“I want students to come to my class aware and appraised of the scientific consensus, endowed with intimate knowledge of the plant and animal world, undaunted by the prospect of fixing a broken pipe or upcycling a torn shirt, so that we may spend the precious time we have together preparing the world that comes next. I want a learning in dialogue with the physical realities of the world and its inhabitants. I want pedagogies of collapse, not the collapse of pedagogy.”(68)
I’m just on the cusp of being a Millennial, and my generation is a nexus between four other generations: two before me and two after me. The two generations before me were in power when the climate and ecological crisis that we find ourselves in now could still be averted. Keeping to the agreements of the 1998 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement only would have given us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5C, and the climate effects of 1.5C have turned out to be more severe than predicted (it is definitely not a ‘safe limit’). Still, meeting those targets would have given the two generations after me a much better chance of thriving.
Due to the inaction of these generations, that is, the people who could have actually acted on the science, the question now is one of, as Ginie Servant-Miklos puts it, “survive before you thrive”. If the goal is survival, in a world that only offers the choice between voluntary dismantling or involuntary collapse of much of our society’s systems, the least we can do is offer the next generations an education that prepares them to survive, and hopefully thrive, in the climate crisis that they inherit from the Boomers, the Gen X’ers and Millennials.
In this light, it seems almost perverse that so many from these latter three generations are mainly preoccupied with questions like “How do we bring a positive story?”, “How do we prevent students from getting depressed or anxious?”, or if they have actually acknowledged the scientific diagnosis of our predicament: ”How honest can we be to young people about what they are facing?” These are the same people that say every crisis is an opportunity and chaos should be embraced. Sure, academically this is true. But thinking so much about how to tell them about the burning house, how to present it as an opportunity rather than a problem, and how to avoid feeling all the uncomfortable emotions – isn’t it just a way of escaping our own shame for not having put out the fire when we had the chance?
These questions are difficult enough, but they place educators in an especially fraught position. Today’s educators are a product of the previous generations’ way of thinking. They are faced every day with the younger generations who will have to deal with a collapse. Often, they operate in educational institutions that have not come to terms yet with this, and in which breaking climate silence is perceived as a rebellious act – breaking implicit norms against being seen as as “alarmist” or “negative”. It is this question of education—how to prepare the next generations for the world they will face—that I spend most of my time thinking about.
Wrestling with this educational paradox, PEDAGOGIES OF COLLAPSE arrived on my doorstep as an unexpected gift. It’s a breath of fresh air—or should I say hurricane—when someone does not mince words. Writing about her experience of teaching students about the climate crisis, Servant-Miklos writes:
“Students told themselves that someone, usually Elon Musk, would save them from the environmental apocalypse. They believed someone out there must have the answer; the system could not fail. Why? Because they invested years of their lives into an education system that serves the singular purpose of preparing cogs for the hungry market machine under the guise of liberal meritocracy. Accepting that this machine is broken and could fall apart at any moment asks for a painful reconsideration of the twenty-year sacrifice they just made. Most students aren’t ready for that. From all the intense moments of the course over the years, the sentence that struck my students hardest was: ‘the future you were promised, it’s not happening, that future is gone’.”(4)
And this is just page four. But that is what I love about this book. Just like SAD PLANETS takes the “intrinsically sad proposition” of “being an earthling in the present moment” as a starting point rather than as something to remedy or explain away, PEDAGOGIES OF COLLAPSE begins with the choice between the voluntary dismantling or involuntary collapse of our societal system. Similar to TURNING TO STONE, Servant-Miklos shares about her own life experiences and existential breakthroughs as a way into an embodied vision. And like HERALD OF A RESTLESS WORLD, a complex philosophical topic is presented in an accessible way, keeping the reader hooked. These four books pair well together.
Servant-Miklos clearly had her ‘oh shit’-moment (a euphemism for an existential breakdown in the climate crisis). Speaking of hope before this moment and after this moment is very different. Before this moment, it seems as though there is only a choice between accepting that life itself will end, or avoiding this acceptance through denial and toxic positivity. After this moment, it’s a matter of asking which world or worlds are about to end? For whom? What can be done after those worlds have ended? Most importantly, accepting that collapse is on its way allows us to address the question of education: What can be done to prepare for it? Therefore, the hope part in the book’s subtitle ‘A hopeful education for the end of the world’, is not just icing on a mud cake:
Collapse “should not be equated with the Apocalypse. Yes, human extinction is a frightful possibility. Even controlled demolition may feel like the end of the world, given the impact it would have on our lives. But there is a world of difference between a controlled collapse that keeps global temperatures below 1.5°C of warming and uncontrolled collapse that causes warming and biodiversity loss to spiral out of control. We can take on the challenge of making our lives liveable, meaningful and even enjoyable through a controlled demolition process. […] The real problem, then, isn’t a lack of know-how on controlled collapse. So now we get to the education: if the role of education is to prepare the young for the future, and this is our future, where is the education system in all of this?”(45)
This is indeed the question that keeps me up at night: Where is the education system in all of this, and where do educators find themselves in this situation?
This book offers so much for educators and anyone who is engaged with or concerned with education that cannot do it justice here. Instead, I urge you to read it yourself—it’s available as an open-access e-book or affordably as a softcover. Miklos-Servant offers ways forward ranging from analyses of the education system in society to educational approaches, practical suggestions such as including martial arts and botany in the curriculum, and educational tools such as COLLAPSE!, a board game that is great to play with students as well as educators and staff. For all of this, I refer you to the book and my interview with Servant-Miklos. For now, allow me to focus on the position of educators.
I initially connected with Servant-Miklos through our shared appreciation of Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy for education and its relevance today. This existentialist approach starts with facing the shitstorm of the present moment head-on: looking it in the eye, grieving it, and then acting courageously and freely. What we need now are educators who have lived through their “oh shit” moment and who can provide young people with honest yet trauma-informed guidance. These are educators that show students that the emperor has no clothes, and then help them process the sight of his ugly naked body.
Servant-Miklos describes how she was handed over a course that did one part right: it left students “well informed about the climate crisis, but quite despondent and depressed about their options for living with collapse.”(150) Education that informs but leaves students depressed is not enough. Yet education that offers false hope and ineffective solutions within a system that is itself the problem, is not the answer either. Teachers are not therapists, but when you are often the first person in students’ lives to “tell it like it is”, you also have the duty to teach in a trauma-informed way. Telling students that previous generations, including my own, leave them with the bill for our inaction is not an easy message. There are no adults in the room that have it figured out and that are taking care of the issue. The future they were promised is not happening. But that does not mean there is no future.
On the contrary, we are living in a unique moment, just before one or more societal tipping points that will lead either to controlled demolition or involuntary collapse—an end to the world of the Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials. But it is the start of a new world for them. And boy, do we need them! Collapse, whether voluntary or not, is hard work. The working life of today’s students is unimaginable for us: they will have to deal with the impact of climate change, of climate adaptation, and of climate mitigation. They will grow their own food in extreme weather conditions, without the luxury that fossil fuels provided us.
Servant-Miklos summarizes the question of why we are here as teachers: “We’re here to give students just enough courage to face the difficult questions raised by collapse, the persistence to seek out answers and the stamina to see them through.”(158) I would say the same about PEDAGOGIES OF COLLAPSE: reading it against the climate crisis requires courage, but gives courage as well.
Living with hope requires courage. Because if there is hope, you cannot retreat into cynicism. In a brilliant final move in the book, Servant-Miklos discusses what she calls “imperfect solidarities”. If you are a teacher reading this, the students you look in the eye every day don’t need you to be perfect. It’s a perfect example of what Gert Biesta calls “the beautiful risk of education”. Students need you to be courageous enough to live with hope, to reflect on what it means to be a teacher in these times, and then teach with your whole body and soul.
Pedagogies of Collapse: A hopeful education for the end of the world is available here. Hoe Plato je uit je grot sleurt is available here or at your local Dutch bookshop. You can listen to my interview with Ginie Miklos-Servant here.
Previous installments:
TURNING TO STONE: What is it like to be a planet?
HERALD OF A RESTLESS WORLD: Philosopher’s Routine
Editor: Lara Parodi
[1.] Biesta, Gert JJ. The Beautiful risk of education. Routledge, 2015.