It began with a 17 hour journey with the turning Earth across 7 time zones: Wiltshire to Beijing: door to door. \u00a0Once there, the days were ok \u2013 the nights not.<\/p>\n
It was rather fine weather, from a sunnyist point of view: blue skies, 19 Celcius, a cooling breeze \u2013 and the air was fine. \u00a0I say nothing of the climate, which is as mysterious as always.<\/p>\n
As befits an egalitarian society, pedestrians don't have priority on the zebra crossings in China, but have to negotiate their passage with other users; that is with cars, buses, bikes and trucks. \u00a0It strikes me that some users, that is those travelling in steel boxes, are more equal in this enterprise than others. \u00a0The trick is to make sure you have a cyclist or two between you and the traffic while it shimmies around you. \u00a0It's much more interesting than the UK.<\/p>\n
Sunday afternoon in the Temple of Heaven<\/em> found groups of singers in various corners failing to avoid competing with each other. \u00a0It was wonderful to see (and hear), and I thought I recognised some of the tunes; 'The East is Red<\/span><\/em>', that old Maoist favourite, was one, along with the more revisionist ...<\/p>\n 'Let's hear it for a post-Marxist, neo-Gramscian inspired discourse analysis arguing for the re-articulation of sustainability to a new counter-hegemonic \u2018re-imagining\u2019 of nature'. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Yes! \u00a0NB, this is catchier than it sounds.<\/p>\n Here's a couple of extracts from the background papers for the Forum. \u00a0Here's a contrasting flavour:<\/p>\n \"[In China], there are still some misunderstandings and academic prejudices towards ESD amongst researchers. \u00a0A number of principals and teachers are not motivated enough to engage in practising ESD, and their participation is not wide enough. \u00a0Due to the barriers from professions in vocational and higher education, it is still difficult to promote ESD comprehensively. \u00a0The guiding ideologies of non-formal education and informal education are too diverse to focus on ESD. \u00a0Special funds for ESD are inadequate.\"<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n ... which sounds familiar.<\/p>\n \"[Through] self-evaluation and expert evaluation of ESD implementation in schools ..., principles and teachers of many experimental schools ... have reached a consensus \u2013 ESD: A Road to Quality Education.\"<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n ... which doesn't \u2013 at least outside UNESCO \/ HEAQAA circles. \u00a0Much more on this in other posts.<\/p>\n I heard with apprehension that the organisers have added explanatory Chinese characters to my carefully-constructed PowerPoint slides. \u00a0But it was all fine.\u00a0 I\u2019ll let others judge the quality of the talk itself.<\/p>\n The highlight of the week was a visit to No. 55 Model (ESD) high school which included a school dinner. \u00a0Schools are always absorbing, but this was a great morning which I'll say more about separately.<\/p>\n The week ended, if we discount another 11 hour flight \/ 26 hour day, with a walk on the Great Wall \u2013 a long-standing cultural 'want\u2019. \u00a0We organised this from the UK, in the hope of avoiding visits to tourist knick-knack \/ kick-back emporia. \u00a0Successfully, as it turned out.<\/p>\n Back now in Blighty, I\u2019ll just note that this walk was wonderful, though it was really a series of flights of steps which sometimes turned into staircases.\u00a0 As I said, it was a cultural \u2018want\u2019 rather than any sort of \u2018need\u2019, and in sustainability terms, therefore, a complete indulgence.\u00a0 We wore the wall away (a bit) just for our personal gratification. \u00a0And that\u2019s the trouble with the useless Brundtland sustainable development \u00a0\u2018definition\u2019 \u2013 it has no bearing on the reality of human existence where a fulfilled life is not just about our wants.\u00a0 It saddens me the degree to which Brundtland keeps getting trotted out as any sort of adequate conceptual framing of the issue.\u00a0 We saw this at the Forum, but you don't have to go to China to see it \u2013 it's everywhere you go in the UK. \u00a0Inexplicable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It began with a 17 hour journey with the turning Earth across 7 time zones: Wiltshire to Beijing: door to door. \u00a0Once there, the days were ok \u2013 the nights not. 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