A Critique of "Alternatives to National Standards for Environmental Education: Process-Based Quality Assessment"

Upon invitation of the editor of the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, some thoughts, contemplative disagreements, and hearty concurrences are offered in relation to the thought provoking article produced by Wals and van der Leij entitled “Alternatives to National Standards for Environmental Education: Process-Based Quality Assessment.” While it is always risky to make pronouncements without having had opportunity to personally interact with the writers, especially in such an international arena, there still might be some utility in a response arising from perspectives gained during 35 years of participation in the field of environmental education. The basic premise that national standards cannot be meaningfully established is receiving more support than the authors may have originally surmised. That premise apparently led to their interesting argument attempting to refute such establishment. In fact, it appears that the goal of establishing national environmental education standards is apparently falling of it’s own weight. It should be noted that the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE), in an attempt to draft and publish a “National Environmental Education Standards” document, has already backed off and changed the name of their publication to Environmental Education Materials: Guidelines for Excellence (Simmons, 1997). Following a variety of debates at the 25th meeting of NAAEE in Burlingame, California it was apparent that consensus on national standards was not possible. The contention that “. . . such standards should focus on the quality of the learning process and not on some kind of learning outcome . . .” (Wals & van der Leij, 1997, p. 15) seems shortsighted in relation to the main goal of environmental education which is generally defined to be improvement in the “quality of life” (R.