39 years after I last set foot in my old school I was back giving a talk about Wytham Woods and Greener Careers. Here I am speaking in a very slick lecture theatre. I’ll gloss over my mixed feelings about the school system, past and the present.
I had been told that this was going to be a group of self selected students from any year group, 7 - 11. This was a tall order as talking to students of different ages about sustainability topics generally needs a different approach. I wove a talk together that touched on knowledge about nature, and careers.
As well as not triggering excessive concern, the most difficult thing about giving talks like this is working out what the students already know about climate change and about nature - it could be everything or nothing. Small group discussions are always more enlightening. I find that when given the space to share their ideas most teenagers seem to know quite a lot about climate change and have strong feelings, but that often their knowledge is very incomplete and somewhat confused and they are unsure how they are allowed to feel about such apocalyptic information. And on nature, apart from an enthusiastic few, most seem to know very little and are very disconnected from it.
The education system is not serving them well in this regard. These are almost certainly the two issues that will dominate their future lives and we need to prepare them. The Department of Education has recently published a draft strategy on sustainability education. I don’t have high hopes for change on the timescales that are needed, but it is a move in the right direction.
The approach I’ve been using with teenagers for the last 5 years is to talk about what people are currently doing in the world of work to solve the climate and nature crises. There are many inspiring, amazing, joyful examples to share, from all sectors of work. If we can enthuse our young people about the potential for purposeful interesting careers solving global issues perhaps we can engage them in the inconvenient truth, but by giving them role models and hope, protect them from anxiety about that undeniable reality.
My next school talk is coming up on Saturday, online, to 25 international schools. The topic is SDG4 - Life on Land. That’s it! I’ve got 30 minutes. I’ve still got to get my head around that one.