The 4 C’s of Education

In 2020-21, funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, CIRCE researchers undertook a review of education for “living within the Earth’s carrying capacity,” which we approached through the lens of eco-social-cultural change. You can find the report here.

One set of findings seems to us to be potentially helpful for a wide range of practitioners, including people who would not necessarily think of themselves as “educators.” Through a critical review of the literature, interviews with selected educators working on transformative change, and extended creative dialogue with four other co-researchers, we identified four distinctive, mutually complementary sets of competencies, capacities, and capabilities that we have come to refer to as “the 4 Cs”. One way of thinking about them is as a set of four educational orientations to the work of eco-social-cultural change. They include:

• The critical educator who plays the roles of activist (critiquing existing relationships and norms), ally (walking alongside and opening space for voices and practices that have been marginalized), and advocate (articulating and advancing alternatives to the status quo). These educators cultivate critical spaces that encourage both individual development and group self-reflexive practices to intentionally mitigate colonial and oppressive legacies, respond to ongoing injustice, and leverage the power of diversity to move people out of entrenched habits and assumptions into spaces of growth.
• The community educator who facilitates relationship-building and collective flourishing (with children, caregivers, knowledge holders, communities, the more-than-human). At the heart of every strong school, NGO, community organization, etc. are positive, supportive, mutually beneficial relationships. These educators are creating community spaces where learners are living, growing, responding, and imagining together.
• The change educator who guides processes of dealing with risk, uncertainty, discomfort and disruption (developing individual and collective strategies to respond to challenges and losses: grieve, adapt, rebuild, transform). And who nurtures creative imaginations and supports transformation, emergence, and resurgence as they appear.
• The coeur/care educator who supports and nurtures wellbeing (responding to trauma, depression and oppression, building capacity for self-care and resilience, connecting with the sacred). Coeur/care spacesthat are rethinking “inclusive environments” are co-designing spaces that consider the diverse needs of members and their families.

While you can read more about each of these in the report, in these pages we’ve summarized some key ideas related to each. We’ve also reflected on these four orientations in light of our understanding of the Four Directions, a framework used to guide holistic thinking in many Indigenous cultures, and arranged them to move clockwise from the East through the South, West and North. We found this helpful to our own understanding and so wanted to acknowledge it, while recognizing that we cannot do justice to the depth of those Earth-centred teachings here.*

We have also expanded the notion of “educator” to “educator-leader,” in keeping with ideas about imagination and leadership explored elsewhere on this website.

*See Loren Cruden, The Spirit of Place, Destiny Books, 1995.