Teaching for uncertain futures - Neville Freeman Agency

viiiPREFACETheir lifestyle patterns will need to be radically overhauledtoo. We would need an area and resources equivalentto almost three planets to support the world populationif everyone lived as middle-class Europeans and NorthAmericans do now.This generation also knows that the global resourceinequalities are so gross that, if unaddressed, they will fuelthe blind striking-out against perceived privilege. There arenow around 22 megacities of more than ten million peoplewhose huge ‘megaslums’ contain nearly a billion people.And with trends like global warming, any natural disasteranywhere (bushfires, earthquake, floods, droughts,tsunamis) will produce a human disaster simply becausethere are more people living where these occur.This is what is in store for the children now in school. Theycan react negatively or creatively to these things. Teachersknow that these children may be the last generation in aposition to save the planet and themselves; that theircapacity to act cooperatively and internationally areessential qualities to be fostered; and that at the very least,their learning programs must show them what the 21stcentury world could be like and how to live successfully,robustly, and happily in it.The question is whether this generation, Generation Y,the students now in school, and their teachers will takeappropriate actions. At the end of Lovelock’s 2007 book, healmost pleads for the teaching profession to put its skills towork. ‘What we need,’ he says, is a ‘manual for living welland for survival’, the quality of its writing such that ‘it wouldserve for pleasure, for devotional reading, as a source offacts, and even as a primary school text.’ He gives a neatsummary of what its contents should be. We need someagency for synthesis and wisdom that does for the presentcentury what the monasteries did for the Middle Ages,Lovelock says. Will 21st century schools do it? It’s a big ask.It’s also an exhilarating one! And we have to admit thatmany of the signs are good.So at this point in history, the role of teachers is morepivotal than it has ever been. One of the most constructivethings we can do, therefore, is to target constructively thequality of teachers. That is why explorations like thosecontained in this book are of such moment, for teachershave the power to foster that creative and invigoratingquality the world needs, namely, hope.