Young people around the world are rising up for Mother Earth. They are speaking back to political leaders, economic systems and oppressive worldviews which have created the current reality which denies them a promising future. Within education, our learners are grappling with existential concerns – not only academic ones. A recent landmark study exploring eco-anxiety in young people in 10 countries around the world (ages 16-25) determined that concern and distress about the future in the context of government inaction on climate change is having a serious mental health impact on the majority of youth surveyed (Marks et al., 2021). As educators, we must carefully consider the kinds of educational environments we are creating that can support K-12 learners in bringing their whole selves – not only their minds but their emotions, instincts and bodies – to our classrooms. Without nurturing all of who they are and supporting their love and connectedness with the Earth and its relational webs, how could we powerfully support them in facing the challenging and sometimes devastating realities being enacted in their respective communities with purpose, meaning, hope and agency?
The distress of young people exposes the fallacious paradigms that currently drive many of our economic, social, cultural and political systems – namely that we are separate from ecological webs and that our sense of belonging can be found in disembodied, individualized and hierarchical conceptions of the human as distinct from kinship relationships with all of life. The emboldened demands for genuine systems change from young people’s climate justice movements expose the ways that we have harmed our livelihoods, our communities and ourselves when we are indifferent and unconscious of other life forms on this planet. In recognizing their power to make decisions that have a transformative impact on their lives, students can choose to the best of their abilities to live and act with meaning, purpose, empathy, creativity and thoughtfulness in contexts full of uncertainty and complexity, particularly in relation to the climate emergency. Yet it is important to recognize, that learner agency cannot be individualized as the panacea for deeply entrenched social, economic, and cultural dimensions of inequity and injustice that negatively impact well-being. We must look deeply at the root causes of the issues facing us, and be animated rather than frightened by the paradigm shifts being asked of us during this time.