Thomas Falkenberg

The status of education for sustainability in initial teacher education programmes: a Canadian case study

– The purpose of this paper is to establish the status of education for sustainability in the teacher education programmes in the province of Manitoba in Canada and to identify challenges and obstacles for mainstreaming education for sustainability in those programmes. , – Using a multi-unit case study design, online programme information and data from interviews with faculty administrators and a convenience sample of faculty members from all five faculties of education in Manitoba were collected and analysed. , – There is no systematic and focused preparation of teachers for education for sustainability in any of the Manitoba teacher education programmes. Three challenges for mainstreaming of education for sustainability are identified: lack of leadership, an unfavourable view of the role of education for sustainability and the silo-ing within faculties of education. , – The research is limited by its focus on the programme-based implementation of education for sustainability in faculties of education, which did not include any course-based implementation by individual instructors. , – To address the challenges and obstacles for mainstreaming, the authors argue for joint leadership across the relevant institutional levels (government, university and faculty), and for establishing education for sustainability as a framework for responding to the purpose question of school education. , – The study provides empirical evidence for some of the major challenges for mainstreaming education for sustainability in faculties in education and, by generalisation, all university faculties.

The Journey towards a Teacher’s Ecological Self: A Case Study of a Student Teacher

Abstract Transforming our educational systems to support sustainable development is a challenge that involves all levels of education – policy, curriculum and pedagogical practice. One critical dimension to look at is a teacher’s identity as it influences a teacher’s decision-making, behaviour and action. The ecological self is the concept that is used in the context of sustainability. This paper discusses the emerging ecological self of one student teacher during her initial teacher education programme. The concepts of the teacher’s self and the ecological self form a lens through which the story of this student teacher is examined. The paper focuses on one part of a broader, longitudinal study of student teachers and their understanding of pedagogy and connectedness with nature in the context of the need for reorienting teacher education towards sustainability. Sterling’s (2001) conceptual framework of ecological view on education is taken as a tool to analyse the collected data. The results indicate that deep connectedness to nature and empathy are framing the holistic view on learning, teaching and a teacher’s self.

Mindfulness for adulting

ABSTRACT This paper calls for ethical responsibility to manifest a holistic, embodied, and deeply relational vision of what it means to actualise fuller human flourishing than how we, humanity as a whole, are behaving currently. A thesis is presented that humanity is experiencing an arrest within the trajectory of species’ psychological development and that mindfulness cultivation can facilitate transformation. This thesis comes with a proviso that mindfulness needs to be taken up differently from the dominant discourse around it. A case is made that contemporary mindfulness is most often implicitly and explicitly fuelled by conventional “ordinary consciousness” whose primary function is survival supported by the fear-driven fight–flight–freeze neural assemblage. Suggestions are made that mindfulness be understood as a way of accessing non-ordinary consciousness that sees the world relationally in terms of expansive self-other integration. For this, further suggestions are made that mindfulness be placed back into a larger context, for example, practice-based Buddhist philosophy and psychology, that addresses existential suffering and proffers a comprehensive holistic educational programme. Such a programme cultivates human potential and supports relationally generous and generative human flourishing. As a concrete practice proposal for transitioning into a relational paradigm, inner work is proposed and illustrated with examples.