Young People, Education and Sustainable Development: Exploring Principles, Perspectives and Practice

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Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 20 No. 1 (Spring 2010) ISSN: 1546-2250 Young People, Education and Sustainable Development: Exploring Principles, Perspectives and Practice Corcoran, Peter Blaze and Osano, Philip M. (2009). Wageningen: Wageningen Academic Publishers; 416 pages. $82. ISBN 9789086860937. Young People, Education and Sustainable Development is about education of young people for sustainable development. This means enhancing young people’s capacity to contribute to a sustainable future, which will in turn provide them with a range of benefits, including a healthy planet and opportunities for healthy and fulfilling lives and livelihoods. These are of course inextricably linked; a healthy environment will provide the basis for economic opportunities as well as health and quality of life. But focusing on the linkage is insufficient; the planet must support life beyond the human, and young people will not be satisfied with environmental gains if they are excluded from the benefits. This collection frequently reminds us that in this world where gender and other inequities persist, and where there is a growing population of unemployed and underemployed young people, many of whom live in places characterized by degradation and neglect, exclusion is a contemporary reality. Sustainable development must include the development of a sustainable economy and society, which will provide jobs for the next generation, universal access to education and full participation in all aspects of society, permitting social development for all. Education for sustainability is therefore not just about environment but also about livelihoods, peace, democracy and social justice. “Education” almost never appears in this collection without reference to “participation” and it is made clear that they are inseparable. The goal of education is to support participation in creating a sustainable future and the best form of education is participation. Young people are ready to take on roles as active citizens from the earliest stages of their formal education and they learn best by acting with an increasing degree of responsibility for 330 the world around them. The forms of participation will be diverse (as helpfully described by Sanne van Keulen, Gabi Spitz, Maayke Damen and Erik Wedershoven in this volume), and will include, for older youth, meaningful participation in the world of work (as Bremley Lyngdoh emphasizes) but meaningful participation will inevitably involve action in the real world and in collaboration with other people. Arjen Wals and Bob Jickling offer a useful heuristic with which to evaluate the depth of participation, while Rebekah Tauritz and Wals subsequently provide some excellent examples of what a truly participatory and transformative experience can look like. Several chapters remind us to pay attention to teachers as well as young people. Although very much at the centre of the educational experience, teachers are increasingly disempowered by “teacherproof curricula” that potentially transform teachers from “moral agents” to “forced labourers” in “education factories” (66) as described by Konai Helu Thaman & Randy Thaman, who further emphasize the dangers of dehumanizing both teachers and students when they describe how relationships remain at the centre of the learning process and are a pre-condition to sustainable livelihoods. Many authors mention the importance of school-community relationships and of partnerships in general, be they with local community organizations or international programs and networks. Relationship to place also matters. Although often ignored by formal curricula, place-based knowledge and a sense of belonging and pride in place are essential to human well-being. David Driskell and Louise Chawla describe how parks and litter can be a greater preoccupation for young people than drugs and violence. We are also reminded that simply providing information does not result in more sustainable behaviors. Environmental action produces environmental education and not the other way around, according to Kartikeya Sarabhai, who while also demonstrating the effectiveness of storytelling as an educational tool, explains that what matters is “the ability not just to see something wrong but to be able to do something about it” (113). In fact, as we are increasingly aware and as is recalled here by Julia Heiss and Isabella Marras, knowledge without opportunity to act often 332 produces fear and paralysis. In parallel, Valéria VianaLabrea et al. state, “It is worth being reminded that consciousness without transforming action helps keep society the way it...