[00:00:15] Jon M: I’m Jon Moscow.
[00:00:31] Amy H-L: And I’m Amy Halpern-Laff. Welcome to Ethical Schools. Our guests today are Tom Roderick, Jan Zuckerman, and Graham Klag. Mr. Roderick is a teacher, writer, and education activist in New York City who retired in 2019 after 36 years as the founding executive director of Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility.
Today, we’ll be discussing Tom’s most recent book, “Teach for Climate Justice: A Vision for Transforming Education.” Jan Zuckerman is co-founder and principal of Sunnyside Environmental School, a K-8 school in Portland, Oregon, and Graham Klag is an alum of Sunnyside Environmental School. Welcome Tom, Jan, and Graham.
[00:01:22] Tom B: [inaudible] be here.
[00:01:25] Jon M: Why Climate Justice?
[00:01:26] Jan Z: Are you asking anybody?
[00:01:28] Jon M: Anybody? I guess Tom, since that’s the title of his book, but I think all of you would probably have things that you’d like to say about it.
[00:01:35] Tom B: Yeah. I can begin. Climate justice because this whole economy that we’ve had for over 200 years, based on fossil fuels, is inextricably tangled with injustice.
Fossil fuels took off with the invention of the steam engine back in 1750 to mark the beginning of the industrial revolution. And the steam engine sent ships all over the world to extract fuel, cut down forests, mine minerals, and exploit people. The forms that took colonialism and slavery. And so from the beginning, the fossil fuel economy has been based on injustice. And as we realize that it’s no longer sustainable and that we need to undergo a major transformation, that has to be a transformation in terms of justice, end to racism and to colonialism and to treating the environment as just a source of unlimited commodities to serve humans, mainly in the wealthy countries of the North.
[00:03:00] Amy H-L: Would anyone like to add something?
Graham K
Yeah. It is been interesting. I’m a restoration ecologist now, and a lot of the work I do, I see as a reaction to some of the injustices that have gone on for too long. And, you know, when I think about fossil fuels. I learned back, I think about back to geology and learning that even, you know, some of the plants that were around that created the fossil fuels we have, the only reason they were created was due to the fact that there wasn’t something to break them down yet. So it’s a very unique moment in time that I think we’re extracting a lot of energy from that time.
And now we live in a new time with new energies. And I think trying to see ourselves as part of this system as opposed to using it up and moving on to the next part of the system. I think what we’re all trying to figure out and get a better handle on so that we can get back to some of the Indigenous teachings and things that have been really around for a long time and have always been there to learn from. However, this new, more dominating way has been kind of the archetype that I think we’re seeing the final end product of right now.
[00:04:11] Jon M: You know, as I was reading the book, which I really liked, it struck me that the connection between, you know, environmentalism and saving the planet and everybody who depends on it from climate disaster and social justice seems just very, very intuitive. But I can imagine that for a lot of people, it might not be intuitive, that there could be people who are focused on the environment, but sort of say, well, we have to do that. And yes, social justice is important, but they don’t see the connection. Or people who say well, right now I’m totally focused on social justice. I’ll deal with the environment later on, and I’m just curious if any of you have had to have conversations with people where you’ve had to explain why you see the two as being inextricably linked, where it hasn’t been self-evident to people.
[00:05:08] Jan Z: Well, I’m just thinking about all of the organizations that I work with here in Portland now as a climate activist. And for a long time there was a, a separation, you know, really, between kind of environmentalists that are “we need to do this and this is how we’re gonna do it.” And then folks really working on social justice issues, on just trying to survive day to day in their communities. Where’s the food gonna come from? Where, where’s rent gonna come from? How do I get transportation? And now these things are really, I’m seeing, really coming together in Portland because people have learned to take a step back, listen, and then just years of building trust and, and seeing how those issues are interwoven.
We’ve made a lot of headway and learning about how to approach it and really listen to the voices of the people most impacted. And then also how do we use our power that we have for those of us that maybe aren’t as impacted? So how do we move together? And I think that’s where we’re at right now.
[00:06:15] Amy H-L: Tom, who’s the book’s primary audience?
[00:06:20] Tom B: Educators. I felt that, you know, here we have global warming, environmental degradation, huge inequality, and it’s leading us to disaster. And the schools are paying little attention to it. And that’s no accident, because the powers that be would rather keep the young people ignorant so that they will continue to support the business as usual when they come of age. And we cannot afford for that to happen. And schools need to not only educate about the climate crisis, but need to go beyond that to educate for a world of climate justice, educate for a new world that addresses both climate and justice issues. In other words, a world of climate justice.
I define climate justice as a world in which human activity has come back into harmony with nature. And human wellbeing is a reality, not just for some, but for all. You know, at this point, for instance, there are 2 billion people in the world who don’t have safe water to drink.
[00:07:49] Jon M: Tom, much of your professional background has been in promoting the importance of social-emotional learning. What’s the connection between that and teaching for climate justice?
[00:08:00] Tom B: The connection is that the events that are unfolding raise lots of strong feelings in all of us. A recent Education Week survey showed that 37% of teenagers are very anxious about the climate crisis, that they fear what that’s going to mean for their futures, and many of them feel hopeless to do anything about it. So the foundation for educating them about the climate crisis is to help them develop ways of handling the feelings that are going to come up and channeling those feelings through action into positive and life-giving projects and activities. And also that they develop skills in working well with others because they need to do that in order to bring about change. And it’s social-emotional learning with an emphasis on racial equity, so that from the pre-K on, they’re learning how to understand people with backgrounds different from their own and working together with people. My book puts out a comprehensive vision that’s relevant for all ages, pre-K through 12 or even 16, college, right, and is interdisciplinary. So it can’t just be in the science class. It needs to be in interdisciplinary and project-based.
[00:09:45] Amy H-L: Jan, tell us about Sunnyside Environmental School. What does the school’s focus explicitly on environmental education look like?
[00:09:55] Jan Z: Well, gosh, I should let Graham answer some of that, too, because he, he was, you know, such a big part of it.
[00:10:01] Amy H-L: It would be wonderful to hear from both of you.
[00:10:03] Jan Z: And just so you know, I wasn’t the principal, I was a teacher, one of the co-founders, so I just wanted to clarify that, and that Graham was also an alumnus from the Environmental Middle School, from the very first school that we started before it even became Sunnyside Environmental School.
So what does that looks like? Trying to weave in environmental education into every aspect of our curriculum, you know, for learning about westward expansion. What did that mean for place, animals, and plants? And the impact of that and also who was most harmed and who was not, and how that all came to be.
So, for learning about the forest ecology, we’re also then visiting forests. We’re also going to places where they’re doing studies of how to best harvest wood, and we’re visiting, talking to Indigenous folks, and how they use plant-based material. So it’s really just woven into everything. If we’re learning about ancient cultures, we’re learning about how they used their natural environment and how that was woven into their social structure.
So, it was just part of everything we did. We gardened and spent a lot of time outdoors, connecting with nature. I think one of the biggest ,most important things is to connect with nature because when you’re connecting, then you’re loving. You love that place, like, you know, it’s your home and so you want to protect it. A lot of disconnections, I think, cause a lot of, I think, angst and depression in kids nowadays. And adults, we’re all very disconnected. You know, once you get that connection, you also feel better when you’re out in nature. And then when you’re able to then see what’s going on and then apply your, you know, your knowledge to maybe to collect data and to make change, positive change, in that place that you’re connecting and loving, that’s very powerful.
[00:12:06] Jon M: Has it been at all complicated, meshing the kind of experimental and project-based learning, hands-on learning, that you’re doing with Oregon’s, whatever Oregon’s test requirements have been?
[00:12:20] Jan Z: I [inaudible] a storyline. And part of what we do at, at Sunny, well they still continue to do it, at Sunnyside, even though I’m not there anymore, is use storyline method of teaching. And it’s a way to connect kids to whatever their curriculum. It’s a way of, it’s a method of teaching. And I was a teacher trainer for a long time and talking to teachers and, and getting that top down, especially from Portland Public Schools, this pressure to teach everything at the same time to all students has been real. But I think there’s a lot of teachers that are very creative and know how to interweave, you know, to do integrated curriculum. I mean, really, that’s what it is. It’s integrated curriculum. And so if they’re able to feel when they’re doing it, then it’s joyful to teach. When you’re blocking things out, it’s much harder.
So it depends on the school and depends on the teachers, I think. But yeah, it’s definitely challenging. It’s always been challenging. Graham, you want to say something?
Graham K
Yeah, I, I will just say that I probably would not be in the work and position I’m in today had I not been raised in a community of folks and also students who came from all over Portland, from various classes and racial backgrounds. And I think that the compartmentalization that is such a product of our modernity is a real challenge to fight. And I say fight because I think I left EMS at the time and was kind of dropped into a world then where that was not seen as a de facto setting. And so have spent most of my career now trying to think and work interdisciplinary.
I now live in Astoria, Oregon and manage a watershed council as the executive director here. So I’m continually learning how connected many aspects of this environment and system are and trying to recreate that kind of community organizing that I learned, I think, at a young age from Jan and others as to how to really make projects happen. Because I think one of the things about climate change that I’ve observed is that, you know, we’re very critical as a culture, but our ability to think critically can often be stymied by some of that, just being hypercritical of things. And I think seeing yourself as part of the system is one way that this sort of educational structure, whether it’s your storyline and you’re a, I remember, I was a midwife in fifth grade, actually. I had the Civil War storyline with Jeff Cresswell, and that was the first time I was introduced to it. And, you know, I remember that experience and just being able to empathize in a different way by being this character and really living in a community and having events happen that then you had to adapt and respond. And I think that’s one of the things that I feel very fortunate to have a skillset. Hope is a hard thing to have these days, but certainly duty, I think, is something that we can all rally around and that’s where, yeah, I feel as though I was meant to be here. And that’s a point of connection. I really appreciate from people like Jan and others.
[00:15:40] Jon M: Jan and Graham, you’ve both mentioned storyline. Could you tell our listeners what that is?
[00:15:46] Jan Z: Sure. It’s a constructivist method of teaching where you create a setting and then you create characters that live in that setting, that are there, and then incidents that happen to those characters that they need to respond to. And often it’s real life, you know, it’s based on what’s happening around the world. But because their students are creating their own stories and they then they become characters in those stories, then they really, like Graham was saying, you have a different perspective. You’re able to solve problems creatively and put yourself in other people’s shoes. So we did a lot of that, used a lot of that at Sunnyside and at Environmental Middle School when it started.
Graham K
Yeah, and I remember even like moving past human supremacy to being, you know, actual animals or things of that nature, which I think is also another thing that is incredibly important as we’ve continued to see, you know, the sixth extinction move its way down the path. So just kind of, yeah, seeing yourself in other beings too. I found that activity to be a great opportunity.
[00:16:58] Tom B: Hmm. I just wanna underline a couple of things that Jan and Graham said . One is the importance of community. We talk about social-emotional learning. Yes. It’s about learning skills, getting along better with other people, dealing with feelings, but it’s also about creating a classroom and school as a community that people feel part of, as students feel part of it, and feel that it has their back as they try to make sense of the challenging things that are going on in the world.
And the other thing is about the importance of listening. Like, as Jan said, you know, it enabled people who were most concerned about justice issues because maybe they’re having trouble putting food on the table for their families, right and people who are more oriented toward the climate, but to really listen to each other.
I think there’s a nice example in the book about how a young activist from Sunnyside wanted to promote electrification of the buses in Portland and there were young people there who more from the justice side wanted free transportation, free buses, for young people. And they were able to get together and push a combined interest there through the city council.
And that’s another thing Sunnyside did, I think, was to show young people that they had agency and how they could really make things happen if they got together.
[00:18:38] Amy H-L: Yeah. Tom, I love the focus on community. I haven’t heard the word or I hadn’t heard the phrase “beloved community” for quite a few years till I read your book.
[00:18:49] Tom B: Yeah. Thanks.
[00:18:51] Amy H-L: Graham, what year did you graduate from Sunnyside?
Graham K
2001, and we were, it was actually at the Abernathy Elementary School, so we were housed actually within another school at the time. But yeah, 2001. And that would’ve been my segue into the early two thousands. And I remember when I graduated, one of our graduating requirements was we had, I think, to learn 80 native plants of Oregon. And I remember that being still to this day, something I’m very proud of having known at that age .And just having that be kind of the rubric of understanding for the world you’re going into being a, a really, a great thing. So, for the Beloved Community of plants, too.
Graham, did you go off to university after that?
Graham K
Yeah, and I went on to the University of Puget Sound and I continued with my interdisciplinary work. I did a Bachelor of Science in Biology and then a Bachelor of Arts in Art Studio. And so that’s something I’m continuing to work on for my abundant free time. And now I now live in Astoria, and I went to the Evergreen State College and got my master’s in environmental studies there. So, you know, I’ve been trying to find my way through modern academia as best as I can with this interdisciplinary interest.
[00:20:11] Jan Z: I just wanted to mention that Graham is a phenomenal artist and has done some projects with us at the school. And also, when Graham was working at the Forest Park Conservancy, he helped us, or we worked with him, collaborated with him. Graham was doing a study on invasive plants and maybe you want to talk about that, but we went and helped do some surveying of the area.
[00:20:37] Graham C: Yeah, I got a grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council in Portland to do a community art project. Actually, that was the category called Invasion of Place. And it was all about using invasive species and taking urban blandscapes and trying to get people to pay attention to those areas by removing said invasive specie and then making a sculpture collaboratively that was an opportunity to integrate with nature, but also create this object that was symbolic of why it was introduced. So maybe it was a… like, Ivy was an emblem of fidelity, so we made these two female figures that were crossing over and various other things.
Traveler’s Joy was brought into the San Juan Island. So we have two flipped boats that were kind of crossed up as a piece. So, you know, just kind of using creativity and imagination really to deal with some of our less desirable issues is something that I continue to find opportunity and challenge in.
[00:21:38] Jon M: Jen, at one point, students from Portland, from Sunnyside, who were concerned about the survival of wolves did an exchange with ranchers in eastern Oregon who wanted to kill wolves to, as they saw it, protect their animals. Can you talk about that project and how the students responded and what you think they learned from it on both sides?
[00:21:58] Jan Z: Sure. Actually, it’s funny because I just went to Sunnyside earlier in the year and talked to the students there because the kind of, they wanted to know more about what happened. So it’s fresh on my mind. But yeah, as part of our study of westward expansion or social studies study or history, we also looked at that impact on animals. And just about that same time, they were looking at a wolf plan in Oregon to deal with more wolves coming to Oregon. They had to figure out a plan that would meet the needs of ranchers and environmentalists all the folks that are working on conservationists. So, at the time I had a student teacher that used to work with the Fish and Wildlife Department, and so he said, “Hey, you know this is happening right now, so let’s read the plan in depth, see what we can learn about it.” And so we, my students, read the plan, the proposed plan, because it was all there. They were having hearings on the plan.
So we read the plan, we watched videos, we read statements from ranchers and folks in Eastern Oregon and their perspectives. And we really tried to do this balancing of seeing all the different, you know, perspectives. And there were several different hearings held around the state and the closest one to us was in Troutdale, about 20 minutes away. And so our students, based on the proposal of the plan, they wrote testimony just like anybody. And we went and the students testified and they got to hear from people who came from 200 miles away and were very adamant about “We don’t care what the plan is. We’re killing the wolves no matter what.”
And we’re hearing from other ranchers saying this is a good plan or not a good plan. And so we really heard from everyone and then came back to school feeling very excited about that opportunity to be civically engaged and the next day we got word from the superintendent from Portland Public Schools that they had heard from some of the state senators and representatives that I had brainwashed the students and that children should not participate in adult activities and this had nothing to do with their lives and they should have stayed away. And so I had to turn in all my lesson plans to the superintendent. And then one of the students in my class, actually her grandfather, was a state representative. And so he said, I want all of the reflections that the students wrote, and I want all of your lesson plans, and I’m gonna take it to the floor of the House, and I’m going to just spend hours and hours. I’m just gonna read every single thing. And so he spent hours doing that because he, he was really pushing, you know, this idea of civic engagement and the students felt so empowered and they really heard these different perspectives that even though we had learned about ’em, but to hear them firsthand from folks was really powerful.
And what grew out of that is. We had ended up inviting… he was from a, an important person in Grant County and he came out and talked to my students at the whole school. He, he actually addressed the whole school about the idea of perspective and being close to something and far away from something and understanding that. He came and talked to my students and he cried and talked about his experiences just being in a small town, the resources that small rural areas get compared to the big city. And so it was really powerful.
And then we had 4H at our school, at an office. And so one of the 4H directors said, “well, why don’t we take the teachers and go visit Eastern Oregon? “And I said, “I don’t want to take the teachers, I want the students to go. Let’s, let’s try to get the kids out there. “So she spent a long time finding families and that first time we, we went, I went and I was labeled as a wolf activist and it was like leaving the country, it felt like almost to me. And, we ended up staying with families that we met at a church. The families, we all, we had a potluck and then we split up and went and lived with the families and came back together at the church and we all sat in a circle. And some of the families, some of the parents of the families that took in kids, they cried because they had such a good experience.
And the students, I mean, it was just joyous of finding all the commonalities that we had and realizing that kids are kids no matter where they come from and they are naughty or you know, or not so naughty or positive. It was just so beautiful. And then after that, we started doing it every year and it expanded. So it was our urban rural exchange, and a few times students from other places in Oregon came to Portland. But mostly we went out to rural areas. It was beautiful.
[00:27:07] Jon M: What impact did it have on the students’ views and or on the rancher families’ views? In addition to people feeling a sense of similarity and commonality? Did it impact either the views or how they approached the discussions?
[00:27:24] Jan Z: Oh, I mean, absolutely. I think that, you know, for the students, they learned a lot about a whole different life style they never even thought about. And the expansiveness of being out in Eastern Oregon and getting up at five in the morning or four in the morning to go out and check the cattle and help the calves being born and, and the amount of work. I think the students were really just shocked at how much work it is and how much work, youth participate in living there versus here. The students there that came to Portland were just terrified to ride a bike In the city, they thought it was the most dangerous thing.
We were, we thought it was dangerous to ride a A TV or they actually shot, were able to shoot guns at a, well, the first year we went, we didn’t know that they were shooting guns, so they were, out on the shooting rabbits with their siblings. They were Eastern Oregon siblings, and then we had some little challenges with Portland public schools around that. So the students all, all learned to, um, to go to a range and had to be certified and all of that. And I think that just the amount of work and just being in a completely different atmosphere was life changing for a lot of the students. My son ended up going one year and was out in Seneca, Oregon at a horse ranch.
We stayed friends with that family for for many years. They had him. My son name one of the not calves. Come on, Graham, maybe. Oh, that were born and yeah. Calves. Yeah. No, not calves. Horse. Oh, sheep. No. A horse. Horse mare. A colt. Yeah.
But for years, for many, many years, the family that I stayed with that was, I was placing that family ’cause they were really wanted to teach me a lesson about, you know, wolves and, well we really found out that cougars were more of an issue. But that family was so wonderful and the whole Sunnyside community ended up for many years buying their meat from that family, and they would come into town and deliver it. And so we ended up having this very different kind of relationship with that family. And I’m still Facebook friends with them and have watched their kids grow up. And they’re very religious. And I think that’s the other thing. A lot of the students were just really surprised by how religious and how their parents would go on dates with their children. And where here was just very different. A lot of the students had never experienced anything like that, but they saw the love and the respect within the family unit and just they loved it.
[00:30:15] Amy H-L: That sounds like a nightmare, to go on my son’s dates.
How can educators speak realistically about climate chaos while still encouraging their students to be hopeful?
Graham K
I’ll say for my work as a someone who’s been thrust into position to do something about it, I
think the long perspective I take is that we couldn’t have known how all this works had we not thrown a wrench in it. And so now it’s up to us to pull that wrench out and try to fix some parts of it. But the more that we say, “oh no, it’s functioning great,” the longer we will drift towards the lower-performing system.
And so that is our challenge, and being honest about that. And that’s why, quite frankly, I see climate change as a bit of a psychological imbalance, too, because we’re not really being true to these feelings that we have about what’s happening. And it comes out in anxiety and the next generation because they can smell it in the adults. And that’s ultimately something that I think students and children need to be listened to for.
[00:31:32] Jan Z: Yeah.
[00:31:34] Tom B: Yes. First of all, it’s not just talking about climate chaos, it’s experiencing it. You know, we’re seeing extreme weather happen increasingly, and you know, recently the administration has proposed doing away with what’s the endangerment declaration, which is that fossil fuels form , the emission of carbon into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels is a danger to public health and therefore needs to be regulated. And we’re seeing the importance not only of regulating that. Despite what the president says, it’s not a hoax, and more and more people… when that, that endangerment declaration was originally made, and it became the basis for the work of the Environmental Protection Agency back in 2009, 30% of the people saw climate situation as a serious issue. Now it’s 60%, and among young Republicans, people under 30, a high percentage sees the need to transition from fossil fuels to alternative sources of energy. And that’s partly because we’re seeing it with our eyes, with the wildfires in the rim of the Grand Canyon this year, the flood in Texas, and so on.
And the approach in my book is to introduce the idea of active hope. Active hope is not optimism. It’s not waiting to be rescued by some savior. It’s waking up to the beauty of life on whose behalf we must act. And active hope is not something you have, it’s something you do. It’s a practice. And what you do is, and this is what we encourage the students to do, is envision what you hope for the world. Figure out how can I contribute to bring this about, and then roll up your sleeves and get to work. And we need to give students opportunities to do that work and to feel the joy that comes from making a difference, arms locked with others to do that. And that’s where the beloved community comes in as a source of support for that, you know. And a way to look at it is to say that we’re privileged to be alive at this time and have the chance to make this difference. The Web of Life needs us. People around the world need us. Lots of harm has been done and we’re gonna be suffering from that, but we need to save all that. We can save and work toward the world of climate justice. And schools can model that and classrooms can model that and need to, and that’s at the core of education for climate justice.
[00:34:52] Jon M: Tom in your description of the Landless Rural Workers Movement, MST, in Brazil, which puts a lot of emphasis on education within government schools, actually, you talk about contentious co-governance in schools. What is this and how may be relevant to schools in the United States?
[00:35:11] Tom B: The Landless Workers Movement is really interesting. I was surprised to learn about that in researching the book. Contentious Co-Governance is… well, just a little bit on the Landless Workers Movement. Something in the Brazil Constitution that says that if there’s land that could grow food, could be put to a useful purpose and it’s not being used, peasants, people can move on to that land and take it over and they get support from the government to do that. And they set up schools, of course, because people are living there and their kids need to go to school. And in some cases the local government supports it, even though the schools are putting forth a sort of radical transformative vision of education, and they support it because the kids are going to school and, and the local authorities weren’t able to make that happen. So contentious co-governance is that yes, you’ve got schools, you’ve got teachers, you’ve got some support coming from local authorities, but you also have the revolution, right. You have the people who believe in land for the people, land and agriculture that is sustainable. They have big advocates of Paolo Friere and the idea of contentious co-governance is keeping the movement close to the school so that you don’t get bought off by the powers that be, that you’re not afraid to get in there and have a conflict. It’s not like, okay, so now we’ve got these schools and we’ll just let happen what happens. No. It’s keeping this sort of the revolutionary principles and fervor close to the school and keeping it honest to the principles. It’s a fascinating phenomenon that despite the government before the current one that was not supportive, it has survived over the last several decades.
[00:37:37] Jon M: You say that teachers and communities here can learn from that.
[00:37:42] Tom B: Yes. Let me just mention the project that I’ve started. So, basically, I launched a project called the Teach for Climate Justice Project. And our goal, you know, is to support educators who are already teaching for climate justice, to try to get many more to join them, and to help build a movement for climate justice education in schools. And our strategy for doing that is creating study groups based on my book. In other words, it’s a study group of my book. Why? Because it brings people together at a school to create a community of hope, a community of people that is pursuing a positive vision, namely climate justice and education for climate justice. And through wrestling with the book’s vision, they build solidarity.
And we’ll start with my book, but maybe the next book we’ll use is No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age by Jane McAlevey. It’s about working with the unions. You know, for example, the Chicago Teachers Union just signed a contract with Department of Education in Chicago that included raises for the teachers, improved benefits, all of that essential, but also smaller class sizes and commitment on the part of the Chicago School System to decarbonize the schools there, and how they get the power to do that through organizing around a positive vision for the future.
And so bringing the movement to the school is a group of teachers joining together, pursuing a positive vision of climate justice education, building solidarity, and then through that solidarity, getting the power to demand the, the education that our kids need and deserve in this time of climate crisis. So again, it’s building a new vision of education and building solidarity to make it happen.
And it’ll only happen through organizing for power. So that’s how I see what the landless workers are doing, how that can relate to what’s going on here.
[00:40:15] Amy H-L: Yeah. And the last three or four chapters in the book are about civil resistance. You introduced some of the foremost thought leaders on social change, including my favorites Jean Sharpe and Erica Chenoweth.
Tom R
Yes.
Amy H-L
Best inspirational change makers of the past. So is it the role of educators, especially in public schools, to encourage students to engage in civil disobedience?
Tom R
Um, yes. Anyone else wanna comment on that?
Jan Z
I was gonna say. . .
[00:40:56] Jan Z: I mean, teachers are activists. I mean that, I don’t see a difference. I never saw educator and activists. I felt like it’s one thing and I think that modeling that participation in change is really important for students, for youth to see that out of conflict can come something positive and that, you know, using the power, however it is. There are so many different ways to make change.
And providing those opportunities for students to see and hear all the different ways people have made change and continue to make change empowers them and it keeps teachers empowered to do what they need to do. Hmm.
[00:41:42] Jon M: You have a discussion of the Phoenix Talent Schools in conservative, southeastern Oregon. What’s your sense of how teachers and principals can best implement climate justice education in communities where both climate change and social justice are highly contested?
[00:42:01] Tom B: Well, that story, and by the way, my book, is full of stories like the beautiful story of the sort of leading the way in climate justice.
And that particular school had experienced Alameda wildfire that had left a number of the students homeless. So I present that story through the eyes of the principal who, through no fault of her own, was there and needing to deal with families who were suddenly homeless and, you know, orking in the grape and agricultue grape and agricultural.
Industries and so you do what you need to do in the situation you’re given. And so one of the key elements there was social-emotional learning. It was figuring out the logistics of how to get the kids to school even though they didn’t have a home anymore. So it was a great example of making climate justice in a very challenging, catastrophic situation and, you know, holding the staff together and supporting them in dealing with the young people, so that that’s basically what that story was about in that area.
[00:43:28] Amy H-L: Well, thank you so much, Tom Roderick, Jan Zuckerman, and Graham Klag.
[00:43:35] Graham C: Well, thank you. Thank you for having us.
[00:43:37] Jon M: And thank you, listeners. If you found this podcast worthwhile, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating or review. This helps others to find the show. Check out our website, ethicalschools.org, for more episodes and videos and to subscribe to our email newsletters. We post annotated transcripts of our interviews to make them easy to use in workshops or classes. Contact us at hosts@ethicalschools.org. We’re on Bluesky. Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and LinkedIn. Our editor and social media manager is Amanda Denti. Until next week.