งานวิจัย : A Spiritual Dimention and Environmental Education in Thai Context
โดย : รองศาสตราจารย์ ดร.คงศักดิ์ ธาตุทอง
 
บทคัดย่อ ภาษาอังกฤษ

   Abstract: To prepare for the Thai teachers to be more logical and use scientific thinking, it is important that teachers should have a philosophical foundation to balance science and technology with the moral and humanistic dimension. Therefore, if we can integrate the spiritual dimension into environmental education curriculum it might help to attain the right education to enhance and establish responsive citizens.
<br /> Buddhism is the way of life for the majority of the Thai people. In Buddhism, the mind is the master of the body. Buddhists believe that the well-trained mind is the mind developed to its highest capacity of intuitive insight and wisdom. This well-trained mind can be used to realise and resolve the environmental problems by practising the Five Precepts, following the Eightfold Path to the cessation of suffering, and showing loving-kindness and good-will to all. Concern for others is proposed as a main humanistic value. If human beings could expand their love to all other people, rather than confine it to their own family or themselves, then they might be able to part with things without receiving anything in return. Unselfishness and kindness are important and necessary characteristics of human beings that live peacefully in a society. In this elective, it is argued that these strong beliefs represent a set of deeply-embedded cultural values that shape and constrain environmental education in schools and elsewhere.