2020: The Year of Radical Compassion (Why this year is all about standing up and giving a damn)
In many ways this new year started with as much grief and despair as last year’s ended - wildfires continuing raging across Australia, floods devastating parts of Indonesia, tensions and tragedies mounting in global peacekeeping strategies and political stagnation continuing in response to the climate crisis.
And yet in the same breath, this year has awoken with something very strong, very loud and very significant on the tip of its tongue: an ever-growing number of people ready to stand up and do something bold and beautiful to love this world back into vitality again. And this work is incredibly infectious.
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In 2019, millions of children and young people across the world took to the streets championing for change and uniting together to imagine a different world than the one we are hurtling towards - a world in which all life can thrive. As the new year starts, ever more young people across the world are feeling empowered to make their voices heard on what is the biggest issue of our time - the climate crisis. In so many ways it is shameful that our children are having to call the world into touch, and yet the collective imagination and energy that they offer is infectious.
Why are they doing this? Why are they, and so many people in our communities rising up? Why are grandparents being arrested, religious leaders lying on the streets in protest, children and young people leaving school to stand up for the planet? Why? Because they know what we’re doing to the planet right now isn’t right, and they give a damn about finding other ways. They, and so many, are exhibiting what can be seen as radical compassion – actively caring about the earth’s distress and wanting to change reality to alleviate this suffering. It is ironically a sad failure of our education system that they’re having to leave school and go on strike in order to do so.
A lament
I left working as a mainstream teacher in formal education in 2012 - in part because I was working in a system which seemed to hurt as much as help children, and in part because our education did not seem to be teaching children to thrive in the world that we are actually living in. With so much of our schooling stuck in a Victorian framework, with subjects being taught in silos and disconnected from holistic thinking or context, and with children’s mental health becoming ever-more tested through a data-driven focus, it is hard to feel energised and activated to teach in a system that feels so broken. As I have written in the past, I really wish I could be a teacher again, but right now our education system needs a radical overhaul, and until that happens I will go on working alongside schools to offer them education programmes that meet the world where it’s at, that teach the reality of the world that we live in and which bring learning to life.
It may be another inconvenient truth but our education systems are not preparing our children for the world they are living in – neither are they preparing them for the futures they are hurtling towards. The climate crisis is the biggest challenge of our time and our education systems need to reflect that to help young people feel inspired by and connected to the world they are living in and their futures in it. Which is why I personally feel so energised by the radical compassion our children are exhibiting.
Time for an education evolution
An inspiring youth group called Teach The Future are calling for a significant review of our education system, starting with teaching about climate change and the ecological crisis within the national curriculum. This collective of students from schools, colleges and universities across the UK have understood the need for creative thinking, for positive action and for collective support and have built a strong network of compassionate, caring people championing for change.
They have secured a meeting with Members of Parliament on 26th February in which they will be calling for a government-commissioned review into how the education system is preparing students for the climate emergency and ecological crisis. Their collective call is asking for the inclusion of the climate emergency and ecological crisis in mainstream education with a Climate Emergency Education Act and funding support for schools and young people to allow these changes to happen. Beyond this, they are calling for our education systems to be the drivers of change at the heart of our communities, with school buildings becoming net-zero carbon (or on the way to that target). (You can read their full set of demands here).
The scant reality
Whilst global leaders are proving woefully slow in taking clear, decisive action to respond to the climate crisis, our education system joins this stagnated response, with little – if anything – in terms of an educational framework to respond to climate change. A statement from the Department for Education claims that “it is important that pupils are taught about climate change, which is why it is included in the national curriculum for both primary and secondary schools.”
However, when you break it down – and even with their own explanation of where this teaching happens – climate change is mentioned in as few as 10 out of 10,000 lessons across a child’s schooling, and none of it joined up to find the links between cause and effect, or to understand how different issues interrelate and there are no direct climate change references or teachings currently within the primary school curriculum. Whether we like it or not our children are hearing about, talking about and thinking about climate change – so shouldn’t our education systems offer a safe space for them to learn about ways to respond?
Our education system needs an overhaul - it is past time for an education evolution. This is apparent to so many teachers and educators within the system, to so many of us outside of the system who are working to support educational frameworks that can offer this, and significantly apparent to the young people who are growing up within it. They know that the education system isn’t fit for purpose and they have every right to speak out about it and ask for it to change.
Teach the Future have come a long way already, working together across organisations, ages, locations and opinions, to use their collective imagination and vision to offer a framework for change. They are standing up and giving a damn. And ThoughtBox are standing in solidarity with them to support them in their mission and their call for change.
The infectious power of imagination
I started the year receiving an email from a former student (now playwright and actor) sharing a recent piece of writing exploring the tensions between malevolence and the infinite potential of the imagination. In it he writes about the void that negative emotions or actions offer, with no power to create, no constructive space in there, simply the power to undo good. A space of fear, judgement, division, apathy, denial - a space where beauty cannot flourish. Conversely he then writes of the beautiful, inspiring potential of the imagination as a creative, energising force for new, unknown possibilities to emerge.
Much like “the more beautiful worlds our hearts know is possible” that Charles Eisenstein talks of, this imagination - this collective, creative force - is something that I am witnessing grow in strength as a response to so many of the tensions within our complex systems, not least in our response to the climate crisis. People are standing up and choosing to care, and then doing something with that feeling, inspiring ripple effects of change through creative, collective action. People are showing radical compassion. And it is terrifically infectious.
It may feel hard to find inspiration in a world where we see the scarred little bodies of koala bears, where we witness people huddled on shorelines to hide from fires as the midday sky turns black, where we watch entire eco-systems wiped out in seconds. This sort of darkness, literal and metaphorical, is a cloud that has the potential to suffocate. But this is not the world that we want to live in, neither is this the world we need to live in. The movements growing around the world are showing us so many people standing up, speaking out and doing something bold and beautiful to love this world back into thriving again.
So much is possible this year, and so much can happen. Even more so if we all start to stand up and truly give a damn.
Rachel Musson | Director of ThoughtBox Education
ThoughtBox Education is a social enterprise supporting schools with global learning programmes that help young people deepen connections with themselves, society and the natural world.