First mate environmentalism

Introduction

The current era of education – now nearly 50 years old – is on the cusp of change, it is soon going to give way to a new one. The status quo is neither sustainable, nor fit for purpose, it is outdated and outmoded, doubt and disillusion are rife. Exactly when the transition to a new era takes place is very difficult to predict. It could start this year and be completed within the decade. It might, however, start in five, six, or even ten years’ time.

The timing of the revolution (for that is what it is) is dependent on how quickly those in power warm to a new and workable vision of a new education system. This, in turn, is dependent on the efforts and efficacy of thought leaders, campaigners, and lobbyists.

In this paper, we make the case for a first mate environmentalism approach to pursuing education system change. We flesh out what we mean by this term, explain why we think environmentalists should adopt a ‘first mate’ role, and recommend four key, near term, campaign tactics we – as the environmental movement – need to focus on.

Global Action Plan's changemaking cycle

Global Action Plan follows a five-stage changemaking cycle. Flowing from the ‘identify why and how systems need to change’ stage, we seek to mobilise those engaged in the movements we are part of so that, as a collective, we can influence decision makers.

Systemic change results from the pressure and mandate created by the momentum the movement has generated. Policy interventions that lock change in are then possible and secured. The emergent ‘new’ or transformed system – the behaviours and beliefs it gives birth to – must then, again, be critiqued and analysed. The cycle thus renews.

This collection represents step one in the changemaking cycle illustrated above; we have set out why we think the education system is on the cusp of change,² and our thoughts on why the current education system is problematic³ and the direction it may need to now go in.⁴ Step one will, we hope, help us with step two: we want to bring organisations and people – you – along on this journey with us. Then, together, we can get started on step three, a determined effort to influence decision makers – through advocacy, campaigns, and lobbying – to create the conditions for the systemic changes in the education system that will underpin the wider systemic changes that are now so necessary.

The role of 'first mate'

The new era of education will, inevitability, be a ship that is built as it sails. That ship is already edging away from the harbour wall. We, the environmental movement, need to pay attention. We need to send a healthy contingent of activists and campaigners to the harbour wall now, and we need them to jump on board the ship ASAP. If we don’t, we will end up – late to the party – on a very crowded main deck, and nowhere near those with their hands on the tiller. If we arrive even later, we will miss the boat entirely (as we have before) and be left behind in the choppy water, clutching desperately at lifebuoys – if any are thrown.

Getting on board early is essential, but the role we assume once there is what’s critical. So, what should that role be? This is the question we seek to answer here.

Firstly, we can say with some certainty that, even if we boarded first, we will not be the ones with our hands on the tiller when the ship leaves port: it will not be out-and-out environmentalists who shape the new era of English education. The environmental sector is neither powerful, influential, nor – sadly – respected enough, to play such a role. But, how close can we get to those who will be setting the course?

Right now, the role we look most likely to assume, is the one we have always defaulted to. We will be down on a crowded main deck calling out to whoever will listen for ‘more climate education’, ‘more outdoor learning’, ‘more natural history’, ‘more eco-clubs’, ‘more solar panels’. None of these calls should be dismissed, but if we want to secure the place – and more importantly the outcomes – of environmental and/or sustainability education in the new era of education, we may be wiser to pursue a different role.

As the good ship ‘new era’ sets sail, a contest is underway. Different factions are vying for the role of Captain. It is a battle of ideas; the system change recommendations of, for example, the Times Education Commission⁵ differ markedly from those offered up by the National Education Union⁶, or by a thought leader like Professor Guy Claxton.⁷ As the ship is built and the battle ensues, some ideas will float to the top, while others will be thrown overboard. These ideas are those that are endlessly debated around the big three - curriculum, pedagogy, assessment - but also include a long list of important broad and specific issues, such as accountability, governance, power, behaviour, attendance, recruitment and retention, as well as matters surrounding safeguarding, wellbeing, technology, SEND, colonialism, equality, and equity.

Today, the ideas that prevail - around the big three especially - have left us with an education system that is resistant to environmental education. It barely lets it in; it is even, perhaps – in some quarters – entirely ignorant of it. Environmental educators have, in response, bent and twisted their practice to jimmy themselves into schools. As a consequence, meaningful impact is rare and highly localised. There are two main reasons for this:

• Firstly, the approaches that are possible within the constraints of today’s system are compromised versions of what effective environmental and sustainability education actually is.

• Secondly, the environmentalist’s message is drowned out by the tidal wave of explicit and implicit messages that reinforce the values and norms of a consumer capitalist society – so, while a brilliant, no holds barred, workshop on the climate and ecological crisis can cause a splash when it lands in a school, it is more often than not, a drop in a very large ocean that causes only minor ripples, not waves, and definitely not a tsunami.

As environmentalists, after decades of being resigned to the fact that the education system will seemingly forever be resistant to environmental education, the prospect of a new era brings with it the tantalising possibility of a radically new education system that might, at last, be receptive.

Nothing, however, is certain.

Change is on the way, but it will not happen just because we hope for it; and when it comes, there is also no guarantee it will change for the better. As broken as it is, today’s education system may well limp on for another decade. The system is on the rocks, but is not done yet, it needs to be sunk. Likewise, a radically new – and receptive – education system will only rise if enough momentum is built, and built around an inspiring, yet practical, fresh vision. Change requires effort. If momentum for the education system we want isn’t built, today’s education system could easily end up morphing into something equally, or even more inappropriate for the needs of future generations and the environmental challenges that they are growing up with. 

The task, therefore, for environmentalists – on the cusp of a new era – is not to stand on the sidelines of the existing education system shouting for ‘more climate education’, but no significant change; that will not suffice. The task is to push for systemic change, but how? We need to find our role and choose our campaigning strategy wisely. 

This paper makes the case for choosing the role of ally: ‘first mate’. We will carry out this role over three phases, and the work starts now:

•  As we board the ship, we will pick out the would-be Captains (the thinkers, activists, and influencers) who are pledging – should they get their hands on the tiller – to design and deliver an education system that (a) complements (rather than contradicts) environmentalism, and (b) is receptive (rather than resistant) to environmental and sustainability education.

• As the ship leaves port, we must become a ‘first mate’ to our favoured would-be Captains, and do whatever we can to ensure they get their hands on the tiller. 

• Then, as the voyage gets underway and we start to sail the high seas, our role is to consul and support our Captain, helping them to navigate a course and keep the New Era afloat. 

This is first mate environmentalism. 

Four key tasks for the First mate environmentalist

To recap, taking on the role of ‘first mate’ in a campaign to transform the education system will require us, as environmentalists, to put down (initially at least) our ‘MORE ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION’ placards. We cannot afford to be single issue-ist in this moment. We will need to show up instead as a loyal and powerful ancillary force to those who do have real influence. We must help them usher in an education system that promotes forms of curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and accountability, that align with the very best forms of environmental education and action.

First mate environmentalism is a new idea, and not yet fully formed, it is not a campaign strategy – that will follow, and we would like to work with you on it. Here, we propose the four ‘first mate’ tasks we have thus far identified, and are already starting to implement at Global Action Plan:

1. Soften up the existing system;

2. Amplify the calls and proposals of our allies;

3. Shift the Overton Window;

4. Leverage the climate and ecological crisis.

These tasks need to be pursued simultaneously, it is a heavy workload, which is why we must work together. A ship rarely has just one first mate, they have several, each with their own speciality.

i. Softening up the existing system

Pointing out fault is easy when the error is glaring (and there are plenty of glaring errors in our current education system). To soften up the system there is a need to critique it in a committed, strategic, and coordinated way. Here we’re advocating a little and often approach via social media – the goal being to sew doubt and disillusion across the sector thereby weakening the system’s resistance to further pressure and hastening its demise. Although it is a legitimate tactic, it isn’t necessarily a comfortable thing to be doing, especially when one has chosen to do it in a systematic way. It is uncomfortable because of the inevitable human-element, and because doubt and disillusion – when it becomes endemic – is demoralising for those who are teaching, learning and administrating in the here and now. It must therefore be done as ethically as possible, with caution, and with great humanity.

When the error or dysfunction is less obvious, pointing out fault is harder, but an absolute necessity. This is specialist work, often journalistic, sometimes involving whistleblowers.* This work can be very labour intensive but can uncover deep systemic faults and emerging hidden trends. These are the stories that have the potential to topple Secretaries of State, they might even catalyse the end of an era.

*Warwick Mansell is a master at this, you can follow his work at Education Uncovered

Finally, there are research studies and reports that draw on surveys, focus groups, government data, and direct observation. This work is conducted by independent commissions, think thanks, NGOs, Universities, and other research institutions. Reports of this nature vary in terms of scope and quality, some look at the education system with a wide lens, while others zoom in on a specific issue such as numeracy, SEND, physical infrastructure, teacher wellbeing, or eco anxiety. Whilst research and reports of this nature can highlight positive trends, they are often conducted as ways to test hypotheses and reveal ways in which the education system is failing and used as a springboard for the publication of proposals and recommendations on how the system can be improved.

The role of the ‘first mate’ here is to help soften up the education system by, for example, regularly and strategically sharing and citing stories of system failure, and by conducting and publishing insightful research and reports.

ii. Amplifying the calls and proposals of our allies

Many, probably most, environmentalists – environmental educators especially – are sympathetic to the ideas and recommendations of the thought leaders of progressive education. Although we might wish they engaged more deeply in climate and nature issues, they are often – pedagogically and philosophically – natural bedfellows. Their ideas resonate because many of their core values and goals resonate with ours, and because the changes to the education system they advocate for would enable environmental education and youth social action to thrive. As campaigners, in a first mate role, we should share and spread their calls and proposals, helping them to reach and inspire wider audiences. Doing this also helps coalesce the movement for change, so that the environmental education sector joins with other education sub-sectors to become a united front.

We can find allies too in the world of politics, journalism, think tanks, teaching unions, education NGOs, and parent groups. Calls for change are being made right across the education sector. We may not agree with everything a group or individual is saying, but if they are influential and have calls (major or minor) that align with the changes we seek, we must echo those calls to help them gain traction. For example, General Secretary of the NEU, Daniel Kebede, has used his platform to make strong calls for increased teacher autonomy.⁸ He doesn’t mention the environment while making these calls, but it is still a call an environmentalist could be amplifying. 

The environmental education movement is already in the habit of amplifying the calls and proposals of our allies, think for example of how many times environmentalists have shared the work and speeches of Sir Ken Robinson over the last two decades. We did this because we recognised that an education system that values imagination and creativity is an education system more likely to deliver outcomes that we environmentalists value. What the environmental education sector has been less in the habit of doing is sharing the reports and recommendations of less prominent thinkers or organisations. We could, for example, be amplifying the recommendations of the IPPR report cited in the ‘on the cusp of change’ essay in this collection – especially given how positive an impact greater teacher autonomy⁹ could have on young people and their preparedness for the future.   

iii. Shifting the Overton Window

In ‘Beyond Schooling’, David H. Hargreaves declared, like many others, that the current education system is failing.¹⁰ He was less optimistic about the chances of it being replaced, arguing that the markets, centralisation and managerialism era has become highly resilient to change. In his book, subtitled ‘an anarchist challenge’, Hargreaves builds towards a remarkable new imaginary, but cautions thus:

“Every education and schooling imaginary is embedded in a wider social imaginary that largely shapes it. It is true that a schooling system can in turn reshape society, often in ways that were neither intended nor anticipated, but I believe, to the disappointment of many past and present school reformers, that a radical change in the dominant educational imaginary is rarely possible without some significant change in the wider social imaginary.”

As explored elsewhere in this collection,¹¹ a paradigm shift in how human nature is understood is underway. This represents a potentially very ‘significant change in the wider social imaginary’. But this is not the only shift that is underway. As society grapples with the fall out of late-stage Neoliberalism, which is potentially also late-stage Capitalism, ideas on how to organise the economy that were previously quite fringe are gaining traction fast. Academics calling for Universal Basic Income, Doughnut Economics and Degrowth are no longer being ignored, their social-economic imaginaries are gaining popularity and being taken seriously. In the five years since Hargreaves published his book, social science, economics, and politics have moved on making significant change to the wider social imaginary a more distinct possibility. 

The new imaginary for education that Hargreaves proposes is undoubtedly radical. He built on his earlier calls for a significantly decentralised education system formed around a SISS (self-improving school system) model.¹² In ‘Beyond Schooling’ Hargreaves is breaking free from the education establishment, which he had been, in his own words absorbed and frustrated by for the first decade of this century. His proposal for the future of education draws on anarchist perspectives to call for an education system that is significantly less centralised to what exists today. He describes it as ‘an imaginary that prizes education over schooling’. Hargreaves calls for a greater emphasis on home education, where learners ‘learn the art of self-managed learning’. He rallies against age-grading, he cites it as a cause of ‘even the main one’ of the growth of youth cultures and fashions, with huge pressures to peer conformity that are often the source of so much distress. 

Pertinent here is the radical nature of Hargreaves’ proposal. By positing it, he is making less radical, though nonetheless still revolutionary, proposals look measured in comparison. First mate environmentalists can follow Hargreaves’ example. By proposing creative and far-reaching visions, we can shift the Overton window, thereby coming to the aid of the good ship New Era’s would-be captains, whose proposals we make look restrained.

iv. Talk to would-be captains about climate change

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has declared that: ‘Climate breakdown has begun.’¹³ If it is allowed to continue to worsen, it will profoundly change the world, and not for the better. Only radical and rapid transformation of existing economic, political, and societal structures can now prevent this. 

Despite growing awareness of this climate reality – and the twin horror of irreversible ecological breakdown – World Leaders (in politics and business) continue to pursue strategies of modest, incremental, delayed, or illusory change. The evidence clearly shows that these definitively non-radical approaches are taking the planet to the brink of disaster.^14,15,16,17

Humanity faces a choice: radically change the way we run our economies and societies so that the worst effects of climate and ecological breakdown can be avoided; or, suffer the radical changes that climate and ecological breakdown will inflict.  

Global Action Plan is working for a green and thriving planet where people enjoy their lives within the Earth’s limits. This future is possible but threatened. Radical changes are urgently required – including to the education system. Too few education thought leaders have grasped how advanced climate change now is, nor have they realised how sweeping the social and economic change needs to be if global heating is to be constrained to the upper limit of well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels. 

In the role of ‘first mate’ alongside the captains who are setting the course of the third great post-WWII era of education, we must communicate to them the reality and urgency of climate crisis. If we don’t, who will? And, if we don’t, climate and ecological crisis will not be given the consideration it deserves as new education system purposes and structures are drawn up.   

Conclusion - an opportunity not to be missed

The new education system is coming. There is an opportunity now to help shape it. As a ‘first mate’ to those would-be captains who hope to lead our young people into a new era, we can help create a system that is receptive to environmental education. If our chosen would-be captains do end up with their hands on the tiller, the role of first mate will continue, but in a new form. The task, once the new era is underway will be to consul the captain, guiding and supporting them to chart a safe course through the ocean of uncertainty that lies ahead.

In ‘Power, Purpose, and Preparation in the English education system’,¹⁸ we look at today’s education system in more detail and begin building the case for a new one. Combined with the provocative vision we set out in the case for ‘A Three Thirds Curriculum’,¹⁹ this is Global Action Plan in the role of ‘first mate’, we are doing the softening up, we’re amplifying the calls of our allies, and we’re shifting the Overton window.

If you'd like to talk to us more about the opportunities for change in the education system, please get in touch: [email protected]

References

1. Robinson and Robinson (2021) Imagine if.., Penguin, UK

2. Global Action Plan (2024) On the cusp of change

3. Global Action Plan (2024) Power, Purpose and Preparation in the English education system

4. Global Action Plan (2024) A three thirds curriculum – a vision for education in England

5. The Times Education Commission

6. The National Education Union (2024) Campaigns

7. Professor Guy Claxton

8. Kebede, D. (2023) Teachers must resist the squeeze on their autonomy, Schools Week

9. Global Action Plan (2024) Power, Purpose and Preparation in the English education system

10. Hargreaves, D.H. (2019) Beyond Schooling – An Anarchist Challenge, Routledge, UK

11. Global Action Plan (2024) On the cusp of change

12. Hargreaves, D.H. (2010) Creating a self-improving school system, National College for leadership of schools and children’s services

13. United Nations (2023) Press release Secretary General: Climate Breakdown Has Begun with Hottest Summer on Record, Secretary-General Warns, Calling on Leaders to ‘Turn Up the Heat Now’ for Climate Solutions

14. United Nations (2021) Paris climate deal could go up in smoke without action: Guterres

15. United Nations (2019) NUN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’

16. United Nations (2020) Rising inequality affecting more than two-thirds of the globe, but it’s not inevitable: new UN report

17. WWF (2022) Living Planet Report 2022

18. Global Action Plan (2024) Power, Purpose and Preparation in the English education system

19. Global Action Plan (2024) A Three Thirds Curriculum