Education for Sustainable Development – Experiences, Dilemmas and Perspectives

Barica Marentič Požarnik

Summary:  Education for sustainable development – ESD has started to develop already in the 90-ies and even earlier by the means of publications, symposia, in-service training and international initiatives and documents; but many of those initiatives later disappeared or were forgotten. What can we learn from good and not so good national and international experiences in the past decades? How to achieve a more sustainable development of this important area of education and move it from general goals and documents into renewed curricula and competencies of teachers to foster active and experiential learning to achieve desired results? ESD to-day should also raise awareness of conflicts of interests and dilemmas in everyday decisions, in underlying values and changes in consumer orientations and lifestyle. What are the main obstacles in reaching those ambitious goals? And finally – has the education itself the power to successfully cope with catastrophical consequences of the unsustainable development? I am going to address those questions mainly by presenting my perspective or »story« in meeting them.