Teaching Change by Learning Change

We live in times of unravelling; of disciplines, subjects and professions, due to social, ecological and personal crisis. This necessitates an ecological educational paradigm: a shift from mechanistic and rational, to participative and emergent practices of interdependence. This involves learning to let go of outmoded understandings of ourselves in the world. Fashion is apt in this re-conceptualisation as it involves all clad humans, implicating life and lives in fundamental ways.

By identifying tutors as vital intermediaries in change and highlighting engagement in an iterative process of reflection and action, this chapter explores findings from over two years of collaborative research, undertaken with teams in design departments in four European universities; London College of Fashion, Design School Kolding, Politecnico di Milano and Estonian Academy of Arts. The research identifies a gap in fashion (and wider design) and sustainability education discourse, of the role and needs of the educator as a distinctive lever for change towards climate justice. It recognises tutors as co-learners, drawing on a participatory, ecological perspective. Fashion and sustainability education is distinctive, due to the characteristics of fashion whilst offering potential for application across other disciplines. Fashion, whilst a discipline in its own right, intersects with multiple disciplines and is practiced across private, personal, to industrial, global scales. By connecting its micro and macro scales, complex elements of climate justice can be made actionable in a great many ways.

This tutor as co-learner approach to why, how and with whom as part of the what of fashion and sustainability goes beyond conventional approaches that start with material or product and the preparation of students to fit into current modes of design(ing). This study foregrounds ecological, social, cultural and economic dimensions of designing as a set of relationships that are manifest in and mediated by materials, products and services. This approach seeks to transform understandings and visions through a layered approach to pedagogy (Shulman, L.S. 2005) nurturing capabilities and practices of interdependence. It draws on and reflects on tacit knowledge (Polanyi. M.1967), education for sustainability, (Sterling, S. 2009 ) and transformation design, (Burns, C et al, 2006) explored through co-inquiry between a group of researchers and tutors and drawing on empirical studies from interviews with tutors in over 70 universities. The research team set out, from the start, to develop new knowledge in fashion design education for sustainability, but also, critically, to develop resources for tutors-as learners; for their peers, for themselves and others; known and unknown to them, via an open-source, online platform. The platform offers prompts for peer-peer co-inquiry, self and co-reflection as well as course content development. It is recognised that this intervention is part of a required structural change in fashion education, towards teaching that is inclusive in cultural, class, race, gender, sexuality and belief systems terms. This is vital in de-colonising and de-carbonising fashion education and its applications in the world.

Burns, C., Cottam, H., Vanstone, C. and Winhall, J. (2006). Transformation Design, Design Council, Red Paper 2, [online] Available at: www.designcouncil.org.uk/resources/report/red-paper-02-transformation-design

Polanyi, M. (1967). The Tacit Knowledge Dimension. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Shulman, L.S. (2005). Signature Pedagogies in the Professions. Daedalus.

Sterling, S. (2009). Ecological Intelligence: viewing the world relationally. In A. Stibbe, ed., The Handbook of Sustainability Literacy: Skills for a Changing World, Dartington: Green Books Ltd., pp. 77-83.

• https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.100...