Ibis Seminar, Copenhagen 2009

Heila Lotz-Sisitka, Rhodes University, South Africa

Can we create a sustainable society through education? - individual and society -

Makana Municipality

• Education and the industrial revolution and the modernisation process (17th-21st century): Education for economic development

• Education and the expansion of democracy and human rights (19th- 21st century): Education for All

• Education in an era where lifestyles are outstripping the earth’s carrying capacity and its ability to provide for equitable needs/wants and to store waste (late 20th / 21st century): Education for Sustainable Development

A broad history of [changing] education purposes

>Equity >Prosperity Sharing >Ecological Integrity

What are we aiming at when we talk about a sustainable society?

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Sustainable development creates different challenges in different places

This is where we all teachand learn

…do we have a sustainable society/ies in this place?

Source: Elmqvist, 2008

Human progress andinequality20/80 dilemma

Ecosystems60 % loss dilemma

Climate550/450/350 dilemma

Surprise99/1 dilemma

”The Quadruple Squeeze” What does it mean for education?

education of individuals?

A politics of rights

or education of communities?

a politics of the common good?

Individual vs society

communitarian tyrannydeterminism

rational manvoluntarism

Its all about individual choice and rights It’s the individual’s right to have what they wantIt’s the individuals faultSwitch off the lights! You are causing climate change!

Its all about the group All choices are subordinate to the group authority / cultureIt’s society’s fault, individuals can do nothing to change the status quoIt’s the fault of the system!

Individuals-in-society

Individuals are shaped by society and culture, but they can act to

change things …

Education can strengthen individuals abilities to choose and act for the common good

One understands ones life by looking at one’s actions within a story, a narrative (MacIntyre)

But narratives converge, and new stories, cultures and practices are created

Individuals-in-communities Individuals-in-society

two stories of individuals-in-society

The water monitoring learners

The waste monitoring learners

Story 1: The water learners

• Participatory • Socially critical • Deconstruction (they could

research and identify and describe the problem)

• But they got stuck … participation only went as far as describing and reporting the problem. After that they waited and waited and waited – they are still waiting

Story 2: The waste learners • Participatory• Socially critical• Deconstruction (they could

research and identify the problem)

• Re-construction and re—imagination (they worked together and creatively with others on co-defined solutions) . They are not waiting around so much!

Participation in seeking out creative alternatives …

Can practice centred education contribute to re-imagining a sustainable society?

Dialogic …… an orchestrated interplay ……. a matter of co-production

From Footprints to Hand prints

food gardeningsequestering carbon

eating healthy re-using waste

biochar soil qualitysaving water

Rob O’DonoghueRhodes UniversityEnvironmental Education and Sustainability Unit

• The turn to practices seems to be tied to an interest in the ‘everyday’ and ‘life-world’ with those identified with practice theory being influenced by the interpretative or cultural turn in social theory

• It focuses on everyday practices as being the source of intelligibility – Practice comes first, and knowledge of the world makes sense in relation to practices (new or old) i.e. give meaning

• The field of practice is the place to investigate such phenomena such as agency, knowledge, language, ethics, power and science

Practice involves ‘engaged agency’ …

… understanding the human agent as engaged, as embedded in a culture, a form of life, a ‘world’ of involvements which ultimately is to understand the agent as embodied, as inextricably implicated in the lifeworld (Taylor, 1995, pp. 61-62)

Is this how we think of learners in our classrooms?

an integrative concept for education

Practice brings together bodily and mental activity – it is purposive and rational, but also embodied and situated

Linkages: 1) understandings of what is going on and what to say

and do 2) explicit rules, principles, precepts, and instructions -

historical, cultural and material3) purposes, beliefs, emotions, values, visions, ends,

emotions and moods

Can we develop practice-centred learning to re-imagine and reconstruct our societies?

– there are so many stories to be part of -

Disrupting unsustainable practices and creating new more sustainable practices is our story – yours and mine … because we share a planet

What do we share?What is different?

Thank you

Individuals-in-society, learning together how make choices, and how to build

new, more equitable, sustainable practices can make a difference

- we have seen that already -

Education can contribute to a sustainable future - it is an important part of a bigger

story of ongoing social change