Humor and Relational Pedagogy in Critically Conscious Environmental Education

• In Event: Laugh, and the World Laughs With You? The Comedic Turn in Environmental Education Research

Abstract

Experiential environmental educators use humor to engage students and strengthen social connections, essential practices in a setting where safely stretching comfort zones is a pedagogical norm (Hoad et al., 2013; Stern et al., 2018). These connections are especially critical for students who face structural barriers to outdoor spaces, understandably seen by many as a stereotypically white, upper-class, able-bodied, and cishet-normative space (Gough et al., 2017; Haluza-Delay, 2001; Russell et al., 2008; Stapleton, 2020). Contemporary environmental programs are recognizing the importance of mindful, color-conscious care for their staff and students (Enderle, 2007; Romero et al., 2019; Stapleton, 2020). As part of these efforts, environmental educators need to understand how to use humor inclusively since it “can confirm social distance and maintain it” (Mayo, 2008, p. 245). Put simply, how do environmental educators, white and of-color alike, authentically connect with students new to residential nature experiences and from a range of racial/ethnic, linguistic, and experiential backgrounds? And in what ways does humor facilitate, inhibit, or reflect such cross-cultural connections? To address these questions, I present a qualitative case study of an equity-focused residential nature program that has been implementing and reworking its practices for almost 20 years. The program provides free, three-day nature experiences for 4th-6th grade students in the San Francisco Bay area for whom such trips are otherwise inaccessible. I gathered ethnographic notes from 180 hours of program and professional development sessions, as well as interviews with teacher/chaperones, selected students, and the six environmental educators (four identified as white, two as people of color). I found humor was a catalyst for lowering relational barriers, cultivating wonder, and supported students’ physical and mental health. Educators also used humor as self-care, to affirm a shared mission, and internally address tensions. The educators also repeatedly discussed how to address students’ homophobic, racist, or otherwise derogatory humor while still being caring and culturally conscious. The teachers and chaperones accompanying students on the trips sometimes also engaged in ineffective humor with their students such as power-imbalanced “razzing” or mocking. A final insight was how the educators attempted to enact cultural humility in their humor, especially those of color and those who were white and explicitly conscious of their positionality. They were neither colorblind in their humor nor did they try to uncritically “fit” cultural expectations of environmentalism or non-whiteness. Instead, they attempted to be self-aware in their humorous white or non-white outdoorsy-ness and acknowledged racialized positionalities as they engaged with students. I connect these findings to a relational pedagogy framework (Hinsdale, 2016; Mayo, 2008, 2010) and close with suggestions for using humor in making inclusive, anti-racist, and uplifting connections across cultural and experiential differences.

Author

• Juan Miguel Arias, Colorado College