Sustainability, Human Well-Being, and the Future of Education

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvi

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2. Learning at the Edge of History

   • Justin W. Cook

   Pages 1-29Open Access

3. Toward Robust Foundations for Sustainable Well-Being Societies: Learning to Change by Changing How We Learn

   • Harold Glasser

   Pages 31-89Open Access

4. Sustainable Wellbeing Society—A Challenge for a Public Sector Institution

   • Jari Salminen

   Pages 91-119Open Access

5. Schools as Equitable Communities of Inquiry

   • Robert Riordan, Stacey Caillier

   Pages 121-160Open Access

6. Transforming Our Worldview Towards a Sustainable Future

   • Erkka Laininen

   Pages 161-200Open Access

7. Towards Solving the Impossible Problems

   • Asta Raami

   Pages 201-233Open Access

8. Unlocking the Future of Learning by Redesigning Educator Learning

   • Adam Rubin, Ali Brown

   Pages 235-268Open Access

9. Four-Dimensional Education for Sustainable Societies

   • Charles Fadel, Jennifer S. Groff

   Pages 269-281Open Access

10. Creativity, the Arts, and the Future of Work

    • Linda F. Nathan

    Pages 283-310Open Access

11. A New Narrative for the Future: Learning, Social Cohesion and Redefining “Us”

    • Marjo Kyllönen

    Pages 311-338Open Access

12. Climate Change Education: A New Approach for a World of Wicked Problems

    • Anna Lehtonen, Arto O. Salonen, Hannele Cantell

    Pages 339-374Open Access

13. Case Study: Kaospilots—From Passive Listeners to Global Change Agents

    • Jenna Lähdemäki

    Pages 375-396Open Access

14. Case Study: The Finnish National Curriculum 2016—A Co-created National Education Policy

    • Jenna Lähdemäki

    Pages 397-422Open Access

15. Back Matter

    Pages 423-425

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This open access book explores the key dimensions of a future education system designed to enable individuals, schools, and communities to achieve the twin twenty-first century challenges of sustainability and human well-being. For much of the twentieth century, Western education systems prepared students to enter the workforce, contribute to society and succeed in relatively predictable contexts. Today, people are at the controls of the planet—making decisions that are dramatically reshaping social, economic, and environmental systems at a global scale. What is education’s purpose in this new reality? What and how must we learn now?  The volatility and uncertainty caused by digitalization, globalization, and climate change weave a common backdrop through each chapter. Using case studies drawn from Finland and the US, chapter authors explore various aspects of learning and education system design through the lenses of sustainability and human well-being to evaluate how our understanding and practice of education must transform. Using their scholarly research and experience as practitioners, the authors propose new approaches to preparing learners for a new frontier of the human experience fraught with risks but full of opportunity. 

• Open Access
• future studies
• lifelong learning
• globalization
• Equitable Communities of Inquiry
• Kaospilot

• Sitra, The Finnish Innovation Fund, Helsinki, Finland

  Justin W. Cook

Justin W. Cook is Senior Lead for Strategy at the Finnish Innovation Fund (Sitra) in Helsinki, Finland. He supports Sitra’s societal transformation activities through research and projects aimed at catalyzing sustainability and human wellbeing in Finland and beyond.