*3.4. Value Dependent*

As sustainability is a concept involving values [4,23,27,31,62] ethics and morals [4,31,62], it is a demanding topic to teach and is dependent on talented teachers [63]. Teachers do not become talented in these areas without adequate training [4,27]. The already highlighted issue of a market-oriented kind of education that embraces certain kinds of knowledge is also problematic regarding abilities to develop values and morality within students [31]. An ethically conscious teacher education is needed to develop an ethical consciousness within student teachers and to develop their ability regarding ethical deliberation, value discussions and to understand ethical sustainability issues like global equity, fairness and responsibility [4]. Systems thinking and teamwork could be an excellent tool in developing this kind of ethical consciousness.

#### **4. Discussion and Conclusions**

As research indicates, an ecological illiteracy has developed during the past few decades. Our planet suffers from overconsumption and an unsustainable way of life. In addition, this unsustainable way of life does not even seem to benefit our wellbeing. It appears obvious that there is something wrong in our system and our way of thinking. UNESCO calls for a change in how we think and act, but how do we manage this change? To enable this change, UNESCO places education in a key position, but so far, the desired results have not been achieved, even though ESD has been on the agenda for more than a decade. Perhaps ESD is not enough; possibly there is something still lacking that is crucial for a change to start.

The similarities in the nature of ESD and systems education are crystallized in this literature review. Some of the articles that have been reviewed agree that the required areas for sustainability are systems thinking, an action approach and teamwork. There are indications that ESD and systems education could benefit from each other. Systems education and ESD could obviously constitute an interlinked common ground for sustainability education throughout the world, instead of being bounded from each other.

This new learning approach with systems thinking linked to ESD could emphasize the development of different levels of systems understanding, such as learning how to work in transdisciplinary teams, teaching basic ecological key concepts and promoting value discussions, deliberation and action competence. It would now be extremely important to conduct more experiments and further research around this potential learning approach, in order to determine whether this is the optimal way to approach education for sustainability. As such, it could thus be stressed as being one of the most important changes to implement as quickly as possible, at all levels of education.

The main focus where change is very crucial is within teacher education. All newly qualified teachers could adapt to this new educational approach, especially as research indicates that the implementation of sustainability and systems thinking in Nordic teacher education has failed. In the work forward towards sustainability, teacher education institutions would need to emphasize both sustainability and systems thinking to a greater extent than now. A complete rethinking of teacher education would be preferable, but that would require a complete reorganization and very devoted leaders of the institutions.

Components that would be crucial to embed in teacher education for the student teachers to achieve a systems thinking knowledge base are listed below. It would be of grea<sup>t</sup> importance that all teacher students develop a systems thinking perspective, so the newly qualified teachers can teach systems thinking skills to children for a sustainable future.


Beyond this change, teacher education should also adopt an action competence approach and highlight the importance of didactics underpinning the development of student teamwork. This approach enables students to learn from each other, particularly when every team member works from their own strengths in complex problem-solving. However, this kind of change is time-consuming. Adding some compulsory courses on the concepts of sustainability, ecological principles and systems thinking for all teacher students could serve as a stopgap, but in the long run, a reorganization of teacher education institutions toward a systems- and action approach for solving complex sustainability problems would be preferable.

In countries where teacher education institutions are not autonomous, as it is for example in Finland, governments can take action to promote the reorganizations needed for ESD and systems thinking to be implemented in teacher education. However, in countries where the teacher education institutions are autonomous, this kind of reorganization and change is dependent on the university leaders' interest. Finally, some suggestions are provided in the form of a list for facilitation of the recommended changes.

#### *4.1. Governmental Regulated Teacher Education Institutions*


#### *4.2. Autonomous Teacher Education Institutions*


These suggested action items that could be taken by governments and universities to facilitate the recommended changes are purely general suggestions but they could be quite fruitful. Further research on reorganization of teacher education is needed and this will be the topic of a follow-on paper.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** This article is dedicated to Hannu, a very dear friend of mine that died in a tragic accident during this writing process. Hannu was a big part of my system "living with" and "doing things for others". Now a very important part in the system is missing, both for me and for 22 young soccer girls who we coached together. Thank you, Hannu, for your wisdom; you taught me a lot.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflicts of interest.
