The challenge to care in outdoor education - what Forest School offers. A response to McKenzie and Blenkinsop (2006)

This paper responds to a challenge to develop our understanding of an ethic of care in outdoor and adventure education. We are teacher educators who want to promote flourishing for all, through outdoor learning in local nature, as part of everyday life in primary schools. Integral to this complex and challenging task is a relational ethic of care. Previous research has drawn upon Noddings ethic of care to theoretically frame curricula in the Outward Bound adventure education organisation, making explicit the priority to care integral to adventure education. However, ‘several difficulties’ with Noddings theory were acknowledged. Through the lens of contemporary place-responsive and more-than-human epistemology, we extend Noddings ethic of care to provide a theoretical framing for this work. We illustrate this theoretical framing and possibilities for organising curricula as centres of care using findings from a recent ethnography of Forest School in one primary school in Ireland.