Although many of the projects surveyed by WTFutures touch on the subject of education, they do it in very different ways. Some projects happen in an educational context (Pedagogías del Mañana, Kidding the Future, Imagining the Future for Transformation, Exploring future schools scenarios in Melbourne, Eduponics…), others do not. Some make education their main topic (Narratives of Change in Science Education, Climate Futures in Mali…), while for others, education was just one topic among others raised by the young participants.

Despite this diversity, we found a remarkable consistency around four powerful messages:

1. Climate change calls for a major change in education.
2. The relative separation between education and other dimensions of life, however precious it has been, is becoming fragile.
3. Literacy in a world marked by climate change includes many forms of knowledge and skills generally not taught in schools nor, in fact, anywhere else.
4. “School”, today, is generally not up to the task, and needs to change.

Climate change calls for a major change in education

There are two reasons for this. One is that climate change itself is a systemic transformation, with systemic causes, that calls for an understanding of complexity. The second reason is that young people are already seeing the effects of climate change on the world, as well as on their own lives and perspectives, and this redirects their thoughts towards what they need to be equipped with in order to grow up in this world.

This, according to nearly all the projects that have discussed education, has consequences both on what should be taught, and on how it should be taught:

• The most obvious change that almost all projects call for, is to connect academic disciplines, both with one another (in the name of system thinking), and with the overarching issue of climate change. Some imagine an additional “Climate Change” subject matter working as a bridge between traditional disciplines. Others imagine integrating climate change within existing disciplines, be they hard science, social science, artistic, or technical and vocational.
• But it cannot stop there. Several projects have formally or informally drafted lists of necessary skills that should be taught somewhere, but generally are not. We will develop this further below. 
• Many of these necessary skills, such as collaboration, problem-solving, conflict resolution, cannot just be taught in a classroom. Education for the coming world should rely more on peer-to-peer learning and collective work, and connect more with real-world experience and action – although always adding a critical and reflexive dimension to them. This is, of course, a change in favor of which many education reformers have advocated for decades. However, we cannot help being struck by how loudly it emerges from the voice of youths involved in the projects that we surveyed.

The separation between education and other dimensions of life, however precious it has been, is becoming fragile

There are many good reasons to make the time and space allocated to children’s education into a kind of safe haven, where security is (generally) assured; where social inequalities are (somewhat) compensated; where societal conflicts are (somewhat) muted; where children can (somewhat) detach themselves from the influence of family and community to become their own selves; and where many kids are given opportunities their parents did not have and could not pay for otherwise. However, this separation is becoming more difficult to uphold.

Climate change already has concrete consequences on schools themselves. In several countries, the heat is such that schools close early several months each year, reducing the time kids spend learning. Climate Futures in Mali even imagined school education happening at night. The situation for children forced to migrate because of climate change, or its political consequences, is of course worse and will likely concern tens of millions of young people in the next decades. How can learning still happen, and open up future opportunities for these children?

In the eyes of many students, parents and teachers, education is supposed to prepare for jobs, on top of providing students with tools for thinking on their own. However, in a world transformed by climate change (as well as by other disruptions such as AI, digital platforms, etc.), the nature of jobs, or even their very existence, is in question. Although in some projects, young participants do talk about preparing for future “green jobs”, most of them seem to think that the transformations of work go well beyond the nature of a few specific jobs.

Mass education systems were (quite reasonably) built to prepare young people for a relatively stable world, which is likely not going to exist when today’s children become adults. How can education prepare them for tomorrow’s world, especially since so much about it remains unknown? How much do the requirements for such an education differ from what educational systems offer today?

Lastly, several projects, particularly in higher education, report that students arrive with personal experiences of the disruptive effects of climate change on their lives and their prospects, as well as strong feelings and/or opinions about it. How to process the profound emotions connected to climate change? How to deal with, or avoid further polarization among students (and teachers) harboring different views? How to acknowledge the value of students’ challenges to existing curricula while retaining their most valuable aspects? It is not enough (and often not possible) to brush these feelings aside in the name of academic neutrality.

“I don’t think we are fully aware of the stakes of ignoring emotions and creativity in the classroom. More and more students are entering the classroom with a sense of hopelessness about the future. The classroom—a place oriented towards learning about society for its benefit—should especially enable diverse people to come together and grow collective agency and hope for the future.”
Josephine Chambers, Imagining the Future for Transformation

“Literacy” in a world marked by climate change includes many forms of knowledge and skills generally not taught in schools nor, in fact, anywhere else

UNESCO defines literacy as “the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, and compute information”, and to apply this knowledge in daily life. It “involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society.”

Although this definition applies initially to reading, writing, and numeracy, it can be extended to other fundamental sets of skills and knowledge. Several projects point towards:

• “Climate Change Literacy” (understanding its causes and effects, preparing for it, mitigating it, and imagining transformation possibilities in this new context – freely adapted from Campus de l’Engagement) ;
• “Futures Literacy” (“a capability that allows people to better understand the role of the future in what they see and do” – UNESCO) ;
• and “Emotional Literacy” (naming, accepting and processing one’s emotions – freely adapted from Feeling Futures Through the Stuff We Wear).

Beyond that, many projects also point towards the need for new sets of skills applicable to an unstable, and generally more difficult world:

• Dealing with complexity and uncertainty (see The Future as capability).
• Several projects mention the importance and value of Indigenous knowledge and skills, particularly as ways to live in tune with one’s human and natural environment and to reconnect to one’s history and spirituality.
• Other projects, particularly Youth Talks and Voices of Tomorrow, insist on personal values, virtues and “life skills”: 

“The top answer [on education] given by young people is to learn or relearn personal values and virtues that allow people to ‘live together’ in harmony. They mention areas such as respect, kindness, solidarity, moral values in general, tolerance, openmindedness, empathy, acceptance, responsibility, friendship, love, and more. This result, coupled with the near-total absence of traditional skills and aptitudes such as science, technology, engineering, math, social sciences, and the humanities, all of which are traditionally taught at school, is staggering.”
Youth Talks

• The projects working with young activists describe activism, among other things, as a very powerful form of learning that should be recognized, valued and developed as such. We expand on this idea in the section Lifelong Activism.
• Some projects highlighted that identifying a local problem within a youth community and developing a project to address it can mobilize and teach a wide range of skills, while also empowering young people through the visible results of their actions.

“School”, today, is generally not up to the task, and needs to change

What transpires from most projects is that young participants reflect critically on their school experience and find it is failing to teach them what they think they need for a future marked by Climate Change. In two cases (Feeling Futures Through the Stuff We Wear, Exploring future schools scenarios in Melbourne), the project organizers found that in order to maximize their young participants’ engagement and creativity, they had to explicitly be “unlike school”.

“School is one of the most obdurate ‘legacy infrastructures’ in young people’ lives that impact any decisions that one might make about future possibilities. (…) These legacy infrastructures are never ‘neutral’: they afford and disafford certain ways of designing for (…) futures.”
Exploring future schools scenarios in Melbourne

This does not mean that, in the eyes of young people, there is no reforming “School” (in its already wide diversity), nor that education should from now on take place somewhere else. In all the projects we reviewed, education is seen as more important than ever for young people to find their place in the world. And it is widely felt that some kind of public school system is the way to bring this benefit to most children.

Listening to what comes out of the projects that we reviewed, young people are calling for a major overhaul of education systems, but they are doing so because they believe in their importance.