‘Learning to Last' as a Solution Leading to Sustainable Practice

Putting the sustainability agenda into practice is complex, contested and problematic. Current educational practice, based on specialist disciplines cannot provide an adequate set of intellectual and practical tools for resolving the difficulties created by the contemporary sustainable development discourse, which embraces global environmental degradation, Poverty, disease, hunger, and climate change. We face a situation where universal answers are no longer trusted and technological solutions are regarded with suspicion. So what alternatives are open to us? Hundreds, if not thousands of sustainable development and education initiatives have blossomed across the globe since the 1980's. But in spite of this increase in activity most educational experts would agree that progress towards sustainability has been at best modest and why is it that some of our most prestigious educational institutions have been so slow in recognizing the importance of this contemporary issue. In part this is due to a failure to institutionalize sustainability, in other words a failure to incorporate sustainability into their core policies and processes, leading teachers to remain unconvinced of their employers' commitment to this crucial issue. Enlightened leadership which provides a clear vision of sustainability has been largely absent along with a forward looking vision which excites and elicits wide spread commitment and energy.

 In spite of these barriers to progress educational innovations are beginning to appear at all levels within our educational systems. Many of these initiatives are turning traditional teaching and learning approaches on their head, moving pedagogy from `education' to `learning'; permitting students to develop and build their personal values, motivation, preferences and above all grounding the learning in action orientated experience. A variety of themes characterize this learning, which is reflected in the diversity of perspectives on development and how to put it into practice. In spite of this diversity, a number of key ‘learning to last’ competences for professionals are beginning to emerge. These include

 • An ability to think 

 • An ability to learn

 • An ability to communicate

 • An ability to collaborate

 • And an ability to do all of the above across the disciplinary boundaries that separate professional specialists; and which facilitate their role within civil society and multinationally composed community groups. 

 Education systems need to innovative to develop cross-cultural,trans-national and trans-disciplinary perspectives. The case studies described here draw on experiences gained from active learning in schools and universities and exemplify a knowledge development process which involves a wide range of actors in addition to the traditional teacher’s role as both knowledge transmitter and facilitator, it is being recognized that learning is partly and individual process and partly a group or social process. Developing and comparing the application of different mental models is an important facility in working with different interdisciplinary teams and yet much of our ‘standardized’ formal curriculum and learning runs counter ti this approach. Sustainable development requires a richer, more varied approach to teaching and learning. Learning to last offers a way of approaching the complexity of sustainable development and globalization, and the quickening pace of change it offers a real opportunity to influence the way we learn and act together more sustainably.