Amsterdam July 2016

1. 1. Greening the curriculum? History joins ‘the usual suspects’ in teaching climate change2. Teacher education, history, and the Anthropocene Amsterdam July 2016 Kate Hawkey

2. Shemilt (2009): ‘the disposition to investigate and analyse the past from the perspective of possible futures is a key development in historical consciousness and one that transcends the all too common perception that ‘the past is dead and gone’’ (p.197).

3. Some starting points • Teaching subjects as if the planet matters • Cross-curricular initiatives – history & science: Little Ice Age; history & geography: Sustainability • Bristol Green Capital 2015 • Bristol Futures from 2017 includes Sustainable Futures; aim is to become part of our USP

4. From cross-curricular to inter-disciplinary • Workshops (developed by pre-service history, geography, science teachers) for 14 year olds taken into 5 schools • June 2015 - cross-curricular carousel and plenary • June 2016 – history introduction and inter-disciplinary

5. History aims • To create more porous boundaries between natural and human history • To provide historical background knowledge to help pre-service history teachers to understand the historical roots of climate change, both natural and manmade • To become more familiar and confident with this ‘new’ knowledge • To work collaboratively with peers from different subject specialisms.

6. A Little Big History of Climate Change

7. Guess when these historical things happened and label them on your graph 1. Across Europe people started killing ‘witches’ as they blamed them for famine 2. Wine was able to be grown for the first time ever in Britain as well as other new foods 5. The Ancient Egyptian Empire, once the most powerful and rich in the world, collapsed 4. People were able to reach Greenland and farm there for the first time 3. Buttons/ button holes were invented

8. Task: Create a ‘road map’ of climate change. Think about how you can use the metaphor of a road to describe the human history of climate change. • A little big history of climate change

10. Plenary: 1. Action focused; 2. What if ...? • Different positions modelled • Get involved with politics • Campaign to ban plastic bottles in school • Reduce personal carbon footprint • How responsible am I for climate change? Opinion line • ...We painted everything white? • ... We all walked and didn’t use cars? • ... Fossil fuels were not running out? • ... We closed all the factories? • ... We only used solar panels? • ... We all went vegetarian? • ... We all worked less (three days a week)? • ... There were only 1 billion people?

11. June 2015 Evaluations School students Pre-service teachers Working with other subjects helped me to develop my skills and to see how subjects can connect I developed my confidence running a workshop on a potentially controversial subject It moved me beyond my ‘comfort zone’ • It was a unique way of teaching • It was helpful because it showed three different perspectives of climate change • I still stand with my opinion that climate change is not crippling to us

12. June 2016: Key concepts for inter-disciplinary work • Anthropocene: i. ‘relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment’ (Google dictionary). • Wicked problems: ‘A wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. The use of the term "wicked" here has come to denote resistance to resolution, rather than evil’ (Wikipedia). ie. Solutions are difficult to recognise because of complex inerdependencies in the system affected; a solution to one aspect of a wicked problem often reveals or creates other, even more complex, problems. • Embedded within these, are two further concepts - ie. Complexity and uncertainty.

13. What are the implications of these key concepts for teaching my subject?

14. A Little Big History of Climate Change

15. Guess when these historical things happened and label them on your graph 1. Across Europe people started killing ‘witches’ as they blamed them for famine 2. Wine was able to be grown for the first time ever in Britain as well as other new foods 5. The Ancient Egyptian Empire, once the most powerful and rich in the world, collapsed 4. People were able to reach Greenland and farm there for the first time 3. Buttons/ button holes were invented

16. Welcome to the UN Climate Change Conference • You are here to represent your country and ask the UN to support your project to tackle climate change. • You will need to: • Find out about your country and what problems it has • Decide how best your country can tackle climate change

18. June 2016 Evaluations School students Pre-service teachers Different approach to same problems, working with history and geography teachers gave more context to the science and vice versa Having differing perspectives makes the content much more interesting Resources /approaches used in different subjects which furthers my understanding of pedagogy Learning from other subjects earlier in the year The transition from geologic climate change to historical works well. I would definitely use the history activity if I was teaching about the paleoclimate again Really interesting links with both science and history that'll be used in my future lessons (e.g.linking historical events such as witchcraft, and buttons to past climates) Wider range of subjects would be interesting, eg. maths • I enjoyed the UN debate • Learning about tackling climate change/planning for the future • Considering different future scenarios • Learning about the different countries' problems • Finding out my carbon footprint • Helped me learn how important the world is

19. Questions?

20. 2. Teacher education, history, and the Anthropocene • Aim: to identify a shared agenda for sustainability and to explore potential learning opportunities within school curricula and the PGCE Partnership programme • convene a ‘Core Group’ of stakeholders, to meet on three occasions between Feb and July 2016 • trial subject-based and inter-disciplinary initiatives and evaluate their success • prepare changes in the PGCE teaching programme for 2016-17

21. Subject-based and inter-disciplinary work • School partners / trainee teachers take a lead? • Values as a theme running through all pre-service training • Shared writing

22. Maths • Proportional thinking: World village activity • Problem solving and reasoning on real world issues: (a) Spread of food around the world (percentages). Compare obesity with food deprivation data, and its causes. (b)   Spread of disease eg. AIDS Exponential growth. What would reduce disease? (c)    Endangered species. Tiger population dropping. How do we work out how many tigers there are?

23. English • Tutor introduced eco-criticism in a micro-teaching session

24. History • James Watt: Should he be on the £50 bank note? Students critiqued science museum labels; drafted letters to Bank of England or designed an exhibit to go into the science museum. Will we seem foolish to glorify this man in 150 years? • Holocaust and environmental history: Example of Budapest, and the river that divided the city, and was used to dispose of human bodies.

25. Next year? • Can we make ‘values’ a theme throughout the year? - introduce on day 1 - within assignments - on lesson planning proformas • Can we find space for a ‘Teach Meet’ type session, e.g. on the theme of climate change – both within university time and in schools where there are several trainee teachers across subjects? • Can we make sustainability more prominent in our PGCE offer?

26. History next year? • Key turning points in human history (at start of course) • Purposes of school history – human barometer Eg. Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (2009): ‘I only do one planet: Primevil slime to the future.’ • Assignment focusing on an issue of current controversy / wicked problem

27. Shared writing • How am I provoked as a teacher educator when talking about the Anthropocene? • Chapter ‘Towards a teacher education for the Anthropocene’ (Envisioning Futures for Environmental and Sustainability Education, Wageningen Academic Publishers, Netherlands)

28. Shared starting points • Re-envisioning what it means to be teacher educators in a time of increasing global connectedness and apparent impending global crises that are affecting ourselves, others and the state of the planet. • We resist the temptation to offer sets of skills as a desired ‘end’ for teacher education, which we see as unhelpfully normative. Rather, by engaging with the idea of the Anthropocene we aim to shift our teacher education practice towards a deeper entanglement with sustainability, starting from a subject perspective. • The label ‘Anthropocene’ also signals a shift from hopes of ‘saving nature’ and ‘solving’ problems, to living with crises and problems as our new and permanent condition.

29. History • Reject the dualism between natural and human history, and move towards a more porous relationship between natural and human factors in understanding cause and effect in history (whilst not slipping into deterministic traps). • More parachuting, less truffle hunting • By shifting our gaze, focussing more towards the future, and working much more with possible ‘what ifs’, history education can also serve to reinforce the important understanding that nothing (in history and, therefore, also in the present and future) is inevitable.

30. Science • Reject the dualism which places agency in quantitative knowledge, authority and right solutions, and recognising the place of individual and social responsibility over climate change. • The Anthropocene asks us to work with complex, evolving situations that can evoke feelings of helplessness and disempowerment. Yet this discomfort may provide a rich stimulus for science teachers to engage with more reflective practice, considering how their own humanness influences the dynamic, uncertain world of the classroom.

31. Maths • Enjoy the certainties of maths but tutors cannot say for certain ‘what will work’ in the classroom. • Some trainees come to take an interest in the methods and ways of seeing of their students. Some report a new-found sense of joy in the subject as they no longer think about single or ‘best’ solutions and methods, and come to appreciate the potential richness in dialogue about mathematics and its uncertainties. • Learning mathematics involves a re-structuring of perception. At a moment of insight I literally ‘re-see’ what I was previously attending to, for example, noticing a relationship between the sides and opposite angles of a triangle drawn inside a circle. I can interpret such moments as examples of an aesthetic knowing.

32. Revealing hidden faces of subject disciplines • For teacher educators, engagement with the Anthropocene provides a stimulus to reconceptualise our traditional subject disciplines, revealing some of their hidden faces: the consideration of natural factors (or, the science) in history; the agency of humans, alongside societal and cultural influences (or, the philosophy) in science; the uncertainty and paradox (or, aesthetic) in mathematics. Such thinking might help us to formulate alternative approaches to the teaching of our own subjects, but will also encourage more interdisciplinary work as traditional subject boundaries become blurred.

33. Threats to subject identity / academic standards • Blurring subject boundaries comes with challenges as interdisciplinary approaches provide threats to subject autonomy and identity, while in school contexts they may give rise to concerns over the perceived lowering of academic standards. Exposing those ignored faces of our subjects may not be comfortable for teacher educators, but viewing our traditional disciplines through more diverse lenses can help us to represent our subjects to pre-service teachers in new ways.

34. Classroom parallels • Many of the key features of the Anthropocene, such as living with uncertainty, and dealing with complexity, have their parallels in the school classroom. Teachers live with crises, whether they be ones of behaviour, of plans not going to plan, of intended learning not emerging, of students not “getting it”. As teacher educators we seek to prepare pre-service teachers for the demands of the classroom by sensitising them to the complexity of the learning environment, and by enabling them to deal with the public scrutiny that is associated with teacher performance. Such demands can leave new entrants feeling demoralised and helpless, with doubts about their future in their profession. As with many of our global issues, there are no clear answers to the classroom crises that teachers face, teaching cannot control its consequences, but that does not mean adopting a fatalistic approach. We can try to work with an awareness of paradox rather than be caught in it.

35. Can we capitalise on the contingent? • The notion of the Anthropocene prompts us to re-think our practice, towards working with our pre-service teachers to acknowledge their agency, but also the limitations of their work within the classroom. We want to accompany them as they experience unexpectedness and uncertainty in the classroom, and to encourage them to enjoy and capitalise on the contingent. • The notions that we associate with the Anthropocene have given us reason to pause and allowed us to re-look at what we do. They do not prescribe a response, with all the implied certainty (nice though it might be) this would entail. We, as teacher educators, are caught in uncertainty no less that the prospective teachers with whom we work and we can use the energy of this recognition as a spur to deepening our own insight into the complexities and uncertainties of teacher education.

36. Questions?

37. Hawkey, K. (2014). A new look at big history. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 46, 2:163-179. • Hawkey, K. (2015). Moving forward, looking back: Historical perspective, ‘Big History’ and the return of the longue durée: Time to develop our scale hopping muscles. Teaching History, 158: 40-49. • Hawkey, K., James, J., & Tidmarsh, C. (2016) Greening the curriculum? History joins ‘the usual suspects’ in teaching climate change. Teaching History 163: 32-41. • Shemilt, D. (2009) ‘Drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful: how adolescents make sense of history’ in L. Symcox and A. Wilschut (eds), National History Standards: the problem of the canon and the future of teaching history, Charlotte, NC: Information Age