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Planetary Pedagogy

Cf.

The definition of pedagogy in Pedagogy lets this note make a stronger move than existing literature attempts: from "pedagogy for the planet" (planet as topic) to "pedagogy of the planet" (planet as pedagogical agent in its own right). That move is implicit in the references listed below (Kahn on ecopedagogy, Salonen et al. on planetary social pedagogy, Kidman and Chang on planetary pedagogies in the Anthropocene), but none of them grounds pedagogy in a scale-free account applicable to all living agents. Such an account gives a principled way to say that the Earth teaches, without mysticism and without collapsing into metaphor.

Planetary pedagogy is therefore a special case: the application of the general definition in Pedagogy at the scale of the Earth system. Its distinctive features are:

  • The learner is a multi-scale assemblage (cells, organisms, communities, cultures, the biosphere).
  • The scaffolder is also multi-scale and partly non-living (Gaian feedbacks, legacy biota, human infrastructures, data systems).
  • The cost is thermodynamic and ecological, borne across generations.
  • The gain is measured as the continued capacity of life to learn, adapt and transmit patterns under changing conditions.

Planetary pedagogy has two aspects:

  • Descriptive: recognising that the Earth system is already a pedagogical environment, in which life has taught life for billions of years through niche construction, signalling, symbiosis and legacy effects.
  • Normative: designing human learning institutions so they sustain, rather than disrupt, this planetary pedagogical continuum.

Extensions of the General Definition at Planetary Scale

The scale-free definition in Pedagogy opens three extensions that are difficult to articulate within purely human-facing planetary pedagogy literature.

Pedagogy Across Geological Time

Criterion 2 of the general definition (a scaffolder that alters the learner's ecology) licenses treating soil, sedimentary archives, seedbanks, fire regimes, reef structures and atmospheric composition as pedagogical infrastructures.2 They scaffold what future biota can learn. This is compatible with niche construction theory and with the notes on Extinction Debt, Heritage and Memory. It also grounds Kahn's ecoliteracy claims in a non-anthropocentric ontology by identifying the non-human media through which ecological knowledge is transmitted across geological time.

Anthropocene as Pedagogical Disruption

If the Earth system is a planetary-scale scaffold, then anthropogenic change is not merely environmental damage but damage to the conditions of learning for all life. This reframes climate change, biodiversity loss and cultural extinction as forms of pedagogical violence at planetary scale, consistent with the framing in Learning and Teaching that teaching is always a form of violence, now generalised beyond the human. The "right to learn" 1 extends into a planetary right to learn for all living systems.3

Human Institutions as Planetary Sub-Pedagogies

The "ecological university" (Kemp and Barnett) and planetary social pedagogy (Salonen et al.) can be repositioned as localised contributions to a much larger pedagogical system rather than as the site where planetary pedagogy happens. This avoids the anthropocentric trap in which "planetary pedagogy" becomes a synonym for "humans teaching humans about the planet." The agents doing planetary pedagogy include forests, reefs, microbiomes and weather systems. Human educators participate; they do not preside.4

Initiatives

Planetary Civics Inquiry

References

Clark, Nigel, and Bronislaw Szerszynski. Planetary Social Thought: The Anthropocene Challenge to the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021.

Kahn, Richard V. Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, and Planetary Crisis: The Ecopedagogy Movement. New York: Lang, 2010.

Kemp, Nicola, and Ronald Barnett. “Planetary Health as a Troubling Concept for the Ecological University: Unification, Revolution or Utopia?” Studies in Higher Education, 2025, 1–12. doi:10/g98634.

Kidman, Gillian, and Chew Hung Chang. “Planetary Pedagogies: Reimagining Geography and Environmental Education in the Anthropocene.” International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education 34, no. 3 (2025): 215–19. doi:10/g98632.

Latour, Bruno, and Catherine Porter. Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime. Cambridge: Polity, 2017.

Nilsson, Elisabet M., Rikke H. Jensen, Anne-Marie Hansen, Tilde Bekker, Daisy Yoo, and Eriksson Eva. “What Do We Teach When Teaching More-than-Human Perspectives in Computing and Technology Design Education? An Emerging Pedagogical Framework.” In Tenth Workshop on Computing within Limits, LIMITS ’24. New York: LIMITS, 2024.

Salonen, Arto O., Erkka Laininen, Juha Hämäläinen, and Stephen Sterling. “A Theory of Planetary Social Pedagogy.” Educational Theory 73, no. 4 (2023): 615–37. doi:10/g98633.

Footnotes

  1. Lenton, Timothy M., Sébastien Dutreuil, and Bruno Latour. “Life on Earth Is Hard to Spot.” The Anthropocene Review 7, no. 3 (2020): 248–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019620918939.˄

  2. Schneeberger, Doris. Envisioning a Better Future for Nonhuman Animals: Towards Future Animal Rights Declarations. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.˄

  3. Cf. Stengers, Isabelle. In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism. Translated by Andrew Goffey. Lüneburg: Open Humanities Press, 2015. Originally published as Au Temps Des Catastrophes. Résister à La Barbarie Qui Vient (2009). On Gaia as a force that teaches by intrusion.˄

  4. Frank, Adam, David Grinspoon, and Sara Walker. “Intelligence as a Planetary Scale Process.” International Journal of Astrobiology 21, no. 2 (2022): 47–61. https://doi.org/10.1017/S147355042100029X.˄

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