The wild can be present everywhere but difficult to find. It can be made hard to see by cultural tools, by colonial attitudes, and, in urban spaces, by concrete itself. The wild, like freedom, runs contrary to domestication and can be located anywhere, in both rural and urban spaces, but also in individuals and their own acts of resistance.
This touchstone cautions against the cultural constraints of much of modern public education and the often-present colonial orientations toward the natural world and many peoples. It challenges educators to think about their own privileges, including those related to the more-than-human world. It requires educators to be constantly aware of how language, metaphors, the structures they work within, and the tools they employ, can either challenge or sustain the status quo. It pushes back against the desire to control—both as humans controlling the more-than-human world and as centralized institutions controlling learners and educators.
With this discussion as background, consider the question:
How did my practice today model ways to acknowledge the wild and wildness in everyday encounters? And what further steps might I take to do so?