How can education help to shape a

Steady State culture?: A Discussion Paper

Summary and introduction from Steady State Manchester (SSM)

We are delighted that SSM has inspired Susan Brown to write ‘How can education help to

shape a Steady State culture?: A Discussion Paper’. It is a weighty article and connects her

thinking skilfully to our work and in turn has inspired us.

We highly recommend that supporters read it. Here, we draw your attention to its richness and

contribute to the discussion that she advocates.

A learning renaissance is required to achieve a Steady State culture. A transition

from the current role of education ‘to ensure a workforce able to compete in a global market’ to

one where people ‘play full roles in developing sustainable local economies’

Susan argues that we will require a learning renaissance to achieve a Steady State culture.

This will involve shifting understandings, values, aspirations as well as reskilling local

populations. The latter will encompass all skill sets and everyone; not just an educated elite.

She understands the transition to be from the current role of education which she describes ‘to

ensure a workforce able to compete in a global market’ to one where people ‘play full roles in

developing sustainable local economies’

There is a vivid and detailed vision of a Steady State education culture; the type of learning

community which we will need. This is more diverse, broader and with interdependent formal

and informal education. It is accessible, inclusive, and responds to the initiatives and issues of

local communities; it also highlights systems thinking. She describes a range of educational

initiatives from near and far which she suggests are ‘part of a growing range which are

changing the learning landscape in ways that can shape a Steady State Culture. These

eloquently bring life to the theoretical discussion.

An accessible, broad, diverse, inclusive vision of a Steady State education culture

which responds to the initiatives and issues of local communities. Brought to life by

descriptions of existing educational initiatives from near and far which are ‘changing

the learning landscape in ways that can shape a Steady State Culture.

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She considers the importance of stewardship of knowledge. While the internet makes many of

us information rich we are losing information, for instance, about food production as a result of

agro-industry. The breadth of her use of the term of education is illustrated in this example

‘burgeoning numbers of local food projects are leading the way, re-discovering local foods and

agricultural processes and the language used to describe them. Local farming markets tend to

be significant sources of localised information, perhaps reflecting the fact that short-food

supply chains are long on information. ‘

In terms of skills she argues the need to nurture and value a wider range of skills and ditch

unhelpful dichotomies between manual skills and academic skills. A larger number of people in

much smaller populations will need to possess relevant skills. Formal institutions will need to

widen access to the knowledge and expertise they hold. We will all be learners and teachers

and formal education establishments will need teachers with a broader range of expertise.

Moves from a very individualistic form of education to a collective endeavour

Her stress on our need to move from a very individualistic form of education to one which is a

collective endeavour is refreshing. She points out that ‘the vocabulary used in most formal

educational contexts relates to ‘competition, status, authority, recognition, power, intellect etc.

which are not conducive to shaping a steady state.’ . She advocates more use of the words

‘mutuality, shared ownership, collaboration, humility, creativity, experimentation, learning from

failure, discovery, motivation and imagination.’

Discussion points from SSM

SSM found the paper very stimulating and would like to further explore the following questions:

Is education ‘any communications and/or activity intended to have a formative effect on the

way we think, feel and act.’? What would examining other areas that have demanded massive

cultural change add? For example, the abolition of slavery, the peace agreement in Northern

Ireland, ending apartheid in S. Africa and/or reducing prevalence of smoking or encouraging

wearing of seat belts?

Public health has been wrestling with the issue of cultural change for decades. Hard, costly,

time consuming lessons have been learned that we should all learn from; we need to start

from people’s lives, not the issue. Does a Freirean approach have a part to play?

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Firstly, we wonder about her definition of the role of Education - ‘any communications and/or

activity intended to have a formative effect on the way we think, feel and act.’

It may be helpful here to think through some examples of major societal change. What part

did education play in the abolition of slavery, bringing peace to Northern Ireland, ending

apartheid in S. Africa or changing cultural norms about smoking or wearing seat belts? Clearly,

education played a part, however in each situation the changes depended on a number of

different variables including economic or fiscal, political and legal measures. Will shaping the

viable economy be different? This paper gives education a central role, would it be more

useful to think about how education can work alongside other areas as an equal partner? This

may involve additional changes in the role of the educator to those described.

What does health promotion offer in terms of understanding cultural change? The discipline

changed its name 30-40 years ago after recognising the qualities and limits of an educational

approach. Unlike education, health promotion focuses on structural change which makes

healthy choices easier choices. Do viable economy proponents have things to learn from this

approach? Ecological public health practitioners1 stress the need to design a world where

ecological choices are easier choices through a myriad of whole system measures because

individuals and groups are located within a wider web of influences which dramatically affects

the amount of control they have to make changes. Education, with decision makers and

others, can encourage measures in other areas to be addressed, so that the educational

messages can be taken on board. Education therefore has a symbiotic relationship with a

wealth of other services, policies, qualities all of which contribute to cultural and other norm

and system change.

Johnson2 points out that public health has been wrestling with the issue of cultural change for

decades and that hard, costly, time consuming lessons have been learned that we can all

learn from. His plea is that we start from people’s lives, not the issue. We would like to

integrate these lessons into understanding how education can help to shape a Steady State

culture.

But there is another tradition in education that rejects the idea of education as filling people up

with knowledge. The paper draws attention to educational theorists such as Orr and

Gruenewald who we imagine are influenced by the Brazilian educator and theorist Paulo

Freire, but it does not stress some aspects of Freirean thinking that we highlight. A

1 Rayner & Lang, 2012, Ecological Public Health: Reshaping the conditions for good health2 http://greenallianceblog.org.uk/2013/04/02/communicating-sustainability-lessons-from-public-

health/3

‘Freirean’ educational approach does not treat people as empty vessels, a point which is

suggested by the paper but perhaps needs greater attention. Freirean method integrates

learning, developing understanding and action. It involves students and teachers together in

decoding or making sense of their world and thereby acting on it, changing it and being

changed by it. We believe that it is an educational method which has an important contribution

to make, not only in transforming culture, also other dimensions of life including environmental,

social and economic, that need to change if a viable economy is to take hold. It involves

everyone potentially becoming a critical thinker, where the division between theory and

practice (or knowledge and skill) dissolves.

Please share your thoughts. We are planning some community conversations about viable

economy issues in 2016. We would like your suggestions for an issue to discuss stimulated

by Susan’s paper and/or this summary.

We are grateful to other people have also put a lot of work into thinking about these issues

with a view to writing something about education and Steady State Manchester including

Laurence Menhinick and Laura Williams. We regret that their work did not come to fruition; the

process has taught us a lot about working inclusively and engaging a range of perspectives.

Susan is a Lecturer in Education at the University of Manchester and lead on their

sustainability in the curriculum group.

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Notes from the Author

In 2012 I was asked, to feedback on a draft report by Steady State Manchester on the role of

education in shaping a Steady State Culture. As someone who is invested in thinking about

what constitutes good education in different contexts I was intrigued by the questions of what

the educational landscape needs to look like to play a role in shaping a Steady State culture

and what that role might be. With the support of Steady State and building on thinking in the

initial report, I have written the current discussion paper to explore these questions. The

responses I suggest here are a synthesis of the many stimulating conversations I have had

with people about how to live in more sustainable ways, not least with Steady State

Manchester. I draw on examples of projects which, for me, resonate with these responses.

The more I have thought about potential responses the more I am convinced that a single

paper can barely begin to address these questions. The ideas are, therefore, points of

departure to be modified, expanded on and critiqued. I hope they will generate more questions

and richer responses than are offered here. What I am convinced of is the need to have these

conversations.

Introduction

Steady State Manchester (SSM) is concerned with how we transition to a steady state

‘culture’. By a ‘steady state culture’, SSM mean ways of shared living ‘where people thrive

without harming the planet’ (SSM, 2012)i. A steady state culture emerges through and

develops local economies founded on a ‘viable’ economic model (SSM, 2015), that is to say a

model which recognises a dependence on the environment, on the social structures the

environment supports and on the well being of the individuals that make up those social

structures.

A transition to a Steady State culture requires a shift in underpinning understandings, values,

and aspirations, a re-skilling of local populations, one which encompasses all individuals,

rather than an elite few, and which spreads across skills sets, from the technical to the

vernacular.

‘Education’ has a crucial role to play in helping us make the transition. I use the term loosely

here to refer to any communications and/or activity intended to have a formative effect on the

way we think, feel and act. In the UK the term tends to be associated with institutional learning

at primary, secondary and tertiary level. This document is more broadly encompassing,

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reflecting my view that a wealth of informal and diverse educational opportunities is

fundamental to a transition to a steady state culture.

What then, should that diversified educational landscape look like and what educational

communications/activities can help shift understandings and values and develop the skills

needed to make the transition to a steady state culture and the economy? In this document I

venture an initial response to these questions. In doing so I draw on what I see as relevant

thinking and practical examples of projects aimed at bringing about

environmental/economic/social change. I also refer to various educational ideas, concepts and

practices, summarising some core notions in educational literature around ‘sustainability’. I

hope that the responses given here will help develop the conversations on education which

Steady State Manchester has already started and continues to invest energy thinking through.

With these aims in mind, I begin by exploring the role of education as a force for change. I

then reflect on what an educational landscape for a steady state culture might look like. I

include, in these reflections, a section on the potential nature of skills for a steady state

culture. I move on to argue the case for greater diversity in education as a means of

developing the skills needed to transition to a Steady State culture. Following on from this I

discuss the need for greater inclusivity in education which I see as fundamental to this

transition. I go on to argue the need to foster communication skills and to ‘steward’ information

in the information landscape.

In subsequent sections I move away from using the pronoun ‘I’, returning to that more

personalized voice in my conclusion.

Education and Change

Education can be a primary force for change, enhancing the life chances of individuals and the

workings of societies. Access to education is ‘seen as particularly central to dignity, equality

and opportunity’ with ‘inestimable tolls’ on the ‘social, economic, intellectual and psychological

wellbeing of the individual’ deprived of it (Nussbaum, 2011, p.155). Most would argue that a

lack of access to education exerts a significant toll on society and leads ultimately to global

insecurity. It is, thus, prioritised to varying degrees by a majority of societies.

Understandings of what makes a good education are shaped by societal norms, values and

aspirations. Education tends to support change which accords with the values existing within

society rather than striving to change those values. It has been, and generally still is, a tool for

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shoring up a sense of national identity in many contexts around the World. In that process it

can establish a single, standardized linguistic community and determines what subject areas

and topics are worthy of study. While education can reflect and reinforce existing societal

values it is also, as Jacombs (2004) puts it: ‘the most sophisticated instrument yet fashioned

by society for its own conscious social evolution’ and for the evolution of its citizens. The

extent to which education reinforces existing values or changes values, or does both, is

dependent on prevailing influences in any given period.

Writers have always questioned whether the education offered in a given time and context is fit

for purpose. They question the extent to which people have access to education. They

question the value of what is taught and the way it is taught. They question whether and how

educational agendas are linked to political ones. They question whether ‘schooled’ societies,

i.e. societies which value formalised, indexed and metricised education are simply ingraining

hierarchies, inequalities and the inability to think reflectively and critically (Illych, 1971).

Particularly, though not exclusively over recent decades, a growing number of writers are

questioning the extent to which education shores up economic models based on ‘growth’, as it

relates to the neo-liberal ‘free market’ and measurements of Gross Domestic Product. They

see these models as deeply detrimental to the health of the natural environment and,

connectedly, social wellbeing. They take the view, one articulated by Ivan Illich in 1971, that

most education ‘celebrate [s] the myth of an earthly paradise of never-ending consumption’

initiating ‘the neophyte [in]to the sacred race of progressive consumption’. They argue that

many of the skills that are taught in education in many parts of the World are skills linked to

this paradigm of never-ending consumption and do not prepare people to deal with the

significant socio-environmental challenges now confronting us (Orr, 1991; 1992;Sterling,2004

& 2011). In the face of these perceived failings in educational systems writers interested in

‘sustainability education’ pose questions about what the educational landscape needs to look

like in order to address these challenges and what understandings and skills need to be

nurtured in educational contexts for that purpose.

Responses to these questions are various and include the need for the following:

i) An emphasis on ‘place-based education’:

David Gruenewald and Gregory Smith argue that the ‘process of formal education in schools

and universities is often totally isolated from the immediate context of community life’ (2008,

p.17) and that education needs to move its focus back to the particularities of ‘place’. In place

based education the sites of learning are local communities. ’Learners’ set out to gain rich

understandings of the communities and their environments (natural and built) and ways of

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addressing challenges within those communities. The emphasis is on situated learning, i.e. -

`learning in ‘authentic’ contexts such as gardens and workshops -community building and

participative planning (Menzel & Buchecker, 2013). Place-based learning shares

commonalities with other educational approaches emphasising the importance of direct

experience and reflection on that experience. These educational approaches include problem

based learning (learning relating to a particular problem addressed) and action- focussed

learning (Shallcross & Robinson, 2008). Shallcross and Robinson discusses action focussed

learning in relation to schools and the need to engage children in ‘authentic’ projects where the

whole school commits to making changes that benefit the environment.

ii) A focus on ‘interdisciplinarity’:

Interdisciplinarity, writers argue, should be privileged over a ‘discipline-centric curriculum that

corresponds modestly with reality’ (Orr, 1991). The largely ‘arbitrary constructs’ of Higher

Educational departments where disciplines are studied in isolation one from the other inhibit

the interdisciplinary discussion promoting rich thinking around how to address complex socio-

environmental challenges. (Crow, 2010, p. 489).

iii) An ‘open’ mind-set:

Pivotal to interdisciplinary thinking is an understanding of the importance issues from different

perspectives and an open, inquiring, empathic mind-set (Jones, Selby & Sterling,2010). Such

a mind-set entails an awareness of our own biases, assumptions and values and how they can

inhibit open inquiry.

The above responses are encompassed in David Orr’s perception of ‘sustainability’. His view

of the model we need for sustainability offers a powerful route into thinking about what the

educational landscape for a steady state culture might look like. The below quote from a

conference address given by Orr in Bangalore is illustrative:

“It seems to me we need a different model of sustainability. No one knows exactly what that

will require of us. My sense is that it will look very different in Bangalore than it does in

Oakland Ohio and very different in London than it does, say, in Tokyo. There isn’t one size that

fits all. We know some things; it’s got to be powered by efficiency and sunlight but beyond that

it will vary a great deal. What we are doing in Oakland fits our situation, what you’ll do here

[Bangalore] will fit yours. There’ll be some commonalties. With the commonalities I think we’ll

learn to discover a model of prosperity that does not include the growth of stuff” (Orr, 2012).

Orr is interested in contextualized, localised, networked, experiential learning oriented around

living sustainably and in the sharing of those experiences across contexts. The role of

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education in Orr’s view is two-fold. First it needs to facilitate explorations of ‘how to live well in

a specific place’. Secondly, education should play a role in distilling commonalities out of the

learning experiences in diverse places. These commonalities will enrich our universal

understandings of how to live prosperously without growth. Orr’s conception of the roles of

education fit well with Steady State’s aims of developing a local steady state culture in

Manchester while at the same time learning from people engaging in similar projects from

other parts of the World, particularly the global south. (Steady State, 2012).

The focus, in the rest of this document will be primarily on the first role, given the already

broad scope of the discussion. The second role of distilling commonalities out of experiences

in diverse places across the globe warrants significant exploration for future studies.

What might the educational landscape for a steady state culture look like?

1. Skills

Martha Nussbaum (2011,p.155) argues that ‘most modern nations, anxious about national

profit and eager to seize or keep a share in the global market, have focused increasingly on a

narrow set of marketable skills that are seen as having the potential to generate short-term

profits’. These are skills that look convincing on CVs honed for an employment market

dominated by large corporations. They are less convincing when viewed through a steady

state lens. The range and nature of many skills is likely to shift substantially as a Steady State

culture emerges. Skills related to good governance, planning, logistics, localised banking,

health care etc will support and change in response to the emergence of localised economies.

The skill sets that figure on many CVs: team work skills; time management skills; problem

solving skills etc should remain important in a Steady State culture. However, loosed from an

endemic CV culture -with CVs unlikely to remain a central measure of a person’s

competencies- these terms and the notions behind them will probably morph into terms more

meaningful to emergent localised economies.

The following discussion explores a range of understandings and skills likely to shape a steady

state culture.

1.1 Systems thinking

Systems thinking should underpin all the skill sets needed to move to a steady state culture.

The term ‘systems thinking’ is used variously. It can denote understandings of the intrinsic

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interrelationships between humans and their ‘ecological contexts ’ (Capra, 1996). Many

approaches to gaining knowledge of the world have relied on analysing the parts of a system,

rather than understanding the patterns and processes that link those elements to other

systems, themselves ‘nested’ within the whole system i.e. planet earth. The well-being of

humans is inextricably linked to living systems, the interrelated ecosystems that have evolved

to sustain what Capra terms ‘the web of life’. Human systems are dependent on and therefore

need to carefully integrate themselves into that web. To pull this from abstraction to visceral

example, the health of our gut is integral to our overall health. Our gut though is not entirely

our own. It forms part of a ‘microbiome’, bacteria which live both within and outside of our

bodies and with which humans have co-evolved. Our metabolisms are, in other words, an

‘amalgamation of microbial and human attributes’.(Gill et al, 2006). The health of our gut, it

would follow, is contingent on the health of ecological systems. If the nutrients in soils leech

away, if the atmosphere is polluted, if we eradicate our wild green spaces we are in effect

reducing our capacities for good health. Such systemic understandings, the understandings of

the interrelated systems of which we are a part, can inform the ways in which we constitute our

societal systems.

In constituting those systems we will need to better understand i) what can be strategically loc-

alised (Steady State report, 2014); ii) how the workings of localised economies interface with

broader societal structures; iii) how localised economies can ensure their own sustainability

and do not end up negatively impacting on localised ecological contexts. The tendency cur-

rently is to see a ‘whole’ societal system in terms of a nation state. This is perhaps unsurpris-

ing given that nation states are the ultimate arbiters of a nation’s legal and governance sys-

tems. However, this view can prevent innovative thinking about organisational structures that

could better ensure the health of the natural & social environment at more localised levels and

at supranational levels. Could constellations of networked cities and regions work in favour of

the broader socio-environmental challenges we need to address (MacKenzie,2014)? Would it

be better to organise in terms of economic ‘bio-regions’, i.e. regions defined by their potential

capacities to yield resources in sustainable ways and that are knitted together in a resilient so-

cial and economic fabric? Systems thinking forms a basis for exploring these possibilities.

Understanding complex systems is in many senses beyond the compass of individuals and is

a collective undertaking. Systems thinking can be distilled into sets of competencies which a

community, however that community is defined, needs to possess. David Orr argues that such

skills should and can be developed in all College/University graduates and that this ‘ecological

literacy’ should involve at least a basic level comprehension of the concepts below listed.

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the laws of thermodynamics

the basic principles of ecology

carrying capacity

energetics

least-cost, end-use analysis

how to live well in a place

limits of technology

appropriate scale

sustainable agriculture and forestry

steady-state economics

environmental ethics

Evidently in most formal education contexts, this range of knowledge sets is not taught and

certainly not in combination. Such combinatory thinking however is important to working out

the boundaries within which we need to live and out of which a steady state culture can

emerge. For example, the boundaries to economic growth and steady state economics can be

understood in terms of thermodynamics. Core to thermodynamics is ‘entropy’. Energy moves

from ‘low entropy’ states where it has the capacity to do useful work into transformed ‘high en-

tropy’ states where its capacity to do useful work is diminished (Zencey, 2013). Oil and coal, by

way of example, contain a lot of energy available to humans, energy in a low entropy state.

Once it is used and dispersed as carbon dioxide and other gases it is no longer of any use and

is therefore energy in a high entropy state. An economy predicated on ever continuing eco-

nomic growth ‘increases the rate at which it ‘sucks up and processes low entropy’. It supposes

an endless supply of energy which, at least in fossil fuel terms, the planet does not possess.

As that economy continues to expand through the accumulation of debt (understood here as a

bet on the future productivity of economies linked to the continued use of fossil fuels), it inevit-

ably comes up against marginal returns and scarcity. A ‘viable economy’ (Steady State, 2014)

can be achieved only by acknowledging and working within the confines of such thermody-

namic realities. As the energy we retrieve in fossil fuel terms is rapidly diminishing we will need

to work out how we can reorient our economies so that they conform to these physical realit-

ies.

Such challenges involve imagination, innovation and a real ability to think systemically, and

across disciplinary boundaries.

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1.2 Vocational skills and crafts

The industrial-scale production of consumer goods which are cheaper to replace than to mend

saps learning opportunities out of society. There is less motivation to explore how things are

made in order to repair them and to create localised alternatives. A steady state economy will

be inherently ‘circular’3 that is to say it will privilege the leasing of goods over the making of

goods, increase the reuse of materials and, where possible, source goods locally. It will have

to privilege learning opportunities developing such localised skills. While it is not possible to

foresee all the competencies that would be needed in a Steady State culture it is clear that a

more localised economy will require a resurgence of vocational, craft and manual skills. These

will connect to repairing, maintenance, salvaging (Quigley, 2010) and the harvesting of

materials, particularly digital materials. They will relate to agroecology, the marriage of

agriculture and ecology (see Francis et al, 2003), horticulture, joinery, couture, electronics etc.

Quilley (2010), drawing on the work of O’Brien, provides a comprehensive list of the craft skills

which he sees as important to revisit in moves to low carbon localised economies. The list

includes woodland crafts, textile crafts and field crafts (see footnote to access the list4). While

there are people with such skills within communities, a lot more people will need to have them

to support the needs of local economies.

1.3 Legal literacy

Many skills seen as complex and the preserve of legal professionals will need to be more

broadly acquired. For example, in a Steady State culture where assets and land will be used,

owned and shared to a greater extent by communities more people will need a better

understanding of the law, particularly of local legislation and the ways in which it promotes or

impedes access to the commons. They will need to have the skills to help shape bylaws in

ways which privilege community over corporations. Such skills are generally not taught, to the

consternation of groups like Law for Life5 who are working to extend ‘public legal education’ so

that people have the ‘knowledge, confidence and skills needed to deal with law-related issues’.

1.4 Engagement with technology

3 For more on the circular economy see the Ellen Macarthur Foundation: http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy/circular-economy 4 http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/5729/Quilley-Transition-Skills.pdf 5 http://www.lawforlife.org.uk/

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The Steady State report, ‘In Place of Growth’, is careful to point out that a Steady State eco-

nomy will continue to rely on modern/emergent clean and ‘green’ technologies and ‘benefit

from discoveries in science’.

The potential of technologies in facilitating an emergent steady state culture are considerable.

There is significant potential for the ‘techno-wise’ and situated use of technologies. Localising

technologies will require greater access to and fostering of localised expertise with a greater

number of people in possession of the know-how and skills necessary to harness technologies

for the good of local communities. It will require, ‘methods and equipment which are

- cheap enough so that they are accessible to virtually everyone;

- suitable for small-scale application; and

- compatible with man’s need for creativity’. (Schumacher, 1974).

While skills and methods can be localized, many of the resources needed for modern techno-

logies will continue to come from different parts of the World. A deeper awareness of the pre-

ciousness of these resources will be vital in Steady State thinking. Such awareness needs to

result in understandings of the durability or recyclability of materials, ways of retrofitting exist-

ing infrastructure to accommodate new technologies, and an interlocal global communication

relationship between sites of use and sites of resource acquisition.

Most of our energy provision is not localised, deriving from national and mostly multinational

‘big oil and gas’ companies. The continuing evolution in alternative technologies will increas-

ingly create opportunities for localised energy schemes. Recent discoveries and innovations

are leading to swift evolutions in such technologies. Graphene6 discovered at the University of

Manchester promises to transform aspects of alternative technology, radically improving the

efficiency of solar panels (Wan Ho, 2013). As these technologies evolve, there is significant

potential for energy projects to become decentralized and localised, linked to smart grids and

produced in co-operatives. In order to reach that potential, a significant number of informal and

formal learning opportunities for developing relevant understandings and skills will be needed.

There should be opportunities to do so on every local high street, college, university, school

etc. The fact that there are nowhere near the number of learning opportunities there need to

be to grow such localised industries should be a matter of concern. Considerable vested in-

terest, ingrained force of habit and a lack of imagination and vision are impeding this process.

An underestimation of the potential of alternative technologies and the speed at which some of

them are evolving has played a role in the continued overinvestment in the vestigial fossil fuel

6 http://www.graphene.manchester.ac.uk/ 13

economy in the UK. The development of ‘advanced civilizations’ has been contingent on the

existence of fossil fuels and our capacities to extract them (Le Page, 2014). The transition to

‘green technologies’ will rely, in the short term, on the continuing use of fossil fuels (Zencey,

2013). Managing that transition will require widespread commitment to understanding how

best to conserve energy and to divert fossil fuel related energy usage to the development of al-

ternative technologies. Energy conservation is often seen in terms of more efficient technolo-

gical innovations and technological fixes; retrofitting etc. Energy conservation can also be

seen in terms of ‘action through omission’, simply engaging in fewer energy consuming activit-

ies or not buying/making machinery or better integrating current systems (Weber, 1997). The

Carbon Literacy Project7, aiming at substantially reducing carbon emissions in Greater

Manchester and more broadly, focuses both on technological efficiencies and energy reduction

through active omission. It ‘builds on and enhances existing good practice’ (online, undated)

relating to carbon literacy working with ‘work places, educational institutions and communities’.

It encourages people to ‘develop their own responses to lowering their carbon footprint’, re-

sponses which are likely, at least in the short term, to relate to action through omission and

minor technical fixes. The Carbon Literacy Project emphasises the importance of people

working together to effect change in communities. Whilst individuals can reduce energy con-

sumption through technological fixes, broader scale, higher tech projects are better under-

taken at community level. Supporting education within communities is key to more ambitious

projects.

Digital technologies are likely to perform a significant role in shaping a steady state culture.

They can be used to collect and collate data that can inform ways of developing local, sustain-

able economies. They can give indications of consumer patterns in locales. They can help

generate and co-ordinate local food supplies and other logistical resources. They can help us

better understand how to integrate public transport services. They offer a broad range of op-

portunities for communicating at a local level and for tapping into expertise across the world

that will facilitate that process.

The skills needed to benefit from digital technologies are broad ranging. Such skills range from

a capacity to effectively harness social media to coding skills. Coding skills are now an integral

part of the school curriculum in the UK. They are seen as crucial to thriving in a world ‘domin-

ated by digital platforms’ developing abstract and creative thinking and a ‘more questioning

mindset’ (Firth, 2014). Whilst not reflected in discussion of the importance of coding in the UK

curriculum, coding can be exploited for the social good, particularly benefiting locales. Imagine

a mobile application that gives people the knowledge they need to reduce their carbon foot-

7 http://www.carbonliteracy.com/ 14

prints in a given locale for example. The notion of coding for the community is gaining traction.

The UK ‘Good for Nothing’8 project and the coding for the community civic hackathon9 in Bal-

timore, (US) are two such projects. In these, communities get together with coders and design-

ers to help ‘neighbourhoods survive and thrive’. These meetings happen over weekends, both

promising fun, and in the case of Good for Nothing ‘fast’ ways of addressing local issues. They

are useful starting points for finding ways of empowering communities and for shaping a

steady state culture. Ultimately coding skills will need to be firmly embedded within communit-

ies. They will need to be possessed by people who have long term stakes and relationships

with and within these communities - as they work to tackle complex community issues.

The technologies that will prove imperative to the shaping of a steady state culture will

generally be (re)constructed out of materials brought from across the globe. This raises a

range of ethical issues that people will need to think through. While mobile applications may

well be useful in tackling local issues, many of the components of this hardware are sourced

from other parts of the globe with detrimental socio-environmental implications. Richard Hall

(2013) points out, by way of example, that Raspberry Pi, a device used preponderantly in the

UK context to teach children coding, uses a chip containing ‘conflict minerals’. Conflict

minerals are mined in war-torn countries, countries afflicted, at least in part, because of the

market value of those minerals. Hall argues that educators, ignorant of the human and

environmental costs behind such devices are ‘implicated and enmeshed’ in a global imperial

market.

1.5 Teaching and learning

Perhaps the greatest capacities needed in a transition to a steady state culture will be those

relating to communicating ideas and know-how and nurturing skills in others. Notions of good

teaching and who can be a teacher will reach well beyond the boundaries of formal

educational institutions. Alongside revising notions of who can teach, we will need to become

adept at identifying and valuing the extent of existing skills within communities and forging

links between people with different but complementary skills sets within communities. Perhaps

most importantly of all we will all need to be open to engaging with new ideas and learning

new skills regardless of the level of education already received and the skills we already

possess.

8 http://www.goodfornothing.com/ 9 http://www.goucher.edu/graduate-programs/coding-for-community-%E2%80%93-a-civic-hackathon

15

For anyone who likes learning -and disentangled from the notion that learning takes place only

in formal institutions this is just about everyone- transitioning to a steady state culture will

provide a wealth of learning opportunities. These opportunities will be contingent on a highly

diversified educational landscape, as discussed in the following section.

2. A diversified learning landscape

Expanding the range of skills we will need as we shift towards a Steady State economy will

require nothing short of a learning ‘renaissance’, which in turn will require a highly diversified,

responsive educational landscape. Many educational systems are increasingly mono-cultural,

teaching a constrained range of subjects through highly standardized curricula. Such a mono-

cultural landscape is a result of educational systems responding to the question of ‘how we

educate to ensure a workforce able to compete in the global market’. The educational

landscape might look very different if the question underpinning educational reform were: ‘How

do we educate people to play full roles in developing sustainable local economies’?

2.1 Localized and flexible education?

An obvious answer to that question is that education will need to be responsive to local needs,

thus becoming more place-based in its focus and activities. It will involve increasingly flexible

notions of what constitutes education and a significant capacity to create the conditions via

which it can flourish. Informal and formal institutions will need to work interdependently forming

networks which increase the cross-pollination of ideas and ‘knowledge spill-over’, that is to say

the sharing of ideas that generates new learning opportunities. It will require greater

investment in education of all types. This does not mean only financial investment, though

greater funding from a variety of sources will be needed. It will also means investment in time

and energy terms as we form growing learning communities to gain needed skills.

2.3 Grassroots learning

Grassroots ‘learning communities’ forming their own understandings of issues in their local

area and how to address these will form an essential part of a Steady State learning

landscape. The Transition Towns movement in the UK involves grassroots communities

‘seeking to take charge of their own destinies and to develop relocalisation strategies’ in the

face of what they see as increasingly untenable globalized economies. Transition Towns are

primarily concerned with practical issues such as skills/reskilling, food, energy, transport, land

use and cultivation and above all community building’ (Barry & Quilley, 2009). Transition 16

Towns are networking with existing communities and creating opportunities for learning via a

range of learning projects such as the Totnes Streetwise project10.

 Incredible Edible (linked to the Transition Town movement) and Ashton Hayes11 provide

further examples of a growing number of such grassroots learning communities. Incredible

Edible is interested in ‘enriching the World directly around them’, focussing its energies on

local community food production to that end. It sees this as a story ‘of how a few people

decided to stop passing the buck and waiting for someone else to save the world’ and ‘of what

happens when everyone is prepared to bring their skills to the table and secure a better legacy

for their grandchildren’12. While Incredible Edible has not waited for ‘hand outs’ or the ‘green

light’13, it has worked with the ‘local council and the police to enrich the town and ensure its

sustainability’.

Ashton Hayes, a village community in Cheshire is aiming to become the first carbon neutral

village. This communal effort has afforded a range of learning opportunities with some people

‘becoming specialists in renewable energy’ while others enjoy ‘the technical aspect of carbon

footprint calculations. Like Incredible Edible, Ashton Hayes works closely with the local

council, local businesses and the University of Chester to secure funding for its activities.

Such grassroots projects need to negotiate the conditions via which they can thrive. This

means engaging with other stakeholders in the community and with public bodies such as the

council and the police. Public bodies, in turn, are offered opportunities to facilitate the work of

these projects. In this way these bodies shape their own work to the needs of communities

thereby increasing their value to those communities. Such negotiations offer significant

opportunities for all concerned to learn about and invest in the workings of society.

Grassroots movements like Incredible Edible and Ashton Hayes serve as catalysts for change

increasing diversified learning opportunities. In both Incredible Edible’s case and the case of

Ashton Hayes learning is not only a by-product of their activities, it is a central element.

Incredible Edible, for example, works with local primary, secondary and in adult learning

instituting food growing projects, courses in bee keeping and fruit grafting and even influencing

the secondary school curriculum in the area with the introduction of a BTEC (vocationally

related qualification). Ashton Hayes has involved children in the local primary school in the

monitoring of the solar panel installed in the school.

10 http://locality.org.uk/our-work/policy/peer-peer-learning/9047-2/ 11 http://www.goingcarbonneutral.co.uk/ 12 Incredible Edible: How one town proved change is possible

http://incredibleediblenetwork.org.uk/sites/incredibleediblenetwork.org.uk/files/the_cornerstones_of_incredible_edible_edited.pdf

13 http://incredibleediblenetwork.org.uk/about 17

2.4 Formal education as a driver for change

The Incredible Edible and Ashton Hayes examples point to greater permeability of boundaries

between formal education and local communities, with formal education being much more

responsive to the needs of those communities. As well as responding to community requests

for expertise, formal education can also be a driver for change in local communities, itself

initiating projects of potential benefit to communities. A significant example of the latter is the

Oberlin project in the US (Ohio), where a local college (Oberlin College) at the instigation of

David Orr, has embarked on a project aiming to transform Oberlin into a model sustainable

city. It has four aims: 1. to redevelop downtown Oberlin to high ‘green building’ standards; 2. to

make the city and college carbon neutral; 3. to create a 1000 acre space where food can be

grown so that the city and college can reach greater food self-reliance; 4.to pull together an

educational consortium of college, schools and college students ‘to determine what young

people need to know to build careers and lives’.14 Such close ties with communities are bound

to result in the college designing tracts of its curriculum around complex issues within locales.

The rich learning opportunities opened up by these ties are not lost on a growing number of

FE/HE institutions who are beginning to shape courses around issues at regional/community

levels.

Other initiatives spawned in Higher Education institutions are forging links and facilitate

learning in local communities. The Fab Lab initiative by way of example. Fab Labs15 consist of

computer-controlled fabrication equipment such as digital 3D printers. Originating in the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA), there are now Fab

Labs in cities across the globe, including Manchester16. Whilst the initiative is global, with the

opportunities for the sharing of expertise that this offers, the idea is that Fab Labs are used to

spawn local enterprises and grass-roots/community research etc. In 2011, by way of example,

Fab Lab Manchester teamed up with the Environmental Sustainability Knowledge Transfer

Network and the North-West Eco Innovation programme to offer the Fab Lab suite and

guidance to businesses participating in an Echo Design Challenge. Fab Labs are already

being used for the fabrication of solar and wind-powered turbines etc produced to specs

appropriate to specific locales and by community members within those locales.

2.5 Local Apprenticeships

14 http://www.planningreport.com/2012/02/26/david-orr-s-oberlin-project-plans-transform-college-town-model-sustainable-city

15 http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/faq/ 16 http://www.fablabmanchester.org/

18

Localised apprenticeship schemes may prove a viable means of developing relevant skills.

Apprenticeships were once a significant part of the vocational learning landscape and are

experiencing a revival in the UK. Apprenticeships have a chequered past in the UK,

contributing to the not unfounded notion that apprenticeship can be a form of free or cheap

labour, with little real opportunity for learning development. This is still the case, the result,

partially, of low-wage, low-skill sectors dominating the UK economy. Regulatory bodies do little

to ensure that apprenticeship schemes offer more than ‘minimal and uninspiring’ learning

opportunities’ (Dolphin & Lanning, 2011).

Apprenticeship schemes are rolled out nationally in the UK, and tend to be taken up by larger

organisations/businesses such as national retail outlets. More localised apprenticeship

schemes, interested in fostering the knowledge and skills that will have long term benefits for

communities, need to become a part of the steady state educational landscape. These can be

supported at the local level through partnerships between local councils, further education

colleges and local enterprises.

Grassroots learning movements, collaborations with formal learning institutions, local

apprenticeship schemes can all help shape a steady state culture. Other educational

movements are likely to emerge from and continue to shape that culture. It is difficult to predict

many particularities of the diversified learning landscape that will emerge as a steady state

culture evolves. It is clear, however, that it will involve greater partnerships between various

stakeholders in learning. It will create greater opportunities for situated and place-based

learning. It is likely to challenge which knowledge sets and skills are valued. It will also need to

be inclusive, inclusivity and the value of more inclusive forming the focus in the following

section.

3. Involvement and contributions

Steady State Manchester feels it is crucial to tap into a broad range of informing voices in

order to build understandings of how to move towards a steady state culture. It argues the

need to draw on the work of practitioners and communities in the Manchester area and

beyond, and to build the networks that will engender fertile discussions and collaborative

actions.

That spirit of inclusivity is fundamental to the development of a steady state culture which is in

no small part reliant on the wisdom, motivation, participation and skills of people in

communities. As Bernie Ward and Julie Lewis point out (2002) those people best able to

19

create viable local economies are those people living within them. It is reasonable to argue –

though not self-evident - that the smaller the community the more the voices and skills of

people within those communities will be valued and the more skills will be nurtured. The

greater the participation of individuals in communities the more attuned the localised economy

would be to the particularities of the place in which it is rooted.

Accounts of communities adopting more sustainable models of living testify to the levels of

inclusivity needed to bring about sustainable change. Incredible Edible and Ashton Hayes

emphasise that their activities are reliant on the involvement and contributions of community

members. Engaging with the ideas of community members and identifying, valuing and

nurturing the skills people bring to their endeavours is integral to the sustainability of their

activities.

3.1 Ranking and value

Inclusivity then is foundational to educational efforts to move towards a steady state culture.

Greater diversity in the learning landscape provides greater opportunities for involvement, with

more people drawn back into learning practices via diverse routes. The imperative for

inclusivity is less felt in largely mono-cultural educational systems premised on the view that

‘educational competition of winners and losers is in the best interests of public life in a diverse

society’ (Gruenewald, 2008: p.308). The need, real or perceived, for a highly educated elite to

secure the ongoing competitiveness of the nation state drives the rhetoric around many higher

education institutions. This perspective is encapsulated in the following comment relating to a

Society of Research into Higher Education event.

This human capital oriented perspective applies to all levels of education but

doctoral education has become of paramount significance in a world where

knowledge becomes the new ‘fuel’, the higher the knowledge the more refined the

fuel and also the ultimate renewable to supporting robust economic growth.

(SRHA, 2014).

This same need can lead to constrained notions of what is educationally valuable. It can lead

to ranking of the value of different types of education and qualifications: For example, in the

UK A-levels and degrees are more valued than vocational educational options. Quigley (2009)

argues that, ‘artisanal and craft skills in manufacturing, in agriculture and even in the service,

leisure and domestic sector’ have been consistently downgraded, a downgrading reflected in

the educational landscape. It reinforces the notion that vocational understandings and skills

20

and academic understandings are mutually exclusive, rather than intrinsically connected. It

can lead to an overreliance on academic qualifications, particularly degree qualifications as the

sole indicator of fitness for the work place, with most job opportunities, requiring such

qualifications regardless of their actual relevance to the job. It can, connectedly, and as

manifest in the above SRHA quote, lead to the notion that people who have gained a higher

degree are better able to contribute to society than those who have not. This devaluing of

some aspects of education can lead to the concomitant devaluing of certain educational

institutions, projects and initiatives and, consequently the work of the individuals who engage

with them.

All of these perspectives are deeply detrimental to the shaping of a steady state culture. They

would be bound to be challenged with the emergence of more localized economic activity.

Knowledge is very unlikely to be characterized as ‘refined fuel’ held by a few individuals.

Possibly it will be viewed as the shared ‘sustenance’ or ‘spirit’ that animates individuals and

communities and provides them with the energy or inspiration to move towards more

sustainable living.

While it is useful to seek out new metaphors to describe knowledge and its value in shifts

towards a steady state culture, one thing is clear: knowledge will need to be broadly shared. It

cannot be hoarded, or viewed as the entitlement of a small ‘bright’ elite.

3.2 Access, accreditation and assessment

Alongside a reassessment of what knowledge and whose knowledge is valued in society, the

emergence of a steady state culture will necessitate a re-evaluation of the ways in which

education is accessed, of models of accreditation and assessment and of current ways of

establishing a person’s ‘eligibility’ for education.

The boundaries between academic communities and other communities will need to become

substantially more porous with colleges and Universities ensuring that access to the expertise,

activities and knowledge they contain is shared with a much broader range of people. This will

entail not only FE and HE staff and students ‘going out’ to engage with communities but also

individuals and communities ‘coming in’ to universities regardless of background and

qualifications. This increased convection between formal learning institutions and communities

will need to be geared around mutual learning among all parties, learning to which no one,

within reason, should be excluded.

21

The need for broader access to learning would increasingly determine aspects of FE and HE

provision. Programmes will need to become more flexible in order to accommodate the

working patterns of a broader mix of people. To that end the length of educational

programmes would need re-assessing, with a greater array of tailored part-time, online and

blended options required and a greater number of courses oriented around the skills needed

within communities.

Modes of accreditation may also be challenged as the demand for the knowledge and skills

lodged in institutions rises. Ways of establishing a person’s fitness for a degree course may

need to be reconsidered with a far greater range of attributes or achievements determining

eligibility. A level grades (in the UK) can no longer be the dominant determiner of eligibility for

progression into HE. They assume a linear progression through an education system by

academically inclined youths comfortable with institutionalized learning. Already, given the

greater access to learning opportunities available via the internet and the need for life-long

learning, selection largely on the basis of A-levels is an anachronism. This would become

increasingly the case with the need to develop expanding skills sets among all members of

communities. Building a fuel cell and working out the scientific principles underpinning its

mechanisms or building an innovative digital app, or putting on successful community events

may all become alternative grounds for accreditation. They may necessitate greater workloads

for staff in HE, increasing the staff base or increasing the staff base and reducing pay

differentials. However, the dividends would be in forging greater links to locales.

Fortunately there are already alternative accreditation models which set precedents for

widening participation. The Open College Movement17 founded in the 1970s in the North West

of the UK, the Manchester Open College Federation founded in 1981 and the Open College

Network which emerged from them, all provided (and in the case of the Open College Network

still provides) alternative routes into Higher Education. The Manchester Open College

Federation offered a ‘credit accumulation system which enabled adults to achieve credit for a

form of learning which had previously carried no formal recognition’ (Calder, 2004,p.172).

Such organisations offer a wealth of know-how and ideas that can smooth the route to access.

Selection might be done away with altogether. This may sound revolutionary but there are

already Universities that are moving away from selection procedures. The University of

Arizona accepts 80% of applicants largely dispensing with most forms of selection. The

University is thinking through flexible access to degree tuition in order to ensure greater uptake

of University places within the State. It offers, in this endeavour, entirely online degrees with

17 http://www.ocnlondon.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/OCN_London_timeline_spread.pdf 22

six start dates a year. The lack of a selection procedure is disparaged by some as evident in a

reported comment from a student at another US university|: “all you need [to gain access to

the University of Arizona] is 2.0 and blood pressure” (Marcus, 2015). However, it is perceived

by the University and students at the University as a strength. As the President of the

University, Michael Crow puts it, “If you can’t give access to the larger proportion of the people

in the area in which a University is located then are you not failing as an institution?”(Crow,

2014).

A major educational challenge in moving towards a steady state culture will be dealing with the

obstacles that some people face as a result of a fixation with ‘intelligence’ and an ‘aptitude’ or

perceived lack of it, for learning. At best this ‘fetish with intelligence’ (Orr, 1992) highlights the

need for an educational meritocracy that challenges the obstacles the ‘bright’ child or adult

from deprived contexts faces in accessing further/higher education. Such obstacles are

undoubtedly encountered and need to be properly addressed. However, this preoccupation

with ensuring that the bright and best get on whatever their background comes at the expense

of discussions about what happens to those children and adults who are perceived to be ‘less

academic’. There is almost a tacit consensus in the UK that if you haven’t demonstrated your

academic metal on leaving secondary school, then you’ll have to reconcile yourself to

straightened life opportunities. This consensus is founded on the pervasive view that some

people have a greater fitness for the learning valuable to society. It is a view that limits career

and educational opportunities and potentially also the physical flourishing of individuals as they

progress through their lives. Research over recent years indicates a relationship between

learning new things and increased resilience to dementia. The act of learning, is one deeply

interwoven with well-being. A fetish with intelligence can negatively impact on the health and

mental wellbeing of individuals. This fetish is unhelpful to a Steady State culture on two levels.

Notions of intelligence are too narrowly conceived given the breadth of skills, thinking

attributes and qualities needed for the Steady State culture to emerge, qualities that go well

beyond standard measurements of intelligence in most learning contexts. Moreover, a Steady

State culture cannot afford to have people feeling disconnected from learning contexts given

the need for a broad shared knowledge base among all members of communities.

Reconnecting people with learning processes and the pleasure of learning is critical to an

emergent steady state culture. One model for doing so is the Ragged University18. The

Ragged University views everyone as a stakeholder in the process of building knowledge, as

‘capable of participating in the intellectual activity of civic society’ (Dunedin, 2012) and as

possessing ‘a unique and distinct body of knowledge, accredited with their own life experience’

18 http://www.ragged-online.com/ 23

(Dunedin, 2013). Ragged events are held in ‘third places’ (Oldenburg, 1989) that is to say

spaces such as cafes or pubs, places that naturally lend themselves to the sharing of

knowledge and the building of civics. The use of third spaces reminds us that learning is an

integral and valuable part of social activity and therefore at the heart of people’s lives. Anyone

can give a talk at Ragged events, reflecting the view that all individuals can make unique

contributions to the learning process, communicating their knowledge and accrued wisdoms to

others. Organisations such as the Ragged University- which remind people that learning

should be valued wherever it takes place and of the pleasure of learning and their capacities to

engage with it - will be invaluable in imbuing people with the confidence to contribute to the

emergence of a Steady State economy.

3.3 Funding and Fees

The imperative to share knowledge as a steady state culture develops will result in a rapid

growth in low cost/no cost, unfunded informal learning opportunities, thus further diversifying

the learning landscape. ‘Living room’ communities of learning, clubs etc will flourish. Social

media will play a significant role in facilitating those opportunities with a burgeoning number of

low cost or no cost online learning resources and courses developed by and for local

communities. The recently launched Community Open Online Courses (COOCS)19 supported

by Blackburn College, UK, is a platform designed to help people/community organisations to

‘share learning and create opportunities for personal development’. It uses open source web

infrastructure20 which can reduce costs making the development of learning materials

possible within communities. The Free University Network21, a movement of disparate

educational projects united around the provision of free education may be reflective of the

types of learning opportunity that will develop as the impetus to gain new skills and

understandings gains pace.

Funding costs however, will still need to rise to facilitate the level of skills development

needed. Provisioning that development will require a diverse range of funding sources, both

from the public and private sector (e.g. through crowd funding for specific projects). Levels of

competition for private/third sector funding will increase, a source of frustration no doubt, but

also a litmus test of burgeoning learning opportunities. Tensions are bound to emerge in the

public sector between the traditionally funded institutions and new educational projects

clamouring for funding.

19 http://coocs.co.uk/about-us/20 Moodle.com 21 http://www.ragged-online.com/2012/11/introducing-free-university-network-joel-lazarus/

24

While short term funding will be needed to kick start projects, the sustainability of funding

sources will become increasingly important. Short term funding has its uses but it can lead to

short term planning, a no-no for an emerging steady state culture. It can also result in projects

scrabbling for funding, with all of the implications for the health of the projects. Whichever way

you look at it, society would have to invest in greater funding of education.

Just as funding will need to rise both from the private and public sector, fees in many HE

contexts would need to be lowered or scrapped. Costs for many wishing to access HE in the

UK are prohibitive22. Arguably, the reason why students currently take on debt to gain a

degree(s) is that they see long term dividends in career terms. The coveted graduate jobs

commanding large salaries would decrease as a steady state culture emerges making the pay

up front and profit later motivation significantly less of an incentive.

3.3 Children’s voices

Discussions of intergenerational equity (Unicef, 2009; Caney, 2009) underline the obligation of

present generations not to compromise the environment for future generations. In all of the

discussions of how society ensures this obligation is met, there is little mention of the role of

children. The voices of children, as primary stakeholders in the future, should be heeded

however and their imagination, creativity and often more acute sensitivities to environmental

issues taken proper account of. Just as it is the duty of adults to move society towards less

environmentally damaging, more equitable modes of living, so it is the child’s right to be

included in those conversations. Adults also will benefit from the often clear-sighted and

honest perspectives of children pointing out what is overlooked, but patently evident.

This somewhat obvious point seems to be a neglected one. Organisations like the Manchester

Environmental Education Network23 however, are aware of the need for and value of children’s

participation. They are creating intergenerational projects, particularly in collaboration with

primary and secondary schools in the North West, where children work together with adults to

address environmental issues in their schools and local communities. The children are drivers

of the projects, identifying socio-environmental issues, and working out ways of resolving

them.

The success of such intergenerational projects will relate, in part, to the rich communication

that takes place among the children and adults and the extent to which adults understand the

value of working in equal partnerships with children. How people communicate and

22 The student loan system in the UK means that theoretically anyone with the right qualifications can go to University, with the payback of loans contingent on a salary of over £16,910 (current 2014 threshold).

23 http://www.meen.org.uk/ 25

disseminate information is crucial in shaping a steady state culture. Communication is thus the

focus in the following section.

4. Communication

Steady State Manchester understand the need to communicate with as broad a cross-section

of society as possible in order to disseminate and further shape their ideas. Communication,

as Tompt, from the Transition Towns movement puts it, is ‘the relation through which

influence, connection, solidarity, motivation, and inspiration grow and spread in any community

of people’ (Online, undated).

A growing number of studies see effective communication as pivotal to addressing complex,

local environmental problems. Many of these studies argue the need to view complex

challenges from the ‘vantage of a pluralistic community’ with potentially ‘competing

perspectives that circulate in a community, demanding attention, further interpretation and

response’ (Higgens, Long & Flowers, 2006, p.14). Elenore Long (2012, p.14) sees

communication of local knowledge as informing people’s ‘realistic representations of complex

social issues’: Diverse perspectives on issues communicated by different people in the

community is crucial to understanding how to address them. Long argues that often the people

that can give insider knowledge of an issue are those least heard. Discussion tends to be

dominated by people with perceived expertise. She gives an example of the wives of miners in

1981 who prior to a coal mining disaster knew there was a problem with mine safety through

various observations including higher levels of rock dust in the wash cycle. Because they

lacked perceived status and expertise their evidence in the hearing subsequent to the disaster

was ignored. Alongside the exclusion of insider voices, Long critiques the ‘drive to consensus’

in public projects where the speed at which a way forward is reached is privileged over

developing the rich understandings that make consensus sustainable.

The question of how communities create spaces for lively, inclusive and respectful discussion,

and of what ‘kinds of practices they use to foreclose or open inclusive dialogue’ (Higgins, Long

and Flowers) is an important one, one that many communities are dealing with. In some ways

it begs deeper questions about what good communication is.

Our understandings of good communication will need to extend well beyond elegance in

articulation of thinking, a notion that prevents many people from expressing their thoughts in

public spaces. Good communication will need to encompass active listening skills, a sensitivity

to the places in which discussion is taking place and a capacity to ‘articulate the arguments of

26

others in terms they will accept’. It will entail recognising and resisting the urge to ‘close off

discussion’ and ‘achieve resolution through force of argument’ (Higgins, Long and Flowers). It

will need to encompass greater understandings of the ways in which language can motivate or

demotivate people, and can narrow or broaden discussion. It will need to be underpinned by

an awareness of the time it often takes for really useful conversations to unfold, an important

factor in facilitating the emergence of ideas. Inclusive conversations and their constituents of

openness, empathy and sharing are crucial to comprehending how we put ‘the World together

daily in the local places of our daily lives’ (Smith, 2005, p. 2) an understanding key to the

development of a steady state culture.

How we develop such skills in educational contexts is a matter of importance in moving to a

Steady State culture. Intercultural awareness and the practice of intercultural communication

skills can help us engage with diverse perspectives while unifying people in common goals

(Bennett, 1998, p.1). One of the chief tenets of intercultural communication is that we are

‘socialized’ into a way of viewing the World, that is to say, our views of the world are shaped

by the places we inhabit, the schools we go to, the people we know etc. Awareness that our

views are shaped this way, and that other people’s views of the World are equally shaped in

this way allows us to recognise difference and provides a starting point for achieving shared

understandings through open, inclusive negotiation. Such communication, however, requires

us to be attuned to our own emotional biases and the ways in which these can impede open

discussion. ‘Mindfulness’24, may serve to facilitate that attuning process in that it provides

strategies which directly relate to tuning into our emotional reactions.

The aims of formal educational contexts ultimately conflict with the development of

communication skills based on openness, empathy and sharing. Many formal educational

contexts in the UK stress the importance of collaborative communication between peers. Pair

and group work is encouraged in collaborative activities, e.g. problem solving activities. Such

activities offer opportunities for developing intercultural skills and mindfulness. However,

learners are caught in double binds. They are simultaneously required to engage in

collaborative activities premised on listening skills, inclusive conversations etc, whilst

ultimately being judged on their individual performances and their place on the sliding scale of

brightest and best. The roots of good communication, as it needs to be understood in steady

state terms, lie in understanding the power of working together, and of valuing contributions

that aid the development of joint understandings. In moving to a Steady State culture, such

24 Mindfulness is a term that is variously understood. Here it is used to indicate an awareness of our physical and mental responses to a situation, for example when someone says something with which we vehemently disagree.

27

communicational skills and the awareness that underpins them would need to be cultivated in

educational contexts.

5. The Information Landscape

Communities transitioning to a steady state culture will require rich information resources.

Andrew Whitworth (2014,p.323) reasons that ‘communities are sustained by informational

resources that are collectively maintained’; they are what nourish a ‘learning community’.

Information resources include libraries, museums, community centres, noticeboards, stories,

songs, art, conversations with shopkeepers who can talk in detail about where their produce is

sourced etc. Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom (2003) in their work on information as a

common-pool resource categorise information in terms of ‘artefacts’, ‘facilities’ and ‘ideas’. In

the artefact category they include books, web pages, databases. That category might be

further extended to include stories, songs and conversations etc. In ‘facilities’ they include

libraries and the internet. This category might be broadened to include museums,

noticeboards, community centre etc. They see ‘ideas’ as encompassing knowledge,

information and data. Artefacts, facilities and ideas form part of an information landscape

defined here as the totality of information sources available to a place/community and

continually generated through the ideas of people in those places. People can be inspired by

the information landscape and infuse it with new information. Encompassed in the notion of

‘information landscape’ is the information available in the natural landscape, the local

biodiversity and geology of an area etc. Orr (1992) sees rich, biodiverse landscapes as the

original source of all information, shaping our interactions, crafting our thoughts and language.

The stripping away of that biodiversity, he argues, is tantamount to stripping away our ability to

think creatively; ideas are all ultimately rooted in the natural world.

While there are now vast information repositories and a profusion of ways to communicate

thanks to the internet, the information resources and the broader information landscape in

many locales have become significantly impoverished. The UK landscape is increasingly

monopolized by agroindustry, large (multinational) corporations, property developers etc. This

monopolization has been instrumental in the disappearance of diversity in farming methods, in

retailing, in local industry, in subsidiarity, in biodiversity. As the landscape becomes more

mono-cultural, information leaches out of it (Brown, 2012) to the huge detriment of those who

inhabit it. Ensuring that such information does not disappear for good requires good

stewardship of information and the means and spaces in which to disseminate it.

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Fortunately there are many communities that understand the value of a rich information

landscape, and are working to ‘collectively maintain’ and steward that information. A growing

number of digital initiatives with global reach are interested in surfacing and cataloguing the

complexities and rich variety in the local. The Ark of Taste is one such initiative25. Related to

the Slow Food Association, it was founded to ‘point out the existence of [food] products’ that

testify to rich ‘cultures, histories and traditions’ that are at risk of disappearing from the

landscape. An online catalogue of such foods is being created through participation from

anyone who wishes to participate. The initiative is global but with many local communities

involved.

The Friends of Angel Meadows community project in Manchester also provides a good

example of how information has been caringly gathered and stewarded by a community, in this

case a community largely local to the area. The Friends have sunk considerable efforts into

ensuring that the history of ‘Angel Meadows’ (an area of central Manchester), of its slum

dwellers and the squalor they endured during the height of the industrial revolution and the

attempts to alleviate that squalor, is accessible to people today. Just as the Friends are

‘uncovering’ the history of Angel Meadows and making that information accessible, they are

also finding ways to ensure that it continues to serve the community, offering a green space

and garden areas.

The historic narratives of place, and of the lives lived in those places provide vantage points

for re-envisaging a place and its potential. They also impart a sense of ownership of

community spaces. That sense of ownership is significantly dependent on the extent to which

communities have actual ownership of physical spaces, or at least, can comfortably inhabit

those spaces and steward information within those spaces. Spaces where the flow of

information is monitored, constrained, monopolized by brands etc are not favourable to

shaping a steady state culture. Learning how to appropriate spaces and ensure they are

information-rich is a key challenge. Doing so will involve good understandings of how to

access relevant information e.g. land relations records, deeds etc and to compile information

in ways which are accessible but do not overly simplify often highly complex information.

Records of land tend not to reflect ‘complex and dynamic land-based social relations’ (Borras

& Franco, 2012) and certainly do not reflect its value to current and future generations.

Infusing the landscape with such information will require new approaches to mapping it, the

layering not only of private and public ownership but also the layering of the history of the

area, its biodiversity, its geographies, the dislocation and relocation of people within those

geographies, its totems, its dialects and vernaculars and the stories told through these etc.

25 http://www.essedra.com/biodiversity/the-ark-of-taste/ 29

This a significant role for arts and crafts (see for example the art of Derbyshire Well-dressing)

and digital design in shaping understandings of the ‘real’ value of landscapes. All such

endeavours act as reminders of land and the resources on it as parts of the commons.

Collectively maintaining and generating information in the landscape is important to shaping a

steady state culture. It needs to be a shared endeavour across all educational contexts, formal

and informal. Burgeoning numbers of local food projects are leading the way, re-discovering

local foods and agricultural processes and the language used to describe them. Local farming

markets tend to be significant sources of localised information, perhaps reflecting the fact that

short-food supply chains are long on information.

Conclusion

Steady State Manchester are keen to understand how education can help shape a Steady

State culture. I have provided some initial thinking in response to that question.

There is a lot I have not covered given the scope of the question posed by Steady State. I

might have discussed, for example, the skills we need to establish local financial systems: this

is an area that those with significantly more knowledge of such systems than I have may be

able to address from an educational perspective. I might have looked at how education can

explicitly tackle the deeply ingrained value systems associated with ‘over consumption’. I might

have discussed the demands on our time that prevent many of us from engaging in community

activities. I might have discussed the levels of playfulness, fun and imagination that will be

needed as we learn new skills. I have only glancingly explored the ways in which informal local

learning communities might interact to mutual benefit with learning communities in other parts

of the World.

The points I wish to emphasise in what I have written in this document are these:

Moving to a Steady State Culture will require a learning renaissance;

We will need to nurture and value a much broader range of skills than are currently

focussed on and ditch unhelpful dichotomies between manual skills and academic

skills;

A larger number of people in much smaller population spreads will need to possess

relevant skills;

A mono-cultural learning landscape will need to cede to a far more diversified learning

landscape in order that the skills we need for a Steady State Culture are developed;

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The initiatives of local communities are likely to be significant drivers in shaping a

steady state culture, increasingly shaping public policy;

Informal and formal learning communities will need to work more closely together, with

formal institutions finding ways of responding to the initiatives of local communities;

Formal institutions will need to significantly widen access to the knowledge and

expertise they hold;

Moving to a Steady State culture will require broad involvement and a move from the

rhetoric of brightest and best to the rhetoric of ‘mutuality, contribution and caring’;

We’ll all be learners and teachers, drawing at whatever stage in life on our natural

inclinations to learn and communicate information, knowledge and skills to others;

A focus on communication skills will be central to shaping a Steady State. Kernel to

that focus will be listening skills, empathy and an understanding of the value of

pluralistic conversations;

We’ll need to value and invest in a sense of ‘place’, with all of the rediscovery,

innovation and creativity that this will entail.

There are a growing range of educational initiatives; a few alluded to in this paper, which are

changing the learning landscape in ways that can shape a Steady State Culture. The number

of such initiatives needs to substantially increase and their activities supported and nurtured.

For this to happen we need profound change in the ways in which we think about education.

Through writing this paper I realize the vocabulary we use in most formal educational contexts

is constrained, and relates, without many of us consciously realizing it, to competition, status,

authority, recognition, power, intellect etc. This means that even when we wish to change

education we end up reverting to default educational understandings and processes that are

not conducive to shaping a steady state. For them to be so they need to be fused at a

fundamental level to the vocabulary of mutuality, shared ownership, collaboration, humility,

creativity, experimentation, learning from failure, discovery, motivation and imagination.

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