7 - Sustainable education (2009)

Summary

In 2001, I was invited by the Schumacher Society to write a concise book giving an ecological perspective on education. This was one of a series of “Briefings” commissioned by the Society. The ensuing book Sustainable Education: Revisioning Learning and Change was based on research in my then as yet uncompleted PhD, and it proved a bestseller for the publisher Green Books. It puts a succinct argument for re-thinking education as a whole based on sustainability/ecological ideas. The book depicts and outlines this re-thinking as a shift of culture – which goes beyond “education for sustainability” or education for sustainable development (ESD) which is always in danger of being side-lined as a specialist topic. This chapter in the Gray et. al. book, written a few years later, serves to summarize the main thrust of the earlier Sustainable Education book and present some of its key ideas. I was rather pleased with the first line: “It seems that education is a slow learner”, and hope that this is no longer as true as it was in 2009.

The editors (Gray et al.) prefaced the chapter as follows:

The author points to the paradox of envisaging societal change through an education that is itself in need of rethinking. So change, evolution and transformation are the central keywords. The chapter proceeds through questions and the presentation of points of view that are different from conventional ones, casting light on the paradoxes and contradictions of particular positions (including those espoused by prestigious institutions) about what constitutes a “sustainable education”, which is seen as more than just “education for sustainability”. The author introduces the notion of levels of learning, suggesting that educational actors need to engage in at least secondorder learning, a kind of thinking which is able to reflect on itself and so provide the basis for a shift of perspective and for change in educational practices.

EDUCATION IN THE CURRENT PARADIGM

It seems that “education” is a slow learner. In a period of unprecedented change and global threat to ecological, economic and social security, the policy and practice of Western and Westernized education are still largely built on the assumptions and epistemology of a previous age, rather than fully responsive to the conditions and needs of our time.