Teachers as Agents of Change

Kusahara reminded us that children, with their malleable brains can change dramatically, but asked us “Can teachers change?” “Have we changed?” As a final comment, Kusahara quoted from Darwin, “ It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives, it is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

We need a PARADIGM SHIFT

Kusahara asks us to align ESD with shift in our understanding of education. We must shift from a mechanistic to a holistic approach, from top down to bottom up. He reminds us that education needs to be hands-on, participatory and interactive. Only with these shifts will we be able to produce engaged, emphathetic and responsible citizens of an ever-changing world.

ESD must be infused not inserted into our curriculum

Mr. Kusahara then re-enforced that “ESD is Education FOR sustainable development and that it is NOT a subject area, but a concept that covers subjects already taught in school. Cross-curricular and interdisciplinary approaches are needed. Creative and critical thinking, together with the development of problem-solving skills and initiative must be taught. He reminded us that ESD is a goal we should aim at and that it embodies awareness, values, attitudes, skills and behavior. “

Professor Kusahara and President Lincoln

Kusahara then emphasized in order for us to survive as a species and a planet, we must not be divided. He quoted President Lincoln. “ A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot survive half slave and half free.”

Professor Kusahara and President Obama

In our last moments of our program, we were graced by the presence of Professor Katsuhide Kusahara, a member of the Japanese National Commission for UNESCO. He spoke eloquently about the importance of ESD. Mr. Kusahara began his talk quoting President Obama on Universal Values: “ Our Challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new, but those values upon which our success depends, honesty, hardwork, courage, fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism – these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history, what is demanded is a return to these truths.”

Celebration of Our Living Culture

UNESCO ( United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/ proclaimed in 2005 the decade for Education in Sustainable Development. This organization is one of the main partners in the Japan Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program for ESD. At our conference, an arm of UNESCO, the ACCU (Asia Pacific Cultural Centre) http://www.accu.or.jp/jp/en/index.html exhibited a photo competition called “Letters to Tomorrow: Celebration of Our Living Culture”to emphasize culture and tradition in the education for sustainable development. You can see view these wonderful images at http://www.accu.or.jp/esd/photomessage/gallery/index.html . Next year a new photo exhibit will travel the world – the theme is WATER and LIFE for planet earth.

Reflection with our Japanese Partners

We returned to Tokyo to meet up with the 47 Japanese teachers we had met in San Francisco. Our meeting goal was to share our educational experiences in Japan and the US in order to promote better practices in ESD. Our hope was to forge partnerships between the two countries to better understand each other and ourselves. We were asked to write down our most significant findings from our Japan Fulbright Teacher Exchange for ESD. I wrote: 1) It takes a whole community to create and sustain the effort to educate for ESD – farmers, teachers, parents, business, government AND children. 2) We must first teach the children to love the earth and each other. 3) We must shift our current assumptions of how the planet works and how each of us connect to the earth. My friend, Freya from Tennessee, wrote, “thinking in systems creates space for sustainability”. Hiroshima wrote that we must set clear goals and definitions. We must think positively.