Linda Tame: Educating for a sustainable future
One thousand four hundred adolescents rumble into our school every weekday morning for 5 years. During their time with us their bodies and minds explode as they grow, before our eyes, into adults. The responsibility we have is tremendous. Will these young adults leave with the skills and attitudes to lead New Zealand into a sustainable future? For me, personally, the jury is out on that question. We’re currently sitting on a Not Achieved. Whether we can, or indeed will, move to an Achieved is the critical question. In this short paper I will address the current challenges I see around Environmental Sustainability Education in Secondary Schools.
Challenge 1: Getting our own house in order
Teenagers are very perceptive. Teaching about environmental issues is ineffective when the school isn’t living by good example. Ideally the students themselves will be part of the action moving to more sustainable practices.
In my experience this is easier said than done. Some Primary Schools are effectively embracing this challenge, but few Secondary Schools seem to have been successful yet.
The Enviroschools programme provides a possible framework.
However, we desperately need more practical support. Setting up school recycling systems, energy saving schemes, packaging reduction and carbon footprint reduction programmes, for example, are very time consuming and complex. Without external structures in place they rely heavily on the enthusiasm and energy of a few committed staff .
Challenge 2: Where does Education for Sustainability fit?
We await the launch of the revised New Zealand Curriculum in October to see where the Government tells us that Education for Sustainability, and especially the Environmental aspect, fits. In the draft revised curriculum it has very little weight, but is one of a number of future focused themes schools are to consider threading through learning. I understand a significant number of submissions were received calling for greater prominence.
In terms of the qualifications framework there are currently no specific Environmental Education NCEA standards, though these are under development. In the past it has been left up to schools to decide if and how the Environmental Education Guidelines should be followed.
The risk in this is that it takes great commitment by teachers to include Sustainability Education in an already overcrowded curriculum. Consequently, Environmental Education is currently viewed by many teachers as the domain of “fanatical greenies”.
Challenge 3: Influencing attitudes
Sustainability is as much about attitude as action. Values used to be the domain of schools of special character (e.g. Catholic Schools). Now it is expected that we all establish shared school values and attitudes. One of the 5 shared values at our school is “Our environment”. By even the most optimistic measure, however, the gap between our espoused value and the value in action is more of a chasm! How could or should we be more effectively influencing our students’ attitudes?
The way forward…
Education for Sustainability should be for all, by all. It is not just the domain of the fanatical teacher or the forward thinking school leadership.
For this transformation to occur it must be both unarguable and easy. Of course we need teachers at the cutting edge, but we also need ordinary teachers comfortably educating for an unknown but sustainable future. Currently it is just too challenging to move from the perspective of our own past. I look to the Ministry of Education and other Government organisations for vision, leadership and practical support.
In the meantime we’ll soldier on because we believe it matters – but our report card still sits uneasily at a Not Achieved.