Why Sustainability?

The fundamental model of education the World has today has been around since the 19th Century, but the World has changed far more radically than education systems. As longer lists of subjects evolved, the world was able to specialise further and further, enabling a lot of the advancement seen in the last century. Unfortunately, it also gave rise to much of the problems of our planet. A loss of understanding the connectedness of everything. A loss of systems thinking. A loss of understanding the circular nature of the environment leading to the depletion of resources and amplification of pollution we see today. It led to valuing the accumulation of resources and money as wealth rather than nurturing, protecting, and prolonging resource usage. Values-based learning was forgotten. 

Education for sustainability is about values-driven learning, understanding different perspectives, appreciating diversity and being inclusive; learning from the real world, and that the real world is not divided into neatly defined subject areas but is transdisciplinary; systems thinking to understand what each of us does has innumerable impacts; solution driven - building skills so students feel empowered to effect change; understanding one's local environment - being connected to the Earth and the place we hold within it. This is the education we need to give our children. This is Education for sustainability.