Ocean as Teacher: A Collection of Essays

Abstract

This thesis explores the concept of the Ocean as our teacher and how we must transition away from seeing her as an object, towards seeing her as co-teacher. The methods are part of the interdisciplinary framework of the blue humanities, as the research challenges dominant approaches to environmental and sustainability education that present the Ocean as an object of measurement, management, and extraction. While scientific knowledge is valuable, it does not capture the Ocean’s role as a relational, cultural and pedagogical being. The Ocean is framed as a co-teacher and an active participant in the creation and transmission of knowledge. The interconnected essays move through four pedagogical “classrooms”: immersion, vulnerability, memory, and vision. These classrooms are explored through a combination of autoethnographic reflection, textual and visual analysis, and creative methodologies, including a courtroom-based chapter that places humanity on trial to examine systems of exploitation and responsibility. Documentary film, mythological narratives, and lived encounters serve to understand how knowledge is constructed, embodied, and contested. Findings suggest that meaningful transformation in human-Ocean relationships requires a shift away from capital and colonial frameworks toward relational and ethical modes of engagement. Within the chapters, the Ocean is shown as a teacher who teaches through experience, disruption, memory, and representation, offering lessons on interdependence, vulnerability, and responsibility. The thesis argues that environmental education must move beyond traditional teaching styles towards forms of learning that allow the Ocean to be seen as a teacher capable of reshaping how humans understand and inhabit a changing world.