Over the summer, I was shocked by the HBO series Big Little Lies’ decision to highlight childhood anxiety about climate change. Renata’s daughter, Amabella, has an anxiety attack while learning about sustainability in her first-grade homeroom. The school’s board of parents then passionately debates whether teaching about climate change is too alarming for young children and whether it’s their duty as parents to promise a “perfect” fantasy world in the future that may not exist.
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In the past, discussion about the importance of progressive education – a holistic pedagogical approach that favors experiential learning over standardization and structure – has increased. While grade schools continue to teach the fund academic subjects, parents and teachers are striving to inspire active participation by students in a democratic, global society. This progressive educational shift coincides with larger cultural trends regarding health and wellness – denoting that knowledge is equally of the spirit and soul, as it is of the brain, and success is not measured by income but by involvement.
Various progressive schools’ mission statements — including the Little Red Schoolhouse (LREI) and Manhattan Country School (MCS) — encourage children to encounter diverse communities, and creatively, cooperatively problem solve. Progressive curriculums established an education that is never confined to the classroom, and the knowledge it encourages does not exist in its own right, but for the purpose of engaging morality and producing change. In progressive education, activism thrives because “individual achievement is encouraged and rewarded, [but programs first underscore] the value of shared goals and cooperation in mastering difficult tasks” (LREI mission statement.)
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The goal is to help future generations make informed decisions, by fostering debates and a sense of curiosity from a young age. Inquisitiveness in parents and children alike is at the heart of progressive education, because answers will reflect self-aware and realistic thought. For instance, instead of merely teaching students about the constitution, and the purpose of each branch of government, students should be encouraged to use their imagination and see beyond what already exists.
Children are challenged by a problematic world and many of them are expressing significant anxiety about the future. Despite the fact that Generation Z is comprised of activists fighting climate change, racial discrimination, and more, younger members of the generation are notably excluded from political conversations.
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Educational television seldom covers climate change. Broadcast networks are required to air at least three hours of educational programming per week, but few address current events and global politics. Despite the fact that many young children hear snippets on the news and express despair and anxiety about the future, regulations for television content do not comprehensively define what constitutes as educational. Another question arises regarding whether parents need or want help to ease their children into political discussions, and whether requirements for children’s programming are still applicable.
These discrepancies and dilemmas about how to introduce issues of climate change to young children coincide with the fact that most adults are also conflicted and confused. Jeffrey Kluger argues that “For starters, [news of climate change] lacks the absolutely critical component—the “me” component.” Certainly, Kluger does not argue that the human tendency for thinking “short-term” is a decent excuse. However, despite the number of accusations I hear which call adult ignorance “irresponsible,” I am surprised by how little news I see discussing the psychology which leads to ignorance. Kluger’s reference to the imperative “me factor” denotes that few are capable of responding to the abstract image of the world ending. This deep-rooted sense of disbelief should be more fully examined.
I am not defending ignorance, but I believe that there is a need for a greater mutual understanding of those who simply cannot picture floods that are only seen on television screens. How does one balance the necessity of working their day-to-day jobs, and paying bills, with the consequences social inaction will have down the line? In order to inspire communal participation, there needs to be a middle ground that includes and helps people who “care,” but do not know how to reimagine their worldview overnight.
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In a Russian Literature class that I took my sophomore year, we discussed excerpts from Lidiya Ginzburg’s Blockade Diary, her account of the siege of Leningrad during World War II. She emphasizes that fear of hunger superseded her community’s fear of annihilation. Ginzburg’s Diary is less focused on the concrete events of the Blockade, and more concerned with the human perceptions of those events. I will argue that instead of immediately criticizing men and women who can compartmentalize a flood that occurred on the coast, we need to better understand the processes of rationalization which occur in the face of danger. Indeed, trauma during the siege is distinct from the trauma of climate change, but realizing that life-threatening events beget an intricate and diverse range of reactions is necessarily illuminating.
Ginzburg writes about a man who walks along the street during the shelling. Despite the fact that he is at risk, he chooses to go to the canteen for his lunch, and is not frightened, but annoyed that “they won’t even let you have your lunch in peace” (Ginzburg 54). Instead of “being afraid of death, he’s afraid of being stopped on the way and herded into a shelter, to prevent him from hazarding his life. The possibility of being killed is present in this man’s mind, but his immediate sensation is hunger, more precisely the fear of hunger,” (54). Where the experience of dying during an explosion is otherwise abstract and requires the imagination, Ginzburg distinguishes that the fear of starvation is actually known. She writes, “To the extent that fear of death is an emotion, it is subject to all the whims and inconsistencies of emotion” (52). Certainly, one would not anticipate “annoyance” during a siege. And yet, the experience of an eventual wildfire in 2020 might feel harder to imagine than not having food to put on the table.
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I’m tempted to say adults cannot respond to climate change because they cannot think “creatively” enough. Perhaps older generations don’t know how to distinguish invasion by floods from invasion by aliens. Humans are complex. Our emotions are strong. Our senses of selves are all-consuming. We are so flawed. And we, as a community, need to address climate change, while understanding that our imaginations are not strong enough to override the more superficial and immediate costs of living. I realize it is ironic to juxtapose survival during World War, and the rationalization of danger in the face of bombs, with environmental issues. However, I believe that today many adults have rationalized climate change in order to survive emotionally. Rather than feel angry toward older generations’ seeming lack of interest or accountability, we need to understand its roots.
The anxiety and depression rising among youth in response to climate change have sparked significant interest and discourse for their age group. I am curious about the psychological process of ignoring climate change that is popular among adults. Where progressive education strives to introduce strong problem-solving skills among students, they present sustainability as a clear and imperative solution.
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Children are taking on a problematic world, but adults have also lived in one. If sustainability in the classroom helps children to become proactive, then what mode of education will apply to older demographics? By observing a historical and psychological landscape, perhaps we can find context for ignorance in order to destabilize it. The pressure to fix the world should not lie in children. We need to understand why the older generations are escaping responsibility and make an effort to change their perspectives.
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