A Rounder Sense of Purpose : educator competences in learning for sustainability

In order to work towards a Rounder Sense of Purpose (RSP), the educator ideally needs to have sustainability competences themselves and be able to develop them within their learners. That means that the educator needs to have a critical understanding of sustainable development on the one hand and of the pedagogical approach of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) on the other. The underpinning components for the educator provide guidance for this. In order to implement the RSP model, the educator should be able to practice an action-oriented, transformative pedagogy that engages learners in participative, systemic, creative and innovative thinking and acting processes, as illustrated by the activities on the RSP website. Educators need to adopt a critical stance and be able to assess and evaluate learner development in this area. It is also important to recognise that the RSP competences are mutually supportive and therefore should not be viewed in isolation. It gives an overview of the following areas, which help the educator to develop, understand and evaluate: systems, attentiveness, transdisciplinarity, criticality, futures, empathy, creativity, responsibility, participation, values, action, decisiveness.