Living in line with your values
Understanding, encouraging and fostering values (i.e. kindness, respect, integrity, joy) has always been very important to me and my purpose.
One day a few years ago, I stumbled upon Values-based Education: it was a movement to embed values within an educational environment, and their vision was exactly my vision too for the world and its education system, almost word for word.
I knew at that moment that I wanted to do something with values-based education, but I didn't know exactly what.
Well - I now proudly present:
My thesis for my Masters in the Management of Sustainable Development Goals (MSDG) program is inspired by it!
I am aiming to introduce and demonstrate a comprehensive, feasible and applicable pedagogical framework in which sustainability can be explicitly fostered as an intrinsic value to its students by using the principles of Values-based Education in an Education for Sustainable Development context.
Climate change presents a multifaceted crisis that needs solutions from all levels and societal members. Educators hold a very valuable opportunity to play a direct role in the resiliency of a generation, and it is only with quality education (SDG #4) that the roots of the climate crisis can be tackled.
Values-based Education for Sustainable Development (VbESD) is exactly that quality education.
My thesis consists of:
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a literature review to set up the need for a pedagogical framework for sustainability education in primary education and the opportunity of using a values-based approach. I
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a demonstration of the feasibility of using Values-based Education (VbE) to ground a new framework for the Education of Sustainable Development (ESD), the Values-based Education for Sustainable Development (VbESD)
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a survey to understand the willingness, support and interest for VbESD
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a working model of the theoretical framework built from the combination of best practices amongst current ESD and sustainability models, VbE model, and the feedback from a survey on the perceptions of this framework
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an e-learning educational presentation to further the understanding of VbESD for the general public and educators
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a follow-up survey to analyze the feasibility, support and willingness of educators to implement the VbESD framework after the framework is developed and presented
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an analysis of the survey results provide insight into the discussion of how sustainability can be effectively fostered as a value in the primary education setting.
Please help me by filling in these surveys! I'd appreciate that so much.
Please share these surveys with anyone you can!
If you have any questions or would like to connect with me regarding my thesis and VbESD proposal, feel free to reach out to me at: vickyhuanghere@gmail.com :)
If you'd like to share this survey, you can find blurbs and images here!
You can also read the full framework and presentation slides (SRC-specific slides)!