Paradoxes

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ESD - Graduates as Global Citizens, Bournemouth
University 12th Sept 05
Making connections towards culture change in
education - Dr Stephen Sterling ESD CETL
University of Plymouth
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Making connections
1 Context and perception 2 Challenge and
response-ability 3 Towards sustainable
education 4 Realising paradigms 5 Getting
there
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Making connectionspart 1
Context and perception
Getting the picture
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Where on Earth are we going..?!
OR
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The new conditions
unsustainability
stress
uncertainty
interdependence
globalisation
complexity
ecosystem degradation
inequity
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Mismatch
The world is a complex, interconnected,
finite, ecological-social-psychological-economic
system. We treat it as if it were not, as if it
were divisible, separable, simple, and infinite.
Our persistent, intractable, global problems
arise directly from this mismatch. - Donella
Meadows, 1982
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Seeing differently
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To live in the third millenium we shall need
more than incremental improvements on our current
rationality we shall need new thinking joined
with new ways of perceiving and visioning
ourselves, others, nature and the world around
us. - Ervin Laszlo 1997
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Thinking systemically

• proper understanding of the way the world works
  requires people to learn how to think
  systemically, holistically, integratively, and in
  a futures mode.
• Lester Milbrath Envisioning a Sustainable
  Society
• New Thinking for a New Millenium, 1996

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Making connectionspart 2
Challenge and response - ability
Why a change of educational culture?
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The ability to respond
SUSTAIN ABILITY
RESPONSE ABILITY
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Daunting agendaexciting possibilities

• Power civilisation by sunlight
• Grow food and fibre sustainably
• Dis-invent the concept of waste
• Preserve biodiversity
• Restore ruined ecologies
• Reduce materials, water and land use per head
• Rethink the political basis of modern societies
• Develop economies that can be sustained within
• natures limits
• Distribute wealth fairly within and between
  generations
• - Prof David Orr

Nine challenges
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Re-learning
This century may well be one of relearning on a
grand scale This learningneeds to be a core
part of learning across society, necessitating a
metamorphosis of many of our current education
and learning constructs. - Sea Change Learning
and education for sustainability, NZ
Parliamentary Commission for the Environment,
2004  
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From accommodation to systemic change
The biggest challenge for educationalists is
the proposition that education for sustainable
development cannot simply be added onto existing
learning, but requires a systemic change to the
learning process and priorities in education.
- From Here to Sustainability The Real World
Coalition, Earthscan, 2001
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Levels of knowing
Actions Ideas/theories Norms/assumptions Belie
fs/values Paradigm/worldview Metaphysics/cosmolo
gy
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Levels of educational thinking
Practice Provision Policy Purpose Paradigm

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Making connections Part 3
Towards sustainable education
How do we underpin a collaborative culture?
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A different way of looking at education? Possible
characteristics

• integrative/relational/holistic
• human-scale and participative
• learner-centred
• critical and systemic
• real-world and future oriented
• experiential
• values-based
• transformative

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Sustainable Education

• Does sustainability
• require
• Re-Visioning Learning and Change?

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Sustainable education?

• Sustaining - people, communities, ecosystems
• Tenable - ethically defensible, working with
  integrity, fairness, respect, inclusiveness
• Healthy - systems and subsystems

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World as machine or as living system?
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Learning as sustainability

• Sustainable development values
• self-organisation
• development and conservation of potential
• resilience
• community

• Educational values
• autonomy
• capacity-building
• participation
• collaboration

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Making connections Part 4
Realising paradigms
What are the implications for change?
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Levels of educational thinking
Practice Provision Policy Purpose Paradigm

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Choose your paradigm

• Mechanism
• Objectivist
• Reductionist, dualistic  
• Reductive

• Ecology/living systems
• Participative
• Holistic, integrative
• Systemic

Metaphor Epistemology Ontology Methodology
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Choose your metaphor.

• Mechanistic
• view of education
• Reductionist view of knowledge
• Deficit view of learner
• Transmissive model of pedagogy

• Ecological (relational) view of education
• Holistic view of knowledge
• Appreciative view of learner
• Transactional or transformative view of pedagogy

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Choose your approach

• Mechanistic
• instrumental values
• prescriptive
• outputs and fixed outcomes
• control

• Ecological
• intrinsic values first
• indicative
• emergence and open outcomes
• participation

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Purposes of education

• Vocational - preparing for economic life
• Socialisation - reproduction of culture,
  promotion of citizenship
• Liberal - developing individuals
  potential
• Transformative - education for change, for
  a better world

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Where we are (dominant ideas)

• Purpose - education as preparation for
  economic life
• Policy - education as product
  (courses/qualifications)
• Practice - education as instruction

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Where we need to go (newer ideas)

• Purpose - education for sustainable society,
  economy and ecology
• Policy - education as process of
  individual and social capacity building
• Practice - education as participative
  learning

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From control to participation

• FROM
• Overspecialisation and fragmentation
• Single issue management
• Top-down policy making
• Disciplinarity
• Goal oriented planning

• TOWARDS
• More integrated structures
• Integrated decision-making
• Participative approaches
• Inter and trans disciplinarity
• Adaptive management

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Shifts in curriculum, content and process

• Curriculum as top-down product
• Fixed knowledge
• Abstract knowledge
• Teaching/instruction
• Few learning styles
• Passive learning

• Curriculum as experience/situated learning
• Provisional knowledge
• Real world knowledge
• Participative learning
• Multiple learning styles
• Reflective/active learning

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Shifts in structures and policy

• Disciplinarity
• Specialisation
• External assessment
• Teaching system
• Formal education

• Inter and transdisciplinarity
• Broadness and flexibility
• Continous internal assessment and reflection
• Learning system
• (As part of) life-long education

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Towards sustainable institutions

• TOWARDS
• Systemic coherence and synergy
• Human scale
• Open community
• Learning organisation
• Microcosm of sustainable society

• FROM
• Incoherence and fragmentation
• Large scale
• Closed community
• Teaching organisation
• Microcosm of unsustainable society

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Dimensions of change
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Making connections..Part 5
Getting there...
Journeying with inspiration
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Significant change depends on...

• a) A deeper critique - of current trends
• b) A broader vision - of necessary alternatives
• c) An effective strategy - of systemic change

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Learning responses to the challenge of
sustainability

• No response - no change
• Accommodation - green gloss
• Reformation - serious reform
• Transformation - whole system redesign

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Different levels of engagement

• Education about sustainability content and/or
  estate emphasis. Fairly easily accommodated into
  existing system. Learning about change.
• Education for sustainability values and skills
  emphasis. Greening of institutions. Deeper
  questioning and reform of purpose, policy and
  practice. Learning for change.
• Sustainable education Capacity building and
  action emphasis. Sustainable institutions/communit
  ies. Learning as change.

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Learning points from AFANet

• Sustainability is imprecise.
• Integrating sustainability requires the
  re-thinking of institutional purposes.
• Sustainability is complex and multifaceted.
• Teaching it requires the transformation of mental
  models.
• Programming sustainability requires a rethinking
  of teaching and learning.
• There is no universal blueprint for educational
  change towards sustainability.

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Two sorts of change

• Piecemeal change
• changing parts of a system
• no consideration of system as a whole
• often imposed
• often short-lived

• Systemic change
• change with effect on whole system in mind
• change with emergence in mind
• by purposeful, collaborative design
• often long-lived

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Ingredients of systemic change

• Endorsement from the top
• Inclusion
• Collaborative ethos
• Action research and feedback
• Encouraging reflection
• High levels of connectivity and communication
• Champions and keenies

• Active alliances outside system
• Exemplars
• Leadership
• Channels and publicity to spread innovation
• Appreciative culture
• Resources/support
• Rewards
• AND?

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University of Plymouth Centre of Excellence in
Teaching and Learning - ESD

• Goal
• To transform the UoP from an institution
  characterised by significant areas of excellence
  in ESD to an institution modelling
  university-wide excellence, and hence, able to
  make a major contribution to ESD regionally,
  nationally and internationally.

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CETL ESD Main aims

• To
• Enable students to engage critically with
  sustainability agendas
• Encourage and reward best practice in ESD
• Tap and harness staff and student enthusiasm
• Enhance, extend and embed ESD practice
• Develop pedagogic research and evaluation
• Develop learning resources across disciplines
• Play a regional and national role in implementing
  HEFCE strategy

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Barriers
Source Gerald Dawe 2005,
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Barriers (ctd.)
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Working towards transformative learning
Schumacher College
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Designing fulfilling learning environmentseg.

• reflective learning for individuals and the
  institution
• cooperation and shared purpose
• the enjoyment of learning
• service and creating opportunity for service
• treading lightly and living simply
• the intrinsic value of work of all kinds
• celebrating diversity
• recognising limitations
• a good experience for everyone

- Schumacher College values
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Sustainability values

• Efficiency
• Sufficiency
• Equity and justice
• Community
• Diversity
• Inclusion
• Democracy

• Subsidiarity
• Self-reliance
• Participation
• Futurity and trusteeship
• Resilience and durability
• System health

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Key dimensions
Perceptual - ethos, values
Conceptual - understanding
Practical - design, action
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Guiding principles
Extension - seeing connections
Linking - understanding connections
Integration - making connections
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Implement strategies eg

• Regarding what we do now
• What is of value that we need to keep?
• What might need modification?
• What do we probably need to abandon?
• What new ideas, principles, methodologies,
  working methods, or policies are needed?

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Reasons to be cheerful?

• HEFCE Policy Sustainable Development in HE
• HEA research on Embedding ESD and 5 yr
  programme
• Three ESD-related CETLs and network
• National networks Forums HEPS, DEA, EAUC
• Education Commissioner - Sustainable Development
  Commission
• UN Decade of ESD
• International networks and agreements eg Global
  HE for Sustainability Partnership (GHESP), IAU

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Vision is absolutely necessary to guide and
motivate action. More than that, vision, when
widely shared and firmly kept in sight, brings
into being new systems. - Donella
Meadows, Beyond the Limits to Growth, 1992