“School Strike for Climate”: High School Students Are Shaking Up the Agenda
“I want them to put aside their own interests and focus on the climate”: with this call to world leaders at COP 24 in December 2018 and then at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2019, the young activist Greta Thunberg became the icon of a generation of young people demanding radical change in environmental policies.
Sylvain Wagnon, University of Montpellier
In Davos, Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish activist behind the school climate strikes, joins Swiss high school students. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP
In August 2018, this 16-year-old Swedish high school student began protesting outside the Swedish Parliament, and has been going on strike every Friday ever since to demand swift political action in the face of threats to the planet’s stability.
Through her personal commitment and her outspoken criticism of adults’ inaction, she has highlighted the younger generations’ clear understanding of the risks posed by global warming. It is no coincidence, in fact, that her message resonated immediately in Australia, a country already experiencing the consequences of climate change.
The urgency of action
Through her activism, Greta Thunberg has also pioneered a unique and unprecedented form of action. This school strike serves both as a wake-up call regarding the urgent need for climate action and as a statement about the importance of education. Is this merely a protest? The name “fridaysforfuture” seems more like a call for awareness than a nihilistic act.
Nevertheless, Greta Thunberg asks, “Why should we study for a future that will soon no longer exist, when no one is doing anything to save it?” Knowledge is the future, but it is through action that we can save the planet.
The "Youth For Climate" marches have become an international phenomenon, attracting growing numbers of participants across Europe—from Scandinavia to Switzerland, and including the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. At the same time, School Strike 4 Climate, the school strike movement, is spreading Greta Thunberg’s call for a global school strike on March 15, 2019.
In France, climate marches have been overshadowed by the “yellow vest” movement, which has dominated public discourse since November 2018. The situation in France may even seem paradoxical, with the yellow vests seemingly prioritizing “making ends meet before the end of the world” while young people emphasize that their own future will only have meaning if the planet still exists.
Beyond the curriculum
These strikes challenge the educational system on several levels. First, they represent a mobilization of “young people” and teenagers in their capacity as high school students. Their actions aim to assert the importance of their role in society: they are the future of our societies, and the future of our planet is their future. Second, these protests highlight the inaction or sluggish response of government officials on environmental issues.
Since 2005,Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been integrated into public school curricula, helping students understand the complexity of the world in its scientific, ethical, and civic dimensions. Yet this education falls far short of the urgency of an ecological transition. In November 2010,UNESCO published its action plan to address climate change through education. Yet school strikes, while embracing the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals published by the United Nations in 2015, are disrupting the planned agenda.
Given their unique nature, aren’t school strikes a catalyst for genuine awareness, with the school strike becoming the equivalent of a hunger strike, and knowledge a necessity for survival, just like food? It is education as a means of emancipation that is also being called into question. How can we make education a tool for social transformation and for individual and collective emancipation? How can we reconcile the need to think with the need to act?
Beyond education on sustainable development, some young people seem to have found their own way to protest and hold those in power accountable.
Sylvain Wagnon, Professor of Education, Faculty of Education, University of Montpellier
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.