Literacy and sustainable development

This article draws on the political and moral philosophy of (democratic) education, taking as it does so a practical approach to the cultural, technological and ecological changes happening in today’s western societies. First, it examines the widespread proposal that, in our technical and hypermodern society, books – and with them literature as such – should be abolished (1). Next, we discuss how far it is possible for institutionalised western educational systems to insist upon a particular sustainability model in our pluralistic society (2). There are inherent contradictions in this, and we are therefore invited to turn to educating ourselves in a more informal setting rather than at educational institutions. Adopting this stance, we take up the call in this issue of leseforum.ch to see ‘[t]exts – both literary and non-literary – as intellectual and ethical resources which enable children, young people and adults to develop a common culture in questions of sustainable development and to reflect upon essential values so they can play an active role in contemporary society.’ To this end, we have developed the idea of an ‘education 2.0’ for the 21st century.

Our project ‘La Fontaine in the digital school’ enables new approaches to digitised versions of old and rare texts in the classroom. The project has raised questions more or less directly concerned with ecology and education for sustainable development: Intense efforts to digitize our cultural heritage are driven by private or public campaigns which differ in their intentions and connections with ecology. With easy classroom access to digital texts, it becomes possible to reconfigure literature lessons. In one possible approach to working with digital texts in lessons the material dimensions of texts become particularly important. Focusing on these material aspects goes hand in hand with paying increased attention to the material and especially the ecological dimensions of the digital world. This results in turn with an interplay between literature lessons and digital texts and thoughts around education for sustainable development.

In this article we present a theoretical framework for addressing education for sustainable development in French lessons using science fiction. It is our belief that sustainability can only be taught in the specific frameworks of a school subject. Due to its speculative nature, science fiction stories invite the reader to suspend belief with regard to motifs (disaster, utopia, robots, extra-terrestrial and mutant beings). The genre particularly lends itself to education for sustainable development as its metaphorical poetics compels the reader to see these motifs as fictional constructs.
We started out from the problem of reconstituting and transferring new content to existing school curricular. Next, we developed a poetics of the science fiction text which departs from established perspectives to construct a new angle on the genre. A central argument in this regard is that the speculation which can be found at the heart of science fiction constitutes a metaphor (after Paul Ricœur). In the last section of the article, we take recourse to a number of science fiction titles for young people, before outlining two ways of working with text at secondary level.

This article reports how two teaching models for literature in French as a first language were trialled which focused on the subject of sustainable development (ecology, consumer society, waste recycling, etc.). The target group was made up of students at upper-secondary level (16-19 years of age), especially students of the école de culture générale (ECG) und der école de culture générale pour adultes (ECGA).
Taking as its point of departure works of literature in French and the novel ‘Salmon’ by the Korean author Ahn Do-Hyun, the themes, writing activities, and written output by students which resulted from working with a dialogical reading and writing journal are presented here. This teaching model enables connections to be made between works themselves, how these are received, and text comprehension and production by pupils. Secondly, and building on the same corpus, we present a teaching unit on developing competence in synthesising information, with the aim of fostering student independence and sensitising them to the existence of multiple perspectives.

This article introduces the «tutothèque», which was implemented by the library of Vevey in 2021-2022. The «tutothèque» is made up of a series of ten learning videos which show how families from the region have embarked on a more ecological way of life. 

This article presents findings from a study which sought to better understand how using a keyboard or pencil impacts the motivation and written achievements of pupils in the second, fourth, and sixth years of primary school (aged 7-8, 9-10, and 11-12 respectively). The data have been interpreted with respect to learner choice of writing implement (motivation: analysis of questions to establish participants’ opinions on keyboard and pencil) and researcher choice with regard to the richest possible text independent of the implement used (achievement: comparative analysis of both texts produced by a learner, that typed on a keyboard and that written in pencil). Alongside other conclusions, the findings show that the advantages pupils see in working at a keyboard (attractive and more straightforward and – with older pupils – faster) are not in evidence in their texts, at least not in those written by younger pupils (with less creative typed texts in the 2nd and 4th classes).

A ‘seed library’ at school? At the Raymond-Uldry Business School in the canton of Geneva this is already a reality. A proposal by the media centre resulted in the school initiating a project around exchanging and growing seedlings which saw collaboration from vegetable garden to library to cafeteria.
The aim was to make the journey from seed to plate accessible and comprehensible for all students. This empirical school-based joint initiative also prompts literacy activities for which the media centre provides guidance and support. This article introduces the project and highlights the aspects of literacy education which can be developed by librarians.

This article does not see ESD (Education for Sustainable Development) as a purely policy-oriented and administrative action plan. Instead, it asks what specific contribution can be made by German as a school subject, taking as a point of departure the three perspectives adopted in the University of Kassel project Climate Thinking: Talking about climate change. Telling stories of climate change. Thinking about climate change. These perspectives make it possible to understand the complex phenomenon of climate change as a ‘matter of fact’ (Latour 2004) and therefore as relevant subject matter for German as a school subject. From this starting point, the current article develops three perspectives for looking at and using German lessons for sustainable development at the intersection of linguistic, literary-aesthetic, political and ethical education. The three perspectives are each illustrated by an example: that of the graphic novel Eva. Klima in der Krise (2022) by Arild Midthun and Bjørn H. Samset; the rap track Schäm dich (2020) by Conny;  and the board game Gigawatt. A game about the energy transition (2021).

Even after 40 years of emancipated pedagogy men and women continue to be guided by gender stereotypes when it comes to choosing a profession. This bias sees women more typically choose social careers and men more technical ones. It is an approach to careers decisions which limits opportunities for both genders and which also impacts upon their earning potential, leading to an inequality which conflicts with principles of education for sustainable development (ESD). In order to alter careers stereotypes of this kind which are deeply entrenched in society, and in line with educational psychology, it follows that children should encounter job descriptions and stereotypes early on. In this regard, literacy as communication around jobs could also have an impact. With this in mind, the following article explores the opportunities and challenges presented by picture books as an early form of communication around jobs, considering how this might shape learner ideas. In so doing, it draws attention to the impact of literacy on careers guidance.

This article addresses the question of ‘ESD – from reading to action?’ using the example of the free digital learning platform Planet-N. This learning platform uses practically-oriented modules and interactive short stories with a connection to issues around sustainability to meet the significant teacher demand for ESD teaching materials which are easy to use. The article discusses the gap between on the one hand, the curricular requirement for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and, on the other, the implementation of ESD in the classroom, a gap which Planet-N seeks to close.

At the heart of the learning platform is the principle of interactive storytelling designed to help pupils apply their knowledge, supporting learners as they move from reading to action. First feedback from the workshops suggests that in, combination with the respective guidelines for classroom use, the stories presented have the potential to prompt learners to reflect on (un)sustainable actions and the associated changes in behaviour. While the exploratory approach taken does not result in robust statistical-empirical findings, it has nevertheless made it possible to further refine the platform. Work has already been undertaken to make the stories easier to understand, and at the same time further obstacles to reading and writing competency work on the stories have been identified. 

This article introduces ideas on how outdoor learning, especially in natural surroundings, is beginning to impact upon contemporary efforts to create the school of the future. International research clearly shows how outdoor learning can gradually lay down diverse foundations which promote successful learning. In terms of linguistic and reading competence, it appears that learning designed to develop potential needs to view and describe the world in as nuanced a way as possible so that learners can form their own mental models. Highly developed linguistic competence is a prerequisite for this to happen.
The second part of the article goes into more detail on this, before outlining how pupils in the 4th to 6th classes learn about the phenomenon of running water both outside in nature and in the classroom. It also examines how competencies in the curriculum area of Natur, Mensch, Gesellschaft or ‘NMG’ (~Nature, People & Society) are connected with language. This practically-oriented paper demonstrates how pupils can exercise and enhance their skills in the important area of questioning so they can embark upon a project of their own and develop their potential.