Exploring a sustainability imagination : a perspective on the integrating and visioning role of stories and symbolism in sustainability through an alternative education case study

[摘要] In a modern world of fragmentation and embedded dualisms, access to the imagination andcreativity seems minimal, especially in science. Human beings and nature, science and theimagination (art), and spirit and matter (body) – these dualisms permeate our sciences andother disciplines, as well as the way we envision the future and educate children about theenvironment. Sustainability positions a key debate for the future and mediates intergenerationalequity (it thus in a way captures the future). Sustainability further proposes anecological approach wherein systems thinking, holism and the exploration of new (extended)forms of knowledge are subtly starting to reshape the future outlook of the planet. A personalreflection on my own alternative learning process with the Sustainability Institute (SI)resulted in a deep concern and intrigue about the symbolic base of sustainability learning.Imagination, art (stories) and symbols played an intrinsic role in how I integrated many of theempirical and non-empirical, as well as scientific and meta-physical, aspects of the learning.These intrigues led me to explore the nurturing education opportunities that might exist forchildren to engage with the imagination, art and alternative aspects of education as integrativeaspects in learning. Waldorf education claims to use stories in this regard.Waldorf education – together with a review of the role of environmental education – is thecase study of this research. This is an inherently transdisciplinary study and, althoughliterature in the separate fields abounds, a comprehensive literature review conducted for thisstudy revealed a gap in research related to the interface between areas of symbolism,sustainability and education ('symbolism-in-sustainability-in-education).The study is underpinned by the following fields:• Sustainability (with a strong focus on environmental ethics)• Literature (traditional stories)• Psychology (psychoanalytical and environmental psychology)• Education (environmental, Waldorf and finally sustainability or ecological education)This study thus explores the role of the imagination and symbolism, both being ontologicallyrecognised, as well as stories to integrate some of the dualisms prevalent in our modernworld, dualisms that are contributing to the reigning ecological crisis. In addition, it focuseson the role of these functionalities to access and open up other forms of knowing in science(with particular application to the built environment/ and planning), which supports the claimsof sustainability and sustainability science.I conclude by briefly highlighting a pattern that proposes a way of connecting the ideas in thisstudy in support of ecological education (the future) – and thus sustainability – in an enduringand deep-seated way that is intrinsically human[nature].

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University