High Level Meeting, Vilnius 17-18 March 2005 Education for Sustainable Development, learning and change - Dr. Stephen Sterling

Re-learningThis 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

The ability of educational systems to respondSUSTAIN ABILITY RESPONSE ABILITY Depends onEnables

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 lessons1. 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 hands4. that education for change, inevitably involves change in education5. that ESD involves a change of educational culture

What do we know? Ten lessons 6.that we need to consider shifts at all levels of education: paradigm, purpose, policy, provision and practice7. that full realisation of ESD requires systemic rather than piecemeal change8. 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 society10. that there is no universal blueprint for change rather, continuous learning is the process.

Levels of educational thinking

PracticePolicyPurposeParadigm ProvisionIceberg

Where we are (dominant ideas)

Purpose -education as preparation for economic lifePolicy - education as product (courses/qualifications)Practice -education as instruction

Where we need to go (newer ideas)Purpose - education for sustainable society, economy and ecology Policy - education as process of individual and social capacity buildingPractice - education as participative learning

Shifts in curriculum, content and processFROM:Curriculum as top-down productFixed knowledgeAbstract knowledgeTeaching/instructionFew learning stylesPassive learningLack of sustainability conceptsTOWARDS:Curriculum as experience/situated learningProvisional knowledgeReal world knowledgeParticipative learningMultiple learning stylesReflective/active learningSustainability concepts integrated throughout

Shifts in structures and policyFROM:DisciplinaritySpecialisationExternal assessment

Teaching systemFormal education emphasisTOWARDS:Inter and transdisciplinarityBroadness and flexibilityContinous internal assessment and reflectionLearning systemLife-long education

Post Vilnius: Six concerns1. that little actually changes2.that a gap remains between: rhetoric & reality, policy & practice, decision makers & practitioners3. 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 systemic6 .that too much emphasis is placed on implementation - not enough on building engagement and trust

An implementation frameworkRegarding 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?

Whats your vision?Recycling Down on pollution No weapons

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

Contact detailsDr Stephen SterlingIndependent consultant, and Visting Research Fellow, Centre for Research on Education and the Environment (CREE), University of Bath, UKEmail: srs@srsterling.org.ukwww.bath.ac.uk/cree/sterling.htm

Chairman, distinguished delegates, I have been asked to give a brief independent perspective on the significance of this meeting. I was struck yesterday by the EU draft message (17 March) that, we might still be insufficiently aware of how much ESD is demanding a fundamental reorientation away from traditional approaches to education. The nature of this reorientation has been the subject of my work for many years. I see it as a continuing learning journey, and this meeting as a very major step forward in a critically important process of change.For me - as for many others - this journey began over 30 years ago with the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment, held not far from here, across the Baltic Sea, in Stockholm. This was the first intergovernmental conference to recognise the importance of education in addressing environmental issues, and there have of course been a whole series of high level meetings and agreements since then. As a young man in the early 1970s, I followed this call and have since worked to help in the re-thinking of policy, provision, and practice in education so that education increasingly put simply - is part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.In essence, my message is that sustainable development necessitates requires a shift of educational culture, a culture which can reflect and assist the fundamental changes in social organisation and institutions that sustainable development requires in wider society. The process is learning, both in educational systems and in society. Or what a report from the New Zealand government calls re-learning.

If you ask any group or audience whether they think learning is a good thing, you will normally get a 100% positive response. Surprisingly perhaps, Im going to disagree. I can learn to rob a bank or learn to poison my wife - as well as plant trees or help resolve conflict. Let me assure you, my bank is still intact, and my wife is still very much alive - but the serious point is, the process of learning itself is neutral. The real question is learning for what, to what end?, OR education for what? It is the purpose that makes learning non-neutral.As a UNESCO report written for the Johannesburg summit said, just as we have learnt, rather successfully to live unsustainably, we now need to learn how to live sustainably. This calls into question the purposes and influence of our education systems as they stand today. Despite all the good intentions and international conferences and agreements since Stockholm, education largely still underpins individualism, unsustainable patterns of consumption and lifestyles - directly or by default. Let us be clear the most educated countries in the world are those with the biggest ecological footprint. So and this is a key point - its not a question of more education it is a question of a different kind of education. And this is what is meant by reorientation a phrase which emerged at the Rio Summit of 1992. At stake is what I call response-ability: that is, the ability of education including policymakers, practitioners and institutions to respond sufficiently to the crisis of unsustainability, the opportunities of sustainability - and the new conditions of complexity, uncertainty, and risk which we are reminded of daily in the news, and which demand new thinking in education. The bottom line is the Earths ability to support human life and non-human life in the near and distant future the Earths sustain-ability, and fundamentally, this depends on the ecological integrity of the biosphere. I would argue this is only weakly recognised in the October 04 UNESCO ESD Decade Draft International Implementation Scheme.

We are not going to enhance ecological sustain-ability unless we markedly improve our own ability to respond, and this depends in part on improving the responseability of education. That is, its ability to respond to the challenge of helping achieve a more sustainable and liveable society within an historically short period of time.

This is a considerable challenge. Let us quickly consider some of the barriers which hinder a proper response: Key barriers, in my view, include: the rise of market-based values which place emphasis on education in the service of the globalised economy and which have had a narrowing effect on how we conceive and practice education; the dominant and historically embedded reductionist approach to understanding which emphasizes 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.So in taking our journey forward, we need to reckon with these barriers, - but also check where we are with our collective learning to this point. What do we know, based on international experience and research?

So these are some lessons that weve learnt in the last decade or so.

Im not arguing that the educational theories and practices that have served us well in the past are redundant, rather Im arguing that they are currently inadequate and insufficient to lead us to any thing like a sustainable future.

Regarding the point that ESD involves a shift of educational culture the logic here is simple. If we accept that sustainable development has major implications for most areas of society and human endeavour business, agriculture, energy, transport, construction, science, politics, leisure etc then ESD is also relevant right across educational thinking and practice. It cannot be restricted to an isolated curriculum box whereby educational thinking and practice is otherwise unchanged. The key point here is that the integrative nature of sustainability demands that we think, act and educate in much more integrative and connective way. Thinking like a web, rather than in mental boxes.

To this extent, I congratulate you that the draft strategy mentions critical thinking, creative thinking and systemic thinking - which is fundamentally about making connections, recognising relationships and consequences of actions.ESD is fundamentally about shifting from a reductionist culture in education, towards a more holistic culture and this is something that is endorsed by the UN DESD Implementation Scheme. It will not be easy but it helps if we have some pointers, some signposts. I will now quickly map out just some of the shifts involved in fully realising ESD.The next diagram indicates that systemic change needs to take place at all operational levels (in English, these conveniently start with the letter P).The point about this hierarchy is to suggest that each operational level influences the level above.

The point about the iceberg analogy is that too often our paradigm and assumptions, and even fundamental ideas about the purpose of education lie unexamined. They need to brought to light, and be debated and re-assessed.

I would suggest this model is applicable at all institutional levels: national and government level, and organisational and individual institutional level.

Lets look at some of the operational levels in the diagram in a little more detail. To start where we are now, as regards Purpose, Policy, and Practice.

I think its fair to say that the dominant ideas in education for the past half-century, and particularly recently, have been largely as shown in this slide.

Im not suggesting that these are necessarily wrong - but they are inadequate, far too limited. Instead, we need to extend our vision, our thinking and practice, from old ideas to newer ideas.The new (or new-er) ideas suggest that instead of :Purpose - education being mostly as preparation for economic lifeIt becomes: Education for a sustainable society/communities; sustainable economy; sustainable ecology. Policy - where education is seen as a product (courses/materials/qualifications/educated people)It becomes: much more a process of developing potential and capacity through life, at individual and social levels Practice - Education is seen as instruction top-down transmission from expertsIt becomes: much more a participative, dynamic, active learning process based around realworld issues.

Thus a key idea is not replacement but extension of thinking and practice.

This slide indicates the sort of shifts required in curriculum and process from a static, top-down, centrally controlled view of curriculum, towards a much more dynamic and flexible view, where process and the quality of the learning experience is key.

Such a view is more likely to nurture the engaged, participating, self-reliant citizens that can contribute to a more sustainable society .

These slides do not imply that we need to abandon the left hand side, and jump to the ideas and practices on the right - even if this were possible.

Instead, they suggest that the policies and practices on the left have had too much prominence, and now we need to move towards more holistic and dynamic views of learning, whilst retaining the best of the old where appropriate or necessary. This is already happening to some degree in some national education systems.

These are some concerns:that little will happen: western countries might say, well we do all this already. In fact, there is no room for complacency, and there still a long way to go. Eastern countries might say, yes its important but education for economic development must come first. But that is missing the point about SD. 2. that a gap remains between rhetoric and reality,policy and practice, between decision makers and practitioners.3. That insufficient resources are found. 4. That ESD policy will be contradicted or undermined by other educational policies and priorities if there is one message from this talk, it is that you need to see where existing policies strengthen or weaken ESD.5. that change is piecemeal rather than systemic i.e. fragmentary rather than looking at whole systems6. That too much emphasis will be placed on implementation, not enough on engaging people and building trust and meaning.The key to these concerns is developing a participative framework of implementation, and building a vision.

This is a simple but effective framework which can be used at any level of the education system, and in relation to any plan or policy document, or curriculum statement, or institutional guidelines. In England, we used it in assessing the national curriculum for schools in relation to ESD.

Its important to work these sort of questions through with stakeholders in dialogue and discussion to begin the change process. Otherwise, there is a danger that ESD is seen as more a threat than an opportunity, imposed rather than owned.

Heres a boy, pictured on Christmas Day. He happens to be my son - just turned 8 years old - but he represents the millions of children whose lives our work here today will we hope - influence for the good.

I found some work hed done at school My little book of wishes.Unaided, hes written and illustrated inside Recycling, no pollution, no weapons.

Whats inside your little book of wishes?

This perhaps illustrates the importance of vision and that the vision of a better world represented by the UNECE strategy is more common than we might at first think.I will finish with this quote which underlies the possibility of real change.

The ideas and ideals of sustainable development have the power and potential to inspire new vision amongst all people in an otherwise troubled and threatened world.

May the UNECE strategy itself inspire a common vision of education for a sustainable future. Thank you for listening.

- Dr Stephen Sterling 18 March 2005, Vilnius