Being Relational

&
Thinking Systems
in
Educational Sustainability
EDSU Introduction to Educational Sustainability
Synchronous Seminar
Joy Kcenia ONeil, Ph. D.
February 24, 2016

The Problem
Complex issues such as global climate change,
population, social justice, biodiversity loss, economic
instability
Example: what is mono-cropping, how does it relate to
population, pollution, biodiversity loss, economic stability or
instabilitiy

These are called wicked problems or complex problems

Solution? Sustainability
Revisiting our frames of reference
Change in view from mechanistic parts to a relational
whole
Onion story

What does that mean?

It means
To view the world as an interconnected whole

So, what does education have to do

with it?
Education can help us to reach sustainability personally,
locally, globally
AASHE: 748 institutionshave registered to use the STARS
Reporting Tool

We can include it in educational systems, business and

community systems and in learning systems

Im on board! How do I educate for

sustainability?
This is the tricky part. There are three ways
Current thinking in formal Western education is reductionist
and relies on studying disciplinary partsnot wholes
Not only are we educated in this manner, we tend to
function in the world in this same manner.
Sustainability is thinking in interconnections so that means
we need to come up with ways to think (epistemology) and
way of being in the world (ontology) differently
We need to create pedagogies and environments that go
beyond mere knowledge acquisition

Whats wrong with knowledge

acquisition?!
Nothing...really. Acquiring knowledge is why we are here
in the first place
It is HOW we acquire knowledge and WHAT we do with
that knowledge

Paradigms of educational
sustainability
Education about sustainability
Transmission - Knowledge acquisition about problems and
solutions related to sustainability

Education for sustainability

Transaction - Taking action towards sustainability

Education or learning as sustainability

Transformation Subsuming the first two this level is the
process and dynamics of relational change
Read excerpt

Two ways to think about relationality

1. Epistemic shift of knowing relationality
2. Ontological shift in being relational

What is relational change?

Education as sustainability
If sustainably is to view the world as an interconnected,
relational whole, then education or learning as
sustainably is to learn to view the world as a relational
interconnected whole
This means we humans and non-humans are intraconnected
Socially
Ecologically

How does this go back to educational

sustainability?
Build systems as change in which social and ecological
material matter
Foster learning as change in which social and ecological
material matter

What kind of change?

Emergent process of social and ecological change

So, how can we create opportunities

for educational sustainability?
That is what you will be doing in your learning goals and
plans in this course
A shift is how we do things in the community, business,
schools

Review
Relationality is a state of being relational (Ontology)
Systems thinking is to think in interconnected relations
(epistemology)
Sustainability is to interconnect and balance the three
pillars
Educational sustainably is to educate as a relational
interconnected whole in response to educating in
disconnected parts for social and ecological change that
is viewed as interconnected activities