2 - Probable or preferable futures: the responsibility of education

Summary

In this chapter, the role of education in helping achieve the Preferable Future is critiqued. Progress is acknowledged, particularly at international level, but the barriers to re-thinking, re-imagining and re-purposing education are also reviewed. The merits and drawbacks of relying on education for sustainable development (ESD) as the way forward are outlined, and the need to re-think education as a whole is discussed. The theory of learning levels is introduced, suggesting that second-and third-order learning – based upon a relational/ecological worldview – is necessary within educational systems if they are to support transformative social change through regenerative development in social, economic and ecological systems.

EDUCATION AND THE PROBABLE FUTURE

Given the current state of global and systemic polycrisis, and if it is accepted that this state is rooted in our collective Western worldview – and it is recognized that these conditions are engendering an alternative and emerging ecological/relational view of the world – then a profound question arises about education: how far are the dominant educational mores – reflected in long-standing and current purposes, polices, and practices – commensurate with and appropriate to these realities?

To help address this question let us be clear about something central to this discussion, but which is rarely acknowledged explicitly. It concerns the fact that education does not exist in a kind of neutral vacuum. Rather, it reflects the values and – at a deeper level still – the paradigms which influence its parameters and norms. In this respect, Clark (1989: 234) makes a strikingly simple but helpful distinction between two forms of education: “mould-tofit” and “critique/create”. She explains: “Education can never be apolitical, ‘objective’ or ‘value neutral’: it is – and ever must be – a political endeavour. It either moulds the young to fit in with traditional beliefs, or it critiques those beliefs and helps to create new ones” (author's italics).

In Chapter 3, there is more commentary on the role and purpose of education, but for now this somewhat stark distinction – and the key point that education is not value-free – bring us a useful perspective. Not least, the distinction helps put a label to the tensions often felt in practice between education for continuity and education for change.