This document discusses sustainability education and the need for a paradigm shift towards sustainability in the U.S. education system. It argues that the current focus on preparing students for global competitiveness and affluence promotes unsustainable practices and outcomes. Instead, the document advocates for educating students towards environmental sustainability, social and cultural empowerment, and economic prosperity. This would require reframing educational goals, assumptions, learning theories, curricula and classroom practices through a sustainability lens.

1. SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION:
!
ECOLOGICAL, SOCIAL/CULTURAL, ECONOMICAL
Kurt Love, Ph.D.
Department of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Educational Technology
Department Meeting - March 15, 2015

2. MARCH 2016 ISTHE FIRSTTIME IN HUMAN
HISTORYTHATTHE PLANET CROSSED OVER
THE 2°C MARK.

4. SCIENCETEACHERS
A 2016 study published in Science showed that:
30% of science teachers (middle and high school) teach that global climate
change is due to “natural causes.”
12% avoid talking about human impact altogether.
The median teacher teaches between 1-2 hours on climate change during the
course of one school year.
Only 4.4% of teachers were pressured not to teach about climate change
Plutzer, E., McCaffrey, M., Hannah, A. L., Rosenau, J., Berbeco, M., & Reid, A. H. (2016). Climate confusion among U.S. teachers.
Science, 352(6274), 664-665. Retrieved from http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6274/664.full!

5. PROBLEMS
Climate Change and Our Students
Fossil Fuels, Carbon Dioxide & Methane (GHGs)

6. PROBLEMS
Climate Change and Our Students
Fossil Fuels, Carbon Dioxide & Methane (GHGs)

7. METHANE POLLUTION
Carbon dioxide from fossil fuel emissions warms the atmosphere,
which, in turn, warms the oceans and land.
Solid carbon reserves of methane hydrates under permafrost
melt and release into the atmosphere.

8. METHANE POLLUTION
“One recent estimate: the permafrost traps 1,600 billion tons of carbon.
A hundred billion tons could be released this century, mostly in the form of
methane, which would have the warming effect of 270 years of carbon
dioxide emissions at current levels.”
!
- Bill McKibben, Eaarth, p. 22

9. METHANE &THE GREAT DYING
Permian Extinction:
250 million years ago, the Great Dying, was the planet’s greatest extinction of
species (96% marine, 70% terrestrial)
Possible reason for the Great Dying may have been a major volcanic eruption
in Siberia, which through a cascade of events eventually led to the warming of
the atmosphere enough to warm methane reserves into the atmosphere
rapidly increasing the temperature of the Earth by 6 degrees Celsius.
Current global policies are trying to avoid anything more than an increase of 2
degrees Celsius.
Take-home message: methane is a planet-killer.

10. HUMANITY’S GREATEST CHALLENGE

11. CONNECTINGTHE DOTS
The greatest cause of climate change is greedy, arrogant humans
giving poorer humans no other choices than to live lives in a system
of high risk consumption that ultimately destroys life on the planet.

12. FOUNDATIONS FOR TODAY’S
GLOBAL UNSUSTAINABILITY
Colonized Ecological Identities

13. COLONIZING
EARTH-BASED IDENTITIES
Western Europeans created identities that convinced themselves
that they were a superior version of “human” while all others
were not fully human.
The fundamental basis for Western Europeans thinking that they
were superior was that they saw themselves as being farther
removed from nature than the people that they colonized,
enslaved, killed, and dominated (Africans, Indigenous Americans,
Hawaiians, Polynesians, Southeast Asian Islanders, Puerto Ricans,
and women).

14. EUROPEAN COLONIZERS & AMERICAN INDIANS
Clash of two peoples with two
different “ecological selves”
European Colonizers: Nature for profit,
land ownership, enclosure, capitalist
mindset/values
American Indians: Nurturance,
reciprocity, sustainable mindset/values
Genocide: From up to 18 million in
1490’s to 190,000 in 1890, up to 200
million Indians died in the Americas
Land Domination
Cultural Foundations

15. RELIGIOUS FOUNDATIONS
Pre-date Christianity
Pre-date Islam
Pre-date Judaism
Earth-based
spiritualities
Found in all parts of
the world

17. EUROPEAN COLONIZERS &
WEST AFRICANS
Clash of two peoples with two different
“ecological selves”
European Colonizers: Nature for profit, land
ownership, enclosure, capitalist mindset/
values
West Africans: Nurturance, reciprocity,
sustainable mindset/values
Slavery:About 12 million captured and
shipped to the Americas, 645,000 brought to
the U.S., nearly 4 million slaves in the 1860
census
Domination for profit via capitalism

18. CREATING PATRIARCHY
Women are closer to
nature than men;!
Nature is wild, chaotic,
and uncontrollable
Therefore...
Women are wild, chaotic,
and uncontrollable
Adam & Eve
Mythopoetic Foundations

19. REALISM & PATRIARCHY
Women are closer to
nature than men;!
Nature is wild, chaotic,
and uncontrollable
Therefore...
Women are wild, chaotic,
and uncontrollable
Aristotle and Phyllis
(Alexander the Great’s Wife)
"If thus it happened to me, an old man most
wise, that I was deceived by a woman, you can
see that I taught you well, that it could happen
to you, a young man." - Aristotle
Philosophic Foundations

20. MAINTAINING PATRIARCHY
A mass killing of women during the
“Burning Times” in Europe & the US
Removal of a religion where
women are spiritual leaders
and the central spirit is
seen as feminine.
!
Origin story: Goddess comes
into her own, splits her self to
have a male half who governs
the physical plane (physical
universe), and we are all aspects
of the Goddess with the
support of the God.
Religious & Social Foundations

21. MAINTAINING PATRIARCHY
Movement out of nature and into “Human” as
separate from nature
Nature is where Satan resides
Technology is Godly & righteous
Christian missionaries with indigenous peoples
globally, negative views on nudity
Killing of at least tens of thousands of “witches”
from 1400s-1600s
Continued persecution of paganism, neopaganism,
and Wicca
A mass killing of women during the
“Burning Times” in Europe & the US
Religious & Social Foundations

22. Aloha & Haole

23. Aloha & Haole
Aloha !
“Together, we breathe the sacred breath”!
A consciousness that we are inescapably interwoven with
each other and the earth. !
What we do to each other and the earth, we do to ourselves.

24. Aloha & Haole
Haole !
“One who is without sacred breath”!
A consciousness that does not include an awareness that we are
inescapably interwoven with each other and the earth. !
A consciousness only of self and an ignorance of one’s energetic and
spiritual impact. Often comes with little or no understanding of
spirituality or the purpose of one’s soul (soul loss).

25. EDUCATING TOWARDS
AFFLUENCE
Colonized Ecological Identities

26. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
MISSION STATEMENT
“[The U.S. Department of Education’s] mission is to promote
student achievement and preparation for global
competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and
ensuring equal access.”
-- U.S. Department of Education Website (2016)
What are the roles of education in this context?

27. EDUCATION FOR COMPETITION
“[The U.S. Department of Education’s] mission is to promote student achievement and
preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring
equal access.”
-- U.S. Department of Education Website (2016)
Major intended outcome:
Create mid-level, STEM-based, affluent workers
Major consequence:
Students become worker-consumers both perpetuating the business of consumption and
acting as consumers.
Westernized consumption is the primary measure to determine a country’s level of success
and entry into a “modernized” world.
However, Westernized consumption is the leading cause for global environmental
degradation including, but not limited to, climate change.

28. COLLEGE- AND CAREER-READY AND GLOBALLY
COMPETITIVE RHETORIC
OR EDUCATING TOWARDS AFFLUENCE
“[The U.S. Department of Education’s] mission is to promote student achievement and
preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal
access.”
-- U.S. Department of Education Website (2016)
College- and career-ready, and global competitiveness are the only goals of public education in
the mission statement. Providing educational excellence in our schools with equal access is
the path towards being college- and career-ready and becoming a globally competitive worker.
College- and career-ready, and global competitiveness rhetoric means graduating students into
mainly careers that produce affluence.Affluence is the reward for adhering to the demands of
PreK-18 curricula.
However, college- and career-ready, and global competitiveness rhetoric ignores issues of
unsustainability that are maintained when students are seen as future workers in a current
system that is the central cause of climate change.

30. UNSUSTAINABILITY AND
CHALLENGES OF AFFLUENCE
“[The U.S. Department of Education’s] mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness
by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”
-- U.S. Department of Education Website (2016)
Affluence is held as the reward for succeeding in schools, but affluent lifestyles are environmentally unsound.
The material goods of contemporary affluent lifestyles come from almost exclusively very poor, low-wage (slave-wage)
workers in the global South and East Asia who are deeply exploited for labor and live in ever increasingly polluted
environments that are causing alarming rates of cancer and other severe health problems that shorten life expectancy.
Affluence paints a distorted picture of social justice. Social justice cannot just mean moving the “have-nots” into a
lifestyle that is largely consumeristic and environmentally problematic.
Affluence also adds to social unsustainability.
Affluent people are not incentivized to significantly change a social/economic system that is effectively working for
them.They generally see the system as providing enough “fair” possibilities for people through a perception of
meritocracy.
However, affluent people also feel like when they suffer financial loss, others leverage that to put them down and say
that they deserve it.

31. UNSUSTAINABILITY AND
CHALLENGES OF AFFLUENCE
Work is a central component to affluent people’s lifestyles. However, work is endless and dominant in every aspect of life.
A life where work is a central component often means that there is isolation and stressed intimate and familial
relationships.
Affluent people often work continuously and have great difficulty separating work from personal lives.Affluent parents rely
more heavily on electronic communication before, during, and after work, which infiltrates nearly every part of their day.
Affluent parents struggle to find routine quality time with their children who then often feel distant from their parents.This
distance creates deeper addictions to technology/media, depression, and anxieties that have lifelong effects.
Because of a continuous work schedule, affluent parents hire outside help (such as nannies, babysitters, land caretakers, and
housekeeping) to run their households and care for their children.
A separation of the generations in families is another goal or sign of “success.”
Affluent parents often involve their children in many after school and summer extracurriculars, which may provide
children with some social skills, but also tends to further minimize quality time at home.
The constant involvement of children in extracurriculars provides a schedule for the children that begins to mimic that of the
parents’ work schedules.
Since affluent children have more access to money, substance experimentation and abuse is common.

32. UNSUSTAINABILITY AND
CHALLENGES OF AFFLUENCE
Affluence is a buffer for the super wealthy
and allows for a rationalization of disparity.
If affluence is seen as achievable in a
context of competition, then the hyper-
greed of the super wealthy becomes more
allowable.
Affluence needs to be contrasted with
prosperity.They are not the same.
Prosperity is not built upon a reified notion
of competition. Prosperity, as a root
metaphor, encourages sharing and
cooperation.Affluence is rooted more in
self-centric notions. Prosperity is rooted
more in philosopher, Martin Buber’s “I-
Thou” mindset whereby all people (who
are interconnected) achieve stability, reduce
excessive stress, and can rely on each other.

33. SUSTAINABILITY FRAMEWORK
Ecological, Social/Cultural, and Economic

35. EDUCATING TOWARDS
SUSTAINABILITY
A Necessary Paradigm Shift

36. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
MISSION STATEMENT (REVISITED)
“[The U.S. Department of Education’s] mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering
educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”
-- U.S. Department of Education Website (2016)
The U.S. Department of Education’s mission is to fully
support the optimal educational growth and success of every
student in order to create environmental sustainability,
social and cultural empowerment, and economic prosperity
by fostering equality, solidarity, wellness, and peaceful
democratic discourse.

37. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
MISSION STATEMENT (REVISITED)
The U.S. Department of Education’s mission is to fully support the optimal
educational growth and success of every student in order to create environmental
sustainability, social and cultural empowerment, and economic prosperity by
fostering equality, solidarity, wellness, and peaceful democratic discourse.
What are the roles of education in this context?
The economic prosperity piece is still there, but it exists in a different relationship,
perhaps a healthier one.
Economic prosperity as an outcome of competition is not prosperity for all. It is
prosperity for the few.
Economic prosperity couched in solidarity, wellness, and environmental balance is more
towards prosperity for all.

38. WHAT ARETHE AIMS OF
EDUCATING FOR SUSTAINABILITY
Peaceful communication (peaceful listening, validation, finding
common ground, negotiation, compromise)
Identification of ecological, social/cultural, and economic problems
and possibilizing (piloting, data gathering, studying, researching) in a
community
Sustainability literacy/fluency (environmental sciences,
Building of positive relationships
Creating sustainable, responsible options in the marketplace
Stable work
Strengthen local economics
Sustainable food production
Replacing accountability with responsibility
Maximizing homes for sustainability (energy efficiency, organic
gardening, renewable energy, homesteading, etc.)

39. RUNNING CORE EDUCATIONAL ASSUMPTIONS
THROUGH SUSTAINABILITY LENSES
Anthropologist/philosopher, co-founder of cybernetics, Gregory
Bateson stated we are often missing an understanding of a) how we
create an “ecology” in our mind of reality, and b) that adding a new
element to an existing ecology affects the entire network.
Learning Theories
Classroom Management
Curricula
Issues of Diversity

40. EDUCATIONTHROUGH A
SUSTAINABILITY LENS
Learning Theories
A change from convergent thinking to divergent thinking.
A change from decontextualized to contextualized knowledge.

41. CONVERGENTTHINKING

42. DIVERGENTTHINKING

43. EDUCATIONTHROUGH A
SUSTAINABILITY LENS
From Classroom Management
to Classroom Climate
Movement from
standardization and
sameness to empowerment
and happiness.
Movement from positive
reinforcement to positive
relationships.

44. EDUCATIONTHROUGH A
SUSTAINABILITY LENS
From Classroom Management
to Classroom Climate
Movement from
standardization and
sameness to empowerment
and happiness.
Movement from positive
reinforcement to positive
relationships.

45. HAPPINESS, NOT SAMENESS
Happiness is a goal that we should take seriously.
When a person is truly supported to pursue
her/his deeper life’s purpose, our society has
more people who have the opportunity to more
optimally contribute to moving us towards
sustainability.
Happiness is not a “fluffy” thing.A happiness that
is connected to the deeper desires in our soul is
transformative and guides us to fulfilling our
purposes.
A society where people are more able to
skillfully identify the desires deep within their
soul, manifest them, and contribute them to that
society is one that is ultimately more peaceful,
able to communicate more democratically, and
able to work with more significant problems.

46. HAPPINESS, NOT SAMENESS
Sameness narrows the capacity for deep
soul desires to emerge. Sameness forces us
to ignore that which makes us unique.
Sameness provides greater challenges to a
society becoming more sustainable.
Schools are going in the completely
opposite direction by supporting
standardization. Standardization, or
sameness, has lifelong effects, especially
when we bury our young people in that
pressurized culture.
Schools ought to be mining every student
and helping them find in themselves their
own strengths, talents, and gifts that will
bring us to a place of greater health,
wellness, balance, and sustainability.

47. POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT IS ABOUT CONTROL
Positive reinforcement is not about making a child feel good or confident. By definition, positive reinforcement has
nothing to do with making a child feel good or confident.
Positive reinforcement is about manipulating a person so that they continually produce a desired behavior.
Positive reinforcement, just like negative reinforcement, punishment, and reward, is about controlling a person.
Positive reinforcement feels fake and disingenuous to students because it is.
Positive reinforcement pushes students away from the teacher. It makes students feel like they are a burden to the
teacher.
Positive reinforcement does not move us towards sustainability or peace. It is an attempt to strip a person of their
unique differences and gifts in order to make them become predictable, docile, and indistinguishable in significant ways.
Behaviorists, like B.F. Skinner, made it their mission to reduce people to scientifically predictable sets of behaviors
when surrounded by specific reinforcements, punishments, and rewards through operant conditioning. Positive
reinforcement was not designed to build a person up. It was designed to break a person down.
Most popular behavior management programs rely heavily on positive reinforcement for their methods.

48. POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS,
NOT POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT
Learners do best when they have genuinely positive
relationships with their teachers. Period.
The more a student feels supported by her/his teacher, the
more s/he is likely to succeed.
Students will take more risks.
They will be more likely to go outside of their comfort
zones.
Their behaviors are far more cooperative and engaging.
They do not need to be controlled.They are willing
participants.
Teachers are more inclined to see the possibilities for
every child no matter their background, difficulties, or
stresses.
Students see their own possibilities and contributions
more clearly.

49. POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS,
NOT POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT
Positive relationships are important
because they need to be modeled in
order to show students how to better
relate to one another, communicate
with each other, look for possibilities in
each other, encourage the best in each
other, and take on challenges together.
Sustainable societies have people who
are looking for the best in each other,
actively listening with their mind and
hearts, and validating/affirming each
other. Adults can show children how to
do this in real life situations and talk
about the challenges of doing this when
stresses arise.

50. EDUCATIONTHROUGH A
SUSTAINABILITY LENS
Curricula
Movement from
decontextualized to
contextualized
Interconnected curricula

51. CURRICULUM SHAPES ITSELF
What do each of the subject areas look like when:
We approach content from a theory-to-context-to-practice perspective?
We (re)contextualize content?
We excavate all of the perspectives present in a community that pertain to a given topic?
We connect philosophies with knowledge making processes?
We engage students in actual research of their communities using actual research methods?
We blur or knock down the walls of the classroom and relocate learning in the everyday world? In other
words, we repurpose the classroom space for learning in an inquiry-based, conference style, dialogue-
centric experience in order to debrief about experiences from outside the classroom.
We move from the end point of getting the “right” answer to the target of trying to understand the
diversity and nuances of knowledge that exist in our communities?

52. EDUCATIONTHROUGH A
SUSTAINABILITY LENS
Issues of Diversity
Towards solidarity,
affirmation, and
critique of power.

53. DIFFERENCE IS GOOD,
PRIVILEGE IS NOT
Social justice is not about creating equal access to a
destructive system that exploits “other” people and
nature.
Social justice is about creating a society where
people of all backgrounds have equal access to a
sustainable life.
Difference is to be protected, not marginalized,
ranked, or narrowed. Difference provides more
sustainability.
We need to careful about attaching stress to race and
culture as if they are part of those races and cultures.
Pedagogy needs to be developed to truly protect
difference and critique privilege, separate stress from
race/culture, and connect social justice with
sustainability.