Integrating Sustainable Development Concepts into the Lebanese Educational Curriculum

“In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, we will understand only what we are taught.”


Baba Dioum, Senegal Poet



There is on-going increasing awareness of the need to incorporate development and environment concepts into formal education. Academic learning units in the different disciplines may be designed to achieve the intended outcomes by increasing students’ knowledge of sustainability principles, knowledge which in turn, will modify their life-long behaviors as responsible citizens. This is of special importance today with the world‘s resources being put in danger due to human irresponsible or uninformed behaviors. The ultimate goal of all this is to raise future citizens who will be able to deal with the world’s resources in a way to insure that the maximum needs of individuals are fulfilled at the minimum cost of the world’s resources. As a result, they live happier, healthier and more fulfilling lives.
The Lebanese English language curriculum, being a content-based curriculum, lends itself easily to topics related to sustainability with its three dimensions: Environment sustainability, social sustainability and economic sustainability.
In choosing the concepts to be integrated into the English language program, we can put the following points into mind:

• In Cycle I (CI: Age group 6 - 10), the curriculum can aim at concepts that relate to the “here and now” because it is more meaningful for young students to deal with what they have a better schemata (background knowledge) about and with what they encounter in their daily lives. Thus, concepts relating to the systems components are easily taught to CI students. Here, we can start with the components of the social, economic and environmental systems that emerge from the children’s lives such as the family, supermarket and different kinds of animals all of which are related directly to children’s lives. Similarly, concepts relating to cultural diversity and local cultures can be easily introduced since children at very young ages can relate to in the open and diverse Lebanese society. Other concepts related to the common types of pollution, water and air, farming and gardening are suitable for C1 students.

• English language is not the subject that should dwell on concepts students have not encountered before or that need in-depth studying and/ or building. Even if sustainability concepts are incorporated into the English language curriculum, the main aim of this discipline is to build language skills. Therefore, concepts that are not common and that are new to students and need in-depth studying need to be addressed in closely related subjects in more detail; i.e., environmental sustainability concepts in the science discipline and social and economic sustainability concepts in the sociology and economics disciplines. Therefore, concepts relating to the importance of biological diversity, economy and scarcity, humanizing the geographical domain, sources of diversity, mass destructive weapons and of sustainable farming concepts might not find their way in the English language curriculum. Saying this, I keep in mind that all subject matters are interdisciplinary and not one should be taught in complete isolation of the others.

• Integrating some concepts should be delayed to Cycle 2 (C2: Age group 11 – 13) or Cycle 3 (C3: Age group 14 – 18) when the students are ready for them either cognitively or until the concepts are introduced in other subject matters. This ensures that in the English language curriculum, students do not have to deal much with understanding the concepts, but rather to have the concepts reinforced, built upon and be studied from a language learning perspective. For example, there is no need to introduce concepts relating to renewable and non- renewable resources at the C1 since students at this age lack any schemata for such concepts and are not cognitively ready for them. Thus, it is more reasonable to delay integrating them until the students are ready for them. The same applies to other concepts I propose delaying such as the imbalance in biological diversity, sound and electronic pollution, dimensions of investment, economic sustainability, and so on.

In diffusing the concepts into the curriculum, there should be a shift from the tight teacher control on what the teacher teaches students to allowing students to learn by actively participating in the learning process. Thus the teacher should shift from the lecturing and demonstration methods of teaching to allowing students to carry out group discussions, role playing, seminars, case studies, and finally do self study. The latter methods are best fit for C3 students.

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Holding Students Accountable for Their Achievement

In every performance where students will be evaluated, it is the students’ right to be informed of the basis on which they will be evaluated. One way the teacher can do this is by explicitly informing the students of the criteria on which they’ll be evaluated or of the exact skills that are required on a specific test. Thus before a test, it is always helpful to remind the students of the skills already studied in class before a test. Further, the teacher can conduct a trial test covering the required skills. This serves in acquainting students with test type and question format and proves especially useful at the beginning of the year when students are still unaware of teacher’s expectations. The result of which is often, lower first term marks.
Informing students of the evaluation criteria could prove useful also in classroom presentations. Often during presentations, students are unaware of important presentation skills. As a result, many students neglect eye contact, using visuals, proper posture, stating presentation objectives, all of which contribute to a successful presentation. To avoid this, students can be explicitly told of the skills that would improve their presentations ahead of presentation due date so students have the opportunity to practice before coming to class.
Another instance where it is helpful to inform students of what is required of them is before a writing task. For example, before students write an argumentative essay, students can be told that their essays need to include a thesis statement, three arguments to support their thesis statement and at least two counterarguments with their refutations. Also the students can be told to correct any run on sentences and sentence fragments before handing in their final written product.
Doing this, making students aware of the teacher’s expectations, is of great importance since it holds the students responsible for their performance. Thus, it is no longer only the teacher who is responsible for the students’ attainment of what is taught in class but students are functionally involved in improving their skills, abilities and performance.