5 - Educating for the future we want (2021)

Summary

The Great Transition Initiative (GTI) is a global network of several hundred engaged scholars, intellectuals, civil society leaders, and activists working to develop visions and pathways for a “Great Transition” to a future of equity, solidarity and ecological sustainability. Periodically, the network is invited to respond to a topical issue, which is addressed through an initial paper intended to spark reaction and debate. In January 2021, I was invited to write the lead paper for the ensuing GTI discussion forum which they entitled The Pedagogy of Transition: Educating for the Future We Want. My subsequent paper was published online in March 2021 and generated a full and lively response (much of which can be viewed on the GTI site). The site states: “The times call for pedagogies that cultivate integrated knowledge and global citizenship, yet we continue to educate for a world we don't want … [This] forum posits inspiring alternative visions and practicable steps to transformative change that point the way forward”.

My lead paper reviews the background and context of the movement to change educational thinking and practice in favour of sustainability and a safe future from a basis of ecological, humanistic and holistic conceptions of education. It outlines barriers and obstacles, but also notes progress and opportunities to push through to educational policy and practice that would indeed support transition to a future that is sane and sustaining.

INTRODUCTION

Our ability to achieve a liveable future for all depends on whether we can foster an unprecedented degree of social learning. But with the stakes higher than ever before, time is worryingly short. How, under such urgency, do we effect such a large-scale paradigm shift?

Formal education systems have ‒ or should have ‒ a critical role in the global social learning process underpinning the Great Transition. On the face of it, the challenge seems straightforward. If current educational policies and practices insufficiently address ecological, social, and economic sustainability, we can just do some tweaking and add on some key ideas. Job done. Except it is not so simple. If education is to be an agent of change, it has itself to be the subject of change. Our educational systems are implicated in the multiple crises before us, and without meaningful rethinking, they will remain maladaptive agents of “business as usual”, leading us into a dystopian future nobody wants.