Arjen Wals: Transformative Learning for Sustainability

Summary

Arjen Wals discusses transformative learning for sustainability, emphasizing its necessity in addressing complex and wicked problems like climate change and biodiversity loss. Traditional education methods focusing on rote memorization are less effective when facing such challenges. Instead, Wals advocates for interactive, experiential, and transformative learning, which involves understanding change and complexity, harnessing diversity, building agency, and incorporating ethics and values. He highlights the need for systemic changes, embracing diverse perspectives, and fostering social cohesion to create sustainable communities. Also, he emphasizes connecting education with various sectors like businesses, NGOs, and governance to ensure meaningful sustainability transitions.

Highlights

• Transformative learning is crucial for tackling wicked problems like climate change. 🌦️
• Interactive and experiential learning fosters a deeper understanding of complex issues. 🧠
• Emphasizing diversity and collaboration leads to innovative sustainable solutions. 🤝
• Rethinking societal norms helps address global systemic dysfunctions efficiently. 🌏
• Building agency empowers individuals to contribute significantly to societal transformations. ✊

Key Takeaways

• Understanding wicked problems requires new forms of learning that go beyond traditional methods. 🎓
• Transformative learning is experiential, fosters critical thinking, and promotes social change. 🌍
• Sustainability requires rethinking values and adopting new perspectives on societal functions. 🍃
• Engaging communities and experimenting with ideas fosters systemic change and innovation. 🛠️
• Education should integrate ethics and interconnect with businesses and society for broader impact. 🤝

Overview

In the quest to tackle some of the world's most challenging issues, Arjen Wals explores transformative learning for sustainability, highlighting its significance in addressing what are known as "wicked problems" — problems without a clear solution such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Conventional education systems often fall short when dealing with such complexities, focusing too heavily on rote answers and transmissive teaching. Transformative learning, however, provides an alternative by encouraging critical and systemic thinking, fostering both personal growth and collaborative problem-solving.

Wals emphasizes the importance of diverse perspectives and systems thinking in tackling sustainability issues. By highlighting the need for educational shifts to accommodate experiential and discovery-based learning, he advocates for methods that are not just about acquiring knowledge but are equally focused on the application of knowledge to effect change. He argues that these approaches not only help individuals understand the interconnectedness of societal functions but also enable them to build transformative capacity to address systemic dysfunctions.

Connecting the dots between education and societal institutions is crucial for meaningful sustainability transitions, according to Wals. By integrating ethics into the educational curriculum, schools can prepare students not only to think critically but also empathetically, fostering a more profound understanding of global challenges. Wals points out that the cooperation between educational institutions, businesses, NGOs, and civic bodies is essential for a holistic approach to sustainability, advocating for schools that "live and breathe" sustainability through initiatives like energy-neutral facilities and community-based projects.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Transformative Learning This chapter introduces the concept of transformative learning for sustainability. It differentiates between conventional problems, which have clear definitions and solutions, and wicked problems, which require unique forms of learning and public engagement.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Understanding Wicked Problems The chapter titled 'Understanding Wicked Problems' delves into the nature of wicked problems, distinguishing them from simple and complex problems. It specifically references climate change, loss of biodiversity, and food security as examples of wicked problems. The chapter encourages reviewing earlier modules and resources for a deeper understanding of these concepts.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Forms of Education for Sustainability In this chapter, the author discusses various forms of education and learning that are capable of addressing complex sustainability challenges, referred to as 'wicked problems.' The chapter emphasizes the importance of understanding different educational approaches from both pedagogical and learning perspectives. It also references concepts from environmental education and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), with a suggestion to consider them from a possibly narrow focus.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Interactive and Transformative Learning The chapter discusses the shift from instructional and transmissive forms of learning to more interactive and transformative learning, especially when addressing complex and 'wicked' problems. It emphasizes the importance of learning from diverse and conflicting perspectives, rather than relying solely on right answers that can be tested and reproduced.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Key Elements of Transformative Learning Chapter: Key Elements of Transformative Learning This chapter discusses the nature of transformative learning, emphasizing its experiential and discovery-based approach. Transformative learning goes beyond acquiring knowledge for the sake of knowing; it is about learning to be, to enact change, and to transform. This type of learning is essential for addressing complex and difficult issues, often referred to as 'wicked issues.' The chapter outlines key elements necessary for transformative learning aimed at sustainability, highlighting the importance of comprehending change and complexity.
• 02:30 - 03:30: Perspectives on Change The chapter "Perspectives on Change" explores various aspects of change and the transitions involved. The focus is on four main themes: utilizing diversity, creating synergy, building agency and transformative capacity, and considering ethics, values, empathy, and care. The chapter begins by discussing the complexity of change and transitions, highlighting two perspectives on change. The first perspective emphasizes the optimization of current systems.
• 03:30 - 04:30: Technological and Cultural Transitions The chapter titled 'Technological and Cultural Transitions' discusses the impact of systems such as capitalism and empirical analytical sciences on our lives. It highlights how these systems have led to significant advancements, bringing convenience and comfort. Examples include the ability to have conversations recorded due to technological advancements driven by these systems.
• 04:30 - 05:30: Stages of Change and Transition This chapter discusses the importance of re-evaluating the underlying values and assumptions of our current systems. It suggests that rather than just optimizing or greening these systems, a fundamental rethinking might be necessary to address global systemic issues effectively. The focus is on not just improving what is done within the existing framework, but potentially transforming the framework itself to better tackle the wicked problems we face today.
• 05:30 - 06:30: Systems Thinking and Diversity This chapter discusses the concept of systems thinking and its application to addressing complex global challenges such as food and nutrition security. It presents a transition perspective that can be approached from technological, societal, or combined viewpoints. The chapter emphasizes optimization of current systems to feed the projected global population of 9 billion by 2050. Strategies mentioned include minimizing food waste and improving food literacy.
• 06:30 - 07:30: Building Agency and Transformative Capacity The chapter titled 'Building Agency and Transformative Capacity' explores the concept of facilitating change by empowering individuals to make better choices. It discusses different approaches to transformation, such as embracing technological advancements like GMO, which could lead to reduced pesticide use and improved efficiency and productivity. The chapter also raises the idea of a significant technological shift versus changing societal perceptions about food distribution, wealth equity, and food justice.
• 07:30 - 08:30: Ethics, Values, Empathy, and Care The chapter delves into the necessity for cultural and mindset shifts regarding our dietary practices, particularly considering insects as alternative protein sources to meat, suggesting this could be a potential solution to current issues. It further explores the need for an economic and functional integration rethink, emphasizing concepts such as cradle-to-cradle and closed-cycle designs. The chapter suggests practical implementations, like utilizing vertical agriculture and solar energy in metropolitan areas, to support these transitions and rethinkings.
• 08:30 - 09:30: Connecting Sectors for Sustainability The chapter 'Connecting Sectors for Sustainability' discusses innovative approaches to energy consumption, emphasizing the integration of high-tech solutions to enhance social cohesion through shared experiences like communal dining. It argues that such strategies can lead to feeding the global population by 2050 while ensuring a higher quality of life. The discussion highlights the necessity of systemic changes and transitions to achieve these goals.
• 09:30 - 10:30: Whole-School Approaches The chapter discusses the concept of whole-school approaches, particularly focusing on how change occurs in stages. It references Geels and Schot's framework on how niches, which are small incubators of disruptive or counter-intuitive ideas, function. These niches allow for experimentation and the trying of new things. An example provided is guerrilla gardening, which is described as a form of ecological restoration in abandoned or dysfunctional areas in an effort to revitalize them. The text suggests that such niche activities can lead to a coalescence or merging of ideas and practices that contribute to broader systemic change.

Arjen Wals: Transformative Learning for Sustainability Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Welcome, in this module I'd like to talk about transformative learning for sustainability. In other modules, we already talked about the nature of wicked problems and that they require different forms of learning and public engagement than say conventional problems for which we can have a clear definition and kind of agree as to what we need to be doing,
• 00:30 - 01:00 and agree on what how we should go about doing that. With wicked problems like climate change, loss of biodiversity and food security, this is a whole different story altogether. We've already talked about simple, vs. complex vs. wicked problems and you can go to the module where we talk about that and the resources for that module if you want to understand
• 01:00 - 01:30 that better still. But I think it is very important to understand that we have different forms of education and learning that can address wicked sustainability problems. Let me go back to a slide, or a variation of a slide used also in the module on environmental education and ESD. If we look at those educations from a pedagogical or learning point of view, and you have say a narrow, or maybe a narrow focus or view of that type of education, EE- or
• 01:30 - 02:00 ESD-, you could say that the learning tends to be instructional-oriented, more transmissive, where there are right answers that can maybe be reproduced or displayed in an exam or a test, but when we talk about dealing with wicked problems, that type of learning is not as useful as say more interactive forms of learning, where we need to learn from each other, where we need to learn to use from diverse perspective, maybe even, conflicting
• 02:00 - 02:30 perspectives and values. And that type of learning will be more experiential, discovery-based and you could call it transformative. you're not just learning for knowing, but also learning for being and learning to make change and learning to transform. and that type of learning is critical for dealing with wicked issues. here's some key elements of transformative learning for sustainability, you could say, one is understanding change, complexity and
• 02:30 - 03:00 transitions, two utilizing diversity, creating synergy, seeing connections, four, building agency and transformative capacity, empowerment and fourth considering ethics, values, empathy and care. let me quickly go through those. first, the complexity and change and transitions. you could say there are two perspectives on change: one is we need to optimize the current
• 03:00 - 03:30 systems in which we live. take as an example, capitalism, you could say that capitalism or our empirical analytical sciences brought us many good things, the fact that I can speak to you in a room where I am being taped, you could say is a result of that type of thinking, it has been very powerful, it has brought lots of convenience and comfort to our lives.
• 03:30 - 04:00 and we can just optimize it and green it. on the other hand, it might be that some of the issues that we talk about today: the wicked problems that we're talking about today, might be the result of that very same system and the values and the assumptions underneath that system. and if we really want to respond to global systemic dysfunction, we need to rethink those values and assumptions and maybe not so much do the things we do better but
• 04:00 - 04:30 do better things, we might call it a transition perspective. so and we can look at it from a more technological perspective or a more societal perspective or from both. if you do that, and we look for instances about food and nutrition security, if you want to optimize, if you want to feed the world in 2050 with 9 billion people we could say well we'll just optimize our current systems minimizing food waste for instance, improving food literacy
• 04:30 - 05:00 so that people make better choices or a more technological approach might better a transition towards a more GMO oriented society where we use less pesticides, less fossil fuels, and we are more efficient and productive but it requires a real, major shift in technology. or you could say no, we need to move maybe a transition to in the way we think about food and the way we distribute wealth and equity, fair food, food justice or maybe a
• 05:00 - 05:30 mind shift or a cultural shift in what we eat, maybe we should be eating insects as an alternative protein to eating meat, maybe that's the solution. or a combination of a transitionary perspective might be that we say we need to have a real rethinking of our economy, a rethinking of how we integrate different functions, cradle to cradle, closed-cycle design, for instance in metropolitan areas we could use vertical agriculture, use solar
• 05:30 - 06:00 energy in a better way so that it can be also high-tech but it also can bring people together around food, create social cohesion in the neighborhood so it's both. and if we do that, then we can feed not only the world in 2050 but we can also have meaningful and high-quality life so that's another perspective. now many of these these changes and transitions, they
• 06:00 - 06:30 follow a certain stages and Geels and Schot have come up with this interesting way of looking at that, how niches, where there's a small incubator, some disruptive ideas, some counter-intuitive idea maybe even, where people try new things and experiment in those niches. look at guerrilla gardening for instance, as ecological restoration in abandoned lands or dysfunctional areas, trying to revive, revitalize that, that could lead to a coalescence
• 06:30 - 07:00 between different initiatives, they could reinforce one another and that could lead to a whole shift in regime. look at school garden programs, community garden programs in cities and that could lead maybe to a whole green or urban agriculture where it's not just about food anymore, it's about mobility, it's about energy, it's about water, and the
• 07:00 - 07:30 whole nexus has changed and the whole landscape has shifted. we could look and learn more about the kinds of factors that influence that type of learning. Second, utilizing diversity, creating synergy, seeing connections. this all has to do with systems thinking. not just learning to think in terms of categories boxes, disciplines, and trying to dissect the world, but trying to see the world whole, seeing the connections, seeing the relationships,
• 07:30 - 08:00 organizing events in a way that different perspectives will meet, different time perspectives, inter-generational perspectives, but also inter-cultural perspectives that allow people to think about consequences here and in the future, but also here and elsewhere. seeing how, in this case an example of a single teabag, how it relates to economic, ecological, ethical,
• 08:00 - 08:30 environmental aspects. so this is like the industrial cup of tea from the CDI here in Wageningen MSP Guide. Building agency and transformative capactiy, giving people the tools, the possibilities, to measure for instance quality of their own health, their own environment, using maybe also ICT and smartphones, but also giving them the opportunity to experiment,
• 08:30 - 09:00 to try things out and to learn from trying things out. using citizen science or civic science. engaging them in disruptive activities, which may be needed not just in a, not just to adapt to the changing world, which we always hear a lot about, but also to disrupt the systems that caused this global systemic dysfunction in the first place. so that also has to do with change and transformation and being creative about drawing attention to important issues
• 09:00 - 09:30 or being a little bit defiant in how we do things. this is a response to the ban on gathering groups of people in Paris at the COP 21 and this is how people responded, by putting their shoes and having their shoes gather on the square. it's an act of disruption but a very generative one. considering ethics, values, empathy, and care that's another, the final
• 09:30 - 10:00 dimension that helps, I think in re-thinking the direction of our lives. also bearing in mind, what are the consequences and what could we do for the lives of maybe people living elsewhere? people mining the metals that we use in our cell phones, or when we eat food,
• 10:00 - 10:30 or when we wear clothes, under what conditions were they made? in what kind of circumstances and how are the people affected by that and how can it be done in a fairer, more equitable way. but also looking at how ethics and values can enter schools and classrooms in a way that allows people to see that the values that we tend to emphasize and strengthen in our current education system tend to be beneficial for mainly economic interest. schools are
• 10:30 - 11:00 becoming an extension of the global economy and they're not focusing much on arts, humanities, connecting with place or you know, developing better values like solidarity, empathy, or spirituality for that matter. or thinking about other species and recognizing that we are only one species on this planet. so that has to do with values and place and connecting
• 11:00 - 11:30 also with other species and developing this kind of social cohesion around working on sustainability issues, and this is a neighborhood in the Netherlands that tries to be sustainable in many different ways, too many to discuss in just a few minutes. generally, dealing
• 11:30 - 12:00 with wicked problems and having transformative processes and transitions require connecting to what we call the Big 5: connecting the world of businesses, to the world of education, to world of research, to world of the civic society, governance and to NGOs, societal activists organizations. how to connect these in a meaningful way how to facilitate that type of learning, brokering relationships that becomes the focus of people working on
• 12:00 - 12:30 education in this kind of a context. if you look at schools, whole-school approaches, this is what a school might be looking like then, walking the talk, having energy neutral or CO2 neutral schools, having alternative energy but also having healthy foods in this school canteens, connecting with the place around the school, maybe growing your own
• 12:30 - 13:00 vegetables as a school, having a bicycle repair or a shop or a phone repair shop, a little bit of entrepreneurship, connecting with organizations and groups outside of the school, small businesses, healthcare centers, the government and co-creating a school that breathes sustainability.