Weaving sustainability education across pre-service teacher education

1. Weaving sustainability education across pre-service teacher education Tasmanian Sustainability Education Forums – December, 2013 Libby Tudball

3. Drivers for the inclusion of EFS… • Our obligation to the learners of today is to develop curriculum and pedagogy relevant to their lives now & vital for a more sustainable future… • Kemmis (1990) argued that: • ‘Curricula reveal how nations and states interpret themselves and how they want to be interpreted. Equally, debates about curriculum reveal the fundamental concerns, uncertainties and tensions which preoccupy nations and states as they struggle to adapt to changing circumstances’ (p.32).

4. “If we don’t change our ways of living, the children of future generations will not be able to experience our beautiful natural environment. The world we want to live in is one of an environmentally friendly nature, which renews, reuses, regenerates, and recycles. Students and the community can work together to build a friendly, safe and beautiful world.” (teacher educator NSW)

5. Enablers and opportunities now?...policy imperative? • EfS is now a CCP..but thinly defined and scoped, lacking pedagogy • The need is urgent… we are part of the choir…but how can the CCP create action in schools and teacher ed? • How can we go beyond preaching to the converted? • Pyne on the public record saying ACARA will be reviewed • The AC … encourages interdisciplinarity • But the big need is to..‘transform people’s unsustainable practices by changing cultural-discursive, material-economic, & social-political orders…that hold unsustainable ways of living in place’ ( Kemmis & Munro, 2012)

6. Challenges for teacher educators… diverse paradigms, lenses, beliefs & assumptions about EFS… • Personal view points…diverse windows on EFS…a practice that is ‘finding itself’ in diverse forms…still contested… • Environmental-ecological, social-political • Formal..informal, in schools, in communities..subject based, integrated, cross curricular • Knowledge into action…changing how people think & act • How to embed critical, emancipatory and transformative approaches… (Huckle, 1993, Kemmis & Mutton, 2012, Fein 2001)…critical pedagogy..action competence… meaning making ( Mezirow, Giddens, and others) • Needs to be explicit, scoped, and include multiple pedagogies..

7. Pushing the thinking boundaries • We…in our networks engage with community based EfS learning organisations…beyond Depts of Education • Believe in informal education…beyond the classroom • Human sustainability…living a good life…wellness • Collective commitment to the common good • Democratic practice…active engagement …how to proceed?...and provide models, motivation and stimulus for our students

8. Challenges… diverse paradigms, beliefs assumptions about EFS… • In early learnings settings through play based and experiential learning • primary schools… Often about the earth and growing, food, recycling, greening, about water: saving, recycling etc..place and locality based • In secondary schools… less about growing and nurturing, more about climate change, water watch, community groups, energy saving, science based, biodiversity… outdoor education ( Kemmis & Mutton, 2012) • AUSSI schools..more whole school based…and holistic • Rights and responsibilities..civics and active citizenship • How do we capture and share the great practice that includes and goes beyond green teams… to continued effort?

9. Important questions for teacher educators…re EFS • How can help pre-service teachers to build EFS into the architecture of the AC… CCP’s, Civics and Citizenship, general capabilities, geography, science? • What key resources, strategies can be implemented using holistic and whole school approaches? Eg UNESCO, • What other models does this group think we should suggest? • What theoretical frames and critical literature should inform our work?

11. "Learning for Work, Citizenship and Sustainability".The triple bottom line…. (UNESCO-UNEVOC Bulletin: Special Issue -2005-06)

12. The goal of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014, DESD), for which UNESCO is the lead agency, is to integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning. • to encourage changes in behaviour that will create a more sustainable future in terms of environmental integrity, economic viability, and a just society for present and future generations. • I see these goals as critical in my role as a Social, and Environmental educator…and as a teacher educator.

13. Pre-service teachers need to understand a whole school approach to EfS

14. Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future (UNESCO, 2002) Goals… • To develop an understanding of the range of social, economic and environmental issues facing the world today • To develop an understanding of the interrelationships among these different types of issues • To recognise that education can play a key role in empowering people to work for a sustainable future. • http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/mods/theme_a/mod01.html?panel=4#top

15. Interdisciplinary approaches.. for the future… • a curriculum reoriented towards sustainability places values & citizenship among its primary objectives. • ethical motivation and ability to work with others to help build a sustainable future. ..taking action for change. • Viewing education for sustainability as a contribution to a politically literate society is central to the reformulation of education and calls for a ‘new generation’ of theorizing and practice in education and a rethinking of many familiar approaches, including within environmental education.

16. National Architecture for Schooling…How can the architecture for the AC work for EfS?

18. Curriculum The Australian Curriculum details what students should learn (content descriptions) and describes the quality of learning expected (achievement standards) (and ACECQA forECE) Assessment The Australian Curriculum does not specify how teachers / schools / curriculum authorities will assess student learning Organisation of learning / pedagogy Schools and teachers are best placed to decide how to organise learning, taking account of the needs and interests of students and school context

19. Dimensions of the Australian Curriculum Learning areas The Australian Curriculum will be designed to ensure that students develop the knowledge, understanding and skills on which major disciplines are based; reflecting ways in which knowledge has and will continue to be developed and codified. General capabilities In a world where knowledge is constantly growing and evolving students need to develop skills, behaviours and dispositions that apply across subject areas; equip students to be lifelong learners. Cross-curriculum priorities Special attention to three contemporary issues. Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander education Education for sustainability Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia

20. How can EfS be connected to general capabilities… • Literacy • Numeracy • Information and communication technology capability • Critical and creative thinking • Personal and social capability • Ethical understanding • Intercultural understanding

21. ACARA…Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures priority • The first key concept highlights the special connection to Country/Place by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and celebrates the unique belief systems that connect people physically and spiritually to Country/Place. • Need to explore sustainability through the lens of indigenous cultures

22. ACARA…The second key concept… • examines the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ culture through language, ways of life and experiences as expressed through historical, social and political lenses. • It provides opportunities for students to gain a deeper understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ ways of being, knowing, thinking and doing.

23. Embedding indigenous perspectives ABC: My Place for teachers Realtime Health: Speaking from experience ABC: Making of modern Australia

24. EfS as a Cross curriculum priority…further development planned? • ‘Each concept contains a number of organising ideas that provide a scaffold for developing related knowledge, understanding and skills. • These are embedded in each learning area according to the relevance of its content to the organising ideas. An organising idea may draw on content from more than one learning area. Taken as a set, the organising ideas provide a coherent framework for the priority’. (ACARA, 2012) • http://www.acara.edu.au/curriculum/cross_curriculum_priorities.html

25. Organising ideas in the CCP’s • Systems • All life forms, including human life, are connected through ecosystems… • World Views • World views that recognise the dependence of living things on healthy ecosystems, and value diversity and social justice are essential… • Futures • The sustainability of ecological, social and economic systems is achieved through informed individual and community action…

26. In teacher education • At Monash..across all undergraduate courses as specific units named in various ways: • ‘Education priorities’ • ‘Education for environment and sustainability’ • ‘Cross-curriculum priorities: Environment and sustainability’ • Educating • ‘Investigating local and global educational issues’ • ‘Community development and partnerships’ • ‘Socio-emotional wellbeing and personal learning’ • And in interdisciplinary ways through art, literacy, health, outdoor ed etc • ..and in our Masters program ...in an explicit way

27. Our challenge.. • …is to find the time to develop coherence and connection in our approaches to EfS in our programs..rather than a cobbled together placing of this vital dimension of our work • This seminar will help us all in this work!