TEACH THE FUTURE- Climate Crisis Education
Students hold a Teach the Future banner during a 2019 school climate strike
The warm and slightly fuzzy term “climate change” has now officially been replaced by “the climate emergency”. While social movements and the media have generally managed to keep abreast of the currents of change, policy making and education have tended to lag - but recently, with the ‘Attenborough effect’, Greta Thunberg, and the chilling reports of IPCC scientists, we are starting to see movement by global policy-makers.
As 2020 came to a close, 1,863 jurisdictions and local governments covering 820 million citizens across the world had officially recognised our emergency status.
A crisis of perception
Greater understanding and acceptance of the gravity of the situation is a good first step, but this revelation can put us in the position of a rabbit-in-the-headlights - frightened and unable to act. What should we do? How can we act to ensure a decent future? How do we make sense of this new, fragile world? These are questions that empower us.
Along with the climate crisis, we are seeing a crisis of biodiversity, a crisis of social cohesion, a looming economic crisis and political crises in various countries. Fritjof Capra holistically connects them into one “crisis of perception”, and the resolution begins with a shift in perception. As Einstein famously put it:
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
We are no longer served by the conventional view of the world as an infinite bank of resources to be consumed, nor by thinking of ourselves as somehow separate from ‘nature’ and each other. Our endless, unthinking demand for more has led us into a blind alley. At RAIN, we believe that one of the strongest tools to extricate ourselves from this crisis is to empower young people to envision and then create the future they wish to live.
The question that TTF asks is:
What would a movement to repurpose our education system around the climate and ecological emergencies look like?
How do educators and young people respond to the storm of changes brought about by climate change and the pandemic? How do we connect, as individuals and citizens, with a future that seems terribly uncertain? One exceptional organisation has been asking these questions and taking action.
Teach the future
Teach the future is a youth-led movement seeking to reform the education system to address the climate and ecological crises.
TTF’s research across the UK found that only 4% of students felt that they knew a lot about climate change. 68% wanted to learn more about the environment, but 75% of teachers feel they haven’t received sufficient training to teach about the climate emergency.
In response to this, the campaign has four main asks, with a road map laid out via an emergency act of parliament. Their proposed Climate Emergency Education Bill calls for:
All education providers to teach the truth about the climate and ecological emergency;
Teachers and lecturers to be retrained to do so;
Help for educators in supporting pupils suffering from eco-anxiety;
Increased outdoor education for students;
Funding for youth-led climate and environmental social action and youth voice;
Creation of more green vocational training;
Retrofitting of all educational buildings to net-zero emissions by 2030.
At a time when teachers have been forced to teach online, at incredibly short notice with minimum training, RAIN wholeheartedly supports all efforts to teach the future. Although we are still in the throws of one crisis and are up to our eyeballs in zoom calls, we mustn’t waste this opportunity to completely rethink our approach to education. Our future depends on it.
Read about the specific asks of TTF England and Scotland here.
Volunteer for TTF
Are you a student with some extra time on your hands during lockdown? TTF are expanding their team by welcoming more student volunteers.
Visit the TTC volunteering page to register your interest.
Are you from Northern Ireland or Wales? Get in touch with Teach The future to help build the movement in these countries.
Every classroom is unique - Learning Materials.
We’ve curated a selection of high-quality resources from a diverse group of future-thinking organizations. With an urgent need to reform the educational system, and to make this as easy as possible for educators, we’re setting the bar high and only listing resources that tie in with the national curriculum.
Visit our resources section for the whole set of resources, including;
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