Currently reading Sandri (2022) on “What do we mean by ‘pedagogy’ in sustainability education?”

One reason why sustainability education is so difficult is that in contrast to many other things we routinely teach, we cannot just take some teachable product, but need to transform teaching itself. Teachers need pedagogical knowledge of sustainability, and Sandri (2022) explores what “pedagogy” even means in the context of sustainability education, because while often used, the term is hardly ever defined.

In a lot of the literature, according to Sandri (2022), “pedagogy is an educator’s construction, philosophy and beliefs about their practice. It is an educator’s worldview or ‘lens’, in the context of learning and teaching, which shapes the way they see their practice, the role of education, and the processes and purposes of learning“. They suggest an iceberg metaphor, where the pedagogy, the values, assumptions, and philosophy of teaching are all below water and thus “not physically observable” (the oceanographer in me shudders, but I understand the point they are trying to make), whereas above the surface we do observe the effect of the pedagogy on the educational approach (content framing, assessment style, learning objectives and delivery structure) and, as the tip of the iceberg, the learning and teaching methods (activities, assessments, interactions, etc.).

What I find really interesting here is the definition of “Sustainability Education” as “[s]ustainability principles inform educational practice itself such as equity and feedback. Teachers are part of a ‘learning system’“, whereas education for sustainability is described with “[a] focus on developing skills and competencies for applying sustainability however can be applied within traditional teaching paradigms“. So in this definition, only in sustainability education do we co-create learning with students! A bit like what we call “Teaching for Sustainability” in our framework… But in any case, if learning is co-created with students, and definitely when teaching something so fluid and context-dependent as sustainability, teachers need to see themselves as learners, too.

Sandri (2022) share “sustainability education characteristics” and their “implications for an educator’s pedagogy“:

• Since sustainability is all about context specific problems and responses, this means that educators must become learners and use that lens to critically reflect on their values, goals, context: “Reshaping academic identity as learners necessitates a transformation of pedagogy, that is, a need to transform how educators see themselves and how they identify with their role as an educator“.
• Since sustainability is not a pre-defined product but necessarily process based, this implies a need to engage in praxis to change the system from within (for example through positive relationships)
• Social constructivist implies that it is necessary to seek out diverse voices and opinions
• Systemic and interdisciplinary means teachers have to be(come) comfortable working across boundaries
• Critical and emancipatory means we need to center values, reflection and critique: “Explicitly stating values and focusing on building reasoning skills to evidence learners’ and teachers’ positions is a more suitable approach for the needs of sustainability education than attempting to remain values neutral“. But: “Critical pedagogies that best support the learning outcomes advocated for sustainability education can provoke learner resistance as they challenge their existing worldviews.“
• Challenging social and professional norms implies the need to “engage constructively with resistance to learning and perceived relevance of learning for professional practice“

A problem with how we currently train teachers is that in a lot of the literature (and probably also teacher trainings) only discusses the teaching approaches (problem based, learner centred, etc) and example activities and their implementation, but not the underlying pedagogy. So, Sandri (2022) concludes, we need better academic professional development to support pedagogical development in sustainability education. They conclude that “The global challenges sustainability education seeks to address continue to escalate. The need for quality sustainability education situated in reflective, transformative pedagogy is essential to reorienting practices and meeting twenty-first-century capabilities needs“.

I really enjoyed reading this paper, and I think the iceberg model is very helpful to motivate discussing pedagogy — which lenses do we use? what supports our approaches and activities? — more, even though that implies taking a little bit of the attention away from approaches and activities, which are what teachers really want (as Terese just wrote) to see because it promises the fastest way to change their own teaching…

Sandri, O. (2022). What do we mean by ‘pedagogy’ in sustainability education? Teaching in Higher Education, 27(1), 114-129. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2019.1699528

Featured image and the ones below from a morning dip. Yes, I organise my whole day around going dipping when the sun rises, does not matter if that happens at 8:46 or 5:57… And yes, I could probably have found a nice iceberg picture for this post, but I wanted to share this sunrise…

If there wasn’t frost on the bridge, it could also be autumn…

Love these trees!