Education for sustainable development: revisiting key concepts, principles, ideas, challenges

1. Education for sustainable development:revisiting key concepts, principles, ideas, challenges Expanding knowledge and review session Mags Liddy, PhD candidate, UL 2-5.30pm

2. Plan for workshop • Review learning- what is ESD • Build picture of knowledge- 1 hour • Identify gaps to be filled (individual task) 2. Expand on knowledge- 20 mins input 3. Visioning- education as promise and paradox Exploring our own philosophy of education- why ESD? 1 hour

3. One of the biggest challenges in this century is to take an idea that sounds abstract and to turn it into reality Kofi Anna, former Secretary General of UN, 2002

4. Major questions • What kind of society do we want or need for future? • What kind of economic and political system could allow this? • What kind of education system do we need to achieve this?

5. ESD .. • Group task • The most important aim of education for sustainable development is… • You decide- In 2 groups • Individual task- • Identify gaps in your knowledge

6. Origins… • ESD was first described in Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 from Rio • four major thrusts • (1) improve basic education • (2) reorient existing education to address sustainable development • (3) develop public understanding, awareness, and • (4) training • June 2012 revisiting Rio- what has been achieved? What needs to change?

7. Essential ESD skillsUNESCO Bangkok • Envisioning – being able to imagine a better future • Critical thinking and reflection – learning to question our current belief systems and to recognize the assumptions underlying our knowledge, perspective and opinions • Systemic thinking – acknowledging complexities and looking for links and synergies when trying to find solutions to problems • Building partnerships – promoting dialogue and learning to work together • Participation in decision-making – empowering people

8. In Ireland • No national ESD policy • Development education • Also citizenship education, global citizenship • UL and Ubuntu: focus on education and educators • Not issue specific: opposite to NGO

9. UNESCO, 2002 • … is the lead agency in promoting education for sustainable development (UN DESD) • ‘…while sustainable development involves the natural sciences, policy and economics, it is primarily a matter of culture; it is concerned with the values people cherish and the ways in which we perceive our relationship with others and with the natural world’

10. It is… Not about finding out the ‘one truth’ It’s about questioning things that we take for granted… critical thinking The process is as important as the end … active participation in learning

11. Head Heart Feet

12. Resources page • 7 Steps to embedding sustainability in your teachinghttp://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=33481 • Policy & Practice: A Development Education Reviewwww.developmenteducationreview.com • John Huckle- http://john.huckle.org.uk • David Hicks Lessons for the future • Huckle and Sterling • Education for Sustainability