TRANSFORMATIVE

EDUCATION
(Sources of Values and
factors in values
education)
 INTRODUCTIO
N
Humanity may currently be going
through one of
of the most challenging moments in its history.
While trying to fulfill its needs, society has
been exploiting our planet’s resources and
thereby
created unprecedented and irreversible damage
to
our ecosystem. This has caused increasing
pressure 2
 Those changes have an enormous
impact on human well-being. Sufficiently
and quality of food, air quality, etc, have
been negatively affected by global change.
Resource scarcity has led to injustice,
competition and to a greater gap between
rich and the poor.

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 Environmental and social degradation
are strongly interconnected and current
societal systems re not capable of solving
the problems we are facing. The vast
challenge that humanity is facing is referred
to as the sustainability challenge. It stands
for the challenging transition from
unsustainable society to a sustainable one.

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 To overcome current challenges such as
pandemic and different crisis of
sustainability
active individuals that are equipped with
critical
knowledge and skills are needed, where
education
is understood as a tool with transformative
power to contribute towards sustainable
development. 5
> As Nelson Mandela said “ Education is the
most powerful weapon you can use to
change the world.”

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> Education is defined as a “process of
teaching training and learning ..... To
improve knowledge and develop skills”
(Oxford Dictionary 2005, 488). Wals (2007)
states that our ability to learn is biologically
speaking directly related to survival.

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Charles Darwin – “ Survival of the fittest”
Species that learns best how to adapt to the
changing environment it is in, most likely to
survive. Those that do not have this skill,
perish.

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 Education should provide people with
the knowledge, skills and values they need
to take part in resolving the interconnected
challenges of the 21st century. It is no longer
enough for education to provide basic
literacy and numeracy; now it should equip
individuals to be agents for sustainable
change and to be able to tackle the global
challenges.
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 Education is understood as a tool with
transformative power to contribute towards
sustainable development. It is an important
tool to forge a path towards a more
sustainable and just future, we can call it as
a Transformative Education.

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> What is Transformative education and
why is it important?

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> Transformational learning is about
change, dramatic, fundamental change in
the way we see ourselves and the world in
which we live. This involves becoming
more reflective and critical. Being more
open to the perspectives of others and being
less defensive and more accepting to new
ideas (Merriam, 2007).

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> Transformative learning involves
experiencing a deep, structural shift in the
basic premises of thought, feelings, actions,
it is a shift of consciousness that
dramatically and irreversibly alters our way
of being in the world.

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A shift involves:
• Our understanding of ourselves and our
self-location
• Our relationships with other humans and
with the natural world
• Our understanding of relations of power in
interlocking structures of class, race and
gender
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• Our body awareness, our visions of
alternative approaches to living
• And our sense of possibilities for social
justice and peace and personal joy
( O’Sullivan, 1999)

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 Mezirow described the transformational
learning theory as being constructivist, an
orientation which holds that the way
learners interpret and reinterpret their sense
experience is central to making meaning
and hence learning

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> It aims to use education as a process for
accelerating the broad set of predisposition
about the world, which stem from our social
and cultural environment and make sense of
our everyday life.

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 It encourages people to reflect on their
perception, understandings and
interpretations about themselves, others and
the world in general. (Taylor 2000).

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.Transformative learning as a theory says that
the process of “perspective transformation”
has three dimension:
Psychological (changes in understanding of
the self)
Convictional (revision of belief systems)
Behavioral ( changes in lifestyle)

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 An important part of transformative
learning is for individuals to change their
frames of reference by critically reflecting
on their assumptions and beliefs and
consciously making and implementing
plans that bring about new ways of defining
their world.

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Levels of Cognitive processing: (Mezirow,
1997)
• First order thinking
compute, memorize, read and comprehend
• Metacognition
monitoring progress an products of first
order thinking

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• Transformative learning
reflecting on the limits of knowledge, the
certainty of knowledge, and the criteria for
knowing.

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 When people begin to critically reflect
and examine their predetermined
assumptions and beliefs, they would
become more open, inclusive, reflective and
willing to change.

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 Effective learning does not follow from
a positive experience but for effective
reflection. Thus critical reflection is central
to transformational learning (Choy, 2010).

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 According to transformative learning
model, part of the process of transformative
education is exposure to diverse
experiences, as well as the experience of
discomfort, tension and chaos. It is
important to allow ‘anguish moments’ to
arise in order to incorporate fear and
anguish positively

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Dr. Jana Arbeiter and Dr. Maja Bucar
Transformative Education Bridging Education
for Change

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Offers the understanding that education can
potentially lead to social transformation,
through different ‘educations for’, such as:
• Sustainable development
• Human rights education
• Education for gender equality
• Peace education and global citizenship
education
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• Education for Sustainable Development
addresses key sustainable development
issues and motivates and empowers learners
to assess and change their behaviours,
promote values, principles and practices
needed for a more sustainable future.

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• Human Rights Education
one of the fundamentals of
transformative education. It promotes
values, beliefs and attitudes that encourage
all individuals to uphold their own rights
and those of others.

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• Education for Gender Equality
It equips learners with knowledge, skills
and values for recognizing the causes of
discriminatory gender norms and unequal
power relations.

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 The transformative potential of
education for gender equality does not raise
only the importance of equality between all
genders, but it can, through proper
implementation, benefit sustainable
development, human rights, peace and
justice (UN women, n.d.)

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• Education for Peace and Non-Violence
encourage learners to cooperate in order
to decrease and eliminate violence at
individual and societal levels. It include
training skills and information directed
towards cultivating a culture of peace based
on human rights principles.

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• Global Citizenship Education
is education that opens people’s eyes
and minds to the realities of the world, and
awakens them to bring about a world of
greater justice, equity and human rights for
all. (Maastricht Global Education
Declaration, 2002)

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• Education for Appreciation of cultural
diversity and culture’s contribution to
sustainable development
achieving inclusive and equitable
quality education and life-long learning
opportunities requires a dual commitment to
investing in culture and creativity for all.

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 There should be coordination,
cooperation and capability development
between different ‘educations for’ in order
to encourage transformation and social
change.

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Different ‘educations for’ can help equip
learners to move away from past ways of
living and thinking and become critically
aware of how our predispositions, beliefs,
tools and values have influenced the
situation in which we have found ourselves.

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 For a full transformation to occur, it is
not enough to focus on the knowing
(learning certain content and skills), but it is
necessary to devote a great portion of the
program to the being (intra- and
interpersonal development, finding passion
and purpose) as well as the doing(taking
initiative and acting upon what students
have learned and feel called to do)
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 Thus, transformational learning
experiences involves all aspects of the self-
a head, heart and hands approach with a
diverse set of methods that should be
closely related to participation, reflection
and real-life application.

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Thank you!

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Thanks
!
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