SUSTAINABLE EDUCATION: Re-visioning Learning and Change

by Stephen Sterling

Published by Green Books on behalf of The Schumacher Society.

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"I've read no clearer or more concise description of the need for authentic education than that given here … The stakes have never been higher."
- David Orr, Professor, Environmental Studies Program, Oberlin College, Ohio, USA.

"Helps us address the most important educational need of our age: how to reorient our education systems so that they guide us towards a sustainable future. A reading list must for everyone involved in education - from Ministers right up through the system to teachers and parents."
-John Fien, Director, Griffith University Ecocentre, Australia

"Innovative, provocative, and essential reading, for all those concerned about the state of the world and the purposes of education. Read it, be disturbed and challenged. Question your basic premises about education. Renew the vision. Take committed action."
-Professor David Hicks, Bath Spa University College, UK

How will we move towards sustainability? - learning through crisis, or by design? In this new Schumacher Briefing, Stephen Sterling points out that:

• Progress towards a more sustainable future critically depends on learning, yet most education and learning take no account of sustainability.
• The reorientation of education towards sustainable development since the Agenda 21 in 1992 has been very slow.
• Education is largely behind other fields in developing new thinking and practice in response to the challenge of sustainability.

Whilst 'environmental education', and more recently 'education for sustainable development' are important trends, they are not sufficient to reorient and transform education as a whole - and yet time is short to realise such change. The Briefing critiques the prevailing managerial and mechanistic paradigm in education, and argues that an ecological view of educational theory, practice and policy is necessary to assist the sustainability transition.

The Briefing then shows how 'sustainable education' - a systemic change of educational culture towards the realization of human potential and the interdependence of social, economic and ecological wellbeing - can lead to transformative learning.

The Briefing finishes with discussion of change strategies, emphasising the need for vision and design at all levels of educational systems, and includes action suggestions for both policymakers and practitioners. A detailed listing of key organisations and websites is also included.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Feb 2005 - Dr Sterling's thesis, Whole Systems Thinking as a Basis for Paradigm
Change in Education: Explorations in the Context of Sustainability, explores in depth, the implications of shifting the dominant educational paradigm to a more holistic one which is consistent with and supports ecologically sustainable developmentis published online at: http://www.bath.ac.uk/cree/sterling.htm

Stephen Sterling - Biographical details

Dr Stephen Sterling is a co-director of the Bureau for Environmental Education and Training (BEET), and an independent consultant in environmental and sustainability education working in the academic and NGO fields in the UK and internationally. He was a founder of the Education for Sustainability Programme at London South Bank University (LSBU), London, where he is an Associate Fellow of the Centre for Cross-Curriculum Studies and an academic tutor. He is also a Visiting Research Fellow at Centre for Research in Education and the Environment at the University of Bath, and a member of the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication.

He has an extensive publications record, including Good Earth-Keeping: Education, Training and Awareness for a Sustainable Future (UNED-UK 1992), Education for Sustainability (Earthscan 1996) (with John Huckle), Education for Sustainable Development in the Schools Sector (Sustainable Development Education Panel, 1998), and Sustainable Education – Re-visioning Learning and Change, (Green Books/Schumacher Society, 2001). His interest lies in the interface between systemic thinking, ecological thinking, learning and sustainability and this was the subject of his doctoral research. He is the lead researcher/writer for the WWF Scotland Linking-Thinking project, introducing systemic thinking in education (WWF UK 2004).