen for regarding what nature supplies to humanity as ¡®gratis¡¯, and long argument has continued among Marxists since Benjamin's time concerning how we regard nature¡¯s ¡®gifts¡¯. This paper addresses the ideological appropriation of nature, and makes this a pedagogical question best approached through readings of Benjamin and Dietzgen. It does so in a context where education policy reflects little if any concern with the acquisition of a disposition towards nature among children
%K Climate change
%K environmental education
%K Marxism
%K pessimism
%K schools
%K UK
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1478210318824248