Do people need to grow and change in order to work toward sustainability?

I spent a good deal of time last semester thinking about this question. I had an interesting, thought-provoking encounter last semester at the Harvard Graduate School of Education with "developmental constructivism," a theory and schema for understanding behavior and personal growth that Robert Kegan has developed. His theory claims to address people's capacity to grow, change, and have perspective on their lives and the larger systems in which they live, love and work. Since Western society clearly needs to change in order to become sustainable, and Third World societies are under constant pressure to accept greater and greater levels of consumption, it seems worthwhile to try to understand more about the capacity of people to develop perspective and evolve in support of sustainability.

Kegan's theory arises from a developmental model of Jean Piaget. Young children, Piaget noted, lack perspective on their basic emotions - often, they are their emotions, as they are swamped by feelings they cannot separate from their very selves. As children become more mature, they develop a self separate from their emotions (second-stage development), and then, in adolescence, elaborate a self that is socialized into a larger system (third-stage development). The challenge of modern adult life, Kegan believes, is that it demands the development of yet more perspective, as we inhabit multiple roles and must define ourselves and find our own way in modern society. We must gain the capacity to reflect upon our world, not just to embody a given set of values and policies. Such capacities are characteristic of fourth-order development.

Further freedom from the simplistic limitations of systems and categories come, finally, with fifth-order development, in which the self develops capacity to find larger truths amidst dichotomy and dilemma.

If there is any validity to this model - if people indeed have a general developmental capacity that is reflected in the profundity and perspective that governs their relationships to people and systems - there might be serious implications for all who are interested in effecting social change. The facts of global crisis may not be enough to bring about change if learners cannot critically reflect upon their society or themselves. For those of us raised with values that are antithetical to sustainability, transforming the world requires transforming ourselves.

It may be, therefore, that our school systems can enhance our society's ability to develop sustainability through enhancing learners' overall capacity to reflect upon, and have perspective about, their society and their relationships. Learning experiences that foster and support independent thought, reflection, and the development of personal vision and voice may do more to bring about sustainability than specific facts, however alarming, about environmentally- destructive practices.

Juliet Schor, in The Overspent American, interviews "down-shifting" Americans, who attempt voluntarily to reduce their incomes and expenditures. These Americans, as they describe their growing awareness that their "work and spend" lifestyles did not satisfy deep yearnings for leisure, family, and autonomy, reveal developing capacities to understand their own needs and to define their values and their lives.

As we move against the grain, and attempt to redefine value, beauty and happiness in sustainable ways, "fourth-order" cognitive capacities may be a crucial pre-requisite. We may need to develop selves large enough to change the world. Educational experiences should seek, whenever possible, to advance this growth.