21 Thoughts on the 21st Century.

Hi!

This summary is based on a post I made yesterday to the DESD list where I studied participants recent contributions (including the conveners' summary) and a few associated documents then added my own thoughts. I look forward to any comments you may have. Regards, Tim :-)

1. DESD should address all forms of education (“formal, non-formal, informal”) although this needs deconstructing

2. need SD of ESD (for future generations to ‘carry the torch’)

3. self-organisation fosters local knowledge, e.g. ‘indigenous’ cultures (e.g. S. Pacific ‘spiritual’ aspect of knowledge)

4. SD should demonstrate changes in behaviour therefore ESD also should

5. ESD needs to encourage changes in attitudes, values, belief systems, etc.

6. may be useful to highlight differences between “competitive” societies and “ESD societies” [not my idea]

7. both quantitative and qualitative indicators should be used

8. ideas concerning ESD ‘process’ should not be over-prescriptive so as not to stifle self-organisation

9. internationally comparative indicators are difficult due to variability of contexts, etc.

10. however, ‘universal’ indicators may emerge from an overview of context-specific ones (hypothesis)

11. ESD varies as much as SD between contexts (e.g. due to differences in cultures, available technologies, political situations, availability of teachers, school, books, etc.)

12. self-evaluation may encourage self-organisation as its in-keeping [self-evaluation being another participant’s idea]

13. there’s no need to re-invent the wheel, e.g. if sufficient quality assurance systems exist there’s no need for extra ESD ones (instead look at embedding SD in the curricula?) [reiterated by another participant]

14. its difficult to isolate the ESD ‘variables’ in the measurement of changes of values, e.g. they could be a consequence of economic incentives (competitiveness) or politics (vote-winners)

15. ESD is complex

16. measuring education is not synonymous with measuring ESD [not my point]

17. differences in culture make any comparisons difficult (e.g. differing ideas of knowledge or pedagogical approach – instructivist or constructivist?)

18. Draft International Implementation Scheme (IIS) Section 3, Sub-section 9, Table 8 contains 9 expected outcomes of DESD & “potential indicators” and “data for use in verification” although they seem high-level/top-down [it seems a “shortened” version was finally approved, maybe we can revisit the draft version in a future post]

19. UNU Regional Centres of Expertise may make good case studies

20. There are lots of issues to consider (e.g. Education for All, Gender Equality, use of ICTs, etc.) and lots of complex, interconnected systems (e.g. Government, ecological, economic, etc.)

21. Its appropriate that we have at least a decade to tackle all this!

SD of ESD

Due to the convivial discussions I was having yesterday with friends I came to realise that some of the problems surrounding Sustainable Development will not be solved in my lifetime. It seems obvious really but sometimes the obvious things are the most difficult to realise! The solution, I propose (and which may have been proposed already, in fact I'd be very surprised if it has not) is to ensure that there is Sustainable Development of Education for Sustainable Development.

As I remember this is part of the rationale for UNU-IAS. Quite how this materialises I'm not sure yet but I suggest that any 'indicators' for ESD should include this perspective. The most obvious solution is that we perhaps ensure that we are not only educating 'citizens', be they pupils, employees or communities but we also educate the people with some degree of 'power', i.e. teachers, employers and community leaders and, further still, we educate governments, economic policy makers and societies (all of these examples are based on my GESSD-ECO model, above.) So, we have measurements of how effective the educational programmes for Sustainable Development are for the educators (and their superiors and the systems they are all a part of) as well as those being 'educated'.

Thus, the idea is that when the current generation who enjoy some degree of influence are no longer in such privileged positions and subsequent generations are steering the, hopefully sustainable, development of this planet then they too can maintain this current ESD perspective. As such it is something which is passed from one generation to the next and not simply reified as a flash in the pan because, ultimately, that approach will not work. We have created some unique situations on our planetary habitat which require a very long term perspective if we are to work towards minimising potential long term damage.

[sorry this doesn't indicate what's happening on the list, that will come, this represents my own thoughts...]