Reaching a peaceful resolution to conflict is an admirable goal, but there are different approaches as well as different types of peace.  These from the negative peace of stopping violence, to the positive peace of the structural and behavioural changes that address the social, economic and environmental injustices that might be a cause of violence.
 
There are challenges at a global level, when dealing with issues like climate change, poverty and inequality. There are regional and domestic challenges, that can range from political polarisation to the question of how to move beyond a genocide. Even at the most basic, personal level, our children need to learn how to deal with each other after fighting.
 
An essential component of tolerance is empathy, and understanding that whether you agree with them or not, others have the same rights as you want for yourself.  In 2019 we learned lessons from history, and one of the most important lessons from history is work out what you want to achieve, to let go of the past to build a better future. Don’t hold on to the negatives, find a way to forgive and build together.  
 
The need for fairness is a universal truth for children and building on that as the basis for how they approach each other, and the world in which we live, can only improve their relationships and their approach to the social contract.
 
A focus on what we have in common, from responding to emergencies, doing no harm and building a peaceful future together, can transform the way our societies work. Mutual understanding and dialogue underpin a better world.

Coverage of Greta Thunberg and other young activists has pushed the thorny issue of young people’s role in climate action to the top of the agenda. They will be most affected by the decisions we make today, yet they have no say in the agreements that are made.

2020 has been called a ‘Super Year’ for increased ambition across governments and across society and nations are being asked to submit enhanced national climate plans known as NDCs under the formal UN process. Climate is an intergenerational challenge of awesome proportions and one that will not be solved by a short term technological fix but rather requires a long-term socio-economic behavioral change.
This means, many experts believe, that there is great urgency to increase the coverage, depth and quality of climate education if a new generation is to cope with the challenges of climate and environmental change that are rapidly emerging world-wide.

Today much of that education seems quite negative, with a focus on disappearing species, a world drowning in plastic, a future of drought and floods. While this may all be true young people need to understand the power of creating solutions and taking action.

Linking environmental education with civic education is another way of linking teaching to real experiences and could prove a powerful response to children and citizens around the world who are agitating for action. The importance of a change in our overall thinking and praxis could underpin a step-change in the need for action on climate change.

Yet climate is taught in a piecemeal fashion and what does exist is hidden in different silos across science, geography, history, social and more. Environmental literacy used to be a big deal - in the US in the 70’s it was considered critical as part of national security. Today however, education around the world uses different facts and figures dependent on political affiliation.

The challenges children face are too important for this not to be addressed. Nick Nuttall, Strategic Communications Director at the Earth Day Network warns that we have already lost a couple of generations since the original introduction of environmental education and says, “Don’t lose more to muddled thinking and incoherent information.”

As it stands, few countries offer climate education at a level sufficient to support long term change. There is however a critical momentum building, with both Italy and Mexico having announced that climate education will become compulsory in 2020. In Mexico it has even been added to the constitution, putting its implementation beyond the political cycles of government. In December 2019 at the Madrid climate negotiations, the Earth Day Network, the UN, education NGOs and such countries announced plans to promote the idea that all countries adopt compulsory climate education.

Italy’s Minster of Education Lorenzo Fioramonti said that rather than teaching students about isolated subjects, climate education should encourage students to think in systems. “We need more and more systems thinkers and fewer erudites who know very well one thing but completely ignore all the rest,” said Fioramonti. “[Education is] about connecting knowledge and being able to see the interconnections across different types of knowledge.”

In the UK, where the next climate change conference is to be held in Glasgow in late 2020, it’s something that all educators should keep in mind. Nuttall said plans should be in place by Earth Day 22nd April so that by the Glasgow negotiations in 2020  all countries will have adopted this as a critical outcome and central to addressing climate change. If that plan succeeds, it’ll be time to rethink the way that we teach as well as the way that we think.
 
This article first appeared in the January 2020 issue of Education Today

As Churchill paraphrased in 1948, those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. In a world facing challenges that demand collective action we must find ways to combat this failure. Human behaviour changes but not human nature. Isn’t history then arguably the most reliable path to understanding the present and anticipating the problems of the future?
 
History is a unique and powerful tool to help set current challenges in context and at a time when international political collaboration is under attack, its teaching and exploration couldn’t be more important. As Adrian Wooldridge points out in the Economist’s Bagehot column, members of the European community seem determined to repeat the mistakes of the thirties and forties. The UK demands its ‘sovereignty’ as a means of quitting the EU, whatever that means in a globalized economy. Trump demonises minorities and seems determined to isolate the US with his ‘America First’ policies. Recently he has reverted to the old anti-semitic trope of accusing US Jews who didn’t support him of having dual loyalties
 
This political and national divisiveness is growing even as it grows more apparent that the challenges we face demand global collective action, from the loss of Arctic ice, fires in the Amazon, plastics pollution and the impacts of climate change. Nowhere can we learn better lessons about the consequences of our actions than our history. Today the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia that ended Europe's Thirty Years' War is being hailed as a model that might address the religious, cultural and economic debacle stifling development in the Middle East.
 
What history shows us in most detail are the dangers of intolerance. Otherisation, the demonization of one group as ‘other’ as a means of ‘protecting’ a broader social and institutional context lies at the heart of intolerance and autocracy. Otherisation demands a failure in understanding and the inability to communicate with others or have empathy for their position. That empathy, that skill in mutual understanding and communication, above any other, is at the heart of the suite of tools that the younger generation are going to need to survive and thrive in a changing world.
 
This year at the Learn2Think Foundation we’re focusing on history as the central theme of Tolerance Day, where we mark the UN’s International Day for Tolerance with a range of free lesson plans, games, assemblies and workshops which focus on teaching that builds understanding, empathy, creative and critical thinking. This year we are using lessons from the past to learn more about each other and build bridges between different cultures and generations.
 
We explore Amy Bueller’s 1943 book, Darkness over Germany. It provides a fascinating insight into Nazi leaders and the radicalisation of young Germans in the late 1930s, which has significant resonance in current times. She believed that the best way to discuss difficult issues was for people to live and work together, to build relationships and better understand each other. The book covers her experiences in Germany encourages us to think critically about the threat and appeal of Nazism to young people. Most importantly, it highlights the need to maintain dialogue in times of change and discord, and provides a timely reminder of how a message of hate once fueled a nation to unite. 
 
Join us this year in building that dialogue in how we bring the teaching of tolerance into our schools from the earliest age, using the curriculum to explore the lessons that we need to learn http://www.toleranceday.org/
 
This article first appeared in the September issue of Education Today.
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