Subject: Curriculum - sustainability (Garg

Posted by John Heinbokel on 12/9/2005
In Reply To:Collaboration on Curricula Posted by Amit Garg on 12/8/2005

Message:

Amit (and others),



I am continuing to slowly catch up with the correspondence that my earlier inquiry has generated. I’m going to try responding to this note with two separate replies, since Amit initially placed two topics on the table for our consideration (original note copied below). Here I’d like to address his interest in sustainability.



Certainly sustainability has been an ongoing interest in the SD community – of major importance in a wide number of areas and wonderfully well suited for an SD exploration. In our earlier experimental days we (Jeff Potash and I at Trinity College) developed a college-level course on the subject (described at the Bergen ISDC: http://www.ciesd.org/pdf/bergen-paper.pdf). Many of those materials were subsequently massaged and utilized in introductory SD workshop settings and in working with grades 7-12 students at the Vermont Commons School, so it’s certainly near and dear to our hearts as well. In that original course we first identified/recognized a template that’s become a common theme in much of our work – that this sort of problem can be powerfully organized in a ‘3-sector’ structure that recognized the mutually influential dynamics of “human population,” “resources,” and “attitudes.” That feels at least related to the ‘triple bottom line’ orientation Amit references.



In addition to our work over the years, many contributions to the CLE address elements of this theme and the Cloud Institute in New York has this as its primary organizing theme. They have recently begun working with Peter Senge’s Society of Organizational Learning and other collaborators to develop elements of this theme as well. The Gund Institute at the University of Vermont is focused on Ecological Economics; I’m not as aware of the details of their current programs as I should be, but I don’t recall them placing a heavy emphasis on K-12 applications, but I could be wrong or out of date on that. So some (much?) of what needs to be done may already be in process.



While I can happily and accurately talk about our work and aspirations in this field, I am hesitant to try to put words in the mouths of these other active and effective players. I’ll invite them to speak on their own behalfs.



Two sorts of question come to mind, however, from Amit’s inquiry:



1. What will the focus be for the “workshops on systems thinking” you mention starting in Romanian schools? Do you see their purpose to be developing systems thinking, using sustainability as the vehicle/illustration or is your emphasis reversed (i.e. focusing on sustainability using the tools of ST/SD)? In either case we (and CLE more generally) will be happy to provide whatever assistance and material we can. Again, I invite others on the List with experience here (topically or geographically) to join the conversation. Specifically, the training workshops developed by the Waters Foundation may well provide some insights and approaches that could be profitably adapted to your specific needs.



2. In terms of focusing or developing curricular applications directly on the topic of sustainability, what sort of curricular materials would be most beneficial to develop or adapt. Few schools in the U.S. teach such a topic as a free-standing course and, while state and national educational standards do focus on sustainability, such focus is scattered and relatively diffuse across a number of disciplines. Putting a coherent package together (above and beyond more simple episodic units) will take some careful thought and organization, if it will be seen as useful and appealing in the current educational climate. What materials and themes should we be developing and how should we be organizing that material to meet real needs of Educators?



All for now. Time for others to join in.



john

Follow Ups:

Curriculum - sustainability (Garg - Amit Garg 12/10/2005 
Curriculum - sustainability (Garg - John Heinbokel 12/12/2005