http://happyfreechildren.wordpress.com Ways of bring up kids healthy and happy. Wed, 22 Oct 2008 10:23:45 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://s2.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.png http://happyfreechildren.wordpress.com http://happyfreechildren.wordpress.com/2008/10/18/sustainable-education/ http://happyfreechildren.wordpress.com/2008/10/18/sustainable-education/#comments Sat, 18 Oct 2008 11:24:57 +0000 happyfreechildren http://happyfreechildren.wordpress.com/?p=25 ]]> CONNECTING ‘KALEIDOSCOPES’ AND EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (2005 – 2015)
by Julie Pretyman, author of the new innovative, educational program, ‘Kaleidoscopes’
(Excerpts taken from Australian Government Education for Sustainable Development papers)
 
Teachers hold responsibility for educating students to work for future change that will help create a better world for all, reorienting existing education at all levels to address sustainable development. The solutions to environment and health issues are closely intertwined. Healthy people, healthy communities and healthy natural environments are inter-related. ‘Kaleidoscopes’ empowers students to assume responsibility for their part in creating a sustainable future.
Rethinking and re-visioning education from nursery school through university to include a clear focus on the development of the knowledge. skills, perspectives and values related to sustainability is important to current and future societies. This implies a review of existing curricula in terms of their objectives and content to develop trans-disciplinary understandings of social, economic and environmental sustainability. It also requires a review of recommended and mandated approaches to teaching, learning and assessment so that lifelong learning skills are fostered. These include skills for creative and critical thinking, oral and written communication, collaboration and cooperation, conflict management, decision making, problem solving, planning and citizenship.
The United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2015) encourages advocacy, communication and networking directed at facillitating all educators to include sustainable development concerns and goals in their programs. Thus what constitutes a quality education is evolving. Whilst in the past much of the emphasis on education related to cognitive understanding and development, now there is a need to also address the social and other dimensions of learning. Education is expected to make a contribution to addressing sustainable human development, peace and security and the quality of life at individual, family, societal and global levels. It is accepted now the human race is living beyond its means and that our present way of life is unsustainable. Education which focuses on outcomes in terms of changed values and behaviour is essential.
‘Kaleidoscopes’ serves as a tool for educating students, teachers and school communities with knowledge, values, skills and motivation to support a sustainable future, as environmental education for sustainability now acknowledges the integration of thinking and action around the interconnectedness of systems that require a more holistic outlook on problems. Ethical awareness, values, attitudes and behaviour consistent with sustainable development and consideration of future generations are all important. We are becoming increasingly aware of the links that exist between human development and the environment.
‘Kaleidoscopes’ supports the need for an ecologically oriented value system based upon fundamental changes in human attitudes and actions towards ourselves and the environment, including an empathy with other species, other people, respect for natural and social limits to growth, to minimise threats to nature and the quality of life. To adopt the new pattern for sustainable living requires significant change in the attitudes and practices of many people. ‘Kaleidoscopes’ helps to develop an ethic for living sustain-ably, to live in harmony with other people and the natural world on which they depend for survival and well-being.. Like the ‘Kaleidoscopes’ framework, education for sustainability is a process. It is about building relationships between individuals, groups and their environment. It is a process which enables people to understand the inter-dependence and equal importance of all life on this planet, the repercussions of their actions and decisions on all of life and an appreciation of the power of human beings to modify the environment.
Because sustainable development must ultimately enlist everyone, access to education must be hastened for all children. Education plays a critical role by giving people opportunities to reflect, rethink, learn and build their capacity in order to bring about meaningful change. The task at hand is enormous, but vital if we are to ensure the creation of truly sustainable societies.
For the survival of the world and its people, teachers must find ways to change hearts and minds, where empathy and compassion regarding all living things and a sense of harmony with the environnment will lead to the commitment and action required for the protection and enhancement of the environment.
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