Re-Visioning Teacher Education for Sustainability in Atlantic Canada

Abstract

This chapter provides a brief historical overview of initiatives to educate for sustainability in the province of Nova Scotia. The central premise of this chapter is that teaching for the values of sustainability cannot simply be teaching “about” sustainability; it must be about teaching and learning that is, at its heart, relational. The institutions responsible for teacher education are central to efforts to educate for a sustainable future. This chapter describes the challenges resulting from one Nova Scotia teacher education institution’s commitment to reorient teacher education for sustainability. Reorienting a teacher education programme requires time for faculty and staff to explore and theorise relationships and issues among social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. Through dialogue and reflection, it was determined that efforts to foster the requisite skills, knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs in preservice teachers to teach for the values of sustainable development must be firmly grounded in the relational. Nel Noddings’s care theory, Max van Manen’s interpretation of the pedagogic relation, and Catherine O’Brien’s concept of sustainable happiness offer teacher educators and teacher education institutions a deeper understanding of how to structure learning opportunities and reorient curricula to foster the values of sustainability in preservice teacher education.