Sustainability Education Assessments in Teacher Education: Addressing “Wicked Problems” in a Postmodern World (original) (raw)
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In considering the place of curriculum in today's world, and vice versa, Yates and Grumet (2011) write of the challenge "to construct curricula that acknowledge tension and ambiguity and encourage young people to see themselves and each other as persons capable of thinking and acting in this complicated place and time" (p. 247). As part of our ongoing theorizing of curriculum in teacher education, we invite our students to enter into the dialogue around a world in crisis and the urgency of sustainable practices, while thinking about the question, "How do we come to know and think as teachers?" (Robertson, 1997, p. 27). In our forays into this space, we attempt to work against notions of fixed identities and knowledge, and rigid imaginations of transformation and outcomefocused models of education. In this paper, we take up the question of sustainability as a lens in a Teacher Education Institution; we consider the possibilities and limitations of sustainability while drawing on findings of a recent study that looks at future teachers' perceptions of their role "in this complicated place and time", particularly in the promotion of environmental and social equity.
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