T his chapter assesses the acquisition of academic knowledge and skills in domains including literacy, numeracy, sciences, arts and physical education. It examines how learning trajectories arise from complex interactions between individual brain development and sociocultural environments. Teaching literacy and numeracy to all students is a goal of most school systems. While there are some fundamental skills children should grasp to succeed in these domains, the best way to support each student's learning varies depending on their individual development, language, culture and prior knowledge. Here we explore considerations for instruction and assessment in di erent academic domains. To accommodate the ourishing of all children, exibility must be built into education systems, which need to acknowledge the diverse ways in which children can progress through learning trajectories and demonstrate their knowledge.

This article proposes that Education for Sustainability (EfS), with its focus on transformative and learner-centred approaches, and higher order thinking skills, enriches teaching and learning in Vocational Education and Training (VET), with implications for quality pedagogy more generally. EfS pedagogy has the potential to inform a new discourse on VET's role in citizenship and responsibility for the future, characterised by some as a shift from productivism to ecologism, and described by UNESCO/ILO as critical thinking towards sustainable development. After reviewing the literature on quality pedagogy in VET, as well as on EfS itself, this article evaluates the impact and effectiveness of a nationwide professional development program to upskill VET practitioners in EfS pedagogy. Early findings indicate personal transformations for participants both as individuals and VET professionals, with high levels of teaching practice enhancement generally through uptake of EfS principles and practice. Based on our findings, we draw conclusions and make recommendations for further research.With respect to pedagogy (defined as the art and science of teaching), what does quality teaching and learning mean in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) context? How might Education for Sustainability (EfS) enable quality teaching and learning? First, we review the literature to explore what 'quality' means in terms of VET teaching and learning. We then describe EfS and explore how it might fulfil the criteria for quality VET pedagogy, examining its potential contribution to enhancing pedagogy in general.Finally, we review an evaluation study conducted on the impact and effectiveness of EfS professional development programs implemented nationally in Australia for VET practitioners during 2012-2013. We argue for the relevance of EfS as an enabler for quality pedagogy on the basis of evidence from this study and from the literature.

Theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of education and activism in the Anthropocene will be enriched by an embrace of non-hegemonic thinking. Lakshmi Ashram, a small girls’ school in the Himalayan mountains of Uttarakhand, India, provides an object lesson in thinking differently: in an imbrication of education/research/activism. This article acknowledges a continuing lack of attention in the literature to local, cultural and place-based diversity in transformative learning for sustainable community. However, the central story in this article is not one of critique, but rather one of a Himalayan approach to creating the pedagogical conditions for transformation in thinking and behaviour, in a connected socio-ecological community. Writing across an intercultural space, the two authors describe their ethnographic methodologies, exploring the long-term impact of a Lakshmi Ashram education on students and inhabiting the pedagogical experience of the school. A seamless flow of socio-material practice between pedagogy, research and activism in the school’s educational approach speaks to a Gandhian philosophy-in-action that is worth considering as a contribution to global educational praxis in the Anthropocene. In telling this tale of one small school’s pedagogical philosophy, the authors aim not towards ideological posturing, but towards creating further openings in thinking differently in education.

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