九月北台灣的秋天漸漸轉涼，颱風帶來的雨量剛好為水庫解渴，運轉中的空調讓辦公室的溫度相當舒適，足夠的食物及能源隨手可得。然而，此刻在世界的其他角落，卻面臨著人口成長超載、糧食能源短缺及環境汙染惡化等的困境—人類正以前所未有的速度消耗著地球有限的資源。
面對這危急時刻，聯合國推出了17項永續發展目標，正是全球需要一同正視的首要挑戰，世界各地的每一個人都須負起自己的責任，不能置身事外。永續目標聽起來很遙遠，一般大眾或許覺得自己的力量微不足道。但其實只要懷著永續思維及概念，每個人從細節做起，即使人人都只是一顆小齒輪，卻也能成為轉動世界的力量。
很幸運地，夏恩身為教育者可以做的有很多，可以和人群廣泛地倡導永續觀念，提供優質教育培養學生全球競合力，以及透過課堂活動讓孩子實踐從中學等。教務部更是多年來秉持著建構學生跨領域能力及全球素養，貫穿融會課程教材。期許英語不只是一種語言，而是開啟學生未來永續發展視野的能力，培育更多具有國際競爭力的永續人才。
As I write this, it is 2nd September 2022, and the weather is surprisingly cool in the north of Taiwan. A typhoon is brush ing past the island, bringing some much-needed rain, which will hopefully help to allay the fears of a drought. The room I am in is nicely air-conditioned, and there is more than enough food and energy available to power both myself (well, just about) and the office itself.
But that is not all that is going on in the world today. In fact, the following things will also happen:
● The world’s population will grow by about 200,000 people.
● More than 8,000,000 people will travel by plane.
● Roughly 950,000 tons of meat will be consumed.
● About 200,000 people will move into cities.
Given that we are living on a finite planet, with finite resources and finite space avail able, this is nowhere close to being sustainable long-term without enormous conse quences for the whole planet. It also tells us that, no matter what measures may (hopefully) be introduced to combat the damaging effects of this way of living, the world is becoming increasingly competitive (there are more and more people each day, after all) and more and more global.
Indeed, it might not be long before cooler-temperature days anywhere are not just rare but almost non-existent, and droughts are commonplace. There may also come a time soon where the energy avail able across the world is far short of what it is now, leaving the enormous number of people on this planet without enough resources to get by.
This may be overwhelming to think about, and it may seem as though there’s little we can do individually to help. However, it can be helpful to bear in mind the suggestion from acclaimed Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield to ‘tend to the part of the garden you can touch.’ If each and every one of us does this, just imagine the change we could see in the world!
Fortunately, as an education company, the part of the garden we can touch is quite vast. With the amount of people we interact with both in-person and online, we can effectively promote Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and by doing so raise awareness and spark conversations about them. Perhaps more importantly, as a school we can provide quality, modern education to all our students, helping them to develop the global competences needed not only to thrive in this increasingly global and competitive world, but also to work on solutions to tackle the problems currently plaguing our planet.
In order to be globally competent, students need to develop the so-called “21st century skills”, the main four of which are known as the ‘4cs’: critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication. Recognising the importance of these, and wanting to give our students a competitive edge, over the last few years all of our materials – such as as the ESL course, the STEP books, the VYL curriculum and the TES projects – have been written with these skills in mind.
To further develop global competences, we also embed in all of our courses the use of English as a medium of instruction, so our students are not just learning the English language but also using English as a tool to learn about and explore the world around them. As the world becomes increasingly connected and global, the need for a global language is perhaps greater now than ever, and it stands to reason that this language is likely to be English. Training our students to see and to use English this way, right from the very start of their learning journey, is integral to the development of not only their language skills, but also as leaders of the world of tomorrow.
But how do we then help our students to apply these cognitive abilities to the SDGs, and more generally to solving the problems of the future? Well, it’s fair to argue that, while all of the SDGs are extremely important, the most critical of all is climate action, and it follows that our focus should therefore start there. Indeed, in a survey by the World Economic Forum which asked which key issues keep young people awake at night, globally the order of issues was climate change/destruction of nature as number one, followed by large scale conflict/wars as number two and inequality (income, discrimination) as number three. Young people are rightfully fearful and concerned about what kind of life awaits them in the future, and as such it’s important that we as a company not only seek to educate our students on the issues at hand and what can be done about them, but also that we actually take action ourselves.
A very simple first step would be to make efforts to set good examples ourselves. Encouraging students to recycle should be very simple to set up, but why not also encourage things like Meatless Mondays for all staff, where everyone eats vege tarian food every week on Monday? Why not also trying setting up a ‘Go Green’ competition, where staff and students are awarded points (much like a scoring system in an English class!) for climate-friendly actions such as bringing in reusable bags and containers, and walking or cycling to work or taking public transportation?
Perhaps an even bigger step could be to give the students themselves some responsibility over the actions taken by the staff and the students at the school. For example, rather than having topic lessons about the environment where students learn about environmental issues and the causes and then make a poster or write a short text about what the things people can do to help, why not have the students (and the staff at the school) actually help? Students could come up with ideas for how to reduce the use of single-use plastic at school, or make posters to place near the recycling bins to make it clear what can be recycled, or they could even help to organ ise a beach clean-up. (The Language of the Sea Project was organised by four language school associations in Spain, and they mobilised more than 1,400 students to clean beaches in four regions of the north coast of Spain!)
Taking actions such as these within our schools will not only tend to the parts of the garden we can touch now, but will sow the seeds for the many beds of the garden our students will be able to touch as they grow up and branch out to the wide world around us. As educators we are all in a position to make a huge difference to the world and the people of the future, and I’m excited to see how we all come together to help!
