This latest book by Chet Bowers, The Way Forward: Educational Reforms that Focus on the Cultural Commons and the Linguistic Roots of the Ecological/Cultural Crises, provides a more in-depth examination of several themes he has introduced before, as well as an introduction to issues that other environmental and educational writers have ignored. The former includes understanding cultures, including daily cultural practices, as ecologies—and how these micro-ecologies affect the life-sustaining viability of natural ecologies. Also explored in greater depth are how the community-centered cultural commons represent the early stages of a post-industrial future, as well as how public schools, universities, and environmental writers continue to perpetuate the linguistic colonization of the present by the past and the linguistic colonization of other cultures. ...

Educational Reforms for the 21st Century: How to Introduce Ecologically Sustainable Reforms in Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies

No one has thought more deeply about the role of education as a cause of the deepening ecological crisis than Chet Bowers. And few have thought more constructively about how to repair that breach by a thoroughgoing transformation of both education and culture. Highly recommended for students, administrator, and the concerned public.

—David Orr, Professor of Environmental Studies, Oberlin College, and author of Ecological Literacy and Earth in Mind

Chet Bowers is undoubtedly one of the most important thinkers of out time—why? He cuts through the fog of conventional educational discourse and identifies our core issue: humans depend on the Earth and each other to live a good life. It’s about time educational practices start to reflect this, and Bowers shows us how we can do it.

—Rolf Jucker, Director, Swiss Foundation for Environmental Education. Berne, Switzerland, and author of Our Common Illiteracy: Education as if the Earth and People Mattered.

Chet Bowers has been warning us for decades about the coming environmental crisis and the need for educational institutions to take notice and prepare. Bowers continues to offer persuasive arguments about the need for us to help ourselves before it is too late, and he offers a set of maps by which we may do that.

—Susan Edgerton, Professor, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and past Vice President of American Association for Advanced Curriculum Studies, and co-author of Imagining the Academy: Higher Education and Popular Culture.

Educating for an Ecologically Sustainable Future makes a significant contribution to teacher education and curriculum studies by provoking readers to seriously consider the tension between the world we are bringing forth and the world we wish to bring forth. By providing radical alternatives for classroom and community-based learning, the author makes ecologically minded forms of education possible.

—Jennifer Thom, Faculty of Education, University of Victoria, and author of Re-rooting the Learning Space

Praise for University Reform in an Era of Global Warming:

Bowers’ deep and thoughtful critique of the university in the context of cultural colonization and ecological destruction lead to recommendations for reform that go to the root assumptions of higher education.  It is radical in its approach and refreshing for its willingness to challenge higher education dogma.  

—Paul Rowland, Executive Director, Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education

If you are interested in deep educational change then it is essential to understand how colleges and universities reproduce embedded cultural assumptions.  Chet bowers cuts through to the essence of this challenge.  Read Bowers to understand how the reconstruction of the cultural commons leads to resilient ecological intelligence, meaningful academic leadership, and education for sustainable livelihoods.  

—Mitchell S. Thomashow, President of Unity College, and author of Ecological Identity, and Bringing the Bioshere Home