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(Edge)ucation by design
Ann Dale and Hilary Leighton
Should we even try to define transformational learning? Is this not buying into a very determined view of life and a static view of ecosystem functioning, that there is one equilibrium, rather than multiple equilibria with diverse tipping points? Is transformation ā individual and educational ā a personal journey that is different for everyone depending on their life trajectory? Just as there are multiple development paths for human progress, there are multiple pathways for human development. Are there critical lessons to be learned from socio-ecological system dynamics that educators could use to open space for thinking and discussing transformation?
For it is at the in-between ā at the edges ā that things really happen, where habitats blend, where life and death meet regularly, where tensions hold and change each other, where unexpected growth is possible and new life flourishes. āThe edge between land and sea, like other ecological edge effects, is teeming with life, with abundance, as species stretch between ecological zones, as if the world is more, always moreā (Sewall, 1999, pp. 135ā136). In ecological systems, the most biodiverse areas are at the edge, when two different ecosystems meet and mingle, becoming more by their mixing.
Although sometimes scary, being at the edge may be where our greatest learning mix occurs. Similarly in life, times of transition ā birth, death, marriage and divorce āoffer some of the richest opportunities for learning and transforming. Moving from a career as a successful executive with the Federal Government to full-time teaching at ' (Ann's) edges. How did my own life trajectory influence my teaching and my own learning in the classroom? In what ways was I challenged and what became important to me in my teaching and researching? One constant was the importance of modelling and teaching that we are a part of nature, not apart from nature; Holling's ecosystem model (1989) has greatly influenced my thinking and research in that regard.
Given the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (IPCC, 2018a), it is clear we are entering an era of profound transformation and change ā ecologically, and consequently, socially and economically. The report finds that limiting global warming to 1.5Ā°C would require ārapid and far-reaching transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and citiesā (IPCC, 2018b). Whether or not we can make the critical transitions in time to a carbon neutral economy remains to be seen, and it is clear that major change in current human development paths is also necessary (Burch et al., 2014; Moore et al., 2018; Shaw et al., 2014).
Yet, transformative change is another one of our messy, wicked problems as our research into the nature of change in current development paths has revealed (Jost et al., 2019). Unpacking change is difficult, as it is deeply normative with particular time dimensions. What one person regards as transformative change another may consider merely incremental change or even stasis. As well, the sense of urgency one lends to the issue (e.g. climate pollution), determines the pace and scale of change that decision-makers deem necessary. In recent research concerning three of British Columbia natural resource conflicts, environmentalists viewed the issues as more pressing than many industry interviewees; whereas the former considered that time was of the essence, the latter felt the opposite (Clermont, 2018). Regardless of these differences, scientific evidence shows that transformative ecological change is inevitable (Rockstrom et al., 2009); however, it remains to be seen whether human institutions are capable of intentional interventions in current exploitist fossil fuel development paths to limit climate change to a 1.5Ā°C threshold. Are there critical lessons to be learned from socio-ecological system dynamics that educators could use to open space for transformation to happen, what we are calling learning at the edge or, in other words, (edge)ucation?
Systems thinking teaches us that in the living world with its infinite variants, there are multiple equilibria with diverse tipping points, and change happens in ways that are difficult to predict. Transformation of systems ā and we posit of peoples and cultures ā is unique to each context. In the case of humans, much depends upon meanings made from lived experience and life trajectories, from knowledge and awareness. As (edge)ucators, we believe it is our obligation to bring a wide, diverse and divergent pedagogy and as Madeline Grumet said, āit is the work of the teacher to interrupt the familiarā (1995, p. 16). Our job is to guide students in our graduate certificate for sustainable community development to turn over unexamined beliefs and biases, check orientations and assumptions, and illuminate fears and hopes and dreams that shape us by how we perceive and emanate them. It is the work of the courageous teacher called to this task to āstir the potā of the stew the students grew up in, to help them think about and pose good and difficult questions about their lives and about what is truly important. As pedagogues accompanying students, we must help them dig for that sense of aliveness and purpose, and to find their āyesesā no matter the discomfort they experience in the digging or what else they might find underneath the surface of things. This can help students access their own personal proclivities and resources, or what Dewey called their innate āpowersā (1929/2009, p. 34) in order to cultivate and eventually integrate these larger energies into their lives, precisely the fuel they need to do the work ahead. Teachers who facilitate this type of inquiry face unknown knowledge, together with the students, and by observing this process, through what curriculum theorist William Pinar calls a necessary āpedagogy of listeningā (personal communication, July 2014), are able to help shift and reshape the curriculum from an emphasis on the abstract of externalities as a kind of disembodied learning to a less codified, more subjective and embodied approach. To question business as usual, to disrupt old habits, storylines and thinking, to push the edges of the familiar, invites the necessary tipping-into-back-loops of collapse, darkness and gestation (as drastic as that may sound for both systems and humans) towards an eventual transformation (even maturation?), a reorganisation of thought and action.
Transformative learning is defined by Simsek (2012) as a process of deep, constructive and meaningful learning that goes beyond simple knowledge acquisition and that supports critical ways in which learners consciously make meaning of their lives. Mezirow (2009) argues it is becoming critically aware of tacit assumptions/expectations and assessing their relevance for making an interpretation. It also involves simultaneous learning on two levels ā cognitive and affective. Bloom et al. (1971) defined the latter as including an ability to deeply listen, to respond in interactions with others, to demonstrate attitudes and values appropriate to particular situations, to demonstrate balance and consideration, and to display a commitment to principled practice on a day-to-day basis, alongside a willingness to revise judgment and change behaviour in the light of new evidence. Sipos et al. (2008) have another interesting understanding of transformative sustainability education, that is, where learning objectives are āorganized by head, hands and heart ā balancing cognitive, psychomotor and affective domainsā (p. 68). Hart (2001) encourages āan education of inner significanceā (p. 7), where transformational experiences are more likely to occur when a link is made, and capacity is built, between the interiority of the student and the external world. With its richly layered curricular focus concerned with a movement of depth over growth that looks deeply into subjects rather than at the surface of things (so often associated with the mediocrity of much of education), Hart suggests we move from a mere information exchange to open into the rich terrain of knowledge and intelligence. Carved from both āthe dialectics of intuition and the analyticā (p. 2), and cultivated through meaning made from direct experiences, students can become more compassionate and understanding with the wisdom to act ethically and the passion to do so.
Therefore, a genuine approach to transformational education and learning focusing on sustainability, requires not only an equal embrace of both mythos (deep imagination) and logos (rational and critical thought), but an immersion into the environment itself involving encounters with the āOther,ā eliciting a sense of interrelatedness and compassion for other life. This can act as an antidote to the (still) prevailing āepistemological errorā (Bateson, 1979) at the heart of the Western worldview, with its perception of separateness and rugged individualism. A deep identification with other life in this way may be viewed as an end in and of itself with processes and outcomes unique to each student and their individual context(s). Within a more formative and emancipatory educational context of being-in-the-world (Heidegger, 1927/1962), self-knowing often leads to self-actualisation, reaching out beyond the discourse that happens in the classroom to consider the human soul in conversation with the world. Self-actualisation (the ability to act in accordance to oneās true nature in contribution and service) as we were seeing it, more often than not leads a person to change (for the better), and this is in and of itself, transformative (Sterling, 2008).
The phenomenology of going outside to walk edges and explore intersections frames the here-and-now experience yet at the same time as we go out, we tend to go in and reflect deeply into matters of the heart with rich and complex outcomes that open to life and our deeper potential too. Stretches of time set aside for contemplation and reflection that allow space enough to give voice to metacognition in its identification of perspectives, biases, and values, through the meandering nature of journal writing for instance, is vital and yet is often left out of traditional pedagogy. These practices tend to get buried in a kind of hidden or subversive curriculum that is either discounted as too personal or is relegated to spare time beyond āmore importantā class time (meaning they are a lot less likely to happen, if at all).
In our classes, we offer a way to counterbalance this with an activity affectionately called Terra Incognito where students depart from the familiar classroom to traverse the unknown territory of the city and find a place that compels them in some way so they may go there to sit and listen every day (in all kinds of weather, at different times). From this place, they write, reflect, write some more and often sketch in their journals. Walking and writing the city in this way is an immersion of being-in-the-world through reflective, embodied practice. These āconversationsā the students have with the world facilitate a depth and sense of place beyond what we could have ever possibly taught in any classroom. Given the complexity of the issues involved in sustainable community development and the need for transformative learning on multiple levels (including the personal), this practice has been important for integrating and synthesising learning where new connections could form and were found at the intersections between the inner and outer worlds, striking a balance between rational thinking and the deep imagination. We humans are open systems conditioned to relationship and, according to anthropologist and cyberneticist Bateson (1979), are designed as such to receiv...
