Welcome to CIRCE

The origins of CIRCE lie in Kieran Egan’s groundbreaking work on Imaginative Education. In this section of the website you can find out more about Egan’s theories, his ideas on how to work with children’s imaginations, and a wide array of teacher resources designed to support learning both inside and outside schools.

A major focus of CIRCE’s work has been on teaching that connects learners with the natural world. You can find a variety of ideas and strategies on this under Imaginative Ecological Education and in the Wild Pedagogies section. In the section on Eco-Schools, the work of teachers is re-imagined in the context of schools oriented towards learning directly from nature as a co-teacher.

Of course, schools are not the only places where teaching and learning take place. CIRCE’s work on educational responses to the ecological and climate crises has led us to propose The 4 Cs of Eco-Social-Cultural Change – four orientations guiding the work of educators for educational transformation. Much of this work goes on at the community level, outside the structures of formal education; sometimes it can happen in schools as well.

Imagination is of vital importance to leadership in all areas of society. CIRCE is especially interested in the role of education in responding to the ecological and climate crises. This has led us to explore the nature of Imagination in leadership, both in schools and elsewhere, and to consider the range of ways in which educators seek to foster and support grassroots change. This latter work led us to propose The 4 Cs of Eco-Social-Cultural Change – four educational orientations embedded in all efforts to bring about fundamental social transformation.

CIRCE has also been involved in a variety of efforts to establish Eco-Schools – schools in which learning outdoors and with the natural world plays a central role. We have produced an extensive guide to the kinds of issues that are worth thinking about in this context. We see the potential for a much greater range of approaches to teaching and learning in the context of eco-schools, including drawing on the ideas and practices of Wild Pedagogies.

Research is rarely seen as a fundamental component of leadership. Yet as CIRCE’s work on Ecoportraiture demonstrates, sustained inquiry into learning with and from the more-than-human world can itself be a powerful force for eco-educational change. This transformative methodology is less about finding answers than about asking better questions – about learning to participate more deeply in the conversations of the Earth.