Dr. Robert VanWynsberghe(Rob), our program supervisor and the author of Adaptive Education: An Inquiry-Based Institution, gave me new educational experiences last two years in my master program.

Place-based education – the one of the key of the Education for Sustainability.  The first thing we did as a group was the Fraser River canoeing trip.  We connected the land, ecosystem, culture, history, communities including the First Nations through the water cycle in Metro Vancouver.  I absorbed the shared knowledge by physical and emotional senses. Everything was not the lecture style which is a typical academia way of learning.  Our project topics were always related with the city of Vancouver has been working on.

Prototype – one of the adaptive education.  Our class was held at the CityStudio and we did prototype “no cellphone” and “talk to strangers with passing flowers” at Hubbub#9.  The projects created/collaborated with the city/enterprise/non-profit organizations with small scale trial by students can contribute to see if the project works in the real world or not.

Storytelling and art-based education – one of powerful educational tools to deliver and share the knowledge.  I have used own stories in the videos, The Stranger – A Potential To Erase Loneliness and Sustainability Harmonist – with Ikigai live happy as a part and whole of sustainability, for workshop awareness of loneliness and how to make harmonized community.  I am still not sure if my stories meet the statement “Without a conflict, there is no story.” from Winning The Story Wars by Jonah Sachs.  However, I enjoyed the process to make the stories and videos because I felt free to express my thoughts and feeling there.

Indigenous and First nations/decolonization – this is very Canadian and have heard every environmental movements and our classmates.  Even though in Japan, Ainu, the indigenous people, we do not treat them the way Canadians do.  There are still discrimination toward indigenous people here, but at least in UBC, especially, in our program we respect their culture and are willing to learn it.  Their culture is more sustainable (harmonizing nature and managing their resources) than Western industrial culture; some examples from Maracle, Lee. 1996. I am woman: A native perspective on sociology and feminism. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers. (EDST 561A Reading Assignment). Also, the treaties and their reserved lands can affect the environmental and social decision, for example, pipeline problems, as a nation.

Outdoor education – classroom is not only inside.  We had classes outside more than half of the time.  In my elective course EDST588 that ran by Dr. Pierre Walter who also taught our program, we had classes outside of the classroom.  Traditional classroom is in the building and lecture style.  It was unexpected to have outside classes for grad students.  Outdoor classroom is not only for kids.  It works well for adult learners.

I remember Rob said the key for sustainability/change people more sustainable was “habit” in the early days of our program.  Policy and technology development can contribute the solution of sustainability issues.  The last two years my focus area of sustainability moved to social/psychology/philosophy even meaning of my existence in a community.  I do not have perfect answer, yet.  Maybe I won’t.  However, as Hisayo, a sustainability harmonist, I continue my sustainability education journey.

Thank you!

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