Learning for Sustainable Futures: One Intervention

Patricia Kelly

《Journal of Futures Studies》 10卷3期 (2006/02) Pp. 1-14

並列摘要

The planet needs more wisdom, not more 'one minute managers'.
As a teacher in Higher Education in Australia working with large, diverse cohorts of first year engineers, my task was simple! I wanted to set up a welcoming and respectful context for all students; to help students to communicate more effectively in writing, orally, interpersonally and interculturally, about issues I believed were important in the 21st century; as developing professional engineers in a globalised context; but in such a way that they would be able to contribute to alternative sustainable futures.
One of the challenges for critical futures educators is that values we may weave in teaching time, are unpicked or at the least frayed, by omnipresent, seductive and better resourced messages dedicated to the short term, individual 'right' to limitless consumption. At the deepest level, I hoped that the unit I taught in would be a source of intellectual and spiritual sustenance for students faced with complex, uncertain but demanding futures.
I used Reflective Journals as a core pedagogical intervention and my research has shown that many students have become more aware and able to think critically and assume responsibility for themselves, their impact on communities and the planet. I have identified some qualities of such Globo Sapiens, but in order to understand how such changes were occurring or being resisted I needed methodologies compatible with an age of meaning. The metatheories and methodologies of Sense-Making and Causal Layered Analysis have enabled me to design curriculum and research that focus on ”connectings”, what is blocking students or helping them to change and grow and at what levels. I now see not just 'who' students are, but where they are and my part in the process, a humbling parallel personal journey into reflexivity. As Tony Judge advises ”without our own personal harmony we cannot assume responsibility for guiding the biosphere.”