Jaimie Cloud is the founder of the Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education which works with K-12 schools to emphasize creative and innovative thinking, research and solutions to challenges of the economy, the environment and communities.
Today people are curious, they’ve heard the word “sustainability” somewhere; they don’t necessarily know what it is, but somebody in their life is already involved in it, or asking about it or is familiar with it in some way. I find very few people - and I do a lot of random surveying (you know, I’m a midwestener), and I talk to people all the time just to see what their reaction is - and these days I would say most of the people don’t know what it means, but they’ve heard the term and they don’t run. Having said that, most people, if they think they know what it means, they think it’s some environmental thing. That’s not incorrect, but it’s so much more than that.
I have a couple of short definitions of sustainability that I like to use. One of them is “Living well within the means of Nature.” That’s the shortest one, and the other is, “Learning to live well in our places without undermining the systems upon which we depend.” Both emphasize “living well,” and both emphasize place. We try to stay away from a definition that is too intellectual because we want the definition to be an invitation for more. We don’t want people to ignore it; we want them to say, “Oh…that’s interesting. What exactly do you mean? I want to know more.”
The Cloud Institute works primarily with K-12 schools and school systems. Public schools, in most places, are slow to embrace the concept of sustainability. We’re trying to change that by linking what we want to do in schools with the sustainable community initiatives that surround those schools. In turn, communities help inform their schools and push them towards a healthier and more sustainable future.
So what does K-12 education for sustainability look like?
At its best, schools and communities are learning together for sustainability. Students are doing authentic work to reach their own individual potential as well as to boost the collective potential of the other young people and the community itself over time. At its best, the community is thoughtful about its kids and the role of education as it sets its agenda for the future, and in fact, the community would always think about the children and the teachers when it sets its direction. I have barely a handful of examples of this, but that’s what it would look like.
At its best, schools are learning organizations, which means that they take action; they collect feedback on the results and consequences of those actions. They reflect on the feedback, they learn from it, and they self correct over time, which we call “successive approximation.” Schools must understand that they are dynamic systems within their communities, which are themselves dynamic systems, and that if schools and communities want to move toward their goals, then it’s a work in progress always.
By a learning organization, what I mean is that they are not linear in their thinking; they are systems thinking. They engage in “backwards design” – they design with the future in mind. Whether that’s curriculum or programs or relationships or the organization itself, the school itself is always future-based and positive change-based. It’s not problem driven. It’s solution driven.
From a student’s skill point of view, they must develop life-long learning skills, in addition to the critical thinking that is kind of standard; they learn transference skills, which is the ability to learn something in one place and apply it in another, as well as questioning skills and what we call self-regulation, or what we used to call “learning to learn” which is the ability to know how you learn and to become skilled at learning, based on your own learning style. Also, students must develop reflective thinking skills. All of these skills are what we would emphasize as critically important to develop, so that you can see evidence in students that they are whole-systems thinkers.
Young people must understand the important role they play in creating a sustainable future, and we believe the best way to reach them is by working directly with their entire community: government officials, community members, and the business community, as well as their schools which must effectively combine engaging and relevant content with the highest quality pedagogy.
Ryan Hill
Photograph by Barbara Beirne
