Session Information
30 SES 02 B, Post colonialism and ESE
Paper Session
Contribution
The future is without doubt uncertain and in change. It does not yet exist, but it can be imagined. Children and young people are in the midst of the global crisis. Holden &Linderud (2021) addresses the idea of sustainable development and emphazise that the idea exists as notions in our heads. As humans we cannot physically touch the idea of a just and sustainable world, but we have the opportunity to imagine it, to work together on this idea through joint work on common problems (ibid). Learning how to deal with complex problems requires creativity and compassion, and the ability to imagine a tomorrow (Häggström & Schmidt, 2021). The present turbulent condition impels us to advance pedagogical theories and practices to inspire, encourage and prepare students to become active and engaged participants in future societies. Accordingly, education must be transformative and involve critical-thinking and integrate self-reflection
into the learning process, and embolden students to reflect on their values, behavior, and attitudes (Mezirow, 2000). Such learning involves the social, emotional, cognitive dimensions of a person’s abilities (Illeris, 2014). Transformative learning is hard and laborious, even grueling. Students will therefore be “forced” to challenge their comfort zone such as mainstream thinking and discourses. This comprises the consequences of globalization and related social and environmental problems, changes in human interaction, and how we create knowledge (Wals, Stevenson, Brody, & Dillon, 2013). It has been argued that transformative learning needs to be integrated in education that builds on future literacy (Häggström & Schmidt, 2021). What kind of educational approach and teaching methods may entail creativity, compassion, and abilities to envision an alternative future and at the same time prepare students to engage in transformative learning processes? During our presentation we will discuss a 60 years old cross-curricular approach that may do so.
The purpose of this research is to discuss the role of storytelling in storyline working with sustainability issues. We discuss how future literacy can help develop students' imaginations about a different future through storyline dramaturgy.
- In what ways are the Storyline events enabling education for sustainable development?
- In what way is Futures literacy providing a framework for transformative learning through the Storyline approach?
We have adopted futures literacy as a pedagogical framework, to discuss the interdisciplinary teaching and learning approach Storyline. Futures literacy (FL) as we comprehend it, is about imagining what the future can be, and the role the future plays in what we see and do not see, and in our actions. Anticipation is crucial for imagining, Miller (2018) points out. The form the future takes in the present is anticipation, he claims (Ibid, p. 2). Therefore, FL relies on an individual’s ability to both anticipate and imagine. The abilities to imagine and anticipate are entangled. The ability to fantasize is one of the driving forces to develop FL (Häggström & Schmidt, 2021). Key concepts for imagining different future scenarios are innovation, improvisation, and exploratory approaches. In our study, we will link these concepts to the features of the Storyline approach. We will examine students’ opportunities to discover, invent and construct an alternative world and future. Also, drawing on Liveley, Slocombe,
and Spiers (2021), who argue that FL should utilize the perceptions of narrative to reach its full emancipatory potential, we will examine the role of dramaturgy in a Storyline. Humans understand the world and human’s place in it through narratives and stories, and future scenarios and strategies are narrative fictions (ibid). Through narrative, a higher mode of FL can be achieved. This requires “not only looking at the future but also looking at how we look at the future” (Liveley et al., 2021, p. 8).
Method
Methodology We have used a deductive qualitative method, based on a hermeneutic loop. We move between understanding and preunderstanding and between the whole and parts. By reasoning deductively we will test the theory with its four abilitities; envision a future, identify future competances, orchestrait actions and critically examine actions. Then we will analyse the features of the Storyline approach and the future literacy abilities. That is to explore the theory and tests if that theory is valid in a given circumstance. Based on events from three different Storylines we discuss how events can act as fuel that enable the development of students' abilities to imagine a different future working with sustainable development. The three Storylines that are used as cases in this analysis and discussions are “River Delta”, “ Sea City” and World War II. The “River Delta” and the “Sea City” are both here-and-now Storylines developed and carried out among students at primary school teacher training grades 5-10 at Ostfold University College and the Oslo City University, OsloMet. The intention is that the student teachers will be able to adopt a student perspective in order to be able to work with their own Storylines as professional teachers. The “World War II” storyline is an historical Storyline and was created for and used in teaching in secondary school as well as upper secondary education. The description of the events from “River Delta” is supplemented with quotes from students which is taken from a scientific chapter “An Exploration of the “Mimetic Aspects” of Storyline Used as a Creative and Imaginative approach to Teaching and Learning in Teacher Education” (Karlsen, K. H. et al. 2020). These three Storylines contain different perspectives on sustainability which enables us to analyze and develop new understanding on how the dramaturgy is used. In addition, this allows for a critical approach to teaching and learning sustainable development.
Expected Outcomes
Results Based on our analysis so far, the Storyline approach offers many opportunities for working towards FL’s demands. Some of our main findings are a) New meaning creation is formed based on sensory experiences and empathy; b) Through the events in the Storyline dramaturgy students can enhance a sense of action competence as well as create hope for a fairer and more sustainable future; c) Being in an imaginary world students are able to distance themselves and gain new perspectives, assess their own ideas and current social discourses, in the light of up-to-date research. One conclusion we draw is that teachers have a crucial role to play both regarding students’ incentives to be critical, responsible, and to act, and regarding facilitating a Storyline in a fruitful way. For example, students need support as they reflect on the impact of human activity and their own preconceptions. Storyline aims at empowering students, and our study has shed light on student’s opportunities to develop pragmatic competence and form their own opinions. Simultaneously, Storyline has shown to allow for teachers’ exploratory teaching and learning strategies. As a multimodal approach, Storyline paves the way for exploration, interpretation through creative activities e.g. painting, constructing, photographing, filming and dramatizing. These activities have been vehicles for imagining an alternative world and a different future.
References
References Häggström, M., & Schmidt, C. (2021). Futures literacy – To belong, participate and act! An Educational perspective. Future 132, 1-11. Holden, E. og Linnerud, K. (2021). Bærekraftig utvikling. En ide om rettferdighet. Universitetsforlaget. Illeris, K. (2014). Transformative learning and identity. New York: Routledge. Karlsen, K. H., Motzfeldt, G. C., Pilskog, H. E., Rasmussen, A. K., & Halstvedt, C. B. (2020). An Exploration of the “Mimetic Aspects” of Storyline Used as a Creative and Imaginative Approach to Teaching and Learning in Teacher Education. I K.H. Karlsen & M. Häggström (Red.). Teaching through Stories. Renewing the Scottish Storyline Approach in Teacher Education, 99-123. Münster: Waxmann. Liveley, G., Slocombe, W., & Spiers, E. (2021). Futures literacy through narrative. Futures, 125, 1–9. Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning to think like an adult. Core concepts of transformation theory. Learning as transformation. Critical perspectives on a theory in progress (pp. 3–33). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Miller, R. (Ed.). (2018). Transforming the future. Anticipation in the 21st century. New York: Routledge. Wals, A., Stevenson, R., Brody, M., & Dillon, J. (2013). Tentative directions for environmental education research in uncertain times. In R. Stevenson, M. Brody, J. Dillon, & A. Wals (Eds.), Research on environmental education (pp. 542–547). New York: Routledge.
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