heila lotz-sisitka: creating a sustainable society
TRANSCRIPT
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?
Eco
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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