Embedding Environmental Sustainability Education in a Master of Teaching Program: Reflections on Improvisation and Learning-by-Doing at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

• In Event: Consequential Teacher Environmental and Sustainability Education Research: From the Margins to Mainstream "Truth"

Abstract

Using narrative methods, the author draws on qualitative data -- actor testimony, student feedback, and self-reflection (immanent critique) -- in mapping the decade-long process of inaugurating (2018) a mandatory Sustainability Education: Issues & Practices course in the Intermediate/Senior panel of our initial teacher education (ITE) program. The urgency of the climate crisis presses educators to engage teacher candidates (TCs) in bringing environmental sustainability education (ESE) into every subject (K-12), acting now to gradually realize earlier Ministry of Education mandates (OME, 2009). But we are more certain of the dire circumstances of inaction – scientifically demonstrable, impending catastrophe -- than we are of the relative efficacy of the many contending ESE pedagogies. Our cherished practices offer at best unmeasurable benefits, with anecdotal testimony giving some promise these interventions will ‘transform’ younger generations to avert ecosystem and civilization collapse. Motivated by ethical duty to tell the truth, we cannot give TCs false promise or vouchsafe one approach over all others, but rather encourage future educators to explore in good faith the vast literature now surrounding ESE: reading deeply into, role-modelling earnestly, and experimenting sincerely with its many ‘currents’ (Sauvè, 2005), including place-based, arts-based and inquiry/problem/project-based learning, social and eco-justice lenses, and meaningful infusions of Indigenous Knowledge and decolonization in ESE. Ideally, we would have worked this all out in advance as in launching a new technology, but as philosopher of education David Hawkins (1974) notes, in developing curriculum we more realistically improvise on earlier attempts as in flaking pieces of flint to refashion a hide-scraper out of an intended spearhead. Coming from a philosophy of education background, the author confesses having to curb inclinations toward exegesis of contemporary philosophical perspectives on topics like feminist post- humanism in our regard for non-human animals (Lloro-Bidart, 2018), critiques of scientism and the ‘metaphysics of mastery’ (Bonnett, 2020), or transgressive pedagogy and care ethics in addressing eco- anxieties haunting both youth and teachers today (Ojala, 2016). Illuminating thought-pieces, but teacher candidates located in maths and sciences confided in their course evaluations that the terminology was daunting, even though overall student reception of the course has been consistently very positive. Making deflationary moves as truth-telling, the goal here is to humbly motivate others -- not to exalt or copy our syllabus (a six-week synopsis is provided) but rather to adapt parts useful in building their own course: suited for their specific students and programs. Vitally important, a support system (see Evans, 2020) gradually emerged internally through leadership teams and staff in our department, institute and university, inspired in part by OISE educator/activist Hilary Inwood who has helped develop a network of academics working on ESE in ITE throughout Canada and in the US. Five years in, the author remains cautiously optimistic: anticipating positive consequences from implementing ESE in ITE (and TESE generally), while confiding the real limitations and lack of assurances around relatively small amounts of ESE curricula trickling down from TCs to youth as a rather long-game strategy, given the urgency of the climate crisis.

Author

• Jeff Stickney, OISE/University of Toronto
  Presenting Author