{"id":67,"date":"2009-07-13T19:42:12","date_gmt":"2009-07-13T18:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=67"},"modified":"2009-07-13T19:42:12","modified_gmt":"2009-07-13T18:42:12","slug":"a-sustainable-schools-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2009\/07\/13\/a-sustainable-schools-question\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sustainable Schools Question"},"content":{"rendered":"

The government\u2019s target is that all English schools will be sustainable by 2020.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Although it's not clear what this will actually have to mean in practice, it does suggest (implicitly at any rate) that\u00a0<\/span><\/span>focusing on the sustainability of a school, as an institution (as opposed to just addressing\u00a0sustainability\u00a0through what is taught and learned through the curriculum), is necessary if learning by students is to be effective.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>As we all know, a key focus of the\u00a0sustainable schools initiative\u00a0is that of the school\u2019s becoming a model for activity in the community:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Schools \u2026 are invited to become models of sustainable development for their communities \u2026 turning issues like climate change, global justice and local quality of life into engaging learning opportunities for pupils \u2013 and a focus for action among the whole school community.\" \u00a0<\/span>DfES (2006)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But doesn't all this seem a bit overblown? \u00a0Certainly, many communities up and down the country don't seem to be waiting for their local schools to issue moral direction and practical advice \u2013 which is just as well. \u00a0And anyway, don't we all learn from each other in an iterative fashion as we go along? \u00a0Richard Norgaard terms this\u00a0co-evolution<\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So, at the risk of seeming a backward-looking, rebarbative, sort of fellow, who's unlikely to win any green awards any time soon (this last bit is true at any rate), let me ask this question: Why isn't it enough for a school to address sustainability in its work with\u00a0young people through\u00a0imaginative and\u00a0engaging\u00a0teaching, and stimulating opportunities for learning? \u00a0 Just\u00a0why<\/em>\u00a0does a school need to live sustainability out in practice \u2013 to\u00a0<\/span>be<\/span><\/em>\u00a0sustainable, in the widest sense, as an institution in order for young people to learn?<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>The rhetoric of the sustainable schools initiative affirms this latter view, of course, as do my fellow bloggers here \u2013 and Ken Webster and Craig Johnson (2009) add substance, and challenge, to all this with their description of a fully sustainable school as 'eco-restorative' with positive contributions being made both socially and environmentally.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0 But no-one provides an argument \u2013 a justification.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It is clear that there's a choice to be made here by school communities: so just how integrated do\u00a0you<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0feel that you\u00a0<\/span>need<\/span><\/em>\u00a0to be? \u00a0Given that the contribution of the school sector to the nation's carbon \/ ecological footprint is risibly small, why allow an obsession with\u00a0<\/span>being<\/span><\/em>\u00a0sustainable (with most schools failing utterly until the nation's electricity supply is itself derived from fully sustainable sources \u2013 maybe by 2035?) divert energy and resource away from stimulating young people's learning? \u00a0After all, just what are schools for?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

...................<\/p>\n

NB, This is my first blog to the 2009 national sustainable schools conference. \u00a0What started out as a bit of grit has turned into a question that seems to deserve a response. \u00a0On postcards please ...<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The government\u2019s target is that all English schools will be sustainable by 2020.\u00a0\u00a0Although it's not clear what this will actually have to mean in practice, it does suggest (implicitly at any rate) that\u00a0focusing on the sustainability of a school, as...<\/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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","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=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}