The Summit Series, “Cultivating the Globally Sustainable Self” is a multi-year, multi-institution initiative that assembles professionals, change agents, and students to address intractable issues related to conflict, rights, religion, cultural understanding, and sustainability. One key goal of the Summit Series is to translate research findings and multi-disciplinary expertise into actionable policy and practice. The Education and Training Committee was created to identify, develop, and disseminate curricula, programs, pedagogies, and opportunities for “transformative,” “engaged,” and “high impact” learning, growth, and development across cultures and contexts,  which are responsive our individual differences, shared hopes, and the deepest aspirations of the Summit Series and its participants.

The Education and Training Committee conceptualizes learning as a lifelong process involving a diverse array of formal institutions and informal networks operating at the community level.  This committee will work to identify, develop, and disseminate model policies and practices that emerge from Summit Series projects and activities, translating them into actionable strategies that can be employed by educational advocates, institutions, and the public at large. The Committee will pursue opportunities to align these evidence-based practices with existing educational initiatives, partnering with organizations and individuals to increase our collective impact and generate the most effective outcomes of each policy or practice. We hope to develop a network of expertise that addresses issues at the local level but connects globally – allowing participants to benefit from communication, information sharing, and creativity to further enhance their local impact on educational systems and practices.

 

As a first step, the Education and Training Committee is investigating opportunities to highlight how issues of advocacy, justice, and sustainability are fundamentally interconnected with scholarship and its applications across multiple settings both globally and across the lifespan. We will identify specific research projects utilizing the team’s expertise, drawing upon multiple disciplines and experience in a variety of educational contexts.  We are committed to translating scholarship into tangible outcomes, producing accessible texts and media, in dialogue with local communities and practitioners from around the world. One over-arching question we are interested in addressing is, “What can and should education be and do?” Responding to this challenge will lead the team to examine the role of education (including international education and global studies) in the development of sustainable selves, the challenge of moving education beyond a purely cognitive focus, and the opportunities and constraints that teacher education may offer as a solution to these issues.

 

Ultimately, this Committee hopes to serve as a conduit for assembling the knowledge, strategies, and vision of the Summit Series to drive more comprehensively and uniquely-informed policy development and practice. We understand that any efforts to impact educational practices must be sensitive to cultural concerns, political context, and practicality, and this Committee is eager to leverage the intellectual capital of the Summit Series to shape human learning from cradle to grave.