Teachers see eco-emergency, AI/tech, and polarisation as their kids’ future. 85% are not confident education is preparing them for it

Reboot the Future is an impressive, Cambridge-led survey of primary and secondary school teachers’ attitudes—around the need to have an ecological, wellbeing and sustainable dimension to the education of current generations. The director of Schumacher College, Satish Kumar, introduces the report (PDF) in this concise way:

Most of the world problems we face today are caused by the activities, practices and policies of highly trained and educated people.

Global warming, diminishing biodiversity, production of fossil fuel, pollution, waste and war are consequences of business decisions, industrial actions and governmental policies managed and supervised by the graduates of prestigious schools and universities.

Education, as it is delivered by our system today, is a part of the problem rather than a part of the solution.

Fortunately, the majority of our teachers recognise this situation. This timely report shows that a very large percentage of teachers believe that the current curriculum taught in our schools is inadequate to meet the needs of future generations.

Overwhelming numbers of teachers are convinced that the good health of our precious planet Earth, sustainability of our ecosphere and wellbeing of people should be at the heart of learning.

It is time to move away from “education as usual” and create a new paradigm of education which puts sustainability of the natural environment and flourishing of human life at the centre of our school syllabus.

The Reboot headline stat is that 85% of teachers (of the 6487 proportionally surveyed) are “not confident that the current education system is preparing pupils well for the future”. And as you see from the graph below, this has a few dimensions, as well as climate crisis:

Other striking graphs show disjuncts between teachers and the norms of their profession. Values regarded as necessary to equip children for the future, but barely present in teaching practice, include “kindness”, “connection”, and “self-direction”:

Another disjunct is between the skills currently promoted by education, and the skills teachers think their kids need to cope with the future (described above), which include “critical thinking”, “empathy”, and “resilience”:

Finally, out of this survey, what seems like a massive consensus that that children should be taught more in class about a sustainability and wellbeing agenda:

More from the Reboot The Future page, and download the report here