The indoctrination of children in Scottish schools has, to a large extent, been introduced by stealth.
The upending of the core values of a consensual liberal education – ‘the best that has been thought and said’ – is being replaced by educational and political activists whose purpose is not education for education’s sake but a desire to reconstitute educational institutions as centres for social engineering. Whatever the perceived faults of a Western liberal education throughout history, we can surely agree with the aspiration of exposing students to the great canonical works of politics, the sciences, literature, art and their critics in an engaging and open-ended pursuit of truth and reason?
But what we are now beginning to see are the low-hanging fruits of a politically motivated and dogmatic intervention in education. Parents are being exposed to, and are beginning to react to, the negative and destructive consequences of indoctrination in schools – from the promotion of the social transitioning of children [1] to the divisive teaching of so-called ‘white privilege’ [2].
The three pillars of educational indoctrination today might be classified as:
the re-racialisation of education in the form of the new ‘anti-racism’ based on critical race theory [3], the promotion of the hyper-sexualisation of sex education [4], and the fortification of environmental sustainability across the curriculum [5].
While both the racialisation and sexualisation of education have ignited the minds of many parents, prompting them to question and protest against the harmful effects of this kind of activism, environmental sustainability has received less scrutiny and attention from parents. Indeed, few groups critical of the sustainability agenda exist, despite the fact that it has become more entrenched in the curriculum over many decades.
That said, parents have publicly noted with horror that kids are being ‘scared witless’ [6] through the teaching, as fact, of the coming ‘environmental apocalypse’. But it is the yet-unseen consequences that really should alarm us. A new generation are being schooled in a political ideology that preaches the setting of limits on future development – both at home and abroad – in the name of ‘saving the planet’.
It is, of course, a difficult question to tackle, mainly because, on the surface, who would disagree with having a conscientious attitude to the planet’s resources? But as is so often the case, things are not what they seem. To begin with, it is worth considering two of the main themes in the environmental sustainability vision: ‘settled science’ and behaviour change.
Settled science is not good science
Much is made of the notion that the ‘science is settled’ on the question of climate change. However, within this scientific milieu the notion of climate change, and what that means, is an elastic concept; it is on a spectrum that begins at the idea that the climate is indeed changing but that humanity has proven in history that it has the capacity to adapt to and harness change, to the extreme claims that humanity is facing ‘extinction’ [7] and ‘global boiling’ [8].
That there is a consensus – almost entirely – among the global political and cultural elites should be a cause for scepticism rather than acquiescence. Arguably, we have a political and cultural class that has given up on any materially transformative ideas for the advancement of society, justifying this stance with apocalyptic visions of the future and the need for material constraint. While we are constantly told that the ‘science is settled’ on the ‘climate emergency’, it is worth remembering – how could we forget – that politicians, scientists and experts can and do get things spectacularly wrong. Much of the ‘settled science’ during the Covid pandemic was motivated by a desire to strike fear into the population to control it, rather than scientific evidence [9, 10]. That there is consensus is even more reason for a critical and dissenting approach to the question. The so-called settled science has been weaponised to crush any dissent. We are all familiar with the accusation of ‘climate denier’ levelled at anyone who questions the authority of the settled science and the consensus, and yet those who are at the forefront of its promotion are not averse to stretching the truth [11, 12, 13].
Behaviour change
In a democratic society, positive and enriching change is predicated on the existence of an engaged and active public. But this is not what is happening around the question of environmental sustainability. Rather than mobilising the public around a national conversation, governments, supranational and non-governmental organisations, environmental activists, and pressure groups are bypassing the public. Rather than seeing them as agents of change, they view them more as the problem, a ‘pox on the planet’, that should be nudged, cajoled and restricted in their behaviour. The only role they see the public playing is that they must consume less, travel less and expect less. This generation are the first in modern history to be told that they will be materially worse off than their parents and grandparents – and that they should welcome it!
The environmental sustainability agenda is less about saving the planet and more about setting limits on economic and productive growth while telling the public that they should welcome impoverishment. It is worth noting that the 1%, the elites in business and our political and cultural class, will not be affected by the policies of sustainability; their living standards will be unaffected, and indeed they will consume more and continue to travel the world on private jets to attend meetings to discuss further restrictions on the lives of the mass of the population [14].
Accepting that the climate is changing is not the same as agreeing to the measures proposed that will impoverish people’s lives and values.
We mustn’t accept the extreme, though tirelessly amplified view – from Greta to the Guardian – that humanity is heading towards extinction or that the planet is ‘boiling’. Neither view is scientific, nor is it rational; indeed, it is deeply antisocial. Such a fearful and malevolent moral outlook should not be foisted on the young in school or elsewhere. We should reject the wholesale promotion of environmental sustainability in schools, because it is terrifying our children in primary schools – about an issue they are ill equipped to comprehend, never mind do anything about – and in secondary school education and beyond because it is a political intervention that promotes a culture of limits on the future and demands that the next generation become activists in the promotion of a poorer society, both materially and morally. It is anti-educational because it is closed to scrutiny and is taught as fact. No space is given to humanity’s demonstrable ability to adapt to change [15].
In Scotland, one of the drivers of the environmental sustainability agenda – alongside the Scottish government and the Educational Institute of Scotland – is RCE Scotland, a ‘United Nations University-recognised Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development’. More than just a mouthful, RCE Scotland is a collection of environmentalists who come to the question of education solely from that ideological perspective. You will read on their website that they ‘support and enable the co-facilitation and co-delivery of Learning for Sustainability (LfS) across all aspects of learning, to strengthen the understanding of LfS and to advance the practice of LfS so that it reaches its full potential across Scotland’ [16]. In other words, they are advocating that Scottish education be absorbed into a ‘global’ (read elitist) political agenda. Such third-party organisations are having a profound impact on policy, beyond both their numbers and their educational expertise. It is an existential threat to Scottish education.
This is what a sustainable future will look like for our kids if it goes ahead unchecked – an act of educational sabotage. Rather than politicising Scottish education for ideological ends, educational institutions should be resistant to politicisation, but for now, indoctrination is winning out over education.
Alex Cameron (August 2023)
Originally published on scottishunionforeducation.substack.com
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I Keep Mine Hidden