Designing Antigua Green School: Innovation and Renovation in Sustainability Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Monday I)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Approaches for implementing environmental sustainability education

Proposal

Education that promotes sustainability and ecological-mindedness is on the rise, both worldwide and in Latin America. With the ratification of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030, as well as with the increased impact and awareness of climate change, many countries and communities around the world are exploring ways to develop locally-contextualized policies for and approaches to sustainability education. In 2018, after decades of conventions, laws, and support from various international organizations, the Ministries of Education and of Environment and Natural Resources of Guatemala have introduced an official Policy on Environmental Education (‘Politica de educacion ambiental’). This creates an important opportunity for Antigua Green School, a small private school which pursues ecology and sustainability as core values in the processes of teaching and learning, to lead efforts in environmental and sustainability education in Guatemala.

Yet, after three years as a ‘green school’, Antigua Green School is still struggling with its full integration of and consistency in norms, values, and beliefs of sustainability, both with regards to the formal curricular content and pedagogical approach, as well as to the social relations and other facets of the ‘hidden curriculum’ (Giroux, 1983). Thus, both as researchers and decision-makers of the school, we found that we needed to intentionally initiate a reflective reassessment of our goals, principles, and mission, and a collaborative restructuring design process of curriculum and pedagogy towards the value of sustainability.

In this paper, we recount the history of Antigua Green School, and the process we are currently undergoing to intentionally and innovatively design and align our school’s pedagogical mission and approach as a learning community. Some research questions that guide our inquiry include: How can we ensure that students truly learn and grow through their understanding of nature? To what extent do students fully understand their roles and responsibilities in protecting nature and the well-being of the community and the planet? To what extent do they perceive their interrelatedness with nature and their various ecological spheres (Bronfenbrenner, 1995)? How can we integrate the concepts of sustainability of self, community, culture, and the planet in order to optimize philosophical consistency? How can we purposefully design into our approach a sustainability-oriented, progressive education that reflects our unique context, such that innovation, experimentation, reflexion, and adaptation will become pillars of the pedagogical approach? How can we guide parents, teachers, and leaders through conversations to disrupt the standard or accepted canon of ‘good’ or ‘progressive’ education?

Utilizing a design-thinking framework and qualitative analysis of lived experience, focus groups, and semi-structured and informal interviews with students, families, teachers, and leaders, we have begun to analyze how various stakeholders understand and define sustainability, in order to build common ground and situate us in our own context. This serves as the foundation upon which we can create our own unique principles, mission, pedagogical approach, and curriculum.

Introduced by Brown (2009) and the School of Design at Stanford, design thinking has been applied to a vast array of individual and social products and services. Koh (2015) has compiled a literature review applying not only design thinking processes but also the design mindset to educational environments. Building upon these research efforts we would like to explore the usage of the design thinking process and principles in our sustainability-oriented curriculum development. Two diverge-converge cycles will be conducted during the design process of the curriculum. Initially, the Empathize and Define stages will allow us to review the current issues and initiatives regarding sustainability education and its methods and also explore the Antigua Green School educational culture and challenges in order to define our direction. The second cycle will allow the researchers to Ideate, Prototype, and Test the different alternatives that are contextually-responsive to the school.

The researchers will discuss the successes and challenges of this context-responsive, sustainability-oriented pedagogical redesign and renovation, and the opportunities for moving forward as a leader of ‘green schooling’ in Central America.

Cited:

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1995). Developmental ecology through space and time: A future perspective. In P.
Moen, G. H. Elder, Jr., & K. Lüscher (Eds.), Examining lives in context: Perspectives on the
ecology of human development (pp. 619-647). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association

Giroux, H. A. (1983). Theories of reproduction and resistance in the new sociology of education: A
critical analysis. Harvard Educational Review, 53(3).

Koh, J. H. L., Chai, C. S., Wong, B., & Hong, H. Y. (2015). Design thinking and education. In Design Thinking for Education (pp. 1-15). Springer, Singapore.

Brown, T. (2009). Change by design: How design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation. HarperCollins.

Ministerios de Educación (MINEDUC) y de Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (MARN) de Guatemala.
Política de Educación Ambiental. http://www.mineduc.gob.gt/portal/documents/recursos/Politica_Nacional_de_Educaci%C3%B3n_Ambiental.pdf

Authors

• Elisa A. Hartwig, Antigua Green School

• Luis Ayala, Antigua Green School