Discuss about the Issues of Global Leadership and Sustainable Futures.
According to Wood et al., (2014) sustainability is a way of studying the functionality of natural systems and how it remains diverse and produces all the requirements for the ecology to remain in balance. Sustainability development addresses the developments that meet the present needs without compromising the future generation abilities and meeting their own needs. Sustainability is important to the community as it enhances better standards of healthcare and education, promotion of gender equality, tackling of the effects of climate change and other environmental factors that can interfere with people’s health. Sustainability also acknowledges the concept of nature owning certain rights and the importance of positioning people at the lead of solving all global issues. Leadership plays a critical role in the education sector for future sustainability which contributes to various impacts on childhood education (Gibson, 2013). Therefore, the paper examines the importance of issues of global leadership and sustainable futures, the pedagogical approach to sustainability leadership, and change for a more sustainable community ECEC.There are various advantages ofglobal leadership issues and sustainable futures in ECEC which include sustainability values and beliefs and sustainability leadership.
Teachers enhances sustainability values and beliefs to student and community at large. Teachers who are ecologically aware can start to ratify change by understanding their roles as sustainability leaders within their communities. However, sustainability is perceived differently by different people and groups as earlier mentioned in the article. However, beliefs and values geared towards sustainability are different in major ways, with ECEC having a disadvantage of being a values-laden and complex concept. Behaviors and actions may look different practically due to a wide range of beliefs and values geared towards sustainability between different groups which are interested. ECEC has a role of supporting children in the shaping of their values to become citizens who are active and towards an environmental ethic in order to build a more sustainable society, with knowledge alone being insufficient to alter their behavior. Values such as the well being of others, justice and rights are core values in the interaction of children in pre-school (Johansson, 2009). The aspect also depends on a sense of responsibility and personal motivation resulting from a personal environmental ethic development. When beliefs and values about sustainability-related issues are strong, they become part of the identity of the teacher and provide a motivation which is personal to incorporate those values into their teaching.
According to Gibson (2010) leaders who are sustainable are guided by the beliefs and values grounded in their nature connectedness and other human beings and are engaging their efforts to make changes towards a sustainable world and support other people to do the same. The approach they make use of goes past their personal interests to ethics which are personal through the belief that they can be in a position to make change individually or as a group, hence teachers who are guided by such kind of beliefs possess the ability to become sustainability leaders within their center. Early childhood has an advantage in that it provides a sustainability context for leaders to emerge. It was found out that leadership which is distributed was effective in providing contexts through which teachers could become leaders, as the sector is required to practice teaching through a team approach.
The responsibility for change leadership is not bestowed on the leadership position in a model that is distributed, but rather draws on the abilities and strengths of every individual involve dint he setting, while at the same time recognizing that every person is able to make a change if they work together as a group, as a team, and in a manner that is collaborative. When leadership is distributed among all members of the group, a natural gift can occur within a center if teachers were encouraged to delegate more effort in the creation of their own visions and goals, with sustainability becoming a value that was at the epitome of teaching basis (Gibson, 2010).
The main aim of the project is to examine global leadership issues and sustainable futures in ECEC by keenly following the early years learning framework (EYLF) in order to determine practices, principles and outcomes which support and sustain learning in young children from birth to five years and their school transition. The project focuses on section area 5 of the national quality standard (NQS) which focusses on relationships which exist between community and children and gives families and services a better understanding of providing care and education to the children.
For the social sustainability, ECEC has upgraded the curriculum and adherence to sustainable leaders to attain their goals and missions of bringing active and responsible children in future. According toFleet, Soper, Semann & Madden (2015) the suitable and experienced educator should lead the curriculum development and ensure clear goals establishment and expectations for learning and teaching. Despite the leadership opportunities emerging in ECEC and changes taking place while trying to develop child become sustainable leaders in the community, many educators have not yet established leadership in themselves and their profession although they undertake duties of leadership. Furthermore, there are leaders within ECEC who are reluctant leaders just appointed to manage positions by their years of service or high qualified person irrespective of leadership experience, attributes and ability to lead.
The reason for the reluctant leadership results from being less viable than others, for example, school teachers and lack of status of educators within ECEC hence impacting educators view of themselves as leaders with the potential of leading the children by example. According to Paustian-Underdahl (2014) traditional perceptions of leadership are hierarchical, historically male dominance and positional but the models may not represent high feminized ECEC context. As the sustainability is evolving, requirements continue to be formalized and therefore ECEC needs to develop the necessary skills to lead to organizational change. According to Cumming, Sumsion & Wong (2015) there is the impetus that early childhood educators are feeling empowered to articulate their leadership practices in the wider community with pedagogical leaders beginning the development of leadership practices as they build on their managerial experience and responding to policies imperatives.
The project goals is improve the improve learning so as to bring out future sustainable leaders in children. The goals is in contrast with EYLF goal of enriching and extending children learning as well as helping educators to provide children with opportunities exploration so they can maximise learning potentials and establish basis for future leaderships and success. The project explains the goals by determining a pedagogical approach to education for sustainabilitythat nurtures leadership and change
In poor countries, children often experience hostile environment while children living in rich countries live on a privileged orbit (Penn, 2009). It is predictable that for ECEC to be action change effective for the future, pedagogy needs constructivist theory reinforcement and should “change to transformational model from the transmission model” (Wals, 2014). Similarly, sustainability leaders adopt an approach which is reinforced by the transformational model and can result to a deep shift in beliefs and values within the individual that alters their worldview (Mcmillin&Dyball, 2009). The pedagogical approach considers engages learners in experimental learning and considers all elements of sustainability in the environment.
The pedagogical approach provides children with opportunities to gain knowledge, learn alongside others, and develop their beliefs and values while engaging sustainability issues or hands-on environmental learning. Education found ‘in’ the environment has improved the ability of children engaging in the environmental activities whereas “about” the environment is associated with children gaining environmental issues knowledge while ‘for’ the environment means training children on ways of enhancing change which is guided by the knowledge and experience they have gained(Harris, Mishra & Koehler, 2009) The three concepts: education ‘for’, ‘in’ and ‘for’ are educated dependably.
Education ‘for’ environment considers that bringing the issue to the knowledge of the children and engaging them in the environment is not enough. According to Beetham & Sharpe (2013), knowledge in isolation might be associated with an increase in children’s anxiety and the feeling of having a sense of being powerless concerning the environmental state. Furthermore, education ‘for’ the environment enhances children’s chances of developing critical thinking skills, discussing various issues, and developing action change and the ability to make a decision.
Teachers support and lead children to be aware of the environmental issues around them and develop a set of values which lead them into making changes and gaining skills in the performance of an action that is democratic and one which must have positive impacts in the near future. Furthermore, the competence of action has always had an ability to teach learners from childhood to adulthood, with young children having the ability to understand environmental issues and imply changes in their lives as well as influencing their families (Gambino, Davis & Rowntree, 2009).
A pedagogical approach such as ‘for’, ‘about’ and ‘in’ the environment provides even teachers with a greater opportunity of becoming sustainability leaders. According to Ferdig (2007), a sustainability leader possess a learning and inquiring spirit, developing a deeper understanding of challenges and solution while encouraging people around them to follow in their footsteps. Engagement in education ‘for’ environment creates a sustainability scope for teachers to work with children, families, and colleagues in a collective and collaborative manner to understand sustainability issues and bring a solution to the issues.
The field of ECEC faces specific challenges and barriers in the ratification of leadership during a time of change in America. The challenges required strong leadership for the guidance of ECEC teams towards a successful outcome for families and children. The challenges include organizational support and complex change, fast-paced managing, poorly compensated and isolated leaders, and inadequate role models in the field. Leadership which is effective in ECEC requires the willingness of working with educators with the intention of supporting and leading (Askell-Williams & Murray-Harvey, 2016). The unavoidable challenge for ECEC is the required time so that the pedagogical leaders could take their roles effectively. Although there have been some role models for ECEC leadership throughout history, there has been a generally felt scarcity of such individuals. Pedagogical leaders in ECEC also experience isolation and separation since many centres are located separately, with chances being that they have very little social or professional attention.
Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) has been found to be a National Quality Framework (NQF) key component for Early Childhood Development and Care (ECDC). The developers of EYLF have been established to be the territory and state governments of Australia with input from the sector and academics of early childhood. Sumsion, Barnes, Cheeseman, Harrison, Kennedy, and Stonehouse (2009) state that EYLF has incorporated consultation process feedback which includes case-study trials, online forum, focus groups, national forums for public consultation, and two national symposiums. The framework has been established to offer a vision where children experience engaging and building-for-success learning. The framework has been designed so that the services for early childhood will be aimed for the development specific strategies which are their own so as to implement its objectives.
The link between ECEC and strong leadership leads to the better outcome of better outcomes for children. The sustainability has led to child-outcome quality standard improvement including social interaction and physical environment that improves the present and future well-being of the children. The development of different pedagogical approaches and ECEC components has led to the integration of education for sustainability into early childhood and application of pedagogical practices of staff(Hart, 2013). The teaching of pedagogies in early childhood has involved interactive approaches to learning which have promoted the ability of children engagement within the learning experiences as teachers listened to children’s ideas. Furthermore, the children have engaged themselves with discussions which help them to support their learning and development of a culture of understanding as both teachers and children worked together and learned about taking care of environment within the local community through a variety of projects.
In future, childhood sustainability will contribute to better relationships between children, educators, and the community, to support ECEC frameworks. It is also anticipated that ECEC teachers will get better remuneration in their field, and be offered support by the general outer community (Bradbery, 2013). Research should be conducted to deeply analyse the role of ECEC leaders and teachers, and the requirements of such educators and leaders in terms of ECEC.
In conclusion it’s clear that raising awareness is an appropriate way of encouraging sustainability practices and may create thinking change towards the culture of ECEC in early childhood sustainability. Consequently, there is a need for leaders with sustainability belief and passion to facilitate a change that transforms the education culture to embrace the values of ECEC. According to Sidiropoulos (2014), change comes from a strong leadership background and center management with personal motivation for creating a culture that has ECEC. When the motivation is shared effectively, it will create opportunities for children to become sustainable leaders in future as it creates a platform where distributed model of leadership can occur and individuals hold responsibilities for programs aspects that interest them and may lead to change that builds on principles of sustainability.
Depending on whether the change of cultures occurs from within the ownership, organization or management, the sustainable leader’s will need a strong belief with motivation to engage others and an effective understanding of the best pedagogical approach for sustaining change within the Centre culture so they can be able to support the children to become responsible citizens in the community.
References
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