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Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Are schools indoctrinating or educating about the environment?
Have schools gone beyond teaching conservation to being politically active in environmental causes?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Recently and just by coincidence I heard two mothers say that they felt bullied by their kids into going green in some capacity.
One parent said her daughter had guilted her into buying the cloth bags at the grocery store instead of using the plastic bags. (She later explained she thought it was good that her daughter was learning to be environmentally aware at school because she’s not good about doing it at home.)
Another said her kids had harassed her about using a lawn service — apparently the school had talked about the fertilizer being bad for the environment. (This mom wasn’t so happy.)
The same mom also said she’s heard that Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” was being shown in some schools, which she didn’t feel was appropriate. (I found online that British schools announced in 2007 they would use the film in every secondary school. I also found a case in America where parents went nuts in Seattle when they found out the movie was going to be shown in class.)
So my question is: Have schools gone beyond educating about the environment into advocacy? If they have, is that a bad thing? Are we creating a generation ready to be stewards for the planet or a generation indoctrinated into environmentalism?
Should teaching about environmentalism be done at home or at the school or a combination? When does it leave education and become advocacy?
More Earth Day coverage.
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