Education and Sustainability Leadership Summit at ISA

Designed in collaboration with the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership www.cisl.cam.ac.uk and Sustainability Education www.sused.org this one-day Education and Sustainability Leadership Summit (ESLS) at ISA offers the opportunity for strategic engagement, intense reflection and collaboration around leadership, approaches to teaching and learning, curriculum design and infrastructure, led by an experienced, expert faculty drawn from the worlds of sustainability, education and development.

The day, World Earth Day, will bring together students, teachers and leaders from national and international systems of education, with policy makers, leaders in business and industry and climate experts. Together, we will confront the systems failures that have led us to the current climate emergency and embrace the imperative of education and leadership to shape a pathway to a better, more peaceful and more sustainable future. This one-day summit will create networks of agency and connected action.

The Education and Sustainability Leadership Summit (ESLS) at ISA follows on from successful programs in Asia (UWC South East Asia), Africa (Bishop’s, Cape Town), Europe (Berlin Brandenburg International School) the UK (Dollar Academy, Scotland) and the Middle East (Jerusalem American School)

WHY

The planet and its people face a crisis of unprecedented scale, urgency and complexity and education is part of the problem – but also part of the solution. The current economic, environmental and social trends are dangerously unsustainable.

What contribution can and must the education sector play in responding to the impending crisis? Schools around the world have to make the choice whether they want to be the mirrors or the change agents, of society.

The education sector needs to reflect hard, and fast, on what it teaches, how it teaches and where it teaches and the standards it sets in terms of its culture, leadership and modelling the way.

WHAT FOR

Together, we will confront the systems failures that have led us to the current climate emergency and embrace the imperative of education and leadership to shape a pathway to a better, more peaceful and more sustainable future. This inaugural one-day summit will create networks of agency and connected action and will be followed by a three-day programme of focused, reflective engagement in 2023-2024.

You will be equipped to lead your institution in developing new strategies for responding to the challenge of incorporating sustainability thinking into the systems of your schools and organisations. You can enable your organisation to be a change agent of society; a leader in its approach to education and sustainability.

You and your students will become thought leaders in sustainability locally, regionally and globally. You will be part of a unique network of thought leaders in education and sustainability – part of an ‘Active Alumni,’ an inaugural cohort of Amsterdam summit graduates who inspire communities of change, wherever you are.

HOW

For schools and Universities, we have places for representatives from 20 schools across Europe. Each ‘place’ provides the school with the opportunity to send up to five people: typically this would be the principal; the bursar (or equivalent); a ‘champion teacher’; and two students.

A limited number of bursaries are available. To be considered for a bursary, please submit a 500 word letter of motivation to Andrew Watson at susedsummit@isa.nl.

WHEN & WHERE

Hosted by the International School of Amsterdam, the Education and Sustainability Leadership Summit will take place on 22 April, 2023 from 09:00-17:00.

Lunches, snacks, and coffee/tea/water will be provided.

Presenter(s) Bio:

ISA and the ideal partnership of leading global institutions. In collaboration with the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and Sustainability Education, ISA will provide a transformational experience to a diverse cross-section of delegates from a range of sectors by investigating the systems level, interdependent causes and consequences of our predicament, encompassing the key environmental, social, economic and political drivers. This immersion programme in Sustainability, will challenge delegates to imagine, create and articulate the challenges in making Sustainability and systems thinking central to how we live and work together towards a shared vision of a better, more peaceful, more sustainable world. This inaugural one-day summit will create networks of agency and connected action and will be followed by a three-day programme of focused, reflective engagement in 2023-2024.