Week 22
What role for adult educators in climate action and sustainability? A call to action.
#AdultConversations #52weeks52speaks
Week 22
Mel Lenehan
Back in the summer we held a BIG CONVERSATION.
Dr Lou Mycroft, Jo Fletcher-Saxon, Professor Erinma Bell and myself offered provocations to a gathering of adult educators to stimulate our thinking about adult education in the UK today. This event was a precursor to a gathering we are hosting in December which will be the birth of a new Alliance for adult education professionals (more of that later).
I am sharing here the full detail of my provocation and invite you to consider my call to action.
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Who am I?
I’ve worked in adult community education for nearly 25 years. I’ve spent those 25 years in adult education organisations with social purpose and social justice missions. I identify as a critical educator and have been influenced since my early 20’s by Friere, Hooks, Mezirow and Brookfield. Reading Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed strongly influenced me to become an adult educator.
As passionate as I am about adult education, I am about climate change action, sustainability and equity. I have been involved in education for sustainable development initiatives for over 10 years, when they have been in fashion and when they have not. I have connections with educators internationally who hold the same values and interests I do and I am involved with other educators in social movements on climate change action and sustainability. But I am in no way presenting myself as an expert and there is no way to do justice to this in the next few minutes. This is a deeply personal reflection but one which I hope will provoke a dialogue and I hope some collective action.
I talk a lot about social justice in my current role and I believe that our commitment to social purpose education and education for social justice needs reconfiguring to include planetary justice.
I’d just like to take a moment to remind ourselves that what we do matters – it matters to our students and it matters to our world. So, I’d like to say thank you and hope that as we reach the end of an incredibly difficult year you can take a moment to appreciate the work that we all do.
I believe it’s time for us as adult educators to change the conversation We need a focus on the future and the incredible challenges that lie ahead of us and future generations. But let’s not forget our past. Let’s reclaim our social purpose, lets stand for social and planetary justice Let’s not wait for it to happen through strategies and policies lets challenge ourselves to do more Let’s create hope and at the same time hope for more
I return to this quote for the great adult educator Raymond Williams again and again and so let’s remind ourselves of this universal truth “in times of change people turn to learning in order to understand what is going on, to adapt to it and shape that change”. What then for us as adult educators?
Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot have made a very short but powerful film which you might like to watch here and perhaps consider what is the word that is missing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q0xUXo2zEY
As much as I love Greta and George – they are missing a fundamental piece of the picture - Learning
In his opening essay for the Great Transitions Initiative (link at the end which I would recommend as essential reading) – looking at the pedagogy of transitions, Stephen Sterling starts by saying,
“Our ability to achieve a liveable future for all depends on whether we can foster an unprecedented degree of social learning. There is no change without learning and no learning without change. But with the stakes higher than ever before, time is worryingly short. How, he asks under such urgency do we affect such a large paradigm shift”.
Sterling says that formal education systems should have critical role in the global social learning process underpinning the great transition. So we can wait for a govt/regional strategy, we can update our curriculum policy and job done. Afraid not. Sterling reminds us that If education is to be an agent of change, it has itself to be the subject of change. Much focus has been on the role of Universities and conversations are starting to happen around Further Education in terms of green jobs and skills, focusing on the economic pillar. This misses the two fundamental pillars of social sustainability and environmental sustainability.
But what of adult education and adult educators? What are we going to do?
There is a common frustration with the progress on addressing climate change. At the recent G7 summit in Cornwall for example, climate change was 5th on their meeting agenda. But for those of you who are listening, the noise for action and change is getting louder
The reality is one of urgency and the emergency is here right now. It’s no longer just a potential reality for our children and our grandchildren. So, can we leave it to the next generation, to young people to solve the mess we have made. I would say not.
But why now you may still ask? We’re in the midst of a global pandemic. I believe Covid is a symptom of the climate and ecological emergency. It demonstrates the broken relationships humans have with the non-human or more than human world. Its laid stark for us the interdependency of environment, equity, poverty at a local and global scale.
Blake Poland (see GTI link below) argues the sustainability crisis is not actually a technical problem that some clever scientists and entrepreneurs will be able to “fix” but a crisis of our imaginations. Perhaps, he says it could even be said that the sustainability crisis is a relationship problem. “We have fallen out of right relationships with ourselves, with each other and the more than human world”.
Covid has given us a magnifying lens with which to see the extent and realities of social inequality, of the realities of power and in whose interests it best serves. Covid is a world affecting catastrophic event not experienced in recent life history, but as one very astute Italian doctor wrote right at the start of the pandemic “we may all be in the same storm, we are not all in the same boat”. Covid has also shown us that the climate and ecological emergency requires as much social and cultural change as it does technological fixing. It has, and continues to show us that global challenges require a global response. The air you breathe is the air I breathe.
And it’s shown that change is possible – and quickly. I believe this requires a new era for adult education far beyond a focus on green skills and green the economy
Think about an image of goldfish in a goldfish bowl. As an adult educator, this is how I feel sometimes about our sector. We work in silos and we sometimes forget the amazing historical
traditions and international examples of adult education as being a force for change and an intrinsic part of social movements.
Stephen Sterling (GTI link below), offering an international perspective says that Education systems and organisations have taken one of four approaches to the sustainability agenda so far:
1. No response
2. Accommodation
3. Reform
4. Transformation
In the first current global proclivities are absent of barely reflected in policies and practices. In the second responses centre on campus greening and curriculum accommodation in obvious disciplines only. The latter two responses go further. A reformative reflects an intentional re-thinking at policy level leading to shifts across much of the institution. A transformative response nurtures a sustainability ethos as the driver for purpose, policy and practice. Where are you/your organisation?
Let’s return back to consider what is lifelong learning and adult education? Many return to Delors 4 pillars of education (1996) Though 25 years old now it still resonates with me; Learning to be, learning to do, learning to know, and learning to live together Do you think they are still relevant? But I’d like to suggest a fifth in the context of the climate and ecological emergency – learning to live well. Learning to live well means moving beyond how we have talked about health and well-being previously to think about our collective global health, the health of more than humans and our planetary health.
So, there is our challenge but where do we start? Well there are some tools for us and I would like to suggest an opportunity. UNESCO’s sustainable development goals and Education for sustainable development seem a good place to start. The Director General of UNESCO states A fundamental change is needed in the way we think about education’s role in global development, because it has a catalytic impact on the well-being of individuals and the future of our planet. ... Now, more than ever, education has a responsibility to be in gear with 21st century challenges and aspirations, and foster the right types of values and skills that will lead to sustainable and inclusive growth, and peaceful living together. “Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO.
Education for Sustainable Development is a part of the UN’s seventeen sustainable development goals (SDG’s), not least UNESCO’s focus on target 4.7 of SDG 4 which aims to ensure that by 2030 all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development through ESD. That gives us less than a decade to achieve this.
The SDG’s are not without their critics – not least as Timothy Bedford (XXXX) points out the elephant in the room that as the SDG’s are built on a foundation of economic growth, and as such they are unsustainable. Green growth and therefore inclusive growth – terms we hear more and more are an illusion – I’ll just leave that one there.
The ESD’s also offer us some food for thought in terms of learning outcomes of different levels of learning:
Cognitive domain – comprises knowledge and thinking skills necessary to better understand the SDG and the challenges achieving it
Socio- emotional domain – includes social skills that enable learners to collaborate, negotiate and communicate to promote SDG’s as well as self-reflection skills, values, attitudes and motivations that enable learner to develop themselves
Behavioural domain – action competencies
How many of the learning outcomes you work with regularly operate in the socio-emotional or behavioural domains.
I’d also like to offer into this mix the idea of popular education
This amazing graphic is by the Highlander research and education centre – if you don’t know about them, please look them up – they are an educational organisation firmly positioned in the transformation domain. Their founder was Myles Horton – a friend of Paulo Friere
Why popular education? I believe it’s not just our curriculum that needs extending and developing but also our pedagogy. Popular education principles creates space for dialogues – sharing doubts and fears, hope and inspiration and fundamentally it offers us a learning process which is based on action. In the Great Transitions Initiative Doug Schuler quotes Myles Horton (see GTI link below)
“it isn’t a matter of each one teach one, It’s a matter of having a concept of education that is yeasty, one that will multiply itself. You have to think in terms of which small groups have the potential to multiply themselves and fundamentally change society.
“Popular education is an educational approach that collectively and critically examines everyday experiences and raises consciousness for organizing and movement building, acting on injustices with a political vision in the interests of the most marginalized.”– Paulo Freire
According to the Highlander research and education centre, “Popular education is the process of bringing people together to share their lived experiences and build collective knowledge. Popular education learning informs action for liberation.”
It gives us two fundamental questions to ask ourselves as adult educators:
· What do your/our life experiences teach us about the kind of society we live in, the kind we want, and how to get there together?
· How do you find or create spaces where people can learn from each other?
Popular education, like all great ideas is simple and is based on a spiral model of learning. We start with our own experiences, we look for patterns and shared experiences we add or create new information or theory, we practice new skills and plan for action and then we apply in action.
I also mentioned an opportunity COP26 takes place in November this year in Glasgow. COP stands for the conference of parties, signatories of the UN framework convention on climate change treaty agreed in 1994 when 197 parties (196 countries and the EU) This will be the 26th meeting (postponed from last year). They will be seeking to operationalise the Paris agreement (rulebook finalisation) which introduced a legally binding commitment to reduce emissions and limit the
increase in global warming to 1.5%.. “This decade (to 2030) is decisive and we need to turn ambition into action”. COP26 goals are:
1. To secure global net zero by 2050 and keep global emissions to 1.5% growth
2. Adapt to protect communities and natural habitats
3. Mobilise finance to support the first 2 goals
4. Work together to achieve.
There will be considerable press coverage, social movements on climate change action will be ramping up their actions and the noise will continue to increase. How should we as adult educators respond?
We are in a historical moment and Kathleen Kesson (see GTI link below) tells us that “the historical moment, however, offers clear, if difficult choices: we can attempt to return to “normal,” despite the fact that “normal” was not working for people or planet, or we can embrace the complexity and uncertainty of a bolder, more comprehensive approach to transformative systems change. The climate crises, environmental collapse, species extinction, growing inequality, racism, food and shelter insecurity, and high levels of anxiety, depression, addiction, and despair in both young and old are calling forth our best efforts to transform not just the educational system, but the social, economic, and political infrastructure it is embedded in.
So, shall we leave our individual goldfish bowls behind? Can we learn, build and educate for hope in order to mobilise action? Before my final question to you – something to remember from a quote on what’s left of the Berlin wall
“Many small people – who in many small places do many things can alter the face of the world”.
So here is my final question. Can we come together to imagine, innovate and experiment – using some of the tools which already exist and popular education principles? Would you like to work together on this?
We invite you, as activists in adult education, to join us at Fircroft College for a face to face event to share our ambitions and progress this year. Actions build movements. See you 4th December? If you would like an invitation to this event, please email us (see contact page).
References
Here are some links you might be interested in. https://2nsbq1gn1rl23zol93eyrccj-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/COP26-Explained_.pdf https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000247444 https://greattransition.org/ www.sustainableeducation.co.uk