What Weston’s Spider and My Shorebirds Might Mean for Bateson’s Mind - Some Educational Wanderings in Interspecies Curricula

Oct 15, 2026

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Education institutionalizes a process that reifies cultures, ecological communities, and even evolution itself, narrowing sensitivity to the pedagogical (eteragogical) character of lived relations. By treating learning and teaching as ongoing between species, humans can recover an eteragogical sense of the interspecies curricula that shape their existence. The article examines interspecies lived curricula using ideas from Anthony Weston and Gregory Bateson, alongside lived encounters with Lake Ontario shorebirds.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time20 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

A Gull One Morning

Listening to gull calls and interspecies relationship

Rethinking humans as “food dispensers”

Hidden Curricula in Schools

Hidden curriculum as contextual power

Limits of extracting fixed “lessons”

Human-animal relations in schools

What Weston’s Spider and My Shorebirds Might Mean for Bateson’s Mind: Some Educational Wanderings in Interspecies Curricula Ramsey Affifi, University of Toronto, Canada Abstract Education has institutionalized a process that reiﬁes cultures, ecological communities, and ultimately evolution itself. This enclosure has lessened our sensitivity to the pedagogical (eteragogical) nature of our lived relations with other people and with other living beings. By acknowledging that learning and teaching go on between species, humans can regain an eteragogical sense of the interspecies curricula within which they exist. This article explores interspecies lived curricula through a selection of ideas from ecopragmatist Anthony Weston, and cybernetician Gregory Bateson, and through lived experiences with shorebirds of Lake Ontario. Some gulls and a tern teach the author to enrich and diversify, rather than constrict, the potentiality of life. In so doing, being ecological and being educative become uniﬁed concepts. Résumé L’éducation a institutionnalisé un processus qui a matérialisé des cultures, des communautés écologiques et, ﬁnalement, l’évolution elle-même. Cette enceintea diminué la sensibilité de la nature pédagogique de nos relations vécues avecd’autres personnes et d’autres êtres vivants. En reconnaissant que l’apprentissage et l’enseignement se produisent entre les espèces, les humains peuvent retrouverun sentiment naturopédagogique dans le cadre des rapports entre espèces au sein desquels ils existent. Le présent article examine les cadres inter-espèces ense penchant sur une sélection d’idées de l’écopragmatiste Anthony Weston et ducybernéticien Gregory Bateson, et sur des expériences vécues auprès d’oiseaux derivage du lac Ontario. Quelques mouettes et une sterne enseignement à l’auteur à enrichir et à diversiﬁer plutôt qu’à restreindre le potentiel des êtres vivants en cause. Ce faisant, les méthodes écologique et éducative deviennent des concepts uniﬁés. Keywords: interspecies curricula, eteragogy, Gregory Bateson, self-validation, curricula vitae 46 Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 16, 2011 A Gull One Morning I settle down on a picnic bench close by a swaying willow near the shore of Lake Ontario. The sun is only just beginning to trace its arc across the peaceful summer waters. I close my eyes to listen more clearly to the different sounds around me. As my ears become accustomed to the soundscape, a dialogue between the gulls to my left drifts into my attention. Their beautiful, haunting calls often stir emotions that connect me to my childhood. But today, their speech unhinges from this association and takes on new meaning. I feel them acutely as voices, uttered not for my nostalgic soul, but for the demands that they themselves have to communicate. The longer I listen, the more certain it seems to me that this conversation is not merely mechanical, nor dismissible as merely instinctual, but is driven by felt need and satisﬁed through encounter. A gull calls out to another, afﬁrming both the existence and importance of a being other than him or herself, and the need for relationship. Everywhere around me, beings are calling out for connection, for curiosity, for relationship. I open my eyes. The colours are brighter and warmer and the atmosphere feels calm. On my right, a gull bobbles up, his bright white chest framed by his smooth grey wings. He cocks his head and points his eye directly at my face. I angle my sight towards him. He jumps a few steps back. I turn my head away and glimpse out atthe lake. He inches back towards me. Some people consider gulls to be food-grubbing pests made dependent on us by our propensity to feed them. But I wonder: were I simply a “food dispenser” to him, would he so desire to approach me as I sat motionless, with my eyes closed? Wouldn’t I be more likely to feed him had I been holding a bag of bread, perhaps eating some potato chips, or, at the very least,

FAQs

How does the article characterize mainstream education’s effect on human sensitivity?

It argues that education institutionalizes processes that reify cultures and ecological communities, diminishing sensitivity to the pedagogical (eteragogical) nature of lived relations with people and other living beings.

What does the author mean by learning and teaching between species?

The author suggests that acknowledging interspecies learning and teaching helps humans regain an eteragogical sense of interspecies curricula that structure their existence.

What is the “hidden curriculum,” and how does it relate to power?

The hidden curriculum refers to unarticulated, contextual dimensions of schooling that can consciously or unwittingly serve economic and political structures of elites, including messages imposed through neoliberalism and other impositions.

Oct 15, 2026

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