Eco-Mentoring: Using Nature As a Guide to Destiny (Non-Refereed Papers) (Report‪)‬

The decline of traditional mentoring and its replacement by institutional teaching, with the consequent separation of the young from intimate contact with nature, has been a mixed blessing. In particular, the use of nature as a guide for the young to find their life path has been abandoned, with perhaps predictable negative consequences. This article shows how educators can elicit the power of nature to guide the young toward their destiny, and so counteract the psychosocial pathologies associated with bureaucratic instruction. Modern education has spawned large numbers of alienated youth exhibiting psychosocial pathologies. School absences, high dropout rates, vandalism, bullying, gangbanging, self-mutilation, drug abuse, eating disorders, depression, suicide, mass shootings, and so on reflect the deep dissatisfaction of bureaucratically instructed youth.