Teach the Future

I have been a volunteer with the national student led campaign, Teach the Future since early 2021. Parented by SOS UK (Students Organising for Sustainability) and a sister campaign of UKSCN (UK Student Climate Network), Teach the Future is a collective of students, founded by student climate strikers, pushing for climate education to be embedded across the UK curriculum. Our research has shown that only 4 percent of students feel they know enough about the climate crisis and 71 percent of teachers feel unable to teach their students about the climate and ecological crisis. Our education system is failing to prepare us for our future. We want to change this. So, we’ve rewritten the curriculum, which is now being implemented by teachers nationwide, and developed the first ever student written bill which is now in its second reading in Parliament, tabled by Nadia Whittome MP.

Working with students of a variety of ages from across the country, organising online, I have taken on a variety of roles and responsibilities. These include coordinating and creating online content for the campaigns blog and social media platforms, liaising with high profile supporting organisations and individuals of the campaign, being a spokesperson for the campaign at a variety of events and actions, planning events and actions, speaking to MPs and politicians, facilitating and minute taking in weekly meetings and working with a variety of online software platforms such as Crowdfunder, Eventbrite, Action Network, Google Drive, Miro, Zoom, Slack and so on.

A few of my highlights from working on the campaign are the Teach the Future Week of Action in 2021; where we projected our research onto the side of Parliament after months of being ignored by the Secretary for Education, holding a Teach in on the doorstep of the Department for Education and handing the Education Secretary his report card prior to GCSE and A Level results days, and running a workshop, ‘From Playground to Parliament’ at Extinction Rebellions, The Big One in April 2022, sharing our learnings with teachers, academics and students from across the country.