Turning the blog over to my wife this week to get her thoughts on teaching, parenting, and how to integrate climate change/justice into both. Enjoy!
There is one month… or four and a half weeks… or 22 days left of school this year. But who’s counting? Definitely this teacher, and I’m sure my students are too! The end of a school year prompts teachers like me to think back to what we’ve learned and taught during the year and, as at any ending, to what we wish we’d done differently. This year, I’ve been in a variety of elementary classrooms as a substitute, but spent extended periods teaching 3rd grade and am finishing the school year with just over three months teaching kindergarten. With our family’s climate pledge, my reflection is focused on a simple question: what can I do teach climate justice?
Beyond the end of the year, this article on NPR really got me thinking. The piece discusses the fact that, while there’s demand for climate education among parents, there is little supply coming from teachers. On the parenting side, it was heartening to see that over 75% of people surveyed thought climate change should be taught in schools – but then only 45% of parents talk to their kids about climate change? As parents, we all need to do better! That’s one thing our family strives to do that, frankly, we didn’t before: make climate change part of our everyday lives, including our kids’, so we remain engaged. While there’s work to do, we’re proud of our little family successes, like when our son told us he wants the President to buy everyone a minivan so more people can carpool. Maybe not the best policy solution to date, but we were proud nonetheless.
Just as I was patting myself on the back for having climate discussions with my own kids, I started reading the section of the NPR story on teaching. What category of teacher do I fall into? It occurred to me that I am, in fact, an educator very concerned about climate change… but not teaching it. What’s my excuse… that I was just a substitute? I could have educated not just one classroom of students, but two or more. Maybe I’m off the hook because my kindergartners are too young to understand it? I know that isn’t true because both my kids understand we need to do things to protect the earth, and they’re in preschool.
Often as a teacher you feel isolated in your classroom – not exactly sure what your colleagues are doing in their classrooms, judged by everyone who comes in the door… We need to come together as educators to support the development of lessons and curriculum units, and to start gathering resources that make it easier to teach about climate change at all levels of schooling. I’m already starting to think about what I need in my “teacher toolbox” so I can implement climate change lessons in whichever classroom I am in next… and yes, maybe even during the last 22 days of THIS school year.
There are thousands of reasons why it is “hard” to teach about climate justice – many of which are discussed in the article. But these reasons are no excuse for failing to teach it anyway.
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