The Education for Sustainable Development, Online Technology and Teleological Rationality: A Game between Instrumental Value and Humanistic Value

Abstract

The concept of education for sustainable development (ESD) belongs to the latter exogenous type. It was not put forward as an independent concept at first. At present, it is necessary to shift from the approach to an understanding concentrating on sustainable development to an interpretation that focuses on the structure of education. Under the guidance of online technology’s pursuit of efficiency, effect, simplicity and materialization, the process of ESD embedded with online technology has highlighted its value of tools, while lacking rules and guidance of the teleological rationality, hence it cannot achieve the value tendency of humanism which accords with its reason and being good to it. In the course of realistic education, the instrumental value and humanistic value of ESD are always intertwined together, and the value choices of educational entities are often manifested as bounded rationality. Therefore, around the theme of ESD, any two of the players of educational organizations constitute the “evolutionary game with bounded rationality”. Based on the result of an evolutionary game, ESD should pay more attention to the humanization of purpose, the contextualizing of content, the experience of process and the rationalization of technology, to fully realize the return of humanistic value of ESD.