Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century

are often largely devoid of any hands-on experience of nature. With growing
urbanisation, many schools lack any space for a garden, but in many societies
it is rare even for rural schools to include gardening-related activities in their
curriculum. Indeed, study of the environment (experiential or not), where it is
timetabled at all, is customarily treated as a marginal or extra-curricular activity,
peripheral to the core curricular areas of mathematics and science. These trends
have been exacerbated by the intensely competitive ethos that has come to
permeate schooling. But learning for sustainable development demands that
every child is given the chance to experience life in nature, including that of
plants, birds, animals and insects.
If taken beyond the level of rhetoric, the sustainability agenda can constitute
an inspiring resource for critical thinking. Schooling needs to confront the
inconsistencies between curricular messages regarding sustainability on the
one hand, and the frequently unsustainable nature of development strategies
and everyday practices on the other. Failing to
address the typically yawning gap between some
of the ideals that subject syllabi and textbooks
profess — and the not-so-hidden curriculum
of discourse and conduct beyond the school
gates — is a recipe for fostering cynicism and
disengagement. At the same time, striking an
appropriate balance between hope and realism
is both especially important and particularly
difficult when presenting young children with
the magnitude of our environmental crisis and
threats to peace.
Schooling needs
to confront the
inconsistencies between
curricular messages
regarding sustainability
on the one hand, and the
frequently unsustainable
nature of development
strategies and everyday
practices on the other
Promoting meaningful debate requires breaking down the concepts encompassed
by SDG 4.7 into readily comprehensible and carefully contextualised issues, to
which children can begin to relate on the basis of their own experience. At the
very least, schooling needs to foster in students an awareness of the tensions and
contradictions inherent in our aspirations for a sustainable and peaceful future
on the one hand, and an institutionalised commitment to unlimited economic
growth and consumption on the other. As already noted, the demands this places
on curriculum developers and teachers are considerable — and, if they are to
be met, curriculum design cannot be left simply to technocrats in the central
ministry, but must involve a wide range of experts and stakeholders, including
classroom teachers themselves.
Rethinking Schooling for the 21 st Century:
The State of Education for Peace, Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship in Asia
209