Ģ��ֱ��

TRANSCRIPT

[Upbeat music playing. After a while, a male voiceover starts.] 

Welcome to the Educational Leadership Series proudly brought to you by the Global Innovation Network for Teaching and Learning. 

[Upbeat music continues for a bit.]

[Podcast host Sam – male voice different from the voiceover]

Hello and welcome to the fourth and final episode of the podcast series on educational leadership organized by the Global Innovations Network for Teaching and Learning. I am Sam and I work on international collaboration in the field of education. In the podcast series so far, we have explored concepts of educational leadership, pedagogical leadership and coaching in the field of education. The final episode is about sustainability and its significance in the world of education. Joining me in the conversation are Heidi Layne, Shruti Taneja and Romana Shaikh. Heidi is a senior lecturer of sustainable and global education with the faculty of education and psychology at the university of Jyväskylä. Heidi is passionate about the power of local and international networks of researchers in exploring, understanding, and enabling sustainable and global education in their true sense. Shruti is the founding member of EarthJust Ecosystems and Co.labx. Shruti describes herself as a mother, nature lover and zero waster. The way she leads her life and her work with EarthJust and Co.labx serve as inspiration and direction to living sustainably and making organizational and educational choices that are pro sustainability. Romana is the Chief Learning Officer of Kizazi, an organization that enables breakthrough schools, supporting organizations that adopt a whole child and whole school approach to transforming education landscapes. Romana is an advocate for inclusion and justice as the means and end of sustainable education. In this episode, we will discuss the concept of sustainability, what it could mean to educators and learning communities. 

What do sustainability, sustainable education and sustainability education mean to you and how do you approach them through your work. 

[Heidi Layne]

Well, the sustainable education is in my title, being a senior lecturer in sustainable and global education. I think I approach it mainly from kind of global education, social and cultural sustainability perspective. But of course, all of the areas of sustainability being the cultural, social, environmental, economical are linked together, so it is not that you can work for one and forget about the other one. And I somehow like more about the term sustainable education because it's kind of more active so, so and I believe myself that sustainable education means education that actually drives for a social change in the society. I feel like what comes to the sustainability education, for the longest we've known a lot. We know how we can live in a more sustainable way, but for some reason we are not acting it in our everyday lives, and therefore we are experiencing the climate crisis amongst many other crises and emergencies in the world at the moment. It's also because of the power imbalance and that's why I feel like the justice is very important. Social justice is kind of in the heart of it, although I know that a lot of people talk about the environmental sustainability, but I believe that if we have more just societies, more just economical systems, more just cultural systems – that would drive us towards the more sustainable and environmental ways of living. I like this term by Andreotti and Stein about planetary citizenship, and that should be kind of the goal. That we would become  somehow active citizens working towards more just system in between the humans, the communities and then also the whole planetary system. So not only communities between human beings but also expanding the thinking beyond the humans and thinking that how actually humans are just a one species out of all the other species in the world. And also we can be extinct. So in that sense, like thinking about the power imbalance that exist well in between humans in between the species in the planetary system and trying to unpack that. I think that's, to me, a sustainable education.

[Shruti Taneja] 

Beautiful, Heidi, and in fact interesting. I was speaking to a friend recently and he was mentioning that his passion right now is just helping children fall in love with nature, right? And one of the things that he was experimenting with, and he went in classrooms and he's like “I asked what does nature do? How? Does it help? What is the role of nature in our life?” we have a long list, long laundry list of statements that will come. OK, trees give us oxygen, trees give us tools. It's almost like nature being our servant, right? And then that comes from placing ourselves on the top of that food chain and in such an egocentric way. And then we Anthropocene way of looking at things, while of course it's needed because in the end of the day we are thinking about ourselves as a species. But I think sustainability right now for me is just understanding that we can't exist in isolation and and it's almost like you know, all the species, the nature giving us like this big kicking off button saying take notice. There's so much evidence around us and then how can we run in that pyramid come to the come in that circle and then find our place and be proud of it? Right. And and understand that we need to give as much as we take, you know, and then like the question Sam asked, what is sustainability. I think that's an evolving definition. Ever since my childhood, and in fact I was trying to think back on when this journey started, I think my school topic, the research topic that I took was greening, and then I thought that littering was the epitome of evil. And then in my college it was around consumerism and then it was like it's forever been there and always. Thought that I was sustaining and now I'm really at a point where I'm also questioning what does sustainability really mean and then is sustainability also like the right term because we're still just talking about sustenance, sustenance of human species versus in in nature. Or everything. Like I said, everything gives and everything. So can there be regenerative approach to our being to that whatever we are taking at some way we are kind of ensuring that it stays we give back and in a sense that's the definition that I feel and now I'm trying to explore with my own entire way of being and also an education which is finding education is also a means to an end, right? Ask any educator and they will say oh we create good citizens. We want to create and cultivate habits and values into that sector, right? So which is a way of giving back to society. So can education be regenerated in this approach, right? Can education be in a way where we help students, we help society and we help ourselves understand what is the need? What can we offer back? Can we create more creators and contributors rather than just consumers? I think right now we are still talking about ethical consumption and green consumption, but I am right now also questioning the premise of consumption. And and as educators also, I think in the education system we are just cultivating consumers and then we'll keep on thinking about sustainability. You're thinking about how can we put the balance back, how can we, you know, like do things like carbon accounting, which is like you kill a mother tree and even if you plant 900 trees it will never be the same. But that's the kind of system, the kind of thinking that we're pushing through our education, which is not. Like it's. So perhaps it's time where and again. This is the question more from like that I'm exploring and I don't have an answer is what does sustainability really mean in this time to me. And I feel for me creation and contribution and collectivism is something and that how can that manifest in education and that is the path or journey of sustainable education. 

[Romana Shaikh]

It really resonate with everything that Heidi and Shruti have said, but what strikes me is that when we look at sort of the the state of our individual lives and our collective life today, the harsh truth is that it is a result of the education all of us had. All of us, meaning all of us in power, all of us who had the privilege to be educated have created the kind of life that we live in today, which is so full of strife for so many people, whether it's the collapse and flow destruction of the planet or or the very real challenges of of war and all sorts of other crisis challenges that people are going through. So somehow our education led us to this point where both people and planet are not OK and in in many, many ways are almost going through a a slow death. And Heidi touched upon this idea of of power and it makes me really connect that to our education system. So if we think about what our education systems are gearing us too, I think Shruti outlined a couple of those pieces. They are they are gearing us towards a certain idea of success which all hinges around being employed, consuming things, achieving a certain kind of material wealth. So there's a very fixed idea of success, achievement. And what it means to have arrived, because that's who has power today. It's people who have money, people who are same. People who look a certain way and live a certain kind of life. And that's the same attitude I think that is the opposite of what many of our wisdom traditions and indigenous cultures actually already knew. And so where I work is I work in many countries that have a history of colonization that have a lot of communities that are indigenous, that have tribal and ancient wisdom. A a lot of those bodies of wisdom have really been displaced, almost looked down upon and moved out of what is today a formal education system. So that set of values that both Heidi and Shruti touched upon, where I'm not trying to think about sustainability. I'm not trying to think about saving the planet. But I live in relationship to the planet because I recognize from my wisdom of my ancestors, of my land, that me and my planet, me and that tree we share a relationship that is a oneness amongst all living beings. And I think when when our education system became something that disregarded that. When we built schools and told children OK, you learn inside these walls – if you were lucky to have walls in a roof – you don't learn outside there. You learn from books you don't learn from staring up at the sky and watching the changing weather patterns. I think all of those places are certain kind of purpose and process to education, and that's where I feel like the idea of sustainable education really needs to start and think, actually, what is the purpose of education today and who gets to decide that? Can we shift our purpose of education away from consumption and can it be about thriving for people and planet? And that will come when we recognize that people and planet can only thrive together because we are fundamentally in relation to each other. One cannot exist without the other. And I think about that shift in purpose of education and that comes with a certain set of values and and there's this three that we reflect on and talk about at at Kazazi. What would education that is sustainable, create? And there's three shifts. One is a shift from this paradigm of self-improvement to self-discovery. So we are not chasing to achieve and chasing to be and do something. But a real curious approach to who am I and and who am I? What are my unique gifts that I'm born with that I've received from my ancestors. The second is shift from  separation or focus on differences and competition to focus on togetherness and harmony and really being able to celebrate and see each other’s diversity, but also see each other’s common humanity. I think we focus too much on how am I different from you. How can I stand out from the crowd? But actually what's beautiful is, is that we we need to be together and it's our differences that that will help us learn more things and learn differently. And the third shift is about a shift from being served by the planet to being in service of the planet, and that one I think is one of the hardest ones to shift because the very way our schools and lifestyles are designed today is with this notion of I have natural resources, you know, and how do I save my natural resources, but that's that's a paradigm shift is actually they're not resources. They are living beings and we live in relation to living beings, so there's very deep rooted shifts that I think over there for us to really see ourselves in relation to all things in our planet, living and and one day hopefully the things that we can't see as well but recognize that there is more in this universe. That brings us together to really being in service of all living beings and the planet.

[Podcast host Sam]

Thank you for talking about the big picture of sustainability. As Shruti said, at some level many of us do know what sustainability means and what sustainable living would look like. But those conversations are limited to disconnected actions that we take at home or outside. But it's important to view all those actions through a broader philosophical lens that that you touched upon, the lens of social justice, which doesn't often appear in conversations around sustainability, that the lens of interconnectedness of matching consumption with contribution of acknowledging and responding to the oneness that we know is what characterizes or living beings. And Romana, you touched upon how schools play a crucial role, how the education system has played a role in us having the society that we live in today. And we've been thinking about and talking about change. And you mentioned the three shifts that KAZAZI focuses on, and this is a question open to all of you, how do you see the shift that Romana spoke about or the notions of planetary citizenship, interconnectedness, responsibility. How do you see these concepts coming alive in schools or in education systems? What are we seeing happening in systems that are working well towards sustainable?

[Shruti Taneja] 

I can share an example, so interestingly the three shifts I think are so beautiful and powerful, right? And and I think even like at a fundamental level, even these three ships are interconnected, like each one of these can be an entry point. But you will find your way into other like like like even if my understanding has been that even if you try and fall in love with nature, you will fall in love with yourself and fall in love with community, because there's no other way around it. And all three are so intricately interrelated. And then, but what is difficult to again what Romana mentioned is a difference in way of thinking and and way of thinking in what society connects right now. Right. So at and some intuitive level, I think because it's so much encoded in our DNA, right, like I know that I'm interdependent to the extent that my breath is interdependent. That's the the, the most basic primal thing that there can be. And yet we somehow have forgotten a way around it. So in our work, what we are doing is trying to work with educators and communities where people have walked the talkm right. The first step for them was being sustainable on their own. And coming to a point where they realize that we can truly never be sustainable. I think that's that's one sort of shift. And that's because that's the moment of humility and and giving in and surrender and then knowing that nature will finally choose and figure out the way. And then we have to coexist. But for working with these teachers and then creating a community where this is the the second shift right working with the community working in collaboration. What can that look like? Because if I am a collaborative individual, then irrespective wherever I am, irrespective of the system that I am in, there's some collaborative seeds that I will sow. Similarly, if I'm in love with nature, I will figure out a way to get my children to fall in love with nature. And if I don't have a textbook which is advocating about sustainability, which is advocating about all these things that we need to do. So in our work with just we need fortunate to be working with such passionate educator. Who are bringing this reality to their schools and there are such beautiful, powerful stories that are coming out right. Like one of them is where each child has kind of taken one tree or one native plant, and they find out about it and they say they actually come saying that I am me and this is what I do, this is what I like, this is what I don't like. And and they find out stories about what is true about me from their grandparents. And they're such beautiful folklore that exist. I think that's such a beautiful part in sustainability, because another thing is what sometimes is disheartening for me is taking climate action or thinking about sustainability, which is born out of fear. Because then we will think about let's go to. Mars, right? Versus, this planet is so precious and this tree so precious that I want to nurture it and it is OK if it dies, because that's also the way of nature, right. And it's OK if I die, too. But for the time that we are together, how do we nurture each other? And that shift from thinking about sustainability out of your worst sustainable sustainability out of love and and that in itself then income passes all these things that we've been talking about, right, which is the social justice which is the peace. As Heidi has often mentioned, right, like peace is fundamentally the path of sustainability, because peace and love. You know, if you're at peace with yourself, if you're peace with community, your peace with nature, then love types and and. But we can talk about it, but how does it manifest in education? How does it really come through in our classrooms is one of the things that we've seen is when people are experiencing it. We can give the best textbooks to people, we can give the best of tools to people. But if I don't have love for nature, I don't understand it myself. I'm not living – then I think children are the best path to it. They know when you're taking it and they know when you're you really mean something and they will learn. So in in our work. we're finding these places, these people. And these institutions, so it's schools, it's organizations, it's government departments. It's so many other places where people are motivated, they have a certain degree of realization. Then how do we help communities thrive together or accelerate what each one of them is doing and multiply it into almost of a force that starts the movement that starts, I think in the first and the hardest step is just leaving it on your own and I'm just approaching this from a place of ornament, right? Like even this time it feels like you're so seriously talking about nature. When er he wants us to be happy and then to be happy. So yeah, like how to. Be happy at. Least and walking the talk and realizing we'll all make mistakes. Along with it.

[Heidi Layne]

Yeah, I totally agree with you, Romana. And I really love the way how you talk about the love and the peace and the nature all together and the children. I think that's, I mean, you know, that's where it starts from. And somehow, like the children have this kind of an approach to life that I feel like we lose as grown ups at some point and and how to nurture that, and how to maintain that? I think that's a question. I think Sam's question is is kind of the heart of the what I'm trying to do and what I'm trying to understand. What is sustainable education? You know what needs to happen so that the education can be more sustainable and there are all these, like, talks about and writings about, for example, the competencies that you know, in relation to the sustainable education? I do agree we need to have some kind of like systemic thinking. Future oriented thinking we need. To kind of engage in action, I think how we implement, you know how the engagement becomes an implementation and what is the code. Often we change terms, we talk about global or sustainable or sustainability education and we think that when we create a new term, you know we create something great but actually changing it term if we don't. Change the meanings and actions. It won't help. I think in my own work may I have an interest towards that. Indigenous knowledge is the ways in which that people actually know how we do. We talk about, for example, in terms of belonging to the nature and or, you know owning land or something. You know that this for like a very fundamental ways of systems of thinking that comes with the education. It also comes with the language and I think like in a sense like what also Romana was saying earlier that, you know, the education is being certain people so, but it doesn't mean and I think also the big question is that what does it mean to be an educated person? Is it a diploma or is it, you know, something that comes from your heart, what Shruti has also been talking. So I think also like thinking of Souza de Santos, who has said that, you know, we cannot solve the current crisis by going back the same steps that we have created all the crisis. So I think it's especially from for, for myself, from Western perspective. I'm really interested in bringing together educators like how we are here today and listening and learning from one another. And I think that is really something that we, I mean that could be one solution. Mary Louise Pratt talks about these conflict of contact zones that you know, how do we actually, you know, create change in a sense that we adapt something from some other knowledge system and create something new. I think that's really kind of a heart of what I'm intending to do with my work, but at the same time I think you know it's kind of a question unsolved that you know how do we do sustainable education so that it really brings social change. I believe that Shruti is doing it with the children.

[Romana Shaikh]

I think a few things we've seen across our schools. So I work in in pretty different geographies right now, north of India, urban and rural Armenia and Sierra Leone. So very, very different countries, geographies even within the countries very, very different geographies and and cultures. And sadly, when you go across, you'll see everyone has the same education. And so our conversation really starts there in saying, OK, what would a contextualized education be? And so thinking about the history, the economics, the culture, the geography, all of that, right, what's what's needed here? And the common ones really come down to what Shruti and Heidi have named, it's love and peace.  And so then it's about OK if it's love and peace, then how do we change the way we spend time in school? A really simple practice is is just increasing your time with nature. I love the example Shruthi gave of learning to characterize or embody different animals and trees, so even if you don't have nature around, that's a way to still tap into that essence. That ohh these also have life and and so whatever that may be the I think the underlying value is having value and seeing life in all living beings. So whether it's taking a walk in nature, in some schools we have gardens where children are actually nurturing life. Or in other places can it come in very intentionally in the way children, in the way we create our textbook and the stories kids read. And that links very beautifully to again going back to the stories and culture and wisdom of the land. So in each of these different regions, what are the myths? What are the stories? What's the local sort of knowledge and can that be given place in class? So when I am learning about my environment, am I also learning about it, from the way that ancestors spoke about it, not only that single view of history or not, that single view of geography where again you know you're changing the language like he did. That and creating place for for local language. But even if you're still doing academic siloed subject, there's ways to be more intentional about what our children reading, writing, and listening to. What are the topics they're talking about in mainstream curriculum? Right. So I'm saying, one, in timetable is there time to engage with life outside, engage with your environment, engage with nature? Two, in content and curriculum, have we really given space to a different narrative? A narrative that sees each other, that sees people and planet differently. And the third I think common thing we're seeing is just the shift in pedagogy. So again, what you'll see common across a lot of colonial education systems is this rote teaching.  And the rote teaching was actually a way to say, don't think. And that's exactly what we need today. We don't necessarily need debaters. We need contemplates, we need inquirers like recognizing that we don't have the solutions. So can we shift our pedagogy to be more inquiry to be more about, OK do it and figure it out. It's it's OK to fail. It's OK to try because that's the kind of approach to thinking to learning, to being and doing that we need to cultivate. So in many of our schools, you'll see even again if it's not in mainstream academics. But there's time being created to do projects. Like in in Armenia, the kids were taken out one day and it's beautiful. The landscape is just beautiful. It's all green, it's all hilly. It's really there's there's very little concrete you can see in some of the the village areas and less urbanized areas. And it's the same problem we hear about everywhere, right. There's so much plastic bag. There's just plastic everywhere. So the children identified that as a problem and and then they brought their parents in. They brought the local shopkeepers. And they decided to make cloth bags, but it was not just making the cloth bags. They made the clock bags. They went to their parents. They went to the shopkeepers and explain the whole story of, OK, here's what we're going to replace. And that also allowed for them to raise a little bit of funds and buy their own sewing machines. So in a way, it shouldn't learned so much. It may not have been outcome number 3.5 or standard number 5 from X subject, but they learned problem solving. They learned to observe. They learned to inquire. They learned to advocate. They learn to rally people. There's so much that you learned in just that much. And what's beautiful is even in in India you see that is that children are beginning to do this with their parents and community members, which is again a false division we created in education. And so now when you think about families in poverty, we often leave families out of their child 's education because education is confused with literacy. But these projects, which are about OK, how can we respond to what's happening in our lives? Whether it is because of the floods, the ambulance doesn't reach here or in time. And that's a problem for the elders in my village. But children and elders and the teachers can together write a story about that. They can talk about that they can find their local municipality and solve for that. So there are some of these challenges which there are ways for us to build a whole new set of values around intergenerational learning, where literacy and education don't stand at loggerheads, and we can bring community back into school. And so in different contexts, based on the culture based on the environmental needs, the curriculum looks different. The content may look different, but it's really these values of problem solving of inquiry, of really changing the way we spend time in that timetable to do these things. And it's hard because the general narrative, within which I work, at least across the global South, is not prioritizing this. So there's still a lot of boxes that you have to work within, but I think these are some of the first steps that we can begin to take even while we sort of work towards trying to redesign and break through the entire education system. There are these steps I think that hopefully will move us closer in, in the long game.

[Shruti Taneja] 

We'll have to just add to this point, I think Romana made a lot of fantastic points. I think no conversation sustainability should skip the concept of local, it’s such an important orientation and I loved the examples that you shared. In schools, the work that is happening and and really like basing the studies or the education on locally, even local problem-solving like this empowerment that is happening and there's so many things that are actually happening through this just one project. But I find it interesting irony or a bit jarring in terms of. We understand that there is a lot of indigenous knowledge and ways that things were and then we kind of have moved away from it, right? Now, one of the frequent debates, and I think in fact even the children have sometimes got this point, is then why did the change happen if that was so good? And if that way of working was perfect, then why did it change? So there is of course the power dynamics to it and there are multiple things. But Heidi, from your understanding of, because you're studying this at a global level, and from also an academic perspective, why did this shift happen? And then right now what are the ripples that you're seeing? Because we are having this conversation, which means that ripples of change has started to happen. What are those ripples that you're actually seeing?

[Heidi Layne]

I somehow feel like it's a lot about the power imbalance and in the way like you know what type of knowledge has taken the power over the world and if we you know we talk all these beautiful things about the globalization. But globalization has been another kind of way of doing the colonization that you know, kind of like maintaining certain type of economic system knowledge system and in a sense like somehow sometimes find it even bit – funny is not the right word but I cannot get the word now to my mind then I'm really would like to express. But I think especially in the Western world we are in a sense like now you know trying to solve this crisis. Climate crisis and you know, now there's the SDG goals and all of it. Like you know, by the supranational organizations and also like, you know, from whose perspective, who can have an access to them, the role of those goals in education in different parts of the world is that there's all these big questions. And I think it's the beautiful question from the children. It's it to the heart of the question that, you know, why we maintain a system that doesn't work. But then how do we make those people who have the power to become aware? And I think there are a lot of people who are aware of it. I really like Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed, this kind of thinking that if we can in a sense to keep the power, knowing that we have the power and purposefully use it, we can be aware of our power and kind of not wanting to use it but not also working towards the change. Or we can be aware of the powers that we have and kind of systematically change towards a change so that there's a a shift – and it is mainly the economic power in this world. I think you know. Then now with the political atmosphere in the global system. I think you know it's again like we are not working towards harmony, but we have also created this system that the systems are afraid of losing the power because then if if you lose the power then somebody else takes over the power or how by education we can actually create a system that it would make people to, you know somehow, like social change towards you know this more harmonic way of of being that it's not about like trying to gain the power but it's actually trying to to build the kind of the peaceful, harmonious way of living. But where are the role models? And I I think that's really I always wonder about that, because for example in Finland, I mean we have had a free education since the 1970s and and as a society we are not working towards a more harmonious ways of being together or being together in the with the planetary system, but also like the right wing politics are are taking more and more power over and it's, you know, these are really big and important questions.

[Podcast host Sam]

The last segment of the episode in which Heidi, Shruti and Romana talk about learning communities was not properly recorded, so I will conclude this podcast with a summary of what was shared. Learning communities indeed form a sustainable approach to learning and development in personal and professional contexts. The idea of learning and development happening through communities of learners as opposed to a hierarchical flow of information and learning choices, lends itself to making learning and development a more inclusive collective, contextual and empowering process. However, often when learning communities meet locally or internationally, conversation stay limited to the what of inclusion, justice and sustainability, and do not critically and comprehensively explore the how. Learning communities must empower members and discuss and analyse personal successes and challenges. And present to the world not merely theories of sustainability, stories of sustainable living, education and development. That wraps up the podcast series. I hope it has broadened and deepened your perspective of educational leadership, pedagogical leadership and coaching and sustainability in the context of education. Thank you for listening and wish you the best.

[Upbeat music starts playing. Male voiceover speaks]

This was an episode in the educational leadership podcast series – proudly brought to you by the Global Innovation Network for Teaching and Learning. To listen to the other three episodes, and to find out more about the GINTL network, kindly visit