Source
doi:10.1007/s11159-020-09820-7 — original publication (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Summary
Hays & Reinders introduce “sustainable learning and education” (SLE) — a philosophy and curriculum framework that treats sustainability not as a subject to be taught but as the governing principle for how learning itself should be designed and practiced. Drawing on autopoiesis, complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory, and 22+ compiled sustainability principles, the article proposes a curriculum built on two components: “education that lasts” and “sustainability of learning.” The proposed curriculum is designed to be self-sustaining and emergent, requiring minimal external financial support. Eight indicative learning outcomes include the ability to propose and assess community sustainability projects. The paper concludes that sustainability is “essentially a matter of community,” and that conventional education systems are structurally ill-equipped to produce the dispositions and capacities sustainability demands.
Key thesis insights
- Self-sufficiency as educational objective — the paper names self-sufficiency explicitly as “an essential quality and objective of sustainability”; grounds the thesis argument that community self-sufficiency requires a human learning and capacity dimension, not just a technology deployment logic.
- Autopoiesis as shared design principle — systems that self-generate and renew are the model for sustainable ecosystems, resilient communities, and learning systems alike; provides a conceptual bridge between biological systems thinking, community resilience, and educational design.
- 22-principle sustainability curriculum scaffold (Table 1) — includes “strive to become self-sustaining,” “decentralise where possible,” “emphasise sufficiency,” “reduce waste,” “design for durability/flexibility”; a validated cross-disciplinary set that provides framing for SSI’s design logic in the thesis argument.
- “Knowing innovation” — innovation that is conscious, responsible, and aware of its own process; the paper explicitly cautions against pursuing progress simply because it is possible or profitable, and advocates applying sustainability principles to determine if/when pursuit is wise — directly relevant to the EDT technology assessment framework.
- Community as ecosystem — “sustainability is essentially a matter of community”; the socio-ecological framing (“diverse, thriving community whose members are mutually interdependent, working in harmony, concerned with continuity and welfare”) supports the governance and cohousing dimensions of the thesis.
- “Learning forward” — the temporal dimension of learning (anticipatory, future-oriented) connects to community adaptive capacity under climate and economic uncertainty; relevant to the resilience and governance threads of the thesis.
- Cautionary note on innovation — “We should not pursue progress and innovation just because we can or because they may be immediately profitable” — applying sustainability principles as a filter for technological adoption aligns with the EDT framework’s technology assessment logic.
Research targets
Documents to retrieve
- RT_076: Sterling, S. (2001). Sustainable education: Re-visioning learning and change. Schumacher Briefings 6. Cambridge: Green Books. — cited 3× in LIT_021 as foundational SLE text; thesis background on sustainability education philosophy.