Frightening children into believing in

the worst case scenario of climate change is apparently considered acceptable by our Federal Education Minister. He has been reported as saying that what is being taught in schools is "age appropriate". Research suggests otherwise? He still believes it is "age appropriate".

The "Institute for Public Affairs" research will be "wrong" of course because it is a "right wing think tank". Children need to be informed of the "very real problems" facing us. Five year old children need to know about climate change, about the dangers and more. They need to go home, distressed, and inform their parents they should not be eating meat or using their cars, that they should have solar panels and the battery to go with them, and that they should only be planting natives in the garden. In school every lesson should be related somehow to climate change and the danger it poses to humankind. Teachers should use every opportunity to get the young to understand how serious this is.

No, I am not exaggerating. It may not be put into those words but the reality is that this is what is happening. Perhaps most of it will be more subtle than that but some of it will be blatant scaremongering. This is the national curriculum. It must be taught. 

Teachers who do not believe in climate change may as well resign. The vast majority do care about the environment and the do believe the climate is changing. Do they agree with what the national curriculum requires them to teach? It would be interesting to know just what they think but there is no research of which I am aware. My guess is that many of them are concerned by it.

I thought back to my own school days. In rural areas we had a close association with the environment and the landscape around us. We knew it had to be cared for because the livelihood of farmers depended on it. We knew where our food came from in the way that country children do, that cows had to be fed and milked.  In school we were taught about the process by which a loaf of bread came to be. In the tiny "town" I first lived in we saw the sheep in the paddock (field) next door to our house that became the chops and stews our mothers cooked. I don't think anything was hidden from us apart from the actual slaughter of the sheep but most adults did not see that either. 

It was much less obvious in the city but there we still had lessons about wheat and sheep and loaves of bread. We had lessons about the "market gardens" the post-war Italian community worked to provide our vegetables and how potatoes grew in the best soil in the south-east of the state.  We were taught about the Goyder line, the "dog fence" and the problem of "rust" in wheat.

We also had the annual "Arbour Day" at school. There would be lessons about the importance of trees and caring for them. We would go to the "big oval" and other locations and each class would plant a tree. We knew about their root systems and the rings which showed what the "weather" had been like. School would finish earlier than usual in the afternoon and we felt good about "our tree". We were being taught to care for "the world around us". The word "environment" would have meant nothing to most of us and "climate change" was not mentioned. It did not exist even in the minds of most adults.

I think we were lucky. We grew up knowing we had to care for the world around us but without fear of it or for it. The idea that even very young children need to know about CO2 emissions and "net zero" and the many dangers related to climate change seems wrong to me. Surely teaching them to care for the environment in a positive way would have a greater impact?