maintain relationships with key stakeholders, support the transfer of knowledge between student yearsSupport students with managing and interpreting failure
As an ESD practitioner it is all too easy to uncritically extol the virtues of activist learning projects, and the role of such activist learning projects in the informal curriculum for the potential development of a wide range of sustainability competencies. Yet, our reflections uncover questions about the limitations within the informal curriculum, including whether the informal curriculum alone can deliver the learning potential the projects are capable of, without at least some informal structure for guided reflection and discussion. Yet, imposing a structure for reflection detracts from genuine student‐ownership of projects, and might not be possible in genuinely student‐led activity.
We might then look to the formal curriculum to deliver the potential of activist learning. The formal curriculum might allow us space for student‐initiated activist projects and opportunities to structure assessment around a set of sustainability competencies, allowing deeper reflection and development of these competencies (see Robinson and Molthan‐Hill 2021), and space for critical discussion and debate around deeper, systemic issues. Publicly declaring an activist agenda in learning and assessment design is itself controversial, with the risk of accusations of promulgating a particular political agenda or being at odds with other educational priorities and agendas. Yet activist learning projects can deliver to many different educational agendas from employability, student experience, and students as partners. It is also difficult in the formal curriculum to genuinely provide the space for mistakes and failure. Activism projects can also come with serious challenges from burnout to conflict, and the formal curriculum does not allow students to walk away from projects which are no longer working for them.
Working toward a more sustainable future needs action, and a holistic approach, engaging head, heart, and hands. It needs action which is underpinned by understanding, critical thinking, reflection, and inclusion, and allows students to drive change in their own areas of interest. A traditional knowledge‐based education does not give students the experience of taking action and applying their knowledge and thinking skills to driving change in the real world. Therefore, it is imperative that our universities provide spaces for students to take action and to become activist learners and provide the motivation and skills to both drive change, but to also reflect and learn. This requires the development of “activist learning for sustainability” opportunities within the formal, non‐formal/informal, and hidden curricula, that can provide an exciting and innovative approach to meeting the aspirations of a range of agendas within higher education and empower our learners to drive the change they want to see in the world.
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the support and discussions around the project with Dr. Sophie Bessant and Dr. Sherilyn MacGregor, the student interviewees, and all the students involved in the project through the years, and to thank the Higher Education for funding to support the project.
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