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Internationalisation of the Curriculum
Responsibility, Sustainability and
Citizenship – Personal
Dimensions
“So..”the smartly be-suited
interviewer asked: “Would you
say that you take things
personally?”
• Much later, I thought: “Yes, I do take things personally… I think everyone
should take things personally.. I am a teacher and I want the learners in my
care to care, i.e. to take things personally. I teach about the environment, one
of a vanishing breed at Brookes, and again, yes, I think everyone should take
the state of the environment as a matter of personal responsibility”.
• As a species, our greatest problems and deficiencies in life and in the world
arise from a reluctance to accept personal responsibility but rather to act
from mindless custom, do what we are told, right or wrong, or send the
blamer to someone else – “Nothing to do with me mate! “
“Our biggest challenge in
this new century is to take
an idea that seems
abstract -- sustainable
development -- and turn it
into a daily reality for all
the world's people” (Annan,
2001, p4)
Annan, K. 2001.Secretary General calls for break
in political stalemate over environmental issues,
United Nations Press Release: SC/SM/7739 for
15/03/2001. Retrieved on Sept. 1st, 2007, from
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2001/sgsm77
39.doc.htm
“a thoughtful and restrained community [playing] its part in an ecologically sustainable
society” (Smyth, J.C. 2005.p 263.)
Smyth, J.C. 2005. Environment and education: a view of a changing scene Environmental Education Research 12, 3-4, pp. 247-264.
Three Faces of Academia
Corporate Leader Complete Modern Old-style Teacher/
Academic Researcher
Market Awareness RAE-REF Learning
Image - Prestige - Grants, Projects, Educational
Ranking Assistants Development
Accounts - budget Promotion Interest - Inquiry
Artha – Tamas – emphasis Kama – Rajas – emphasis – Dharma – Sattva – emphasis –
Wealth and status Respect and results. Service and learning _ IoC
Two Faces of IoC
Globalisation of HE Inc. Planetary Citizenship
International income stream Sustainability
Commodification Poverty alleviation
Credentialism Skills and learning
Cherry-picking International development
Competitive growth of HEIs Cooperation -
MNC and business: corporate needs Egalitarianism – Democratic Society
HE examined as a struggle between two opposing processes: finance driven
globalisation and two United Nations counterweights – education for sustainable
development (ESD) and education for democratic citizenship (EDC). Most modern HEIs
are presently better demonstrations of the first than the second two…
Haigh, M. 2008. Internationalisation, Planetary Citizenship and Higher Education Inc. Compare: A Journal
of Comparative Education 38, y, pp xxx-X+17 [ISSN 0305-7925, Online ISSN: 1469-3623] Published on
line: (I-first article (url: http:/dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057920701582731) September 2007).
Example: EDC
“Democracy should be learned & lived on an
everyday basis”! (Council of Europe, 2005, p1).
• “EDC is a set of practices & principles aimed at making young
people & adults better equipped to participate actively in
democratic life by assuming & exercising their rights &
responsibilities in society”. (Council of Europe in: Birzea et al., 2004, p13).
• CE international survey found that most nations looked to their education
systems to help solve their socio-economic, political & cultural problems,
especially in the ethical areas of respecting diversity, identity, tolerance,
rights & responsibilities.
• Most said the formal taught curriculum should be the pillar for education for
democratic citizenship.
• Also noted: “a real gap between declarations & what happens in practice” (Birzea et al. 2004, p5).
• Bîrzéa, C., Kerr, D., Mikkelsen, R., Froumin, I., Losito, B., Pol, M., and Sardoc, M. 2004. All-European Study on Education for Democratic Citizenship
Policies. 94pp. Strasbourg, Council of Europe.
• So is Brookes University a good model for a Democratic
Society?
Srila
Bhaktivinoda
• The human spirit is a creature pulled between
two world views, an amoral, self-serving,
material world & the ethical, service-oriented
world of the conscient spirit (Bhaktivinoda Thakura, 1895, p233).
• Srila Bhaktivinoda, 19th Century Bengali intellectual, turned his back on the
amoral world of commerce, became a teacher in the British system - later a
magistrate.
• Bhaktivinoda Thakura, A.V. Srila. 1895. Jaiva-dharma: the essential function of the Soul
(Tr. Sriman Sarvabhavana das). Vrndavana: SKCBT- Brhat Mrdanga Press (2004)
Reporting on the Holocaust to the USA’s President, Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize Laureate,
reflected: “The most vital lesson … Auschwitz was possible because the enemy … &
it is always the same enemy—succeeded in dividing, in separating, in splitting
human society, nation against nation, Christian against Jew, young against old. And
not enough people cared”
The War Criminals, many were graduates of ‘good’ universities. Their education failed
... What went wrong? It emphasised abstractions not values, concepts not
conscience,ideology & efficiency not ethics and reflection. … AND just as we do in
most environmental education, it took the learners out of reality and locked them away in a darkened lecture
hall while it turned other organisms and even human beings into objects for study.
Romanic & Pesic (1994. p109) describe Serbia’s school
textbooks: “Brimming with xenophobia, contempt
and hatred for neighbouring nations, Europe and
the world community, such texts fit well into the
propaganda system that made this war
psychologically possible”
Our educational curriculum is an
evolving compromise.
Embedded within are
many values, past and present.
Parocialism is endemic.
Xenophobia lurks beneath the surface.
• Lord Trevelyan advised the British Parliament on India: “Educated in the
same way... they become more English... just as the Roman provincials
became more Romans than Gauls” (Trevelyan, 1853).
• Swami Vivekananda observed “these educational institutions …are simply to get a lot of useful, practical
slaves for little money ... a host of clerks, postmasters, etc” (Vivekananda 1899, in Vivekananda - Complete Works:
1989, v 7, p 181-182).
• Even in current IoC thinking ‘bringing the foreigners up to our speed’ &, from those
days of Empire, “making the foreigners more like us” remain strong themes.
• It is less usual to hear that our Educators may make their ways more cosmopolitan & make what
we teach fit better with international expectations. Rather, we stay-at-home folk expect the
foreigner to understand to our local customs, traditions (& hidden curricula) on arrival.
Back to Nature…the Environment,
ESD and Personal Responsibility.
• U21176: Gaia, teaches that humans are a recent addition to a
biological system that has actively regulated the Earth’s
environment for almost 4 billion years.
• From, this perspective, there is only one history of
humanity. The tribes it creates from time to time matter little.
• It also teaches that when humans were <6 million, what
they did affected the Earth very little, but today, when
numbers are > a thousand times greater, the impact is
major.
• Global environmental change is a complex & controversial
process. However, there is no doubt that human actions are
driving this change or that it is headed in a direction that is
not favourable for our species (IPCC, 2007).
• While our world teeters on the edge of environmental calamity; its
people court retribution by their carelessness, despoilation and
waste (Lovelock, 2006, Revenge of Gaia, Oxford).
• Long ago, the Vedic Laws of Karma, not unlike those of
Environmental Science, suggested that for every action there is a
reaction, good, bad - not necessarily equal, but a line of credit
or debit to be settled now or later.
• The problems that threaten our future, many are the result of a
billion small actions & individual decisions taken in daily life.
• These are driven by the way that we as individuals see our world
and set our priorities,. These have tended to be oriented toward the
accumulation of material wealth, immediate gratification of the
senses & the achievement of social power & status.
• The collective result is a huge balance of payments deficit in our
collective duty of care for the Earth; to survive, we need to act to
find ways of living peacefully within the Earth, of living as if the future
mattered, & enact them soon.
Our present way of life is not “sustainable & sooner or later it will change
… the future is not to be foretold, it is to be created… & that is up to us.
(E.Laszlo, 2002, You Can Change the World: Action Handbook for the 21st Century. (Clun, UK, Positive News. p 15).
Survey of the environmental attitudes of learners & their parents
(University Open Day Visitors- are these Brookes’ values?).
Table 1. Environmental Values of Open Day Visitors: Difference
from
Students and Parents (Haigh, 2007).
Neutral
(Score: 5 strongly positive, 3 neutral, 1 strongly negative) (p<0.0005)
Three Strongest Positive Responses
6. Human beings have a duty to preserve the environment for future +1.710
generations.
4 Most environmental problems can be solved by changes in our life style. +1.053
7. Environmental sustainability is the most important concern for human +0.824
society.
Three Strongest Negative Responses
2. Most environmental problems can be solved through the production of -0.565
wealth in a free market.
10. It is OK to sacrifice environmental quality if this benefits human -0.840
society as a whole
5. Human beings have the right to exploit Nature for their own profit. -1.313
Project aims to encourage participants to take personal
K2CC Project & the Ecotentresponsibility for their personal impact upon the Earth (cf.
(useful MO for IoC)? Guardian’s new ‘Tread Lightly’ campaign)
“Ecotent” - a trail , an“Ecological Footprint Questionnaire”
(Bestfoot Forward, 2007); discussion with volunteers & a
pledge tree on which to pledge 1 positive change.
Questionnaires from 470 people, Who attached 268 (57%) pledges:
The main pledges involve:doing more recycling (62), saving electric power (62), greener
travel (40), use green electricity provider (17); general affirmations & resolutions to
engage in consciousness raising action (17).
Ecological Self-Realisation
Deep Ecology education: 3-step expansion of the conception of the self.
• 1 -realisation of the personal self,
• 2 - realisation of the social Self (family, tribe, nation, species)
• 3 - realisation of the Ecological Self - part of the
community of all life .
“This would involve a pretty radical change of consciousness, but it would make our
behaviour more consistent with what science tells us is necessary for the well-
being of life on Earth. We just wouldn't do certain things that damage the planet,
just as you wouldn't cut off your own finger” Zimmerman & Atkisson (1989, p24)
Great .. But really how do
communicate and reduce the
personal connection between
Karma & Climate Change?
“Easy positive actions will lead to a better environment, happier
society, a better healthier life and a clearer conscience..”
– Environment – sustainable, vitality, unpolluted
– Society – egalitarian, inclusive, ethical, compassionate, caring, greener -
low impact, more individual responsibility, kinder to the future. (Campaigns -
Fair Trade, Rights of Humans & other living Creatures, Ahimsa, spiritual?).
– Bodies – healthy, reduced dependencies /addictions, diet- vegetarian, more
self-aware, less stressed and driven
– Conscience - feel-good, peace of mind. contentment.
Scoping a Change of Heart, Values and Culture
Message: K2CC means having more not less..
?Sequence – Env, Soc, Self, Spirit (Conscience) / Bhutan
More Less
Healthy habitat Pollution, disease and contamination
Simple Lifestyle Clutter, worry, waste and carbon.
Wholesome diet Worry about additives, chemicals and diseases.
Vegetarian Worry about cruelty and carbon
Quality Quantity, junk and waste
Time for Life Missed , rushed, neglected and ignored
Self-respect / independence Dependency, addiction and greed.
Contentment /detachment Stress, angst and greed
Compassion and kindness Intolerance and iniquity
Peace of Mind / Inner Peace Envy, anger and greed
• Teach courses to planetary citizens - help
Some Personal those ‘stay-at-homes’ catch up with the more
cosmopolitan international learners?.
Discussion Points • Cut out the parochial in HOW you teach – ‘a
local university for local people’?
• Teach from the heart to the heart and mind –
everyone should take their learning personally
as also their responsibility to the future?
• Corporate or RAE thinking cannot give the
learners the education they need. Our
‘customers’ know this - does Brookes?
• Learners need help to engage with their
personal environmental & social responsibility
– to think about ethics, sustainability &
democratic citizenship?
• Brookes’ mission would be more appropriate
if it sought to become a good model of both
sustainability and democratic social order?
