Catholic Environmental Education and the Wisdom of St. Thomas

Some Catholic school teachers have voiced concerns that the newest curriculum guidelines issued by the USCCB are overly redolent of donnish theology, betraying an ignorance of the historical consciousness of the Catholic high school student today. The place of environmental education in the Curriculum Framework is illustrative. At a time when the Church has articulated a prescient environmental theology in the face of contemporary crises—from the call for “an education in ecological responsibility” in John Paul II’s World Day of Peace address, to the environmental justice championed by the USCCB itself—under the bishop’s guidelines, the “Stewardship of God’s creation” receives only one entry in an optional, Catholic social teaching course. Fortunately, our intellectual heritage suggests exciting possibilities for environmental education. The bishop’s curriculum guidelines thus offer an occasion to seek ways to effect the “ecological conversion” called for by John Paul II, and the “environmental justice” and “prudence” heralded by our bishops, within our own tradition.
The distinction between intellectual and moral virtues, and accordingly how they are acquired, is particularly relevant to Catholic environmental education. St. Thomas Aquinas insists that students acquire the theoretical, intellectual virtues—understanding, science and wisdom—under the tutelage of instructors. Thus a classroom is an appropriate venue, teachers and texts appropriate aids, to a student’s effort to perfect the theoretical activities of his intellect. Accordingly, this fall students have attended lively seminars on Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac as a part of our high school’s Environmental Education and Outdoor Leadership program. On the other hand, along with the intellectual virtue of prudence, the moral virtues—justice, temperance and courage—if not infused by grace, must be acquired by habituation and practice according to Aquinas. That is to say, if our goal is for a student to actually acquire the virtue of justice as a part of his character, and not merely a sound theoretical understanding of what justice is, no amount of textbooks, Power Point presentations or revised curriculum standards can do the job, unless he is also given real opportunities to practice acts of justice. The EEOL program at Crespi, inspired by Aquinas’ iteration of the fundamental distinction between our theoretical and practical dimensions, requires students not only to participate in reading seminars and to write a thesis, but also to test this book-knowledge on environmental service projects and fortify it in intensive, wilderness expeditions. The data in support of the effectiveness of project and experiential based environmental education is substantial, but our recent excursion to Joshua Tree National Park can perhaps best illustrate the way experiential, environmental education is especially suited to not only teach about the moral virtues, but to cultivate them.
For five days in October, I helped lead a group of EEOL backpackers traverse Joshua Tree’s Lost Horse Valley, a surrealist stage of frozen performers—jagged ballerinas perpetually awaiting a sunset sonata—studded with granite monoliths balanced into mountains. Opportunities to practice the virtues of justice and prudence pervaded our learning to live and travel as a self-sufficient group in a desert wilderness. Justice, according to Aquinas a perfection of the will that directs man in his relations with others, is codified in the Leave No Trace ethic. Likewise, the students took leadership positions—from camp cook to map-and-compass-man—in which the exercise of prudence, or right reason applied to action, had very real consequences for the entire group. The students memorized the nine Leave No Trace principles and learned to account for them in every decision throughout the day, from choosing a durable campsite that would neither disturb other hikers nor sensitive, cryptobiotic soil, to “big spooning” leftovers rather than digging holes that attract coyotes, to extracting deflated balloons that find their last, ironic resting place in the prickly park. On the third day of the expedition, Alex noticed that Hayden was limping, and had been uncharacteristically lagging behind the rest of the group. When Alex finally learned that Hayden had been pushing through the hike despite his two-size-too-small shoes, he promptly offered him his own. Alex no longer had a comfortable pair for nights, but on the trail all gear is group gear; as Aquinas puts it, justice is a habit whereby a man renders to another his due.
Our last morning we set out before sunrise and were cresting a mountain pass in the Wonderland of Rocks when the group stopped short a mere thirty yards from a family of elusive, Desert Bighorned Sheep. The herd surveyed us bashfully, then deftly made its way down the bouldered valley and over the towering ridgeline. We watched their progress in silence for half an hour. The trees may have been dedicated to Joshua, but the desert rocks remain the refuge of Elijah, and the still, small voice of God. The wonder of that silent encounter came closer than any moral virtue to manifesting John Paul II’s vision of “ecological conversion.” After all, according to Aquinas the form of every virtue is love, which we all know must be experienced, even if not understood.