Figure 5.4 - Activities used from the Workbook
The three colleges that responded all answered positively that they had used some of the activities from the Introduction to Sustainability Workbook. One college also advised they would be passing it to their Hairdressing department and hopefully they would use it also (Table 5.4), this college had used the Hairdressing Workbook with Beauty students. Of the five colleges that skipped this question, one college had in fact used the Workbook and the activities within it as a case study college. However, the senior member of staff who completed the survey was unaware of it. Of the further four colleges that skipped this question, one college had advised ESD as ‘low priority’ within their college and one college advised ESD was of ‘no priority’. The other two colleges that skipped the question advised they intended to use the Workbook in the future.
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% No Yes Percentage R e sp o n se
Answered: 3 Skipped: 5
Table 5.4 - Comments about the activities used from the Workbook
Comments Received in Response to Question 5
‘I have passed this onto the Hairdressing department and hopefully they will use it’.
‘Some of the worked examples of calculations of energy consumption’.
Reflective Diary Extracts 4 February 2013
A really upbeat day today at Scotland’s Colleges at the Sustainable Development Education Steering Group. Four different colleges have advised they will be in touch with me to deliver staff development sessions. I also received really positive feedback about the workbook materials and the activities that could be used in different curriculum areas, after I did an initial introduction to sustainability lecture. It is interesting that there is more interest now from other curriculum areas and not just hairdressing. Although I was using the Hairdressing Heroes Workbook staff could see how the activities could be used in other curriculum areas. One college is also very interested in using the activities for core skills learning and teaching, so sustainability related exercises which include calculations or using ICT skills for producing posters and group PowerPoint presentations etc.
May 2013
This has been a really busy month with lots of interesting developments. I attended my first Topic Support Network for ESD in FE as a joint convenor with my
colleague on the SFC funded ESD in Scottish FE project. The workbook materials were circulated and this has generated visits with three new colleges. I’ve had discussions to develop new materials for College Development Network on hospitality and sustainability. I’ve also had meetings with the Eco-Schools
Secondary Development Officer to discuss using the materials in schools and a brief discussion with a representative for the Open University who may also be interested in the materials and activities.
As the diary extracts demonstrate, there was interest in the workbooks materials from a number of different sources. I can also confirm from meetings with colleges, largely as part of staff development sessions which have taken place in particular colleges more than once, that the materials I developed were used to a far greater extent than is reflected in the survey results. However, I stand by the decision to issue the survey to college Principals, and not my known contacts, as the survey aimed to establish senior management’s knowledge of ESD in their institution. I believe a pattern is beginning to emerge that demonstrates the lack of strategic management within colleges to formalise ESD
progression within the curriculum. I know at curriculum level, in many colleges, there is clear-cut, categorical evidence that can be demonstrated that ESD is being embedded, so why is the leadership so disconnected? Maybe the leadership is not disconnected, maybe they just did not have the time or inclination to complete the survey. I do feel that
although I have seen many instances of ESD activity, it still has not taken root and permeated FE culture in the same way as citizenship education or equality and diversity have. This could be because ESD has not been endorsed to the same extent by Education Scotland as citizenship education and equality and diversity were previously. It also needs to be acknowledged that FE does not have the research culture or scientific expertise that HE does, therefore there is no pressure for practice to reflect research findings. This explains why HE may appear to more advanced in ESD development.
In producing the learning and teaching materials as part of this research I am unreservedly intending to bring about change. Before such change is engendered, we of course need to establish why change is required in the first place. The thesis has already established why change is critical because of the environmental problems, including climate change, already discussed in earlier chapters.
Climate change literature is increasingly discussing adaptation ‘using the language of transformation, reflecting a sense that the current status quo will not secure a sustainable future’ (Lonsdale et al., 2015, p6). This ‘transformation’ intimates a ‘fundamental change within and across systems, emphasising the current adaptation deficit and seeking to move away from a perception that ‘incremental is enough’’ (Lonsdale et al., 2015, p6).
Incremental gradualism is not enough, and there is a need to translate this requirement for ‘big change’ to staff and students – in a manner which is not patronising, but which also clearly emphasises the importance of the message that has to be conveyed. If climate change education for mitigation and behaviour change is unsuccessful in the short term, it may be inevitable that alternatives are considered. For example, ‘current approaches to
climate change adaptation represent a new form of environmental determinism, in that many now consider it easier to accept future temperature increases of up to 4°C or more within this century (along with other environmental and social changes) than to pursue transformative strategies to avoid such changes’ (O’Brien, 2012, p668).
As explained earlier in this thesis a number of different approaches to incorporate
sustainable development into higher education institutions have been utilized, with varying degrees of success (Lozano et al., 2013b). However, whatever approach is adopted to bring about organisational change, how to successfully achieve such change needs to be, in the view of many commentators, ‘better understood’ (Verhulst & Lambrechts, 2015, p189). Regardless of approach, the ultimate goal is to equip the students so they can contribute to a sustainable society, and as Stevenson (2006) advises:
Educators do not need a vision to adopt, but do need to construct, preferably through a thoughtful process of critical enquiry, reflection and dialogue, their own understanding of sustainable development that can guide them in their curriculum planning and teaching (p279).
How colleges choose to respond to the challenge of addressing learning for sustainability can be manifest in a number of ways. Outside of the curriculum, as already suggested progress seems varied, from the greening of estates, to sustainable procurement and effective sustainability reporting and governance. However, the challenge of providing learning and teaching staff with the knowledge, skill, and desire to transform the curriculum must not be overlooked nor its demands underestimated. This is critical because,
after all, it is their own understanding of this concept that will shape their
pedagogical practices in ESD. In the absence of such understanding, teachers are likely to find it difficult to help young people acquire a sense of their place in co- constructing a sustainable society (Stevenson, 2006, p279).
The problem to overcome here is how to provide educators with the knowledge and values to understand sustainability concerns so they can effectively deliver sustainability concepts to others. This is why the central core of my methodology has included throughout a determined strategy on how to provide educators with such sustainability knowledge and skills. This progress is required so that educators not only help inspire these values in
others, but also ‘can contribute to such important questions as: How can issues of
environment and development be connected to students’ lives?’ (Stevenson, 2006, p287). This is why my learning and teaching materials are designed to enable students to make informed decisions on how to live more sustainable lives, not only in their chosen career paths but also in their lives in general. I am forever conscious of this dual focus of my doctoral enquiries: championing unreservedly and innovation designed to further the objectives of ESD whilst researching and investigating the broader range of such
innovations in order to ascertain and promote those that are likely to be most successful.
Educational transformation is one of the answers to environmental issues, provided it is clear what requires to be transformed. Although I know what I am trying to transform with my work, in order to be successful I need to influence the decision makers and also
determine an effective methodology to ensure that the transformation makes a difference. In order to reshape current practice within Scotland’s Colleges ‘sustainability initiatives can make use of existing or new structures to bring about change’ (Hoover & Harder, 2015, p181). If there are no existing structures, or if they are complicit in the obstruction of educational change, then new ones need to be designed and created. However, ‘as most HE institutions do not follow structured models or processes to integrate sustainable development’ (Verhulst & Lambrechts, 2015, p190), there is an obvious need to formulate new decision making systems capable of facilitating more effective sustainable practices. I would argue that this is in fact a critical issue in Scottish College education, because what the Scottish Government advocates and showcases on the international policy platform does not appear to have translated into practice in colleges.
The lack of appropriate ESD learning and teaching materials has been identified by Stevenson (2006) as a major deficiency. He advised that ‘materials are not currently accessible or available to most educators in a form that is relevant to primary and secondary students or that can be readily adopted for use in school classrooms’ (p279). This is of course the issue I am trying to resolve in Scottish college education because, in many of the same respects, the materials are not available in a format relevant to what they aspire to teach. Furthermore;
if ESD overcomes what are perceived to be significant limitations of the problem- orientation of environmental education’ … ‘then the expectation should be that ESD becomes more prevalent in schools than environmental education has been.
Yet, thus far, there is no reported evidence for this in primary and secondary schools or in postsecondary education (Stevenson, 2006, p285).
So the ‘limitations of environmental education’ have not been overcome by the simple introduction of ESD in areas of Scottish education such as its schools. Yet at the same time, both ESD and environmental education, have been described as ‘the most all- encompassing educational ideology’ and ‘the most radicalpedagogy shaping global society’ (Spring, 2004, p. 100). This claim lays heavy burdens on both areas, anticipating their eventual emergence as a new paradigm for reframing the conceptual and practical architecture of education. These are very high expectations to impose on any discipline and it is difficult to see evidence of major advances being made. Although there has been progress, particularly in Scottish primary education since 2004, I would argue that there is still limited evidence of both environmental education and ESD achieving this new
synergy in postsecondary education in Scotland.
How to move beyond the limitations of environmental education as currently configured, and successfully progress to learning for sustainability, is the current curricular dilemma. ‘Few environmental educators I imagine would argue with this task which is particularly pertinent given that teachers need to try and make connections to students’ lives’ (2006, Stevenson, p285). In my teaching materials I endorse an integrationist approach, as I make sustainability links to both generic aspects of student’s everyday life along with specific links to disciplines of the college curriculum and areas of employment. However, even with the best classroom resources, this synthesis will not be achieved by well-intentioned and committed environmental educators alone. Much more is needed, such as;
policy discourse can provide a framework for local initiatives, decontextualized international policy statements must be recontextualized, after being mediated through national, provincial/regional and local policies (related both specifically to ESD and generally to educational reform) by educators at the local level
(Stevenson, 2006, p287).
Furthermore, as Stevenson (2006) also notes, ‘in the decade ahead, there is a need for identifying and creating spaces for engaging educators in the discourse so it is constructed
with them rather than for them’ (p288). His demand that ‘discourse should also be
informed by practitioners and practice’ (Stevenson, 2006, p287), is echoed in my ambition to collaborate directly with staff in the colleges themselves to better understand how the
learning and teaching materials can be further refined to ensure they are effective vehicles of educational change.
6. Have you obtained any feedback from anyone who has completed the Introduction to