According to a study, more than half of teachers in England are in support of teaching children to take direct action against climate change.
The study, led by the University of Bristol, involved asking 626 primary and secondary school teachers across England for their opinions on climate change education.
Teachers believed almost unanimously in an action-focused climate change curriculum incorporated across subjects, starting with conservation projects in early primary school.
Results also revealed 54 per cent of those surveyed thought this should extend to participation in civil disobedience at secondary school.
Professor Paul Howard-Jones, the study’s lead author, said children have been motivated by Swedish teenage climate change campaigner Greta Thunberg.
Greta Thunberg, 18, whose activism has sparked a global movement, shot to fame after starting a solo school strike outside the Swedish parliament at just 15.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Education Research, found that 72 per cent of respondents were already teaching or talking about climate change with their pupils.
Lead author Paul Howard-Jones said that children had been inspired by teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Professor Paul Howard-Jones, the lead author of the work, said that teachers want their pupils to be informed in how they think and what they do about the climate emergency.
He said they’re ready and willing to move forward with radical, action-orientated programmes of education that could assist pupils to drive their response to climate change.
A recent Ipsos study found only 42 per cent of teachers in the US were teaching or talking about climate change with their pupils.
In total, 97 per cent of teachers surveyed in England thought climate change was caused by humans, compared with 39 per cent of respondents in the US.
In England, 19 per cent of teachers believed climate change was more important for additional funding than science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects.
However, only 5 per cent of teachers in the US would prioritise climate change.
Professor Howard-Jones, of Bristol University’s School of Education and Cabot Institute for the Environment, added that despite being underrepresented in the National Curriculum, climate change was something many young people felt passionate about.
He said school children have been inspired by Greta Thunberg, who’s shown the importance of nonviolent demonstration to boost awareness of the climate crisis and encourage individuals as well as large scale change.
However, isn’t learning to protest brainwashing and a form of conditioning? And ultimately, the earth will burn up and become uninhabitable for humans, whether these children or I like it or not, and it’s not a question of when, not if, and always has been, it’s not a new science.
But if climate change is needed, protesting about everything won’t create the answer – people are so keen to stand up and shout, but where is the solution? Even Greta Thunberg hasn’t discovered that.
What we should be doing is encouraging children to study science and to educate themselves to create more experts for more solutions, that would make more sense surely, and isn’t it beyond human arrogance to be naive enough to believe they can prevent climate change because it’s occurred since the beginning of the planet’s existence and will continue long after humans have gone.
All that they’re doing is brainwashing our children, but what they should be doing is letting them grow up and learn for themselves, and children should be taught facts, not opinions.
