Teachers today face multifaceted challenges, from pupil mental health concerns to seasonal illness and resource shortages. Amidst these demands, climate change education often remains on the periphery of the school agenda. The UK primary curriculum currently lacks explicit content on climate change, with minimal provision in the secondary science and geography curricula, leaving a handful of dedicated educators to carve out time for this critical topic.
Having visiting hundreds of schools during my career in education, I see a growing ‘educational relevance inequality’. Independent schools have the freedom to explore global, technological and climate-aware curricula, while the state-maintained sectors struggle with staff shortages and an overly prescriptive national curriculum.
Young people rise up
There are growing calls from young people themselves to have climate issues addressed in schools (e.g. Togneri, 2022). At the start of 2024, Oxford University Press announced that ‘climate change’ was the 2023 children’s word of the year. As the direct impacts of climate change (e.g. flooding in the UK) draw increasingly near, children are feeling the change and asking questions. Many teachers are therefore faced with the task of answering existential questions, without inducing further anxiety. All this under the ever present pressure of exam preparation.
With 72% of young people in the UK believing that the ‘future is frightening’ (Hickman et al. 2021), this is not something we can continue to ignore. If we brush these questions aside, there is a risk that young people will seek answers online, falling prey to misinformation. More to the point, we risk inflicting further psychological harm when children’s questions and concerns are dismissed or disregarded (Hickman et al. 2021). There is something particularly invalidating at being told ‘not to worry’ about changes we can see and feel at every turn.
Teachers need the time and space to address climate education and wellbeing in the classroom. But this is more than a curriculum and resourcing issue, teachers also need help to navigate this sensitive space, and that starts with their own emotional education and support.
The teacher’s dilemma
Why do some teachers hesitate to address climate change in their classrooms? The reasons are varied. Many educators admit a lack of confidence in answering systemic and scientific questions related to climate change. Some fear upsetting their students, while others worry about ‘opening a can of worms’ (e.g. Norman-Perkins, 2021). They feel ill-equipped to handle another person’s anxiety when they themselves are learning to cope with their own climate distress.
Continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers must include an understanding of the psychology of climate change – how it affects the global picture and how it affects themselves. We all need to understand how fear can affect the mind and how to move through difficult feelings so that they don’t control us or push us into denial.
We can all think back to a time in childhood when a teacher didn’t ‘hear’ our concerns and remember how awful that felt. Perhaps what we’re less familiar with is the experience of an anxious teacher – one who’s own eco-anxieties and fears are set off when a child asks a question about drought leading to food shortages.
The task facing teachers – to delicately ‘hold’ difficult questions, providing age-appropriate truths without themselves becoming overwhelmed is an important and sensitive one. It is not realistic to expect all teachers to intuitively know how to handle this. They will need training in the facts and best practices with children, and they will need support themselves. This is the oxygen mask principle (ironically popularized by the aviation industry)– you ensure that you are ‘ok’ before attempting to help others.
Enter the “Climate Staffroom”
Ask any school teacher about their energy levels and I bet they will share just how hard and emotionally draining teaching is. To outsiders, the long holidays and classroom behaviour depicted in media make it seem like a piece of cake. However, teaching requires to you manage around 30 different needs simultaneously, some of which are upsetting and complex.
When I was teaching, the staffroom was the safe space I’d flop into at lunch to ‘offload’ about a bad lesson, or to pick up strategies from more experienced colleagues. It was a space where our challenges are understood. The challenge of holding space for anxious children, while managing your own anxieties is a big one, requiring the support of colleagues.
Much like a climate café (made popular by Climate Psychology Alliance) I propose regular “Climate Staffrooms” for educators — safe havens for school staff to candidly share their feelings, fears, and uncertainties related to climate change and their teaching. These facilitated groups provide educators with an essential outlet. Here, they can express their doubts, reservations and eco-anxieties without judgment, find solace in shared experiences, and collectively navigate the emotional landscape of the climate and ecological crisis. They are also invite reflection on 'what helps' and solutions, so that educators leave feeling inspired and energised.
Why Climate Staffrooms Matter:
Validation and Empathy: Climate staffrooms validate teachers’ emotions, reinforcing that their concerns are real and shared by peers. This fosters empathy and a sense of community.
Professional Resilience: Participating in climate staffrooms supports resilience. Teachers learn coping strategies, gain insights from colleagues, and develop a stronger emotional foundation to face climate-related challenges.
Preventing Burnout: Teaching is emotionally demanding. Climate staffrooms act as a buffer against burnout, allowing teachers to recharge and find solace in collective support.
Fostering a culture of emotional expression: In normalising spaces for self-reflection and emotional sharing, teachers may bring and model this skill in their classrooms. Teachers can be a powerful role model for children in understanding how to process and share feelings, giving them the message “we’re all in this together”.
Promoting Pupil Wellbeing: When teachers feel supported and emotionally regulated themselves, they are better equipped to contain a child’s anxieties. Rather than outsourcing pupil distress, to ‘therapists’, the best support arises from the familiar faces in the classroom, at the point of learning about these difficult realities.
This approach is a scalable, accessible, and flexible way of addressing the mental health crisis that is set to be exacerbated by climate change. Not only will this reduce the burden on public sector mental health support services, but it will also protect the learning and functioning of our schools as a whole. Anxiety and fear are one of the biggest barriers to learning change and growth –helping people move through difficult feelings is therefore a key driver of the transition to sustainability and climate resilience.
Climate staffrooms are open online every middle monday of the month, 6-7.30pm. Participation is on a voluntary donation basis. Do get in touch info@climatedpsych.com to sign up for available dates.
Dr Louise Edgington, March 2024
Louise is a chartered Educational Psychologist, working on bringing climate wellbeing into education via her independent practice ClimatEdPsych and the British Psychological Society’s Climate and Environment Action Coordinating Group.
Louise consults on national projects for climate wellbeing and eco-anxiety and offers workshops and training for professionals.
References
Department for Education (2022). Sustainability and climate change: a strategy for the education and children’s services systems. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sustainability-and-climate-change- strategy/sustainability-and-climate-change-a-strategy-for-the-education-and-childrens-services-systems
Hickman, C., Marks, E., Pihkala, P., Clayton, S., Lewandowski, R. E., Mayall, E. E., ... & van Susteren, L. (2021). Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey. The Lancet Planetary Health, 5(12), e863-e873. https://doi.org/10.1016/s2542-5196(21)00278-3
Norman-Perkins, T. (2021). Exploring the Climate Emergency: What Does This Mean for Teachers, Climate Education, and the Primary Science Curriculum? [Masters’ dissertation, Durham University]
Togneri, H. (2022) From “powerless and alone” to finding “all the great people who care”: a co-operative inquiry with young people exploring eco-anxiety and constructive ways of coping. [Doctoral thesis, University of Cardiff]
コメント