{"id":2756,"date":"2012-12-10T09:01:25","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T09:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=2756"},"modified":"2012-12-10T09:01:25","modified_gmt":"2012-12-10T09:01:25","slug":"learning-for-sustainability-in-times-of-accelerating-change-a-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2012\/12\/10\/learning-for-sustainability-in-times-of-accelerating-change-a-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning for Sustainability in times of accelerating change: a review"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been reading Learning for sustainability in times of accelerating change, <\/em>a new book edited by Arjen Wals & Peter Corcoran, and published by\u00a0Wageningen Academic Publishers. \u00a0 Here's my review ...<\/p>\n

This is an ambitious book, and is weighty in every sense.\u00a0 Its 31 chapters are set out in three sections: [1] Re-Orientating Science and Society (in light of unsustainability) \u2013 10 chapters; [2] Re-Connecting People and Planet \u2013 8 chapters; and [3] Re-Imagining Education and Learning \u2013 13 chapters. \u00a0There is an Introduction<\/em> by the editors and a Foreword<\/em> and Afterword<\/em> by Juliet Schor and Stephen Sterling, respectively.\u00a0 Its 550 pages also include editor \/ author biographies.<\/p>\n

All told, there are 74 authors, although two of the chapters account for 20 of these.\u00a0 The book draws ideas from across continents, but it will surely have been a disappointment to the editors that the USA, UK and Canada, between them, contribute ~50% of the authors.\u00a0 However, it is surely a merit of the book that its construction was an \u201corganic\u201d, rather than a pre-determined, process: a call using networks and social media for abstracts (80 resulted), a sifting of these and the commissioning of (50) chapters, a review of (~40) drafts received, resulting in the 31 final chapters.\u00a0 You only have to look across the contents and authors to see how successful this strategy was in attracting a range of people, disciplines and ideas.\u00a0 For sure, there is the odd, lurking, usual suspect re-writing (yet again) their well-nursed ideas \u2013 you will easily spot them \u2013 but let them be, and look carefully instead for the different voices and new insights that have emerged through this process.<\/p>\n

I do not think that many people will read this text from cover to cover as you might a good novel, or, indeed, an authored text; I expect that the editors would be surprised if anyone tried, as it has not been designed in that way, despite its three section themes.\u00a0 Its origins militate against this anyway as its organic construction means that it is harder to construct a coherent flow of ideas than it is with an authored book, or with a book whose contributors have been lined up (inorganically) to try to achieve such an outcome.\u00a0 Anyway, the editors encourage readers to \u201cweave their own journey\u201d which is a suggestion that links to the visual metaphor employed to effect on the book\u2019s cover.\u00a0 They end their editors\u2019 Introduction in this way:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 the cover captures much of what this book is about \u2013 change, learning and the weaving together of stories that may provide clues for creating the wisdom we need to move towards a more sustainable world.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, up to a point.<\/p>\n

I think the Introduction is only partially successful in its task of helping the reader decide where to begin their \u201cweaving\u201d.\u00a0 Although space is devoted to each of the book\u2019s three sections, this comprises fewer than 3 pages, out of 10, with the rest devoted to background context.\u00a0 As such, the Introduction is more about the idea of the book than its contents; indeed, as far as I can see, only 3 chapters out of the 31 warrant any mention at all, which makes me wonder what the editors think of how (or if<\/em>) this \u201cdynamic landscape\u201d coheres.\u00a0 I wanted the help of the editors to identify what they thought each of the chapters were contributing, so I turned to the Epilogue to see if this offered an evaluative overview, but to no avail.\u00a0 The Afterword successfully draws threads together \u2013 though not really those woven throughout the book.<\/p>\n

A strength of the book is its broad conception of where learning occurs, and the way that a range of contexts are exemplified.\u00a0 The blurb on the back of the book tells us that it \u201cexplores the possibilities of designing and facilitating learning-based change and transitions towards sustainability\u201d which is reasonably clear; as is for whom the book is deemed \u201cessential reading\u201d, with a lengthy list (again on the back): \u201ceducators, educational designers, change agents, researchers, students, policymakers and entrepreneurs alike\u201d.\u00a0 Actually: \u201call those who are concerned about the well-being of the planet and convinced of our ability to do better\u201d.\u00a0 Where, I briefly asked myself are the economists in this list, and I wondered which entrepreneurs the editors had in mind.\u00a0 More significantly, however, is the wishful thinking implicit in such a list.\u00a0 Just considering England, for a moment, I wondered how many of its 20,000-odd school head teachers will read it; how many of its 100+ university vice chancellors; how many exam board CEOs; how many senior civil servants and ministers in the Department of Education; how many \u2026 .\u00a0 You get the picture, and know the answers as well as I do; this book will only be read by those at the education and sustainability nexus: all those engaged in EfS, ESD, ESE, LfS, EE, SDE, EL, LSD, etc.\u00a0 As Juliet Schor put it in her Foreword:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are reading these words, you are probably familiar with the grim data on the built-up of carbon in the atmosphere, the decline of biodiversity, growing water shortages, eco-system degredation and global poverty and hunger\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I fear this will<\/em> be the case, and what a pity it is as there is material here that others would surely benefit from reading.\u00a0 The likely narrow audience is, in part, because those who are most convinced that education is relevant to \u201cthe well-being of the planet\u201d in the sense it is used here, are thin on the ground; and also, in part, because of the insider language many chapters are written in.\u00a0 You and I will read it because we like this sort of reading and writing; we\u2019re good at it, in fact; it\u2019s how we ply our trade, and make our livings.\u00a0 It is probably not going too far to suggest that authors know all this, and<\/em> for whom they are writing.\u00a0 But is it going to help anyone be more effective on the political stage?\u00a0 Well, just maybe, but they will need to read selectively.<\/p>\n

So, what would I select?\u00a0 What would I inter-weave?\u00a0 In section one (Re-orienting science and society), perhaps I\u2019d begin with Chapter 10 (Getting Active at the Interface) which is about social learning processes that involve real people and communities (the authors patronisingly call these \u201cnon-academic participants\u201d \u2013 you see what I mean about the insider language).\u00a0 Absorbing stuff, but how much more so had there been a parallel chapter written by these benighted, non-academic types.\u00a0 Then there\u2019s Chapter 8 (Building Resilient Communities) which argues that ...<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 resilient communities can be engendered by unleashing and strengthening their adaptive potential, through creating awareness of and space for emergent behaviour and, by laying an enabling foundation for competent collective behaviour.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Just so, I thought, but looked in vain for local voices talking about how they were putting all their adaptive potential to use.<\/p>\n

I thought too much of the writing was rather overly-assertive and self-regarding.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t agree with the author that \u201c\u2026 ecology and environmentalisms need to consider \u2018queerness\u2019 as an alternative to the ideology of organic wholeness\u201d (Chapter 7) in order to explore nature\u2019s uncertainties, given the methodological choices available.\u00a0 Nor did I think that \u201cDeciding what is \u2018right\u2019, and then teaching others about that \u2018rightness\u2019\u201d had much to do with education (Chapter 6).\u00a0 Far too evangelical for me, and I wondered, in a chapter focused on ethics, why the views of the subject of a critical commentary were only mediated by an interviewer.\u00a0 Was any thought given to rendering this a jointly-authored chapter, I wondered, given that the subject was, himself, an environmental educator?<\/p>\n

On balance, I thought the other two sections were stronger.\u00a0 In section two (Re-connecting people and planet), there are explorations of: using catastrophes for environmental learning; a dialogue about art, learning and sustainability; the use of practical outdoor tasks to build relationships; learning from indigenous American cultures; learning from traditional knowledge in China; lessons on relatedness from Grandmother Bear; the spirited practice of transformative education; and how reflective practice can enhance learning (for sustainability).\u00a0 In section three (re-imagining education and learning), there are explorations of: how to handle knowledge uncertainty; using controversy to enhance learning; mental models in public perceptions of climate change; designing and developing learning systems for managing systemic change in a climate change world; building capacity for mitigating and adapting to climate change; living systems and institutional change; a dialogue around a frameworks-based education programme; Swiss failure to implement ESD; science education in Africa; the possibilities of organisational learning-based change; global storylines as transformative ecological learning; engaging youth in developing urban plans; and learning about energy and sustainability.<\/p>\n

To illustrate something of the richness of the book, let me focus on two chapters, one in each of sections two and three.\u00a0 These focus on congruent themes and, curiously, are written in a similar way to each other, but quite differently from other contributors.\u00a0 They examine non-linear ideas and practice through writing dialogues.\u00a0 Both chapters are about design, and about social transition to something more sustainable, or less un<\/em>sustainable, perhaps.\u00a0 Both, in their very different ways, emphasise \u201cpositive mental pictures of the future that feeds the transformative process \u2026 .\u201d, though one of these is exploratory in nature, whilst the other sets out to be much more than this.\u00a0 One is rather utopian; the other rejects this idea(l).\u00a0 Both have significant things to say about education, and about sustainability \u2013 and about education and<\/em> sustainability. [Note 1<\/em><\/strong>]<\/p>\n

Chapter 12, by \u201cacademic, artist practitioners\u201d Natalia Eernstman, Jan van Boeckel, Shelley Sacks and Misha Myers, is a dialogue with a focus on art, learning and sustainability.\u00a0 The authors argue that, in order ...<\/p>\n

\u201cto effectively grasp and address sustainability challenges, \u2026 we need to expand our predominantly logocentric and linear ways of knowing with more presentational, embodied and sensory means.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Their conversations focus on the following questions:<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the position of a citizen, artist and educator, what are the key elements in a (learning) process that facilitates transitions towards sustainability in today\u2019s society?\u00a0 How do we understand art and what is the role of art within such processes?\u00a0 And what does this mean for the way we shape and conduct learning?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although the actual dialogues took place between one author (Eernstman) with the others, separately, they have been written up as \u201can imaginal account \u2026 as if they had happened concurrently\u201d, and the reader is invited to take a seat and listen in.\u00a0 This works in an effective way and brought out, for me, issues that were as much a commentary on education and on sustainability, as on art:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a process isn\u2019t open-ended enough it immediately shuts itself down, and people don\u2019t engage with it.\u00a0 If you impose too many restrictions, or ask questions that contain prescribed answers or directions, those things will immediately close off communication \u2013 you will know because people become disinterested.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although I know very little about their academic (and practitioner) worlds, I was drawn into their conversation, and inevitably, perhaps, wanted to join in.\u00a0 Theirs is a scholarly take on the issues though not one I am used too; all the more valuable for that, of course.<\/p>\n

Chapter 25, by Ken Webster and Paul Vare, is an abridged version of an extended dialogue between the authors in which each explores the other\u2019s ideas about the other\u2019s ideas: Vare begins by critiquing an aspect of the work of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation where Webster is Head of Innovation; Webster responds, Vare has another go, and then so does Webster.\u00a0 Vare has the last word, for now; as with the discussion in Chapter 12, none of this is quite finished.\u00a0 All this works very well, and is valuable because the ideas under critique seem rather important.\u00a0 Webster sets out the thinking behind the Foundation\u2019s circular economy<\/em> ideas, based on Lakoff & Johnson\u2019s arguments that all thinking involves frameworks:<\/p>\n

\u201cAll choices depend on the frameworks we use, furthermore these frameworks are mostly unconscious and not infinitely varied; the commonality comes from the use of shared metaphors and groups of metaphors in humans which are based on our physicality.\u00a0 In this model of how we think there is no meaningful learning without its framework or context \u2026 .\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is then a clear review of the Foundation\u2019s assumptions about learning.\u00a0 Vare uses the ESD 1 \/ ESD 2 conceptual framing as a means of critique of the Foundation\u2019s ideas and activities, attempting to identify which aspects of its work are ESD 1 or ESD 2 [Note 2<\/em><\/strong>].\u00a0 It is a friendly critique, but a pointed one which focuses on what some perceive as the neglect in the Foundation\u2019s work on social justice.\u00a0 As Vare notes ...<\/p>\n

\u201cAttending to resource flows will be of little consequence to most of humanity if we don\u2019t simultaneously<\/em> address issues of access and equity.\u00a0 Solving problems in one sphere without heed to the implications elsewhere is unlikely to provide a lasting solution.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is all excellent, though perhaps I should not be the one saying it, given that I work closely with both Webster and Vare, and with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and because I\u2019d had a very minor hand in the co-construction of the text, as they are kind enough to acknowledge.<\/p>\n

Both these chapters stand out for me because the writers are unafraid to expose their ideas to critique, and it is a pity that more contributions to the book did not adopt a similarly reflexive stance, rather than being content with promoting them.\u00a0 I have not done justice to the richness of these two chapters in this review, and suspect that each may well need to be read more than once if what they have to offer is to be fully absorbed.\u00a0 This is not because they are hard to read, but because they are worth reading \u2013 and reading together.<\/p>\n

As I noted, earlier, Stephen Sterling\u2019s Afterword<\/em> draws some threads together.\u00a0 He does this with the help of an Irving Berlin lyric which affords him a teasing metaphor:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere may be trouble ahead, \u2026 <\/em>Before they ask us to pay the bill and while we still have the chance, <\/em>Let\u2019s face the music and dance<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sterling adopts a positive, though cautionary, tone (balancing what\u2019s possible, with what\u2019s unlikely) as his quote from AtKisson (2011: 21) [Note 3<\/em><\/strong>] illustrates:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 the good news is that this is a transformation already underway.\u00a0 The bad news comes in the form of a challenge: How fast can we make \u2026 beneficial changes happen<\/em>?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although brief, Sterling\u2019s is a broad-ranging text packed with issues and comment: a concentrated distillation of his work and ideas over time, and a pointing forwards, for example, in his discussion of the advantages of an anticipative learning \/ education <\/em>approach <\/em>which represents a \u201cwillingness, openness and intention to learn in response to perceived innovation, threat or opportunity.\u201d\u00a0 This ties in well with a neat metaphor about a car with three drivers heading towards an abyss with the drivers wanting to take heed of, ignore, and deconstruct (respectively) the warning signs.\u00a0 This is far too familiar for any comfort; in fact, we are all in that car, academics included. \u00a0Sterling ends the book like this:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 while many are like Irving Berlin\u2019s dancers \u2013 content to party yet dimly aware the bill is as yet unpaid \u2013 we need to demonstrate a much better party is possible, one that can take us through the long night and usher in a new dawn\u201d.<\/p>\n

Indeed we do, but my reading of Berlin is not quite Sterling\u2019s.\u00a0 The song ends:<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore the fiddlers have fled<\/em>
\nBefore they ask us to pay the bill and while we still have the chance<\/em>
\nLet's face the music and dance.<\/em>
\nSoon we'll be without the moon, humming a different tune and then<\/em>
\nThere may be teardrops to shed<\/em>
\nSo while there's moonlight and music and love and romance<\/em>
\nLet's face the music and dance<\/em>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think that Berlin\u2019s dancers are fully aware there\u2019s a bill to be paid, and that they will have to pay it; they are just making the most of what circumstances have to offer before it arrives. \u00a0We are not so aware, I think, and therein lies the pathos of it all.\u00a0 Although there may be glimpses of some slight lightening of the darkness in this book, there are not many.\u00a0 But, then, it\u2019s unlikely to be our generation who will have to pay the bill, or whose tears will be shed.\u00a0 A pity, for that might concentrate minds wonderfully.<\/p>\n

Notes<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> There is a third chapter [#17] that involves separate contributions of a number of authors, and which is written up, in part at least, as a dialogue.\u00a0 I have not dwelt on it in this review as, to me at least, it does not illustrate the sort of author to author challenge of the other two chapters.<\/p>\n

2.<\/strong> The irony of my approval of such insider language is not completely lost on me. \u00a0Thanks to SM for reminding me of this!<\/p>\n

3.<\/strong> AtKisson A (2011) The Sustainability Transformation: How to accelerate positive change in challenging times<\/em>. London, UK: Earthscan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been reading Learning for sustainability in times of accelerating change, a new book edited by Arjen Wals & Peter Corcoran, and published by\u00a0Wageningen Academic Publishers. \u00a0 Here's my review ... This is an ambitious book, and is weighty...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-new-publications"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}