Sunway University ESAP Symposium August 15 2020 Keynote Sustainable Learning for a Safe Global Future: Lessons from Pushed Changes The idea that ‘Change is the only constant’ has never been more true than in 2020, and the rest of the future threatens even an even faster pace of change. This workshop invites examination of major changes being pushed upon the education sector whether we welcome them or not and asks how key education stakeholders should and will react. Three changes on which participants’ thoughts and experiences will be sought involve (a) the rise of distance education, (b) the worsening of climate weirding, and (c) ongoing threats to social cohesion. These changes present dire threats, as well as great opportunities, for education. To briefly preview each of these three changes and their possible impacts on education: (a) Can education reap the benefits of distance education in such areas as greater inclusion, easier access, and enhanced technology use while still delivering quality learning and rigorous assessment? (b) Will the education sector be willing to generate the same level of effort we mounted to face down COVID-19 to respond to an even greater impending calamity, the climate crisis? (c) Can education be a force for community and cooperation when so many people and organisations seem to be prioritising difference and division?

1. SUSTAINABLE LEARNING FOR A SAFE
GLOBAL FUTURE: LESSONS FROM
PUSHED CHANGES
Keynote Address
◦ George M Jacobs
◦ george.jacobs@gmail.com
◦ georgejacobs.net

2. Vocab 1 – Pushed Changes
◦ Thanks to our mutual friend, Professor
Stephen Hall, I learned a new term.
◦ In case it’s also new to you, here’s my
understanding of what it means:
◦ Pushed changes are changes that maybe I
want to make or maybe I don’t want to make.

3. Forced by
Circumstances
◦ But, I’m forced by circumstances to
make these changes.
◦ Maybe I’m happy that I had to make
the changes; maybe I’m unhappy.
◦ Maybe I wanted to make the changes,
but something was missing, e.g., I
didn’t have the willpower.

4. Pushed Changes -
Example 1
◦ I resisted doing online banking for many years,
but going to the bank became more and more
tiresome.
◦ People were asking me for electronic payment,
partly to avoid physical contact; so, I was pushed
to change.
◦ Fortunately, more and more people among my
family and friends were doing online banking,
and some offered to help me.
◦ New online banking options continue to appear,
and I am being pushed to learn those, too.

5. Pushed Change - Example 2
◦ I used to enjoy jogging as exercise, but my knees started to
hurt.
◦ So, I switched to walking. That was a pushed change.
◦ Now, as I age, my walking distance is getting shorter and my
speed is getting slower. Another pushed change.
◦ I still do walk, as I still need to exercise and enjoy exercising.
◦ Fortunately, the pushed change is working out fairly well.
People, such as my wife, offered to walk with me.
◦ Step counters, heart rate monitors, YouTube, and podcasts
make walking more interesting, and I learned from others, such
as my brother, how to use those.
◦ New technology, such as oxygen use monitors, continue to
emerge.

6. A Moment to Think
◦ Please take a moment to think to yourself
about:
◦ Do you notice any commonalities between
George’s two examples of pushed change?
◦ What’s your own example of pushed
change?
◦ If you want, you can use the Chat function to
record your thoughts

7. Commonalities in the
Two Examples of Pushed Change
I didn’t want to
make either
change.
Other people
helped me make
the change.
Changes
continue to
occur.

8. Vocab 2 – Teaching Languages in
Unprecedented Circumstances
◦ As with other fields, language teaching
offers a cornucopia of terms, e.g., TEFL,
TESOL, NESTs and Non-NESTs, TENOR,
LSP.
◦ In June on the Teachers Voices FB group
(helmed by Dr Willy Renandya), I saw a call
for papers for a journal in Argentina talking
about a special issue on TLUC: Teaching
Languages in Unprecedented
Circumstances.
◦ T-LUC is an acronym that truly fits our
times.

9. Pushes Causing Pushed Changes
During Our T-LUC
1. The rise of distance education and education with social
distancing
2. The worsening of climate weirding
3. Ongoing threats to social cohesion

10. 1. The Rise of
Online
Education
and Social
Distancing
◦ The rise of online education is a great example
of pushed change. Lots of people view the
sudden move to distance education as largely
a disaster. However, distance education has
many possible advantages:
1. Costs can be lower, e.g., fewer school
buildings are needed even though there may
be more students.
2. Lower greenhouse gas emissions as people
travel less.
3. Greater access to education for more people.

11. More Benefits of
Online Education
4. Promotes lifelong learning
5. Greater choice and flexibility for
students
6. People learn ICT tools
7. Students build their Learning
Communities

12. Task – Pls take a moment to
think about & maybe use
chat to record your thoughts
◦ Have you ever experienced any benefits of
distance education?
◦ Do you think that with the right preparation
distance education could be an overall
beneficial pushed change?
◦ What might some of that preparation be?

13. 2. The Worsening of
Climate Weirding
◦ Vocab 3
◦ Everyone knows the terms “climate change” and “global
warming”. “Weirding” signifies that the climate is doing more
than warming.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/opinion/sunday/coron
avirus-globalization.html
◦ “The frequency, intensity, and cost of extreme weather
events are all increasing. The wets get wetter, the hots get
hotter, the dry periods get drier, the snows get heavier, the
hurricanes get stronger.” Sea levels rise, droughts and floods
worsen.

14. Vocab 4: Anthropocene
◦ The geologic age into which we entered
perhaps in the latter part of the 20th
century.
◦ The geologic era in which humans (anthro)
are the main factor affecting the climate. As
the title of a 2019 book by Jonathan Safron
Foer put it, “We Are The Weather”.
◦ Our species is responsible for the release of
greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide,
methane, and nitrous oxide.

15. Is Climate Weirding Pushing Us
to Take The Following Actions:
In and Out of School?
◦ Drive less
◦ Fly less
◦ Eat less animal-based foods
◦ Reduce paper use
◦ Reduce single use plastic

16. Task – Pls take a moment to
think about & maybe use
chat to record your thoughts
◦ What should we as teachers, private citizens,
and schools/unis do to create less climate
weirding?
◦ Am I, my colleagues, and students taking
those actions?
◦ Can these actions be part of our curriculum,
i.e., can students speak, listen, read, and write
about them?

17. One Possible Solution
◦ Share recipes for plant-based dishes
◦ Recipes fit into the Instructions text type
◦ Cooking as a Language Learning Task - https://www.tesl-
ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume24/ej93/ej93int/
◦ Linguacusine - https://linguacuisine.com/ - a European Union project for teaching
language, technology, culture, and cuisine.
◦ Peanut Butter and Banana No-Bread Sandwich:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCqYX0FI86M&t=28s&ab_channel=HealthPartners
SG

18. 3. Ongoing
Threats to Social
Cohesion
◦ Social cohesion
promotes a better
society.
◦ More than the other
two issues discussed
so far, the
dimensions of social
cohesion will differ
from country to
country, as well as
within the same
country.
◦ Some of the fault
lines in various
countries include:
Nationality Religion Race
Socio-Economic Status Political Affiliation Level of
Education
Sex – Female/Male/Other Sexual Preference Age Group
Blue Collar/White Collar Abled/Challenged ??

19. Achieving Social
Cohesion
◦ ... let us unite, not in spite of our
differences, but through them. For
differences can never be wiped away,
and life would be so much the poorer
without them. Let all human races keep
their own personalities, and yet come
together, not in a uniformity that is
dead, but in a unity that is living."
◦ Rabindranath Tagore, 1913 winner of
the Nobel Prize for Literature

20. Task – Pls take a moment to
think about & maybe use
chat to record your thoughts
◦ From the table in the last slide, what are some
differences among students in one of your
classes?
◦ How do those differences help/hinder
cohesion among the students in or out of
class?

21. One Possible Solution
◦ Cooperative Learning with
a. Positive Interdependence – the
group members need to help
each other in order to succeed
b. Individual Accountability – each
group member needs to do
their fair share in the group

22. An Example
◦ An example of encouraging Cooperative Learning with
Positive Interdependence and Individual Accountability
a. Group of 3
b. Each group member shares information that the others
do not have
c. One member is chosen at random to move to another
group to share their two partners’ information with the
other group; they do not share their own information,
only their partners’.
d. Thus, they need to successfully exchange information
with their partners. They cannot succeed alone.
e. If students feel positively interdependent with each
other, they are more likely to be able to coexist/cohere
in and out of class.

23. Task – Pls take a moment to
think about & maybe use
chat to record your thoughts
◦ Have you ever used cooperative learning as a teacher
(your students learned in cooperative learning groups)
◦ Or, as a student, were you ever in classes where your
teachers asked you and the other students to learn in
cooperative groups?
◦ Did the cooperative learning work well?
◦ We’ll be discussing this more in Workshop F latter
today.

24. Conclusion
◦ Pushed changes can be scary.
◦ But pushed changes can be changes
for the better.
◦ We teachers are powerful.
◦ Especially when we collaborate with
colleagues and learn from our
students, we can help society create
changes for the better.