Integrating Learners’ Voices into School Environmental Management Practices Through Dialogue

Abstract

Drawing on an example from a primary school in Botswana, this chapter sheds light on how goals for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) initiatives for ensuring a more sustainable future in social and environmental terms can be met by engaging learners in participatory learning processes that are meaningful, that are purposeful and that broaden their action competence through dialogue. In Botswana society which is largely authoritarian in the teaching and learning processes, if opportunities for dialogue exist between teachers and learners, positive changes for a healthier environment can be created in schools. This requires scaffolding as part of the teacher’s role in supporting the learning process. Data were largely generated from focus group interviews with learners and observations of learner activities. These two methods were complemented by informal interviews with teachers and other actors in the school and show-and-tell explanations of their activities by learners themselves. What is required to develop sustained action competence are critical reflections on teaching strategies as well as support for teachers to identify ways of engaging children’s views on issues in the school in open, dialogical ways. Such teaching strategies should deepen teachers’ understandings of learners’ potential, demonstrating how dialogue and scaffolding are part of a teacher’s role in supporting learning.