Exploring Ecological Learning
The winding path that led me to learning at the Schumacher College.
Here I share the path exploring sustainable education that led me to join the course, Co-Creating the Emerging Future: The Schumacher Certificate in Leadership and Facilitation.
Working within high schools in Japan with its rapidly declining population first led me to the concept of sustainable education. My boss asked me “How can we attract more of the best students?” I wondered why the school was avoiding the issue that their hoped-for student population had not been born. At the same time, I felt there were parallels between the resource-intensive wasteful consumerist systems in which we live, and education: expensive textbooks quickly outdated, decontextualised work towards arbitrary milestones (exams) with outputs (tests, papers, binders full of words) rarely if ever put to good use. With so much important work to be done in society, I wondered if there was a possibility of an education system more in line with nature — a sustainable education. Stephen Sterling wrote Sustainable Education: Re-Visioning Learning and Change in 2005. £5 and delightfully short, published as a Schumacher Briefing, I followed its breadcrumbs to E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, and was convinced that the externalisation of natural resources from mainstream economics was deeply problematic.
Can ecological concepts be usefully applied in education? To explore this question, I enrolled at the Graduate School of Environmental Studies at Sophia University, Tokyo. When I listened to former President of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Honourable Emmanuel Mori, discussing issues of ocean sustainability, I decided to research sustainable education on the island of Yap. I expected that islander communities across the vast Pacific ocean had something to teach the world in terms of sustainability. Of the four projects I considered, I found Waa’gey’s traditional canoe carving and navigation activities to strongly exhibit characteristics of an ecological view of education. On the other hand, community outreach teaching people climate-smart agricultural practices, while having diversified sources of funding to continue, seemed more transmissive than transformative, more mechanistic than ecological.
To continue my explorations of sustainable education in an applied context, I moved to work in higher education in Pohnpei, FSM. In my work on assessment, I tried to support self-evaluation with critical support. As a manager, I aimed to facilitate change while focusing more heavily on process more than product. Yet when I reached down to the level of values and the founding law of the college, I was perplexed to learn that the second purpose of the college is to:
This leads me to ask, if the institution had unlimited financial means assured forever, what course would we chart for our future? If the institution values what we currently measure, we value basic quantitative outcomes such as the percentage of students who graduate, the number of credits they enrol in per semester and the number of certificates handed out. This in a community college in a large-ocean island nation, home to some of the world’s most biodiverse hotspots, with the cost of protecting against rising sea-level in the coming decades expected to be extremely high relative to GDP. Is the institution measuring what it values, or valuing what it measures? When was the last time the assumptions the system was built upon deeply examined?
What does sustainable mean? Following its word roots, I like to think of it as “to hold from below”, which leads us to consider foundations.
You are only as strong as your foundations, however fortified.
Strong and stable operations which do not allow parts of their organisations to become weak are better able to respond to external pressures.
Sustainability can be considered as riding the sweet spots which simultaneously respect economy, society, and the environment. The climate emergency we find ourselves in today stems from the proliferation of a system which prioritised economic concerns over and above society and the environment. But what is this economy? Considering its Greek root oikos — meaning house — we can return to the original sense of managing the household. And what do we find in many of the world’s households?
Family.
2020’s pandemic has demonstrated both the fragility of our global systems and an opportunity to question our assumptions and priorities. When the pandemic struck deep and international borders were closing, I felt I was being torn between my life, work, and the people I love in Micronesia, and my family I love in the UK. Every Micronesian I spoke to told me that this is not a question. The risk of future regret for not prioritising family was greater than all the negative impacts of leaving Pohnpei. Ironically, it took 15-years of life far from my family and travels to one of the furthest points away from my own to learn the lesson of the strength of family. The family I learnt of in Micronesia is not limited to blood relatives — I felt welcomed by Micronesians like family. A colleague described the college as her second family. We are all part of island earth’s family and should love one another as such. Is the strength of family the lesson of sustainability that Pacific island cultures can teach the world?
Though I still feel unable to explain what sustainable education is, I’ve observed some examples which I feel exemplify it. The first example I observed was when Waa’gey’s crew set sail in their canoe, trusting themselves to the quality of their labour, their ability to apply their knowledge of the stars, the weather, and the water, to reach their destination. The spiritual element of magic/God/nature is deeply honoured. In the second example, I was able to observe what sustainable education might look like in the formal education sector. Wayfinding Academy in Portland, Oregon, is a two-year non-profit institution of interdisciplinary studies authorised by the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission to grant Associate of Arts Degree in Self and Society. They aim to:
Though I felt deeply inspired by these two examples, I have been longing to experience what sustainable education feels like first-hand as a learner. In 2020, I jumped at the opportunity to join Co-Creating the Emerging Future: The Schumacher Certificate in Leadership and Facilitation.
The Schumacher ethos is about honouring HEAD, HEART and HANDS and creating harmonious relationships between people as well as nature. We see ourselves as a place of spiritual nourishment and intellectual stimulation. The
timetable for your course is designed to reflect this and we have endeavoured to create a balance with teaching sessions, field trips, free time for reflection and participation in daily community activities.
I have long been troubled by the predominant culture of unhealthy work cultures, even in the sustainability sector. How can one truly spread the value of people and planet through work if we are not even valuing the health and well-being of oneself, or one’s colleagues, or one’s students? Now my biggest challenge is that I feel that my health and my work are opposing one another. With a 10-hour time difference, I regularly wake at 5am for the two hour window when I can communicate directly with colleagues. A central pillar of health is sleep while a central pillar of work is communication. Neither of these two pillars are negotiable yet the more I prioritise sleep, the less in communication I am with my colleagues. Since I have long advocated the importance of health, it is evident that the only way I can ensure my actions match my words is to make my working life healthier, or to leave. I sincerely hope it’s the former and want to do everything I can to make it so, because this is not just for myself, but for everyone I work with and the communities we serve.
The course begins. The first evening we go into nature in the dark under a star-filled sky and the fiery gaze of Mars. We ask nature what might be a good question to hold through the course.
Can I allow myself to be healthy?
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The views expressed here are entirely personal and in no way reflect the views of the institution I work for, its people, nor any judgement on any of the people working or studying there.
