Constructing education for sustainable development: the secondary school geography curriculum and initial teacher training

Abstract

If education is a solution in working toward a sustainable future then initial teacher training (ITT) provides a strategic opportunity for ensuring that all teachers are able to teach for sustainability when they begin their teaching careers. This paper reports on a study of how four Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) student teachers planned and taught education for sustainable development (ESD) through geography during a school placement. It was carried out to provide exemplification of the nature of student teachers' planning and teaching about ESD in secondary schools in England and to identify ways of improving their PGCE course. The findings are based on interviews with student teachers after the school placement, as well documentary evidence. Policy‐driven changes in the provision of both ITT and school curricula and pedagogy in England are an important context for the study. The paper concludes by arguing that ITT faces considerable challenges if it is to be reoriented towards sustainability.

Notes

1. The course assessment consisted of a 3000 word assignment that required student teachers to plan, teach and evaluate a short unit of work. As a minimum, five one‐hour lessons, or the equivalent, for either a Key Stage 3 or GCSE or A level class, were taught.

2. This does not conceal its particular theories, beliefs and values.

3. Revised standards for the recommendation for qualified teacher status (QTS) are being introduced in September 2007. They continue to privilege a thin conception of professional practice based on technical rationalism.

4. There are also requirements for ESD in some GCSE (14–16) and GCE A level (16–19) specifications.

5. The report identifies seven key dimensions which can be used as a framework for conceptualizing sustainable development: interdependence; citizenship and stewardship; needs and rights of future generations; diversity; quality of life; equity and justice; sustainable change; and uncertainty and precaution in action. The Sustainable Development Education Panel was a working group that advised on the introduction of ESD into the National Curriculum 2000.

6. Academic geographers, however, have engaged with the nature‐society antinomy for some considerable time now, with some very fertile rethinking of ontology and politics being undertaken in the discipline.