Inspiratiefestival_keynote_Leif Östman

Education for Sustainable Development & Teacher Education

Leif Ă–stman Uppsala University, Sweden Leuven, January 2017

• • • •

Teacher in science & geography Dissertation in 1995 Professor in curriculum studies/didactics Teacher training

SMED (Studies of Meaning-making in Educational Discourses) – 40 researchers and doctoral students – Science, Health, EE/ESD

GRESD: Graduate school in Education and Sustainable Development SWEDESD: Swedish international center for ESD

UN Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm (1972) – The role of education in environmental protection

Brundtland Commission (UN, 1983) – Our Common future – Sustainable development

UN Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janerio (1992) • The Earth Summit – Agenda 21, Chapter 36 (Education) World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg (2002) – requested UN to declare an ESD Decade, 2005 – 2014

THE GLOBAL ACTION PROGRAMME ON ESD

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

• UNESCO’s Global Action Programme (GAP) was launched at the World Conference on ESD in November 2014 in AichiNagoya, Japan.

• It focuses on generating and scaling up ESD action •

at all levels and in all areas of education

GAP

In September 2015, 193 world leaders committed to 17 Global Goals for sustainable development to • end extreme poverty, • fight inequality and injustice, and • protect our planet by 2030.

Goal 4: Education Education is essential to the success of every one of the other 16 goals!!

How to understand sustainable issues?

Cultural

Ecological

Economical

Cultural

Democratical Moral Ecological

Economical

Direction for action Balance

Protection of ------------------ Human nature needs

Sustainable – Context sensitive

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Sustainable – changes

?

Decision The balance is changing: every decision is temporary

• How to integrate ESD in to teacher education?

• How can one teach SD in schools?

• What is good SD-teaching?

– Which subjects?

– Content, form, structure …?

Easy answers Sustainable literacy: •Elementary knowledge skills, motives and values in relation to sustainable issues •To be able to value and act – action competence

All subjects have something to offer to ESD!

Difficult to answer • Not easy to answer what is good SDteaching, since • there are different ways of teaching sustainable development – different teaching traditions

Fact-based Normative Pluralistic

• Different approach to sustainabilty problems and education: – How to understand a sustainable problem?

– How to solve them?

– What to teach?

– How to teach?

Fact-based SD- problems = technological & scientific Solutions: scientific facts and models: more education & research

Disciplines

Teacher

School subjects

transfer

Students

Aim: well-informed citizens

Smoking is bad for your health!

Contains dangerous substances: • nicotine • etc

Normative SD-problems = Knowledge + values & attitudes (lifestyle) Solutions: changing peoples attitudes and behaviours through scientific insights and methods

Expected attitude

Choice of content

Aim: citizens who understand and accept �necessary� changes

Smoking is bad for your health! • nicotine • etc

Non-smoking generation: Per Gessle, Dustin Hoffman

Pluralistic SD-problems = political – Conflicts between social groups – Values, worldviews, interests

Solution: Critical investigations and discussions on different alternatives

Pluralism

Choice of content Aim: people who can critically consider different alternatives & participate in the democratic debate

Smoking is bad for your health!

• nikotin • nicotine • etc Use your money • Etc on charity instead Life is short There are other things that is more dangerous

I need it too feel good

It is cool!

Think of It is a free your children country

All my friends smokes Other people have to pay for your medical treatment

Example: ‘The Shopping Bag’ – Students follow the chain of production in reverse from the dinner table to the actual producers, i.e. the farmers via supermarkets, wholesalers etc.

– Students work with questions such as the elements that influence production, distribution, storage etc. as well as how each of these stages affects the environment.

Fact-based

1. Learning facts about chain of production and its affects on the environment

Normative

1. Learning facts about chain of production and its affects on the environment 1. Identifying the right way to consume based on the learned facts: the products which do not affect the environment so much is the product that we should buy!

Pluralistic 1. Learning facts about chain of production and its affects on the environment 1. Discusion on different affects – economical and environmental affects on the region, the producer, the country and the world – of our choices of different products

Similarities & differences The same basic knowledge

Is – ought to

Is = description of the world

Ought to = how we should value and act

Fact-based • Is Ought to •

Is = objective knowledge

•

Ought to = private, subjective, non-rational

•

Education: substitute the subjective with the objective

•

Positivistic view (version A)

Normative True Is

Correct Ought to

•

Education: display the relation

•

Positivistic view (version B = Scientism)

Pluralistic Is

Ought to

•

Education: to learn to argue with the help of science and other knowledge

•

Pluralistic view

Conclusion Three traditions Three philosphies

Three ways of teaching about SD

Also three types of SD literacy Fact-based: Knowing about SD-issues Normative: Knowing which attitudes and behaviour that follows from a certain knowledge on SD Pluralistic: Knowing how to argue and being capable of making decisions on SDissues with the help of science and other knowledge

Judge - criterion: 1. Democracy 2. …

Democracy: When?

Traditions

Fact-Value relation

Democratic process

Fact-based

Is

After

Normative

Is

Pluralistic

Ought Is

Ought

Before In

Teacher education • Knowledge about different teaching traditions • Critically compare, investigate and discuss them • Makes choice and develop arguments for the choice • Didactic competence

Teacher education • How to integrate ESD into subjects?

(Studium Generale, 22 March in Gent) • What are the cons and pros of integrating ESD into subject teaching?

• How to organise the cooperation between subjects?

Teacher education • How to teach for democratic competence?

– The moral dimension – The political dimension

• How to teach for critical competence?

Teacher education • How to teach for action competence? • How to develop action competence in relation to local community?

Thanks for your attention!

Democracy – Learning?

• What do you learn if you bring in democracy into the learning of ESD? • Is there a specific teaching content?

Teaching critical skills • Students will be exposed to a variety of opinions on one issue: “clarification of values”, cases in real life • Students will train to identify interests: by comparing

Teaching arguing skills • Learning to listen

• Learning to use knowledge in arguing Role-play, Scenarios

Teaching respect for each others • An important rule in collective decision making is that everybody shall be treated with respect • Distribute the voice of the students equal in the classroom • Treat all serious questions, answers etc with respect even if they are wrong

Teaching decision skills • Decision competence requires that the students will get a chance to train in making responsible decisions and to make justifications of them by using knowledge from different areas • Examples of exercises: Role-play, actions in the local environment, exercises for clarification of values

Facts • 850 million are hungry today • 1 200 million are to fat • Due to climate change: – – –

50% decrease of harvests in Africa 10-30% decrease of water supplies 20-30 % of all species will be extinct (50% in Europe)

• Emissions of CO2 pp: U.S.A 20 ton Sweden 6 ton Bangladesh 0,25 ton

Ethics • Are we only responsible for sustainable development in our part of the world?

In Sweden 1950 –200 000 cars Now – 4 million cars • 1 car/ 2 people In the world Now – 750 million cars • 1 car/ 9 people

4 times more

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Ethics • Has everybody equal rights to the same welfare?

. . . conceive yourself, if possible, suddenly stripped of all the emotion with which your world now inspires you, and try to imagine it as it exists, purely by itself, without your favorable or unfavorable, hopeful or apprehensive comment. It will be almost impossible for you to realize such a condition of negativity and deadness. No one portion of the universe would then have importance beyond another; and the whole collection of its things and series of its events would be without significance, character, expression, or perspective. Whatever of value, interest, or meaning our respective worlds may appear endued with are thus pure gifts of the spectator's mind (James, 1923, s 177).

Ethics • Have future generations the right to the same welfare as we have?

Ethics • Does sustainable development concern other species? Snow leopard?

Politics • Who decides?

• Where in the system?

• How to handle minorities?

Contested issues: What is most sustainable?

• • • •

Nuclear power or not?

Plastic or glas?

Technological solutions or ecological adaptation?

Economical growth or not?

Education • Critical & independent thinking

?

?

Sustainable development •Top-down concept

Thanks for your attention!

Questions, remarks, comments ‌

Atmospheric pollution is the term for the harmful substances that humans release into the air. Chief among these are sulphur oxides, nitrous oxides and carbon monoxide. These compounds form primarily from the combustion of oils, coal and turf/peat. They are also present in the exhaust gases produced by motor vehicles, mechanized appliances and aircraft as well as from industrial plant. These gases are driven by the wind and disperse over wide areas. When sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxides come into contact with moisture in the atmosphere, these gases dissolve to form acids. The acid precipitation makes soil, lakes and waterways sour.

(BorĂŠn, Moll & Lillieborg 1988, p. 165).

Looking After the Water We Borrow The eternal cycle of water in nature, between oceans, atmosphere and continents, was discovered about 1600. Now that we know about this cycle, and also know that water is involved in processes vital to human life, we must also realize that what we release into the atmosphere and water travels far and wide, even through plants and animals. We must never lose control of how we utilize water. We must be careful with water when we `borrow' it from the eternal cycle!

In order that water can suffice for all our needs, we have to `borrow' it many times over from the same water system. (pp. 74-75)