Abstract

This chapter is concerned with what educational leaders can learn about the ethics of their practice from a study of environmental systems. It examines three sources for such learning. One source is from an understanding of the epistemology of these two systems, particularly from a greater understanding of the complexity of actions, as well as a necessarily greater provisionality of judgments than is normally recognized. A second source of ethical learning stems from examining when these two systems get into trouble, for both education and the environment suffer from a number of similar kinds of stressors, and similar kinds of crisis points. A final source of ethical learning derives from the fact that both systems appear to benefit from similar prescriptions for remediation and greater sustainability.