EMOTIONS AS A BASIS FOR ECOLOGICAL BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE


The question is urgent: emotions about climate change do not directly lead to behavioral change, what is needed? Yesterday de Volkskrant published an interview with Martha Nussbaum, following her latest book ‘Justice for animals: our collective responsibility.’ I really want to share the last paragraph of the interview with you:
“Making people feel guilty is not the way to bring about positive behavioural change. There are three emotions that I think do take this issue forward. The first is wonder at the complexity and beauty of animals. That prompts us to protect them. The second is compassion for the predicament they are in and that we have caused. That situation leads us to the third emotion, a specific kind of anger, which I call transitional rage. You look at the past, look away from it, and think: that shouldn’t happen in the future. That’s the emotion I feel most often, and that I try to cultivate.’
A new valuable starting point for planetary citizenship in education.
Full interview: https://lnkd.in/egCuEBUC.

REGENERATIVE CULTURES:LEARNING AND UNLEARNING

In an earlier blog I suggested that we are beginning to see evidence of avoiding using the word “sustainability.”  “Sustainability is steadily falling into disrepute, mainly because of its reformist piecemeal applications, which exclude wholesale systems change.” In its place terms such as “regenerative paradigms” have come into play. In its broadest sense this encompasses a change in human culture. One of the keyways we can tackle our unsustainability is by adopting a re- generative human culture. This means adopting a healthy, resilient, and adaptable way of life that cares for the planet and cares for life by creating an awareness that this is the most effective way to create a thriving future for all of humanity. Most proponents of this change argue that this is not simply a technical, economic, ecological, or social shift, it must go hand in hand with an underlying shift in the way we think about ourselves, our relationships with each other and with life. This shift in thinking is a movement away from intellectual rigour, a space in which academics tend to feel most comfortable towards relational rigour andwhich recognises the complex and life sustaining interconnections between human and non-human beings, highlighting the responsibilities that such relationships necessarily entail. This creates the necessary epistemic preconditions for such relationships to flourish through respect and trust, reciprocity, accountability, and consent.

 According to the authors of Transforming Universities in the Midst of a Global Crisis-this reorientation toward a regenerative relational educational paradigm is already underway. Examples include workshops and conferences on community energy, community education, localism, resilience, transition towns, interdisciplinary collectives, radical reading groups and various other forms of “edge work “are all part of this growing and evolving movement. But for it to work it must embrace those liminal places that sit both within and beyond the university-such as experimental and co-creative endeavours, where multiple pedagogies, cosmologies, epistemologies and more collide. These critical encounters generate what some refer to as the third space. It is in these messy and necessarily deceptive spaces that re-generative eco relational possibilities arise. Ultimately this movement involves overhauling the wholesale colonial mindset with its roots in ideas of certainty, permanence, growth, progress, and dominion. All of which are deeply antithetical to a regenerative relational educational movement. Ultimately, the challenge lies in, deconstructing and unlearning this worldview and instead cultivating an ethos of inter-connection of the primary basis for learning. Examples of this already exist such as the University Sydney’s celebrated social ecology programme. By participating in this programme, a generation of conservationists, activists and educators have benefited enormously from the deep appreciation of how transformative learning expands consciousness in general towards a more fundamental ecological consciousness. Social ecologies seeks to foster an understanding of our ecological interconnected connectedness, including our relationship with each other as a means of re engaging with life and all its complexity. In another ground-breaking course at Murdoch University -its environmental ethics course is the first of its kind in Australia. This course focuses on ecofeminism and eco-philosophy in practice; each  of which critically explores the interconnected structural forces driving the domination, control and  oppression of nature and women.

 Several of these new educational approaches have contributed to one of the more successful global initiatives in recent years, called the Ecoversities Alliance( https://ecoversities.org ), an international hub for alternative regenerative relationship educations from around the world. As an emerging knowledge change movement and “silent learning revolution,” the alliance has developed new ways  of contributing to the transformation of teaching and learning, placing significant pressures on mainstream institutions to rethink their teaching practices. Founded in 2008, the Alliance makes plain his opposition to the unjust and destructive and extractivist orientation of corporate capitalism.  However, the extent to which such projects will disrupt the general market orientation of the modern university remains less clear. “For many of today’s students, the modern university experience is instrumentalist( aimed at job attainment and narrowly career orientated) dissociative( studying rather than experiencing) atomised, terminally irrelevant and boring. “

Taking all these insights into our education system is essential if we are to promote deep ecological learning that sustains all life forms and which views the Earth not just in terms of dominion, but in terms of coexistence and balance.  A key challenge will be how universities in future might engage with diverse knowledge which encourages earth centred learning. Those involved in this transformation advocate that this must develop from a values framework that extends care and compassion beyond the realm of the human, towards the vast and complex webs of life in which we exist.

GDP growth – the Emperor has no clothes

Maze: Is Growth a False God?

Moral Maze with Michael Buerk

Is Growth a False God? is an episode of the Radio 4 programme Moral Maze broadcast on 22nd March 2023. Presented by Michael Buerk, the programme has an unusual format where four semi-regular panelists question and elicit testimony from several invited guests representing opposite sides of an argument. I’ve never been a big fan of its adversarial format but, given the subject, I couldn’t miss this episode . The four panelists on this occasion were: Melanie Phillips1, Anne McElvoy2, Mona Siddiqui3 and Matthew Taylor4. The witnesses were Beth Stratford5, Ross Clark6, Kate Raworth7 and Matthew Lynn8.

At the outset of the programme, the four panelists briefly outlined their own positions on the pursuit of GDP growth. This immediately revealed a bias. Whilst two of them – Mona Siddiqui and Matthew Taylor – were willing to question the hegemony of growth, neither occupied what would be considered a degrowth position. But the other two panelists – Melanie Philips and Anne McElvoy – were openly hostile to degrowth. Melanie Philips said “Being against growth means wanting to go backwards, reduce living standards and embrace decline. To me, degrowth is a kind of cultural deathwish“. In a format such as this, the panelists ought to be both well informed and, notwithstanding their own opinions, as open-minded as possible. Melanie Philips’ statement revealed that she was neither. Her astonishing misrepresentation of the degrowth paradigm means either that she hadn’t done the most basic preparation or that she willfully misrepresented degrowth. I suspect a mixture of the two. The opening did not bode well for the quality of the argument in the rest of the programme. And so, by and large, it turned out.

The bias of the panelists meant that there were, effectively, four people arguing in favour of growth, two in favour of degrowth and two adopting a gentler position of ‘growth skepticism’. I use the term ‘degrowth’ for convenience – in fact both Beth Stratford and Kate Raworth argued that we should be agnostic to growth, shifting our economic goals to better represent human wellbeing, whilst acknowledging that this would result in lower or negative growth in many sectors. Another indication of Melanie Philips’ misunderstanding of degrowth came when she attempted to wrong-foot Beth Stratford by saying that it would be wrong for rich nations to prevent poor nations from growing their economies. But Beth Stratford simply agreed! I’ve never come across an exposition of degrowth that argues against poor nations growing their economies. Later in the programme, Anne McElvoy returned to this, saying that the idea that growth is required for some nations and not others is a ‘fault-line’ in the degrowth argument, but it simply isn’t – there is no contradiction. All economies (rich and poor nations alike) should aim to provide a good social foundation for all their citizens without exceeding planetary boundaries. In poor countries, that often means growing many sectors of the economy; in rich countries it doesn’t. It’s that simple.

For me, a highlight of the programme was Kate Raworth’s testimony. She is always lucid and persuasive, but in this programme she also showed herself to be combative and effective under hostile questioning. If it had been a boxing match, she’d have been an easy points winner! I particularly enjoyed an exchange with Anne McElvoy when Kate said that functioning systems in nature do not grow indefinitely and unchecked growth in the human body is called cancer. Anne McElvoy said that this was a ‘loose metaphor’ (left jab) but Kate immediately shot back that it was a very tight metaphor – both the earth and human body are complex, delicately balanced systems (right hook). Later in the show, after the testimony of the guests, Michael Buerk returned to this metaphor and this time Melanie Phillips made another astonishing statement: “Nature shows us that if you grow you live and if you don’t grow you die“. I don’t know where Melanie gets her knowledge of biology and ecology, but it’s definitely not a from a textbook. Curious, because her very opening remark in the programme was: “Unlimited anything is not a good thing“.

Rather than starting his testimony with a defence of growthism, Ross Clark instead (like Melanie Phillips) chose to attack degrowth by misrepresenting it. He describes degrowth as a ‘dangerous myth’ and without any further explanation claimed that the degrowth movement wants ‘permanent recession’. Again, even the most cursory reading of the degrowth literature would disabuse him of that misconception. We have all experienced recessions – but none of us has experienced an economy built on the principles of degrowth. Recessions are an all too familiar feature of growth-based economies. Degrowth aims to restructure economic and social infrastructures so that zero growth would not result in the same acute social problems that arise from the recessions of growth-based economies. (Unfortunately none of the panelists made this point.)

Matthew Lynn began his testimony by asking if consuming more stuff puts the planet at risk and this is how he answered his own question: “Possibly if you extrapolate it too much, but I don’t think we’re there at the moment“. He says that GDP is the most important measure of human success that there is no conflict between GDP growth and the environment. His views fly in the face of virtually all the evidence accumulated by environmental scientists over the last four decades or more. When pressed by Mona Siddiqui and Matthew Taylor to defend GDP growth as a measure of wellbeing, he agreed that it tells us little about how happy people are, but argued that doesn’t matter. He seemed to place wellbeing wholly outside of the realm of economics and politics, preferring the line that things relating to wellbeing are issues of personal choice.

The subject of inequality and redistribution arose frequently of course. There were a couple of notable exchanges on this. Matthew Lynn was reluctant even to admit that inequality was increasing, saying that it depends on how you measure it. That’s an extraordinary viewpoint given the overwhelming evidence of increasing inequality in the advanced economies. Melanie Philips viewed redistribution of wealth as a red herring because, she argued, redistributing money from one group of people to another simply changes the people who consume rather than reducing consumption. But that completely ignores the sort of stuff that different sectors of society consume. I can confidently predict that redistributing money from billionaires to poor people would result in a slump in sales of luxury yachts and improved sales of fruit and veg.

I will always applaud the broadcasters involved in bringing programmes on this subject to air. The pursuit of GDP growth has an overwhelming impact on society and our planet, yet it is rarely questioned in the mainstream media. So I congratulate the BBC on producing this edition of the Moral Maze. But I felt that the programme misfired and failed to realise its full potential. That may have something to do with the adversarial format which generates not a little heat at the expense of some light, but I think that the biggest problem was the selection of participants. On the pro-growth side the two panelists and the two experts tended to adopt extreme positions and were either unable or unwilling to mount a cogent defense of growthism, more often relying on attacking a misrepresented version of degrowth instead. I ask myself why? The answer I think is fear. People resort to those tactics when they have no confidence in their own arguments and are afraid of being exposed. Growth is no god, but as Emperor it has reigned supreme for some 70 years. But the world is waking up and the the word is out: the Emperor has no clothes.

Footnotes

  • 1Melanie Phillips is a social commentator in The Times.
  • 2Anne McElvoy is a columnist and editor with the Politico news and commentary feed.
  • 3Mona Siddiqui is professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at the University of Edinburg.
  • 4Matthew Taylor is Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation.
  • 5Beth Stratford is an ecological economist at the University of Leeds, and a fellow at the New Economics Foundation.
  • 6Ross Clark is a political commentator.
  • 7Kate Raworth is Senior Associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute.
  • 8Matthew Lynn is a financial columnist and author.

March 23, 2023

Rich Burkmar

bbc, media

HOSPICING OUR UNIVERSITIES IN DECLINE

In this the third of my most recent blogs on the theme of a University for the Common Good – I reflect on the decline of our current model of the University and how the concept of “hospicing a habit of being” coined by Stein et al(2020) might enable those of us who have argued for transformative change in our universities for some considerable time -to continue to question the status quo and survive the discomfort and pain and the losses directly emanating from the  multiplicity of crises-and yet find ways to open new ways of knowing and being in what are tumultuous times.

Ray Ison at the Open University and others in the systems in practice discourse argue for further innovation in our collective ways of knowing and doing because our social world is increasingly becoming severely constrained by:

  • explanations we are asked to accept that are no longer relevant to our circumstances;
  • outdated historical institutions (in the institutional economic sense)that contribute  as social technologies to a broader human created and ungoverned technosphere;
  • inadequate theory-informed practices, or praxis;
  • governance systems no longer adequate for purpose.

Humans are adept at inventing words to describe how we conceive of phenomenon in the world  like ecosystems or biosphere-the latter being the worldwide sum of all ecosystems . These so-called neologisms through their reification and use as “things in the world”  frame the ways we engage with the world because Ison proposes that language acts like a mediating social technology. So, if we are attempting to innovate to change our relationship within and to the world our framing choices become increasingly important.

Over recent decades there have been many different initiatives aimed at responding to the changing world in which we all live. Many of these fall under the broad frame of the ”green university” or “sustainable university”-“movement”. Most of which might be framed as “soft” reforms”. Yet these movements remain strangely silent on how the curriculum and research programmes emanating from these programmes have been co-opted by corporate interests , let alone the role of universities in aiding and abetting the fossil fuel industries. And there is little or no acknowledgement of how the university’s sustainability strategies gloss over the awkward fact that universities are integral to a system directly reliant upon the unsustainable goal of mass consumption and endless growth.

Hence, some of those who seek to repurpose the university have begun to frame the debate based on some new neologisms like the “regenerative university”  and the reorientation of universities towards a” regenerative and relational educational paradigm.”

As Ison(2017) reflects -the example of the contemporary university exemplifies how ways of knowing and acting undermine attempts to govern more effectively in an Anthropocentric world. He argues- as do I that the current organisation of the university with all its constituent parts( e.g.-disciplines;projects;research institutes.) is poorly equipped to foster the ways of thinking and acting needed to respond to the existential crises. Systemic failings in these “hospicing” institutions include perpetuations of disciplinary silos; inadequate fostering of interdisciplinary and trans disciplinary approaches to research and teaching; inadequate problematising and opportunity framing ;unacknowledged epistemological tyranny -a form of epistemological injustice in the refereeing of  research publications, evaluations and promotional practices and an over adherence to linear first order traditions of knowledge production and its dissemination in teaching and research.

CAN WE REIMAGINE THE UNIVERSITY?

 In my earlier post I set out the idea that universities are of the crisis rather than as is widely understood that external risks are the real threat to them. I have written an earlier blog(Educating Earth Literate Leaders) – if we look back on the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (2002) and many of the other international summits which followed, and reflect on their impact, the overriding conclusion is that political leadership the world over has failed to rise to the challenges of sustainability. And yet it is likely that most of the hundred or so leaders who attended the earth summit would have had a higher education degree from some of the world’s most prestigious universities. This raises some serious questions for our university leaders and their governance structures. Why, as the American academic, David Orr once remarked, is it that the people who contribute most to exploiting poor communities and the Earth’s ecosystems are those with BAs, MScs, and PhDs and not the ‘ignorant’ poor from the South?  And why is the illiteracy amongst the world’s politicians as to how the world works as a living system so widespread? Why is it so rare that we encounter in our leaders the qualities needed to enable sustainability: humility, respect for all forms of life and future generations, precaution and wisdom, the capacity to think systemically and critically challenge unethical actions? And more worryingly based on current performance, what hope of improvement is there for future leaders? 

The fact that the higher education sector is seriously failing society by producing leaders incapable of addressing our most pressing problems should trigger some critical consideration about the fundamental role of universities in society, based on three key assumptions:  If universities are the nursery of tomorrow’s leaders and educate most of the people who develop and manage society’s institutions, then the sector bears “profound responsibilities to increase the awareness, knowledge, technologies, and tools to create a sustainable future”, as the Talloires Declaration (signed by many of the world’s university leaders) stated in 1990 (ULSF, 1990). This clearly implies that graduates of every discipline (whether as engineers, teachers, politicians, lawyers, architects, biologists, banks managers or tourism operators, etc.) will need a sound working knowledge of sustainability.

Yet you only need to read a few university websites to get a sense of the official voices of university leaders and managers symbolised as an enduring rhetoric promoting universities as institutions of noble service particularly regarding their public good in supporting graduate cohorts’ upward social and economic mobility. But dig a bit more deeply into the teaching and learning practice and the curriculum upon which these epistemological processes are based and the social purpose of the university becomes conflicted. As the authors of Transforming Universities in the Midst of  Global Crisis argue-even a cursory analysis exposes much of this rhetoric as “tropes” which lack any reflexive  engagement with the world as it is, and the role and purpose of the universities therein is buried under commercial and self-sustaining neoliberal values that guide the modern university.”

And as Bawden (2008) commented:

There is a strange and inexplicable reluctance by our institutions of higher education across the entire globe, to overtly promote the fact that they are first and foremost, agencies of human and social development .

           Bawden argues that ‘project civilisation’ is profoundly fragile – predicated on the stability of planetary systems – and our universities have extraordinary knowledge and capacity to protect it. However, reform in higher education tends to take place in three broad categories, which include soft, or minor reform, major or radical reform, as well as “beyond or transformative reform”. In the context of immense societal complexity and change, what is most needed- is intentional transformative reform of universities’ institutional cultures, curricula and campuses- based on system-wide approaches. Hil,Lyons,and Thompsett(2022) liken this to the “hospice” of a system that is already in decline.

UNIVERSITIES FOR THE COMMON GOOD

It is difficult to imagine a future that is humane, decent, and sustainable without marked changes in the substance and process of education at all levels, beginning with university. David Orr(2018)

In my next series of blogs, I want to bring out some of the compelling arguments for transformative change in the education provided by our universities. Much of what I want to say is eloquently portrayed in a recent book( featured in an earlier blog) by three Australian academics in their book published last December: TRANSFORMING UNIVERSITIES IN THE MIDST OF A GLOBAL CRISIS:A University for the Common Good.

“Universities are facing serious problems. Including well before the onset of COVID-19.There are a growing number of provocative book titles appearing like The university in ruins; Whackademia? Zombies in the Academy; Living death in higher education ; Knowledge for sale; The Neoliberal takeover of higher education ; Bullshit Towers and many others. Alongside this is the rise of critical university studies. All of which signifies that the university academy is increasingly concerned -even troubled- with its own fate.

In Beyond Education: Radical Studying for Another World Eli Meyerhoff (2019 ) examines just how well baked the crisis in university narratives has become. Despite its popularity, the crisis frame further entrenches liberal capitalist modernity as the dominant and enduring paradigm that serves to bolster universities as normalised sites of knowledge accumulation that are in crisis rather than, of the crisis. In this book. The authors of  the book argue persuasively that such an approach closes the spaces in which the contemporary university might be reimagined otherwise.”

 The purpose of this blog and others that follow is to situate universities as of the crisis – and as such a fundamental governance crisis which we need to tackle at scale and urgently. A university’s priorities must embrace the growing impacts of human induced climate change, including rising sea levels, land surface heat and ocean temperatures, all of which threaten life and livelihoods around the world. Especially in those places least responsible for global greenhouse gas emissions. Such climate change represents the continuity of environmental disruption that has occurred since European colonisation of Africa, Asia, the Americas and in Australia. Ecological destruction remains  the historical legacy that continues to drive the expansion of fossil fuel extractivism and the privileging of economic development and mining interests over  indigenous land rights on a massive scale. According to these authors these dynamics are a vivid reminder of the colonial shadow that defines the neoliberal Academy across the globe.

 In recent decades Universities have grown to expand student numbers so that UK universities like Nottingham celebrate its campuses in Malaysia and China which bring its student population to 40,000 or more. And notwithstanding the presence of more international students on campuses across the world, universities have in many respects retained their Anglocentric and western cultural dominance but continue to marginalise the importance of indigenous  knowledge and  culture from the global  south.

Many observers argue that universities have a particular responsibility to respond to the existential crisis of climate change and loss of biodiversity.  A responsibility to engage in deep and reflective consideration of what universities are for; the interests they serve and the prospect they may hold for ecological survival. In recent decades, universities have begun to lean into this space in ways not dissimilar to other large institutions and organisations, including government departments and private corporations. They have, for example, introduced numerous “climate smart” and “sustainability initiatives” , established sustainability committees in training programmes in structured green buildings and community gardens, and embedded sustainability topics across curriculum. The impetus to demonstrate performance in this arena itself  is often seen as a green marketing opportunity- which can reinforce new forms of instrumentality and support for more ambitious growth in support of the neoliberal ideology.

Towards sustainable education

A paper archived in my files by Steve Sterling

Education is a slow learner. The increasingly apparent conditions of uncertainty, complexity, and threat across systems, not least exemplified by the ‘triple crunch’ of peak oil, climate change and financial instability – and the urgency of the quest for sustainability – call for a matching and commensurate response in educational purposes, policies and practice. And yet, despite decades of debate and work at national and international levels on environmental education, development education, and more latterly, education for sustainability and education for sustainable development (ESD), mainstream educational thinking and practice has still to embrace fully the implications of current socio-economic-ecological trends, let alone explore, critique and inform the urgent changes in thinking, practices and lifestyles that many observers deem necessary to assure a livable future.

That said, there is a growing energy in the sustainability education movement and some signs of change in policy, at least in higher education, that augur well. Yet hard questions remain about the pace, depth, and extent of educational response, seen against almost daily headlines that raise sustainability concerns. Take just two, occurring on the same day in October: ‘UK will face peak oil crisis within five years, report warns’; ‘World is facing a natural resources crisis worse than financial crunch – humans using 30% more resources than sustainable’. (Clark, Jowit, 2008). What competencies – dispositions, values, understandings, practical abilities – do people need to both cope with this kind of world and shape the transition to a more stable and sustainable one? David Orr’s line that ‘sustainability is about the terms and conditions of human survival, and yet we still educate at all levels as if no crisis existed’ (Orr 1992, 83) comes to mind. That was written some 16 years ago. Undoubtedly, it is less valid today, but still rings largely true. And if so, society’s reliance on education, or at least formal education – reflected for example in HEFCE’s vision that ‘higher education will be recognized as major contributor to society’s efforts to achieve sustainability’ (HEFCE 2008) – seems a risky strategy. A recent report from the New Economics Foundation argues that HE’s role has narrowed too far towards servicing the market economy and that HE needs to rethink its purposes to advance collective wellbeing. It needs to equip its learners ‘with the knowledge, skills and understanding to pioneer innovative and creative responses to achieving wider economic, social and environmental well-being’, the report suggests, adding that wellbeing should be a part of quality assurance (Steuer and Marks 2008, 12) . Meanwhile, there has been an increasing debate and attention around social learning in community rather than formal contexts (Wals 2007), where there is more fecund potential for change focused on wellbeing – as evidenced, for example, by the growing Transition Towns movement (Hopkins, 2008).

For over three decades, ever since the UN Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm 1972), education has been identified in international conferences, reports and agreements as a critical key to addressing environment and development issues. And we are now in the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD). The overall goal of the DESD is to ‘integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning’ which will in turn, it is hoped, ‘encourage changes in behavior that will create a more sustainable future in terms of environmental integrity, economic viability, and a just society for present and future generations’ (UNESCO, 2008). This is a worthy goal, which has stimulated much good work internationally, but it does not question the assumptions, values and dominant epistemologies of educational traditions, policies, and practices that, by default, still contribute to decline.  For example, drawing on reports on sustainability in higher education in six European countries, Wals suggests ‘at present most of our universities are still leading the way in advancing the kind of thinking, teaching and research that…accelerates un-sustainability’ (Wals 2008: 31).  If this is valid, then layering or inserting sustainability into policy and practices that otherwise remain largely unchanged may have value but is insufficient. As I have argued elsewhere, sustainability ‘implies a change of fundamental epistemology in our culture and hence also in our educational thinking and practice. Seen in this light, sustainability is not just another issue to be added to an overcrowded curriculum, but a gateway to a different view of curriculum, of pedagogy, of organizational change, of policy and particularly of ethos (Sterling 2004: 50). What is at stake then is ‘response-ability’, the ability of the educational community to respond adequately to the conditions that face us and will face our graduates, and our children. Yet this is a big ask. The paradox of education is that it is seen as a preparation for the future, but it grows out of the past. In stable conditions, this socialization and replication function of education is sufficient: in volatile conditions where there is an increasingly shared sense (as well as numerous reports indicating) that the future will not be anything like a linear extension of the past, it sets boundaries and barriers to innovation, creativity, and experimentation.

A key problem is that ‘education’ is perceived by politicians, policymakers and the public as a system through which learning is facilitated. It is not seen as a system which itself learns. But it is very clear from the current history of attempts to ‘embed’ sustainability in HE that it requires learning within educational systems, not just learning through educational systems. The challenge is such that systemic learning across educational paradigms, purposes, policies, and practices is required, if education is to be able to foster the kind of learning that is envisaged by the DESD. So what is commonly perceived as a single learning challenge, is in fact a double learning challenge. How do we work towards transformative learning in a system that itself is designed to be the prime agency of learning?

It is helpful to elaborate a distinction made between two arenas of learning, that is, between ‘structured learning’ – the designed learning associated with courses and programmes for students – and the social or organizational learning within institutions which needs to take place in order to facilitate the former (Sterling 2006): the degree of change possible in the former depending on the degree of change in the latter. It also helpful to distinguish between levels of learning, as recognized in organizational learning theory, following Bateson (1972). Most universities and schools are engaged in promulgating first order learning in either arena. This is content-led and is ‘learning within paradigm’ which is not itself examined or questioned. This is sometimes called ‘maintenance learning’ in that it supports continuity and is conformative. Arguably, however, sustainability requires ‘education for discontinuity’, supporting not more of the same but developing radical thinking and innovation in economics, engineering, design, architecture, health and so on. In other words, sustainability requires at least second order learning, or critical reflexivity, in both learning arenas, whereby assumptions are critically examined and fresh and innovative thinking is nurtured. In short, educational institutions need to become less centres of transmission and delivery, and more centres of transformation and inquiry, less teaching organizations, more learning organizations critically engaged with real world issues in their community and region.   They would be less engaged in ‘retrospective education’, following on from past practice, and more involved in ‘anticipative education’: that is, in Scharmer’s words, ‘learning from the future as it emerges’ (p5).

The issue here is the difference between where education arguably should be and where it can be, given structural, perceptual, and other barriers. To this end, it is useful to have models of staged change that give some indication of what a more sustainable institution and education would look like. For some years on the Education for Sustainability Programme at London South Bank University ( http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/efs), we have made a distinction, summarized here, between:

  • Education about  sustainability: content and/or skills emphasis. Fairly easily accommodated into existing system. Learning about change. Accommodative response (first order – ‘bolt-on’)
  • Education for  sustainability: additional values emphasis. Greening of institutions. Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice. Learning for change. Reformative response (second order – ‘build in’)
  • Sustainable education:  Capacity building and action emphasis. ‘Living’ inquiry-based curriculum. Sustainable institutions as permeable, experiential learning communities and organisations. Learning as change. Transformative response (third order – ‘redesign’)

This model, which roughly equates with Bateson’s learning levels, suggests that  first order change may be a necessary early response but is not sufficient, whilst the third response is the most difficult to achieve, particularly at institutional level, as it is most in conflict with existing structures, values and methodologies, and cannot be imposed.  ‘Sustainable education’ suggests a change of educational culture, shifting attention from ‘adding on’ some desired learning outcomes as in ‘education for sustainable development’ towards thinking about the kinds of  education through which sustainability qualities and wellbeing manifest as  emergent properties in the institutional and wider communities. As such it has the potential to integrate other, HE agendas be they skills, employability, internationalization, and enterprise into a broader whole which is responsive, creative and proactive.

This may sound far from the realities of everyday institutional life. But the question is how far these realities can correspond to the global and local realities of everyday life beyond academe. I am currently working at the Centre for Sustainable Futures (CSF) at the University of Plymouth, which is working – ambitiously – to ‘develop the transformative potential of higher education at the University of Plymouth and beyond for building towards a sustainable future’ through a five-year initiative funded by HEFCE. We have made real strides towards this end, employing an holistic methodology of systemic change, working at all levels across the university, seeking synergies, building partnerships and trust, researching change, and offering support (www.csf.plymouth.ac.uk).

Seen as a whole, the programme has been an experiment and a learning experience, both for CSF core staff and for members of the university, which has been fed back into the process. It is no coincidence perhaps that Plymouth has won second place for two years running in the People and Planet’s Green League. Yet Plymouth is a long way from being what might be termed ‘a sustainable university’. At the same time, by developing and maintaining what might be called a ‘critical, connective and collective intelligence’ around sustainability across the university, CSF is, we think, developing the conditions by which the institution can grow its sustainability policies and practices systemically in the areas of ‘campus, curriculum, community and culture’: a ‘4C’ model that has informed CSF’s work since its inception in 2005.

Meanwhile, all the funding councils for HE in the UK are now recognising ESD as a strategic priority. HEFCE’s revised Action Plan for sustainable development will be published soon (see HEFCE 2008), and consultation on the document showed that many respondents are urging HEFCE to prioritise actions supporting teaching and learning. DIUS produced its own action plan for sustainable development in July, which makes specific mention of sustainability in the curriculum. Add to that evidence of increasing activity (Sterling and Scott 2008) as shown, for example, by the establishment of the UUK’s sustainable development group at VC level, by the Green Gowns awards and People and Planet’s Green League, the work of the HE Academy’s ESD Project and the vitality of EAUC – and there are grounds for hope that higher education might yet rise to the challenge of transformation, so that it might be more transformative.

Stephen Sterling

Dr Stephen Sterling is Schumacher Reader in Education for Sustainability at the Centre for Sustainable Futures, University of Plymouth, and Senior Advisor to the HE Academy ESD Project.

References

Bateson, G. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Chandler, San Franscisco.

Clark, D (2008) ‘UK will face peak oil crisis within five years, report warns’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/29/fossil-fuels-oil (accessed 9/11/08)

Jowit, J. (2008) World is facing a natural resources crisis worse than financial crunch http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/oct/29/climatechange-endangeredhabitats (accessed 9/11/08)

HEFCE (2008) Sustainable development in higher education – Consultation on 2008 update to strategic statement and action plan, HEFCE, London.

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Books, Totnes.

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Learning’, in Corcoran PB & Wals, AEJ (editors), Higher Education and the

Challenge of Sustainability: Contestation, Critique, Practice, and Promise, Kluwer

Academic.

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competencies: what does Waginengen University (want to) offer?, Waginengen 26 November

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on recent initiatives’, Environmental Education Research, vol 14, no 4.

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Technology of Presencing’, Fieldnotes, September–October, The Shambhala

Institute for Authentic Leadership, Halifax, NS.

How to help students meet the demands of an increasingly complex and rapidly changing society.

You may have heard the term ‘VUCA environment’ – one that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous – mentioned recently. The acronym has its roots in Opens in new windowmilitary discourse but is increasingly relevant to our day-to-day lives. From global climate change and the pandemic to Brexit and war in Europe, we are exposed to a seemingly endless ticker tape of uncertainty.

This provokes a question for the higher education sector: how do we prepare our graduates for this volatile world? While Higher Education institutions have good experience of preparing students for unpredictable futures – we design curricula for students we haven’t met and Opens in new windowjobs that haven’t been invented yet – a specific focus on training for uncertainty may be needed.

Managing uncertainty is already a hot topic for medical education, where a recent surge of research interest has identified several key issues. Studies suggest that a health professional’s ability to manage uncertainty can impact on their Opens in new windowcommunication, decision-making and Opens in new windowemotion-regulation skills, as well as Opens in new windowpatient outcomes, while others highlight that a positive approach to uncertainty can protect against poor well-being or Opens in new windowburnout.

A focus on uncertainty becomes more urgent when we consider that established approaches to higher education may block or hinder skills development in this domain. Delese Wear, from Northeast Ohio Medical University, warns that strategies which aim to improve the educational experience (for example, increased digitisation, constructive alignment and competency-based assessment) may have the unintended effect of reducing students’ opportunities to engage with “Opens in new windownuance, context and ambiguity”.

Researchers believe that a lack of certainty is an important catalyst for learning and can lead to improved long-term retention and a Opens in new windowdeeper understanding of material. We are now gaining more insight into Opens in new windowhow emotions can trigger and maintain the Opens in new windowcognitive-processing mechanisms underlying learning and performance. Although the literature here is nuanced, it is thought that Opens in new windowexperiences of confusion (the right amount at the right time) can keep students engaged with a topic or challenge, enhancing long-term retention and increasing transferable understanding of the material. This implies that our students appear to benefit from being exposed to uncertainty, even if they prefer not to be.

Luckily, higher education institutions – complex and often imperfect ecosystems – provide a natural sandbox for learning about uncertainty. Thoughtful instructional design can help us to harness this environment and help our students to build the skills – problem-solving, critical thinking, coping with failure – needed to meet the demands of a VUCA world. Such approaches may also offer protection against career disillusionment and burnout.

Here are nine instructional design strategies to try in your own teaching context:

1. Make the invisible visible

Uncertainty is ever present but, like the Opens in new windowMagic Eye pictures of the 1990s, we won’t notice if we don’t stop to look. Use your teaching to open the conversation with your students, and help them to tune in, too. Ask questions such as: ‘What do we not know here?’ or ‘What’s missing from this picture?’ This helps send a message that uncertainty is all around, but that’s OK.

2. Actively elicit student uncertainties

Clinical educators use a debriefing tool called Opens in new windowSNAPPS to help students disclose aspects of a patient’s case that they are not sure about. You can also use a ‘Opens in new windowmuddiest point‘ exercise. Here, you ask the class: ‘What was the most confusing or least clear concept in today’s class?’ before gathering responses verbally, or via pieces of paper or online forms. Eliciting our students’ uncertainties helps them find their voice and offers us clear feedback on what concepts we need to revisit.

3. Make it safe for your learners to disclose uncertainty

When we probe our students’ uncertainties, we are also responsible for making this a safe thing to do. Most people have a fear of ‘looking stupid’. When our students express doubt or confusion, we need to respond with empathy and sensitive communication. If students feel afraid to disclose uncertainty, it’s harder for educators to detect and correct misconceptions.

4. Add learning activities that provoke uncertainty

Puzzles, games, role plays, Opens in new windowmaker spaces and group activities such as problem-based learning all offer opportunities for learning around uncertainty. It helps to explain to students why you are using these strategies and how ‘Opens in new windowproductive struggle‘ may result in long-term learning gains. Preferably these activities should be low stakes for students, that is, they are not linked to substantial grading decisions.

5. Use shared reflection to help students unpack uncertainty

We talk about uncertainty as if it’s simple, but real-world examples tend to be multifaceted with multiple antecedents and consequences. Shared reflection and peer-to-peer learning offer valuable ways to help students see this granularity.

6. Encourage students to persist despite uncertainty

Educators can positively influence student engagement through validating (‘I know you are finding this one a bit of a struggle’) or normalising (‘Most people find this concept hard to crack’) their experiences. Empathising, and keeping students hopeful that they will succeed, can boost motivation through challenging topics.

7. Highlight the value of working with uncertainty

While uncertainty can feel aversive or anxiety-laden, it is in itself a neutral phenomenon; unpredictable situations can lead to positive change as well as negative. Students can be helped to apply different cognitive frames to uncertain situations. By seeking to convert students’ anxiety into curiosity or excitement, we can help them to recognise and harness the opportunities that often emerge through upheaval and disruption.

8. In designing course elements, use a lens of uncertainty

It can be helpful to reflect on which aspects of a module or course might trigger experiences of uncertainty for students. Opens in new windowRonald Beghetto, of Opens in new windowArizona State University, says that ‘good uncertainty… provides students opportunities to engage with the unknowns of a challenge in an otherwise supportive, well-structured environment’. Try to maximise such ‘good’ uncertainty (mixing up students’ friendship groups for a project, engaging them in workplace-based learning or meeting people from different cultures and backgrounds) that can lead to meaningful learning experiences and minimise ‘bad’ uncertainty (inaccurate class schedules, unclear assignment guidelines) that may lead to frustration.

9. Take time to reflect on your own response to uncertainty

Think about how you view and act upon complexity and unpredictability in your own life. What aspects of your responses are constructive, and what might need further work? Students often role-model from what we do rather than what we say, so it’s good to know the message we send out. It’s also helpful to share that uncertainty is a work-in-progress for us, too: ‘This is a concept I struggle with myself…” or ‘I’m having trouble getting this clear in my head’.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres conceives of the Pact for the Future

The expected outcome of the Summit of the Future – as “a booster shot for the SDGs.” Guterres will brief Member States on his preparations for the Summit of the Future on 13 February, including the upcoming series of policy briefs.

By Marianne Beisheim and Silke Weinlich

In 2024, the UN will convene the Summit of the Future on the theme, ‘Multilateral Solutions for a Better Tomorrow.’ The Summit’s aim is to reinforce the UN and global governance structures to better address old and new challenges and to formulate a Pact for the Future that would help advance the SDGs by 2030.

Already before the SDG Summit in September this year (the so-called mid-term review of the Goals’ implementation), it is clear that, unless the pressure and pace are drastically increased, many Goals will not be achieved. Therefore, UN Secretary-General António Guterres conceives of the Pact for the Future as “a booster shot for the SDGs.” At the SDG Summit, Member States could define the areas where they want to make progress (the what), while strengthening multilateral capacities to do so at the Summit of the Future (the how), while also addressing gaps and new risks.

Diverse negotiation tracks

In August 2022, the Secretary-General indicated which of the negotiating tracks he regards as especially important for the Summit of the Future, and said he intends to publish policy briefs on the respective themes in the first half of 2023.

A result has already been achieved on meaningful youth engagement with the decision to establish a UN Youth Office. Intergovernmental negotiations are underway on the planned declaration on future generations, informed by an elements paper.

The track on a Global Digital Compact could gain momentum, co-facilitated by Rwanda and Sweden, with the support of the Secretary-General’s new Envoy on Technology. A code of conduct for greater integrity of public information, and progress on global rules for the peaceful, safe, and sustainable use of outer space are also envisaged.

An expert debate in August on the Secretary-General’s New Agenda for Peace concentrates on responding more effectively to old and new security risks and improving prevention, also by including regional partners. Work on a new standard for measuring prosperity (beyond GDP) is underway.

The Secretary-General is in discussions with international financial institutions (‘reform IFIs’) and planning a first biennial summit with the Group of 20 (G20), the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and IFIs.

Through the UN’s role in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Guterres fleshed out his concept of an Emergency Platform – agile, effective, and networked action that includes relevant stakeholders. In order to develop further proposals in this direction, the High-level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism will publish its recommendations in spring 2023.

The different tracks will be brought together in September 2023 at a preparatory ministerial meeting for the Summit of the Future, held back-to-back with the SDG Summit. Both the Secretary-General and many Member States want the two meetings to be closely coordinated and synergetic.

How to better tie the Summit of the Future to the SDGs?

So far there is not yet a very well-developed understanding of how the changes that are being discussed in the various tracks will “turbocharge” SDG implementation. A convincing narrative, complete with theories of change, is needed to maximize support for both agendas. This could include spelling out how the Summit of the Future can, inter alia:

  • foster enablers of SDG acceleration such as digitalization and access to finance.
  • tackle obstacles to SDG implementation, for example, through the New Agenda for Peace, by promoting effective crisis response through the Emergency Platform, by addressing fake news, and by supporting global public goods financing.
  • reinforce international standards conducive for the SDGs, including Beyond GDP, ‘longtermism’ and rights for future generations, and of course those on human rights and gender; and
  • develop a more networked, inclusive, and effective UN for SDG acceleration through the Emergency Platform, Youth Office, and a biennial summit with IFIs and the G20, among others.

The two agendas are also tied in other ways. Credible support for the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs, including concrete improvements in the area of UN development cooperation and financing, will be important – not least for rebuilding trust in international cooperation, which has taken a battering in many developing countries. Only then will it be possible to leverage consensus on the SDGs to also achieve progress towards a more effective multilateral system.

An opportunity to create a more capable UN for SDG acceleration

The Summit of the Future offers a rare opportunity to bridge the considerable gap between the magnitude of the challenges the world is, and will be, facing and the agility and capacities of the UN to mount effective responses, partnering also with others to this end. Despite political differences, Member States should recall that a capable UN is in their best self-interest and seize the opportunity.

This article is based on a longer paper published here.

 We  are awash with all kinds of Greenwash- Are university league tables part of this surge and intensity of flawed reporting?

“The truth is, playing down the potential worst effects of global heating and climate breakdown is far worse than raising the alarm and amounts to what I like to call climate appeasement. It does nothing to help spur the urgent action that is required, and by underplaying the climate threat it works -intentionally or not -to encourage a grudging and cautionary approach to emissions cuts that we can no longer afford.”  page 160.

 From Hothouse Earth -Icon Books 2022 by Prof Bill McGuire

 There are a wide range of answers to the question of why University League Tables are produced. But this is not the primary aim of this blog post. Along with many other academics and policy wonks including student led organisations like Students Organising for Sustainability(SOS) and Change Agents UK( https://www.changeagents.org.uk/) -I have made the case for more teaching and learning opportunities in sustainability. But the scale and reach of many of the interventions and initiatives which could pioneer this transformation are woefully inadequate  given the twin crises of climate break down and loss of biodiversity.

Until about 15 years ago there were no such things as University League Tables. University applicants still managed to make the decision about ‘which Uni?’ – and they still had a great time at Universities and perfectly successful lives after graduating. So why do we need League Tables today? The short answer is that League Tables sells newspapers and gets their newspaper’s name mentioned every time the League Table is quoted. Universities generally like League Tables because they market their courses and if they move up the table it’s a success that the senior executives can celebrate. Neither the newspapers nor the Universities are unbiased here. They are both ‘making money’ out of  all of those school-leaver’s paranoia that they might not choose the ‘right’ University. To be clear – there is no such thing as the ‘best’ University for any subject. The best institution for the individual student can only be gauged by their individual interests, values and needs. League Tables will never, ever, be able to make this choice for them. My focus here is on the prospective students’ values particularly those that are increasingly causing many of them to have sleepless nights and growing anxieties about climate and social breakdown.  So, which universities are offering them a better understanding of these issues along with how to tackle unsustainability issues?

People & Planet  publish its Green University League in November each year. The rankings include 150 UK universities that receive public funding and have degree awarding powers.  

 They report under these headings:

1. Environmental Sustainability; Policy and Strategy
2. Human Resources for Sustainability
3. Environmental Auditing & Management Systems 2016
4. Ethical Investment 2016
5. Carbon Management
6. Workers’ Rights
7. Sustainable Food
8. Staff and Student Engagement
9. Education for Sustainable Development
10. Energy Sources 2016
11. Waste and Recycling
12. Carbon Reduction
13. Water Reduction

The data on education for sustainable development( or better still if at all possible- learning about sustainability -and climate literacy) comes from websites and so what gets reported depends on how well each institution features it on their sites.  People and the Planet offers consultancies to universities to help them “polish” their returns for inclusion to the data sets for the league tables:

“… People & Planet offer consultancy to students, student unions, universities, and colleges; this includes workshops/trainings as well as attending university staff meetings/sustainability events/ sustainability boards.  People & Planet work on the University League for 6 months of the year and during this period are able to provide support to universities in the form of a University League package – this might include data, artworks, media support or bespoke consultancy by phone and email.”

So, none of this is based on rigorous evaluation as such but more about a form of greenwashing or as Bill McGuire would put it –“Climate appeasement”. Yet academics and university communications teams pay lip service to these concerns – and celebrate their success when they achieve another leap up the table!

 Its about time that universities got their own house in order so that they themselves undertake a robust evaluation of their progress towards meeting their own net zero targets and even more holistically measure how far they have progressed their implementation of the Global Goals/SDGs.

University College London is one of  the  very few universities which have now begun to evaluate their progress on all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.