Is the purpose of education to teach students to think for themselves, or to believe what the teacher tells them?

In public schools, the answer is the latter. That is the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the Ontario Government’s new policy framework for environmental education, called “Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow.”  Released last year, the framework’s unabashed mission is to indoctrinate pupils to think about environmental issues in an orthodox, politically correct way. It boasts that Ontario’s education system will prepare students “to be environmentally responsible citizens” by fostering “environmental stewardship.” How will it do this? By engaging them in such activities as taking messages home to lecture their families about recycling, by getting people to use less water and by integrating environmental education across the curriculum, “such as recycled-art shows.” 

In other words, the framework seeks to turn our kids into whiny, morally righteous automatons. Instead of developing analytical skills to parse environmental issues and distinguish between genuine crisis and moral panic, the policy framework “seeks to move beyond a focus on symptoms — air and water pollution, for example — to encompass the underlying causes of environmental stresses, which are rooted in personal and social values ... It seeks to promote changes in personal behaviour.” 

The document defines environmental education as education “for the environment, about the environment and in the environment.” A less meaningful sentence is difficult to imagine.

Environmental education requires skepticism and hard questions. Are recycling programs really a solution to the problem of waste? Hardly. Does everybody really use too much water? No — it depends where you live. Environmental philosophy is long on grand thoughts, such as sustainability, and short on concrete principles that resolve actual disputes between real people. Students should be taught to challenge prevailing environmental slogans such as “We should respect the Earth’s limits,” and “Sustainability is the key to a clean and equitable future,” and apply them to actual problems to find out if they mean anything.

Environmental goals often conflict with other broad social objectives such as economic development. If harvesting an area of forest creates 100 jobs and adds $5-million to the local economy but destroys the forest, is that sustainable? If replanting trees to replace the ones that are cut will replenish the supply of trees but forever change the forest ecosystem, is that sustainable? If the only options are to cut down the forest or shut down the company, which choice does “sustainability” require? 

The best teaching scenarios contain irreconcilable conflicts between competing notions of the way the world should work. Raising the standard of living in developing countries creates more demand for resources. Environmentalists claim that increased consumption threatens to push human civilization over an “environmental cliff.” Are our students able to assess and participate in such debates? 

The most significant characteristic of public education is that it is compulsory. In Ontario, the Education Act stipulates that every child between the ages of six and 18 shall attend elementary or secondary school on every school day of the year. Even children who attend private school or are home schooled require the approval of the Ministry of Education. 

Educational policy is the government’s statement of what children will learn. It is not merely a statement of preference or recommendation, but a command to its teachers and a political message to the public. It is no surprise that its purpose is to teach children environmental orthodoxies. Preventing the next generation from changing in any deep or meaningful way is what most societies require of their educators, as George Leonard once said. The best response to this policy framework is not just to rail against the document but to object to the government’s stranglehold over the minds of our children.