The third part of the draft syllabus is about the anthropocene.
You can find the content following the link:
? please propose your comments and like comments in the comment box underneath.
Comments (14)
The notion of an Anthropocene I my opinion is overweighted - any relevant historical perspective as to human development and the consequences better come first in Theme 2.
A sound Criticism of the notion of Transition is very important, including a realistic view on the reality of energy, consumption
sobriety and degrowth indeed. Here is the core of this Theme.
As to the role of international bodies (I didn't study the detailed syllabus yet) I'd advise limiting study-time here, working by ways of team-debates, and political dialogue (after all, UNESCO but also others 'slept' for more than 20 years). Focus on the Green Deal.
when talking about definitions, I will add a braimstorming session in order to catch new definitions that could better respond the current challenges.
For example: the use of the WORD Resiliant Territories instead of talking about Mediterranean or EU or Italy or Toscany as a new concept.
Living in the Anthropocene should concern a different way of life ... a different approach to life - according to the institute for interdisciplinary research into the Anthropocene, "Education in an Anthropocene context necessitates a different pedagogy that provides opportunities for learning to live in and engage with the world and which acknowledges that we live in a more-than-human world."
The curriculum really needs to address this and perhaps be more radical?
It is good to know what is going on at the top...but as Jos said above, still everything looks worse or nobody informs what is better. Don't know what is worse: to see only bad scenarios or be unaware that in some aspects is/ could be much better. What access we do have to those top institutions? Even we- adults- do not know sometimes where to look for info or statistics. What about kids? They are the most vulnerable to fake news as the social media are one of the dominant source of news for them. Think that changes for Sustainability that matter - usually come from the bottom, and we need to also talk about the players that are accessible for ordinary citizens- so municipality, town councils, local leaders and open minded people in their own , nearby area. Those are important drivers of change and could help with some steps to mitigate negative effects. Living in the Anthropocene requires also thinking about different scenarios and about some leverage points like: (what also was mentioned by Karl): embrace diverse vision of world and life, reduce consumption and waste, unleash values and action, reduce inequalities, practise justice and inclusion, ensure innovation and investment, promote education and sharing... The world top players are unable to make any changes without cross sectoral collaboration. They can create thousands of policies, but if something is for everybody..is for nobody. Climate change consequences and sustainability issues are different from one place to another. It is of course good to have overall frame - but detail story must be done with the presence of local players. And those players must be also visible for students. The successful stories should be then shared and spread as a good practise. This is impossible to read all policies, texts made by top players and be updated with everything - but knowing about own backyard is something that makes our society more participatory society, increase responsibility and bring new reflection about my individual role in climate change combat or working for sustainability. Individuals choices matters, maybe more than policies. Sorry for this long paragraph: to sum up I do agree with Karl - that we need to put our students in the Anthropocene- as a crucial element, they can not be only observers, feeling despair and lack of agency...There are some options , some different scenarios possible. And they CAN create them.
Dear Magdalena, I agree with you, especially with the part that we need to talk about the players that are accessible for ordinary citizens (municipality, town councils, local leaders...).
Wonderful conviction and drive Magdalena - ever many more see, respect and agree on the need to unfold youngsters' learning back in(to) society again, almost un-innovating, back to the roots of respect and wisdom, also literally closer to Earth again. I agree, everybody and together now leads to nobody and in-action. Most provocatively, I stated that 'We' does not exist. It is however possible to create a local-to-global learning and action-space; I still hold faith in that approach. However, it should be more than letting 'a thousand flowers blossom', we are in need of coherence and friendship more than ever, to see to a new 'We' as the sum of many 'I'. Youth does not 'have' a future anymore, they Are - this also means the future is not that uncertain, vague and complex, it is right in our midst.
One of proposed activities in syllabus is "Meeting and visit of the European institutions", but in my opinion it is unclear how can students access those institutions? Especially students living in small cities or villages?
Indeed. This is due to the specific context of the European schools. But such contacts could be done online, and other political/national institutions could be concerned.
François Jourde Yes, but in my opinion it would be good to specify this clearly in the description of the activity. So that some schools don't give up of the course because they cannot visit the European institutions :)
Here are the topics which i think should be added to the draft syllabus Theme 3.
https://uncensorednews.us/section-3
In theme 1, I suggested we add Degrowth. I am delighted to see it is listed here. Sorry I missed that the first time around.
Of course I am a big fan of Taxonomies. Good to have about 7 items in every category. We only have 4 at the top level here. I like the idea of splitting out current disasters into a separate theme. Sadly there is so much content on that topic. Good to have a formal taxonomy, ideally available as a json file on github for people to process. Not that hard to convert this to json. MIT license would be best. Then everyone could use it easily.
Hello ! On the first content, I think we need to have more details about the different type of markers such as ice core and gases in it or palynology or dendrochronology... and we could have pratical activities for that also.
Some things that may be worth adding here:
2. The Great Acceleration:
- Limits to (economic growth);
- different types and limits of decoupling,
3. The notions of ecological and energy transitions
- transition versus transformation
- system change,
- widen beyon energy consumption and include issued such as food, mobility, lifestyles and behaviours at large,
- inner circles of circular economy Refuse, Rethink, Reduce,
- synergy between decarbonisation/decoupling/efficiency and sufficiency
4. The political institutions of the Anthropocene
- whole-of-government approach to address all dimensions of planetary emergency
Please log in or sign up to comment.
Indeed Karl, we need a different pedagogy to enhance transdisciplinary Learning processes. We are happy to share here what we found thus far; more years of participatory research in the daily clay of regular education made us envision and speak about 'ESD Based Education'. Perhaps you can have a look at https://opeduca.eu/ESD_BASED_EDUCATION.html , your observations are most welcome