Conversation 3 — Sustainability Education (SusEd)

│Reminder of core questions underlying the series of conversations:

In what key ways are contemporary models of education fit for purpose/ what are their inadequacies?
How can educational leaders 're-wire’ their approach to address this question?
What are the main methods for accelerating this process given what we already know?

│Reminder of past seminars:

Understanding the concept of systems thinking. How do we ensure future prosperity and become good ancestors?
What does good leadership look like in schools and its challenges?

│Changing old thinking to new thoughts.

“If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” - Henry Ford.
Current education maintains the status quo; how do we address the core educational shift?
We need to align overarching educational aims with a sustainable future.

│How do we foster transformative experience?

Many school curriculums and teacher training are rarely transformative.
“There is no binary in teaching” - Tom Sherrington.
Maintaining a connected perspective in promoting sustainability.
Many teachers are passionate about promoting sustainability but they have to park their values at the door. They hold dissonance between what they do and what they think.

│The transformative experiences that forced Alex to reimagine the perspective of the world and teaching and learning.

Tipping point 1: Designing the white space effectively.

Education isn’t just the curriculum, it’s also about what goes on around it (CAS, DofE)

Tipping point 2: The power of authenticity and context.

Igniting interest of students by engaging ongoing real-life experiences (not presenting ‘facts’ of an unchanging world).

Tipping point 3: Mentorship, empowerment, connected communities, and rethinking our potential.

Education sows not seeds in you, but makes your seeds grow” - Khalil Gibran.
Promote children’s mindfulness and sense of awareness to unleash their potential.
Disruption can be discovered anywhere, and is vital to foster. Education is transformative to society.

Tipping point 4: Finding our starting points and the Glocalisation of Goals.

Emphasis on finding solutions rather than punishment and encourage leadership.
Teaching and learning of the younger generation should focus on the question of “where is our sustainable future?”

│University learning: Anything special?

The typical view is that university students acquire knowledge passively that they learn to apply to situations in the workplace.
University degree gives you advantages in the job market. However, the fastest-growing jobs do not require degrees. We need to rethink the value of university education.
University does not merely bring private pecuniary benefits.
- External benefits and non-pecuniary benefits (e.g. emotional capabilities, greater social wealth, or conformity of democratic deliberation) are difficult to quantify and therefore harder to express to the public.

│Creativity Learning: The list of what students should be learning in University.

List of abilities that give the student a sense of satisfaction and empowerment
- Knowledge of what a research question is.
- Basic subject knowledge in a chosen topic area; its major research questions.
- Develop capacity for being interested in questions where the answer is “nonobvious.”
- Ability to inquire into one’s own core interests.
- Development of the project topic research question with self-awareness
- Identifying a thesis or hypothesis about the topic.
- Planning the investigation.
- Organized research, including recording and sorting of conflicting information.
- Interpretation of research results.
- Development of analysis and elements into a coherent narrative (gaps included).
- Public/social presentation of findings and responding to criticism.
- Ability to reformulate conclusions and narrative in response to new info and contexts.
- Ability to fight opposition, to develop within institutions, to negotiate with society.
Creativity learning is for all (not just for elites). It also leads to less skepticism and more enthusiasm from the general public and increases quality and quantity social intelligence

Guidance question:

Reframe: How can we enable schools to view themselves as change agents? How do we encourage others to view education as agents of change?
Rethink: How can we normalise the prioritisation of a sustainability philosophy?
Reignite: How do we impassion stakeholders at every level in our system
How can we bridge what seem to be islands in an archipelago?

Debrief

Changing the hierarchical power structure of schools that is disempowering youth.
Joining to initiate alliance, involving all actors/stakeholders.
Harmonising moments to ignite passion amongst stakeholders through the system (e.g. Olympics and World Cup).
Equipping students with both knowledge & capacity to take actions and be responsible.
Preparing students to enact changes in today's world (not in the future).
Reframing the perspective of the time and looking at the human’s long-term impact on the planetary system.
We need to get away from just thinking to embodying.
Relationships must be at heart of sustainable thinking for schools to become change agents.
Sustainability and climate change should be central in teaching and learning (not ‘tacked on’)
"All world metrics fail to capture human potential but instead describe advantages” - Conrad Hughes.

The current crisis can shift the educational system from an outdated ‘schooling’ to ‘future-focused learning’.
Rethinking what they learn, how they learn, where they learn and when they learn.
Teachers must be activators and co-designer (with students) of learning, instead of delivery of contents.
Students need to be positioned as ‘knowledge producers’ and not (just) ‘knowledge consumers.’
How do we use technology in pedagogy to foster cultural building and social connectedness?