High Ranked Schools are Failing Their Students
Here in Westchester County, many parents believe that the goal of a good high school is to get kids accepted into a top-notch college of their choice. This week’s global climate strike was a reminder that nothing really matters in a world where climate chaos is here and extinction is a very real possibility. By not telling the truth, we are dooming our kids to failure.
As Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg says, school doesn’t really matter if the grown ups are letting us down.
I live in one of those highly-rated school districts in which a large number of students take multiple AP courses and 98% of graduates attend a four-year college. The real estate value of homes in these school districts are directly connected to these stats. We assume that college attendance is some sort of magical measurement of success. Over the years, I’ve spoken to a number of science teachers off the record about climate change. They have much of the same understanding that I do: our current system cannot be maintained if we are to survive the future. This may sound like an overly dramatic statement, but I’m sorry to be the one to tell you that you’ve been fed a steady diet of comfortable lies for many many years. Its time to tell the truth: we are in deep, deep trouble. Business as usual is not going to fix the mess we are in.
Being a science nerd myself, I always made a point to chat with my kid’s science teachers as they made their way through the K-12 system. Many of them confided to me that they were holding back on information about climate change due to political constraints in their job. No one was ready to go “rogue” and tell the kids climate reality. Their job was to stick to the script: the sanctioned curriculum.
I’ll bet your kids did well in their AP courses. By that, I mean they excelled on the AP test that they took to demonstrate their proficiency. They were fed information designed to do well on that test. Project-based learning is not part of the AP environmental science curriculum. Is test performance a good measure of learning? Are our kids being prepared to deal with real world problems?
Do we do our kids a favor when we sugar coat the inconvenient truths about environmental degradation? Sadly, most grown ups are also drinking this green Kool-aid, thinking that small changes will make a difference. When a building is on fire, you don’t take baby steps to the exit, you run. The fire has been smoldering and growing for many many years. We’ve been pouring gas on that fire, both literally and figuratively. With mythology that natural gas is clean, safe and a bridge fuel to a clean energy future.
While the current occupant of the White House is clearly unconcerned with environmental issues and chooses corporate profits over environmental responsibility every time, let’s not kid ourselves that previous presidents were green heroes. They were not. I wasn’t doing any happy dances for President Obama’s Clean Power Plan which was fracked gas intensive, paving the way for 300 gas-fired power plants along with their required infrastructure. Meanwhile, the science shows us that natural gas leaks everywhere from the well head to the gas furnace and stove in your home. This fugitive methane is 80 times worse than CO2, making gas far worse than coal when it comes to climate chaos. And we haven’t talked about water yet. Fracking creates irreversible damage to aquifers. This eight year infatuation with fracked gas of the previous administration has done irreversible destruction and has put us closer to the point of no return.
The way to solve a problem is to first admit that there is one. That inconvenient truth will put you in despair. That is something that should not be avoided. It is time to wake up, freak out and then get a grip. It is much later than you think.
