High Level Meeting, Vilnius 17-18 March 2005

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High Level Meeting, Vilnius 17-18 March 2005
Education for Sustainable Development,
learning and change - Dr. Stephen
Sterling
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Re-learning
This century may well be one of relearning on a
grand scalerelearning how we can sustain
ourselves on a planet that has limits... This
needs to be a core part of learning across
society, necessitating a metamorphosis of many of
our current education and learning constructs. -
See Change-Learning and education for
sustainability, NZ Parliamentary Commission for
the Environment, 2004  
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The ability of educational systems to respond
SUSTAIN ABILITY
Depends on
Enables
RESPONSE ABILITY
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What are the barriers to response?

•     the rise of market-based values - a narrowing
  influence on the purpose and practice of
  education
• the dominant reductionist approach to
  understanding - emphasising separate subjects
  and abstract knowledge
•   lack of awareness or understanding of ESD by
  both policymakers and practitioners and
•   structural inertia in educational systems,
  particularly in the formal sector.
•  
• .

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What do we know? Ten lessons
1. that the education of the past is no longer
adequate 2. that an information-led,
transmissive approach to sustainability education
is of limited value 3. that ESD must be
participative, real-world based, evolving, and
engage hearts, minds and hands 4. that
education for change, inevitably involves
change in education 5. that ESD involves a
change of educational culture
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What do we know? Ten lessons
6. that we need to consider shifts at all
levels of education paradigm, purpose, policy,
provision and practice 7. that full realisation
of ESD requires systemic rather than piecemeal
change     8. that a key shift is from
reductionist modes of thinking in education
towards holistic modes         9. that change in
education must be in tandem with the
sustainability transition in society    10. that
there is no universal blueprint for change
rather, continuous learning is the process.
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Levels of educational thinking
Practice
Provision
Policy
Iceberg
Purpose
Paradigm
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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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Shifts in curriculum, content and process

• FROM
• Curriculum as top-down product
• Fixed knowledge
• Abstract knowledge
• Teaching/instruction
• Few learning styles
• Passive learning
• Lack of sustainability concepts

• TOWARDS
• Curriculum as experience/situated learning
• Provisional knowledge
• Real world knowledge
• Participative learning
• Multiple learning styles
• Reflective/active learning
• Sustainability concepts integrated throughout

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Shifts in structures and policy

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

• TOWARDS
• Inter and transdisciplinarity
• Broadness and flexibility
• Continous internal assessment and reflection
• Learning system
• Life-long education

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Post Vilnius Six concerns
1. that little actually changes     2. that a
gap remains between rhetoric reality, policy
practice, decision makers practitioners 3.
that insufficient resources are found   4.
that ESD policy will be contradicted or
undermined by other educational policies and
priorities 5. that change is piecemeal rather
than systemic 6 .that too much emphasis is
placed on implementation - not enough on
building engagement and trust
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An implementation framework

• 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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Whats your vision?

• Recycling
• Down on pollution
• No weapons

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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. - Meadows, Randers and
Meadows Limits to Growth the
30 Year Update, 2005
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Contact details
Dr Stephen Sterling Independent consultant, and
Visting Research Fellow, Centre for Research on
Education and the Environment (CREE), University
of Bath, UK Email srs_at_srsterling.org.uk www.bath.
ac.uk/cree/sterling.htm