Thinking about our communities and the ways of developing the lie style takes me towards always thinking about the power of sustainability , although some found that sustainability is only a strategy but not a fixed model that can be applied always in all aspects and it is hard to measure , for me sustainability is part of leadership process and that because leaders can implant sustainability process and influence others to think and apply sustainability proven process in all aspects of their life style socially or in work .
To Build Nowadays a community that had the minimum standard of success we need to implement and apply sustainability process in the core of the communities needs which are Education , Healthcare and Work
Starting with Education Need I found the following are much needed to be studies and research to reach an approach of sustainable education system that will increase the awareness of the community and improving life style :
What is important to understand Sustainable Education system or Educational Sustainability is to know and understand the definitions .
Sustainability education (SE), Education for Sustainability (EfS), and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) are interchangeable terms describing the practice of teaching for sustainability. ESD is the term most used internationally and by the United Nations.[1] Agenda 21 was the first international document that identified education as an essential tool for achieving sustainable development and highlighted areas of action for education. Groundwork has been laid for sustainability education worldwide. Recent changes in service learning, a focus on literacies and skills, standards that support interdisciplinary thinking, and the role of systems thinking have all increased the visibility of the movement.[2] Various approaches to ESD encourage people to understand the complexities of, and synergies between, the issues threatening planetary sustainability and understand and assess their own values and those of the society in which they live in the context of sustainability. ESD seeks to engage people in negotiating a sustainable future, making decisions and acting on them. While it is generally agreed on that sustainability education must be customized for individual learners,[3] according to Tilbury and Wortman, the following skills are essential to ESD:[4]
- Envisioning – being able to imagine a better future. The premise is that if we know where we want to go, we will be better able to work out how to get there.
- Critical thinking and reflection – learning to question our current belief systems and to recognize the assumptions underlying our knowledge, perspective and opinions. Critical thinking skills help people learn to examine economic, environmental, social and cultural structures in the context of sustainable development.
- Systemic thinking – acknowledging complexities and looking for links and synergies when trying to find solutions to problems.
- Building partnerships – promoting dialogue and negotiation, learning to work together.
- Participation in decision-making – empowering people.
Another prospect founded to have an effect on Education Sustainability . Too much of education, especially following the Western Enlightenment model and its increased use of scientific, quantifiable metrics, has seemed to completely forget that love and emotional intelligence have everything to do with what and how well the human child learns. In a globalizing society facing shared environmental and social crises of existential proportions, this forgotten understanding is fatal to real hopes of education for sustainability and healthy human and planetary life. Love is simply too critical an emotion to understand and incorporate into education, and it has been too long left out in the cold. But cold it has been for the human mind focusing on only rational/objective and emotion-denying forms of learning and intelligence, creating minds unmoved by the thus un-felt facts of an increasingly globally warming and more confused world.
The international Transformative Education Forum founded in Geneva in 2010 addressed this very issue of what a new pedagogy of human care, ethics and spirituality – the pedagogy of human love – would actually look like in any single community and in an increasingly interconnected, diverse world. This gathered group from five continents and all walks of life, especially educational practitioners, worked to address this lack of cohesive human problem solving resulting from fragmented disciplines of outdated thinking that had led to increasingly measurable harmful human and planetary outcomes. From Geneva, Switzerland to Monterey, California, to Bangalore, India to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the UN Conference on Sustainable Development “Rio + 20” itself, TEF educators and policy thinkers came together to address a new pedagogy reaffirming love and the necessary emotional and social intelligences that define it. Together they developed twelve Principles of Transformative Education and gathered and created models of these Principles, that are critical to re-defining exactly what that kind of love would necessarily have to do with transforming these old paradigms of educational dysfunction into a caring, thriving world.
Others had different definition for Educational sustainability which is a transformative learning process that equips students, teachers, and school systems with the new knowledge and ways of thinking we need to achieve economic prosperity and responsible citizenship while restoring the health of the living systems upon which our lives depend. The Definition is been taken to a wider prospective mission and goals .
I agree with following reference ”a change of educational culture, one which develops and embodies the theory and practice of sustainability in a way which is critically aware. It is therefore a transformative paradigm which values, sustains and realises human potential in relation to the need to attain and sustain social, economic and ecological well being, recognising that they must be part of the same dynamic” (Sterling, 2001:22)
The Leadership for Education Sustainability had agreed mostly for the following commitments :
- A commitment to social, ecological and economic justice
- A commitment to multiple perspectives including multicultural, interdisciplinary, intergenerational, indigenous, local, and global perspectives
- The development of reflective practitioners and critical thinkers with strong communication skills
- The empowerment of change agents with leadership skills and the capacity to collaborate with diverse individuals
- The integration of theory, research, assessment and practice
- A commitment to bio-cultural diversity, ecological restoration, and the greater good
- The integration of indigenous knowledge and whole systems design
- The fostering of participatory, inclusive, transformational, and lifelong learning
- The promotion of applied, experiential and community-based learning
- The fostering of hope and resiliency through networks and relationships within local and global contexts
The Importance of Building An Educational Sustainable System had lead to reconfigure the method of sustainability for Education development which mean an
Education for Sustainable Development allows every human being to acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to shape a sustainable future.
Education for Sustainable Development means including key sustainable development issues into teaching and learning; for example, climate change, disaster risk reduction, biodiversity, poverty reduction, and sustainable consumption. It also requires participatory teaching and learning methods that motivate and empower learners to change their behaviour and take action for sustainable development. Education for Sustainable Development consequently promotes competencies like critical thinking, imagining future scenarios and making decisions in a collaborative way.
Education for Sustainable Development requires far-reaching changes in the way education is often practised today.
References :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_for_Sustainable_Development
http://cloudinstitute.org/brief-history/
http://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue6-perspectives1
leadership-for-sustainability-education-lse-specialization
Rasalkhaimah, ras, al, khaimah, dubai, university, salford, manchester, @hishamsafadi, hisham, safadi, European, medical, center, business, entrepreneur, startup, economy, money, motivation, education, Leadership, Transactional, analysis, emotional, intelligence, organisations, development, innovative, technology, care, health, investor, investment, production, shark, tank, sharktank, USA, UK, London, group, european, canada, india, china, japan, KSA, projectmanagement, datascience, bigdata, IOT, internetofthings, cloud
Dr.Hisham SAFADI 