Jason van Tol is an author, teacher, and PhD candidate. His doctoral research is broadly about the social ecology of education.

While everyone has an idea of what education is, social ecology emanates from the work of Murray Bookchin. Building on his work, the core idea of social ecology is that ecological problems stem from (or bluntly, are caused by) social problems; and more specifically that humans’ power over nature stems from humans’ power over one another. If true, this means the solution to our ecological problems is a radical democracy that pervades all of social life. Some of Jason’s life experiences that drew him to this view are included in the About page.

These two fields, education and social ecology, capture most of what you will find on this site, and an article currently under review links the two together.

The oldest content on the site is from Jason’s undergraduate work in physics and engineering, with more recent content deriving from his masters in education.