lack support systems if students face difficultiesStudents might have difficulty navigating systems andReliance on peer support and learning
Where does this leave us in thinking about whether activist learning belongs in the formal or informal curriculum, and what can we learn about how we as educators and ESD practitioners can support activist learning?
Even within the formal curriculum, activist learning can take place across a spectrum from more staff‐led to more student‐initiated projects, each of which will have their place depending on the intended learning outcomes, and student level and background. Dewey's four conditions to maximize the educative potential of inquiry‐based learning requires activities: (i) to generate interest in the learner, (ii) to be intrinsically worthwhile to the learner; (iii) to present problems that awaken new curiosity and create a demand for information; and (iv) to cover a considerable time span and foster development over time (Bringle and Hatcher 1999:181). These conditions suggest that it is important to ensure student interest, which may help with more student‐initiated projects. More staff‐led projects run the risk of lower levels of “motive fulfillment,” and less alignment between projects and students' ability to achieve their personal goals (Covitt 2002), compared to more student‐led projects. Quality service learning has been described as including choice for students, as well as opportunities for meaningful action, with research suggesting that service learning designed by teachers can have limited impact on students' intentions of motive fulfillment (Covitt 2002). The formal curriculum can also lead to an individual, grade focus, rather than on broader, community, and change‐focused aims (Ludlow 2010). Even within the same class, the diversity of students may mean one side of the spectrum between staff or student‐initiated projects may be more appropriate for some students than others. Students could be given the option of a self‐initiated project or a predesigned project or a choice of projects. It is conceivable that the SSH project could have been developed within the formal curriculum if the students had been given the freedom within their curriculum to initiate such a project.
The formal curriculum followed by the students involved in the introduction of the SSH project has a strong element of reflective learning as well as critically reflective discussion about sustainability issues, with the hope that this would develop a habit of reflection and criticality in all parts of their lives. Yet, at least in the interviews, there was limited evidence of reflection or critical thinking about broader sustainability issues (although the interviews might not have teased out deeper thinking that might have been occurring). Consideration of different ways in which reflective and critical thinking is developed in the formal curriculum could support this in informal curriculum learning, for example by introducing clear and explicit models of reflective and critical thinking that could be applied to projects, as well as through case studies demonstrating where these approaches are applied in the real world of activism.
One of the areas of challenges faced in the SSH project that was raised by several students related to communication and organization within the group. The formal curriculum can provide the space for explicit exploration of group roles and preferences (e.g. Belbin 2004) and group management and conflict techniques that students could draw on, both directly and indirectly, within informal curriculum projects.
Informal activist learning also takes place where activists learn “on the job” (Ollis 2008) whereby skills and knowledge are developed in the processes and practices of activism. Ollis (2008) describes how activist learning takes place through embodied and holistic practices, using the physical body and emotions to learn. Much traditional activism uses the body as part of protest (e.g. picket lines, locking one's body to objects) (Ollis 2008). It can be argued that the SSH also uses the body as part of this activism of the everyday, in the physical act of gardening or construction. This also forms an explicit part of the learning for some students:
As far as the students go, some of them had never even done anything outdoors like this. Some of them had never held a saw or a screwdriver or even attempted to knock two bits of wood together, let alone build a raised bed, and there was a lot of doubt and resistance to giving it a go.
(Student 2, Year 1 of project)
Engagement of the “head, heart, and hands” is seen as an effective and holistic approach to ESD, through engaging the cognitive, affective and practical dimensions of learning (Sipos et al. 2008; Mahmud 2017). This calls for maybe a greater degree of physical activity and action in the formal curriculum, a greater engagement of cognitive engagement in the informal curriculum, and ensuring the opportunities for students to act on their own affective domains in both formal and informal approaches.
2.6 The Relationships Between Staff and the Activist Learner
Staff involvement in the SSH project came from academic staff, university sustainability practitioners, and professional services staff such as the university grounds team and cleaning and accommodation services. Responsibilities from these teams lay around the upkeep and esthetics of the garden area, regular cleaning of the property, upkeep of the building, and adherence to regulations. Academic staff were involved initially in supporting the students in making the case to the university decision‐makers for the establishment of the project, working with the university sustainability practitioners who took over overseeing annual recruitment into the house, and providing a point of support and guidance.
Professional service teams were essential in making the project happen, in agreeing to the idea, finding a suitable property, and adjusting residence recruitment processes, as well as the regular maintenance associated with any university‐owned student residence on campus. However, there were also tensions around the roles and responsibilities of the students versus the professional services staff, including: decisions and responsibilities around the upkeep of the grounds; conflicts over the cleanliness of the house, exacerbated by the number of students (often with muddy boots) regularly using the property as a hub for student sustainability activity; the storage of materials students salvaged from waste found elsewhere on the campus, including blocking exit points; storage of bikes indoors; and behavioral complaints. Some of these tensions directly contravened university regulations. Observations over the years of the projects suggested that the student housemates in many ways appeared to believe themselves to be outside of such regulations, while the SSH is also more visible to accommodation staff due to its location close to their offices, further exacerbating tensions.
The students who initiated the project recognized the important role of the academic staff members in helping gain university support for the project. Having an established relationship with the academic staff, heightened by small cohort discussion‐based teaching, ensured that students had a staff contact that they felt they could approach. As academic staff, Robinson was able to negotiate the appropriate university decision‐making channels on behalf of the students, as well as provide reassurance to decision‐makers about the students involved. Without this staff support we feel it is unlikely that the project would have been sanctioned.
However, tensions arose due to the different expectations of academic staff and students and their different perspectives and ambitions for the project. For the staff, this was an exciting, innovative student‐led project which provided interesting research potential, and received external funding to support research into the pedagogy surrounding the project, as well as profile and publicity for sustainability initiatives at the university and the degree programs linked to the project. For the students, this was their university living experience and their personal lives. These tensions led rapidly to a more hands‐off approach, allowing the project to be entirely student directed, with staff being available for guidance. Academic staff also became an avenue for additional communication, acting as enforcer and mediator, between professional services and students, where the student behavior was deemed unacceptable by professional services. In later years, university sustainability practitioners replaced academic staff in providing support for the students and the connection to the relevant university professional services. They also asked students how they wanted support throughout the year, which varied with each set of housemates from monthly or once‐a‐semester meetings to ad hoc support through a Facebook group