Is Otago Polytech up to speed with international ideas for EfS?

I have sliced & summarised the article by Hopkins & McKeown below. My responses follow in red font.

Reference: Hopkins, Charles and McKeown, Rosalyn. (2000). Chapter 2, Education for sustainable development: an international perspective in Tilbury, D., Fien, J., Stevenson, R.B., and Schreuder, D. (2000). Education and Sustainability: Responding to the Global Challenge

"Education and Sustainability: Responding to the Global Challenge" is the title of a 200 page paper prepared by the World Conservation Union (IUCN)'s Commission on Education and Communication (CEC) in 2002. The first two chapters provide an overview of the concept of sustainability and highlight the international scope of educational institutes to promote sustainable development.
 

It was a quarter of a century ago, that education was described by Schumacher as the “greatest resource” for achieving a just and ecological society. Since then, a series of major international reports have emphasized the critical role education can play in the search for sustainable living.

The CEC report sets out priorities for establishing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). ESD is used interchangably with EfS. The first two priorities are:

1. Improving basic education
2. Reorienting existing education

The term “reorienting education” has become a powerful descriptor that helps administrators and educators at every level to understand the changes required for ESD. An appropriately reoriented basic education includes more principles, skills, perspectives, and values related to sustainability than are currently included in most education systems. These skills include:

• the ability to communicate effectively both orally and in writing;

• the ability to think about systems (both natural and social systems);

• the ability to think in time – to forecast, to think ahead, and to plan;

• the ability to think critically about value issues;

• the ability to comprehend quantity, quality, and value;

• the capacity to move from awareness to knowledge to action;

• the ability to work cooperatively with other people;

• the capacity to use various processes – knowing, inquiring, acting,

  judging, imagining, connecting, valuing, questioning and choosing

• the capacity to develop an aesthetic response to the environment.

• learning to prepare materials for recycling;

• learning to harvest wild plants without jeopardizing future natural

  regeneration and production;

• learning to grow low-water-need crops; and

• learning to protect local water sources from contamination.

Communities creating ESD curricula cannot or need not teach all of the above skills. The quantity of study would be overwhelming.

We need to find ways to harness the existing skills of the current educational labour force. We call such In this model experienced professionals are provided with additional training. In turn, they reshape existing programmes by drawing on their new knowledge, previous expertise, and understanding of national and local systems.

recognition and use of the skills, knowledge, and talents of current practitioners a “strengths model” for professional development and training.

However, use of this “strengths model” requires that someone be sufficiently well versed in the principles of ESD to pull together the pieces taught in the various disciplines to form a complete picture of the role of individuals, communities and nations in a sustainable world.

The future of ESD will depend on how the concept is perceived in the next few years. If ESD is seen as yet another isolated societal issue to be squeezed into the curriculum, or yet another topic to be given as an elective, then little progress will be made.

Although OP has articulated aims visions & policies to put in place EfS since 2005 the net effects of these have not made a profound difference to me as an educator or the programmes in which I teach. Given the course for which I am writing this blog is an elective topic & it appears squeezed into the curriculum I think little progress has been made. 

This report, together with the Strong Sustainability report & the article written by David Orr all point to the urgent need to reshape education profoundly in order to move our society to a sustainable future.

In our school the manner of implementing the moves toward sustainability have consisted primarily of an announcement that sustainability must be embedded in our courses. As educators we have not yet been adequately enabled to understand why this must be or given adequate opportunity or impetus to reorient our courses & programmes.

On the evidence of my perception, OP is very much conforming to the Business As Usual, incremental improvement toward sustainability.

I would value a broader understanding promoted by management (equal to Turning Point for instance) & a greater degree of guided risk in changing our curricula toward Education for Sustainability.

Sam Mann is the coordinator of integrating sustainability in OP & although he may be well versed in the principles of EfS, he has not had much contact with me or effect on the courses in my school. Perhaps this role needs to be dedicated rather than an extra load on top of Sam's other responsibilities?

While many of the skills listed above as related to sustainable education are included in art education in a general way the sense of purpose in collating & focussing them toward sustainability is not yet articulate.

There is an untapped opportunity to adopt interdisciplinary study within OP toward sustainability principles; eg. make subjects from horticulture & outdoor education available to art students (& vice-versa of course). Given the proximity of Otago University there is also the opportunity to include humanities subjects covering ethics, philosopy, ecology etc. These would be more accessible if they were collated & made relevant under an umbrella of EfS. Clearly there's a whole bunch of politics in the way but we need to crash some heads together soon.