In the autumn of 2020, a large number of Finnish schools took part in the UNESCO Futures of Education campaign, which aimed to gather students’ visions of the 2050: what would they want to see there, and what not? The theme of the campaign touched on children and young people and provided an opportunity to take part in a global debate. What do young people say when they talk about 2050 - and how should adults respond?
Linnunpojat huutavat

Kirjoittajat: filosofian maisteri Anjuli Korhonen ja opetusneuvos Paula Mattila 

Children and young people when thinking of the world tomorrow are plagued by one thing above all others: climate change. They fear it will bereave them of the forests and flowers, breathable air, clean water, the four seasons, and the starry skies, the things they cherish.  They want to live close to “free nature” also when they are adults.

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Lying is just bright cruelty shaded by empathy. In the video of Tuusula High School's Baltic Sea project, high school students describe the effects of indifference and the power of commitment.

The responses to the survey set a global tone of concern as children and young people express their hopes for equality and equity, the strengthening of human rights, the elimination of discrimination, the preservation of linguistic and cultural diversity - and peace. The fear of war keeps repeating in the answers of today's schoolchildren. The question therefore arises, whether children and young people see wars as an inevitable evil they have to face at some point, or whether they can believe in a world free of violent conflicts.

Unexpectedly, school children are not deeply worried about epidemic crises like the corona pandemic: they seem to trust in a solution that will soon be found, it’s just that they should wait for a little while still. Perhaps the causality between epidemics, climate change and the eradication of wildlife is not clear to children and young people. For the moment, they are entrusting the keys to resolving pandemics into the hands of others.

What else would they trust in the hands of the adults who are running the world today?

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I want, I can - I do!

The perspective of the schoolchildren who answered the survey is naturally that of the young individual: it is here and now. Asked to depict the future, they still hope to see their home as it is now, their parents, their pets - in other words, everything that makes living in the present moment worth living. The students do not write much about their own future activities. Perhaps peeking into the future in 30 years from now is too vague a task? Thirty years is at least twice as much as they have even been alive until now.

Instead of asking young people only what they want and not want in to see in the world in 30 years, we should have asked:

  • Why do you want (not) to have this thing in the future?
  • Why is this not already the case?
  • What is the first step I can take to make this happen?

The knowledge and skills of children and young people are not yet up to everything a member of the adult society can do. Yet they are able to understand the relationships between cause and effect, if then on a smaller scale.

Perhaps the way to mitigating the climate anxiety experienced by young people can be found by a slight change of perspective: a step can only be as big as the person taking it.

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”I can’t live my future without doing anything about it, and not influencing things. I know I can’t make enough of an impact on things alone, but I still do almost everything to make other people aware of the situation on Earth.”

–  From a high school essay in the Futures project

The essence of the quote is probably familiar to many teachers: Change is needed in order to fight the ills of the world, climate change, extinction of nature , but our own resources do not seem to be enough to take on all the responsibilities. And yet, you can set an example – just face it. The will to protect nature is there, but it seems difficult for schoolchildren to grasp any far-reaching means by which it would be realized. Young people seem to be ready to do some recycling, find ways to using renewable energy and many have already switched to a vegetarian diet. What seems to be missing, is mentions about activities in a larger scale, with a social or global dimension.

The sense of responsibility and their readiness to adopt solutions for a more sustainable world is great with children and young people. How could their opportunities for influence be enhanced so that change would extend beyond the home table?

Sustainable operation as a privilege

In terms of advocacy, it must be remembered that globally sustainable action cannot be encouraged on the assumption that all people have the same opportunities to work for it. As Nordic citizens it is much in our power to act sustainably, whereas citizens of a developing country may lack any of such choices. Therefore, it’s vital to have more global cooperation, school-to-school and pupil-to-pupil assignments to better understand the interdependence of sustainability issues.

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Technology and e.g. artificial intelligence are mentioned in several campaign responses as a major factor shaping the future. Still, the opportunities offered by technology and by a technological mindset seem to be missing in the discussion. In the eyes of children and young people, entire populations are being micro-chipped, time travel is possible and artificial intelligence is evolving to be smarter than humans. A brave new world awaits the brave. By whom will it be constructed?

Although the material gathered from the Futures of Education campaign is not sufficient for exhaustive conclusions, there seems to be a significant difference between how the youngsters seem to almost yearn for nature conservation on the one hand, and on the other, seem to lack interest towards technological change. Technology and technical thinking are based on thought processes that anyone from toddlers to senior citizens can engage in: craftsmanship, spatial perception, and creativity.

A number of solutions to climate change and nature conservation can even be found in such thinking. Knowledge, skills and, in particular, experience related to repairment and construction skills are an important part of, for example, the implementation of the circular economy. Therefore, sustainability thinking also needs its technical perspective. An attitude towards sustainability encourages the experimentation and internalisation of different skills and independent solutions - those that have previously been entrusted to others and whose climate effects have thus not been understood.

 

Insight –  a view from the new to the old

Intellectual idleness often makes one think that technical proficiency only arises in lessons in the STEM subjects and exercises related to them. Technical know-how is more about creative problem solving as well as mastering the technologies required for its implementation. It is about perceiving different rules and structures and seeing the possibilities of creating something new at their borders. Various techniques can be internalized in the exercise of any subject through equipment maintenance, in using social media for joint learning, and in depicting how things work and picturing one's own formulas. The most innovative solutions and learning insights may emerge from combining paradigms of thought from different subjects and their disciplines, such as using spatial perceptual skills to fix problems in a craft project or building interaction by way of ethics in a physical education class.

Examples of enhanced technical thinking in the daily lives of children and young people

  • repair and refashion clothing
  • use a variety of tools, pens and cutlery (dexterity in relation to spatial perception)
  • maintain or pimp bikes
  • make use of the services of a tailor or a shoemaker and other maintenance experts (to really understand what is wrong and how a professional would fix it)
  • regularly clean one’s computer of dust (understanding the integrity of components and the subtleties of dust cleaning)
  • build and develop one’s own social media and apply different ways of communicating depending on the application or media (e.g. Whatsapp vs. email applications)
  • plan one’s own routes without constantly checking the phone (spatial perception, planning)
  • decorate rooms/spaces.
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The Futures of Education campaign has shown that children and young people are not only aware of global threats but also inclined to commit to combating them. Their knowledge and skills are still evolving, but their enthusiasm, concern or feelings should not be underestimated. What could be derived from the survey – and what we know -  one of the greatest resources of children and young people as compared to adults is their capacity to show empathy. In the future, the responses to the campaign call for large-scale equity, for basic needs to be met regardless of human characteristics, for nature to no longer be endangered and for animals to live in freedom and without pain.

It is worth observing to what kind of beings young people are addressing their empathy right now. Their compassion extends beyond the human-centered conception of reality. Based on the responses in the campaign, the authors of this article would like to ask:

  • At what point do people lose their empathy for those who are not similar to them?
  • At what stage does the welfare of nature and animals become secondary to the realization of human desires?

”For in the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught.”

– Baba Dioum, Senegalese ecologist

Climate change will not be stopped by the circular economy alone. Real sustainable development requires mental and emotional development. It’s easy to label the empathy we feel for animals as childish or even ridiculous: a fluffy little kitten evokes our sense of protection precisely because it’s fluffy and small.

Empathy, in all its simplicity, is about the ability to empathize with the position and situation of another. We experience empathy when we see in another being the same feelings of desire for life, pain, fear, and enthusiasm that we recognize in ourselves. It is fundamentally contradictory to claim that the basic issues in life do not affect certain people or beings or, worse, that other individuals do not deserve the same compassion as others because of they are different from us. Therefore, the empathy for animals as felt by young children is not something that we should let be smashed in the process of ​​maturation - even if there is a sense of sweetness behind it that does not fit into the world where efficiency is everything.

On the contrary, all empathy, especially in those tender glimpses we can see in a child, must be nurtured, nourished, and ultimately harnessed behind big, equal decisions – precisely those decisions and commitments without which we will not survive till 2050. Empathy is never an indication of weakness, childishness, or stupidity. It is a superpower from which we can all learn and from which everyone will inevitably benefit.

So let's rise higher together – all the way to the level of a child.

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This paper deals with the thoughts of children and young people about the year 2050. However, it does not only carry their voices, but is mixed with a cacophony as the reports from schools have each been put together by individual teachers; and further on, it has been significantly shaped by the perspectives and interpretations of the author of the original Futures of Education report and the editor of this article.

Both interpreters point out that in order for the real voice of children and young people to be heard, interpreters are not needed in between. In order for you, as a teacher and educator, to make your learners’ wishes, concerns, opportunities, and dreams visible, give them a chance to fill the space with them.

Take stock of your students’ knowledge of today as a resource for the future by bringing future skills into your teaching and education, into the everyday life of your school and college, and into - yourself.

Schools’ solutions to handle Futures of Education campaign
The Futures of Education campaign was implemented in schools in a variety of ways. You can seek inspiration from these ways and ask your own learners: what should the world look like in the future and how do you get there?

Future of The Futures of Education

The Futures of Education Campaign is culminating in a set of global webinars led by the Paris UNESCO ASPNet Schools Office in March – April, 2021. Finland is taking the messages as they have been described in this article to the audiences of those webinars.

In Finland, the students and teachers who participated in the Campaign, meet at a webinar hosted by the National Agency for Education on 20 April, 2021 to make plans for the advancement of futures thinking in schools.

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