I am moved by the many ways in
which researchers, and youth activists have worked to give youth a voice. This
has given youth of all races, ethnicities, genders, socioeconomic class, and privileges
agency to stand up for what is right and what they believe needs to be fixed in
society. Chapter 18 in “Beyond Resistance” outlines many ways in which youth centered
programs have aided in giving a voice to youth of all backgrounds a voice;
however, I find it troubling that there are no environmental issues brought to
youth’s attention to give them a voice to fight for the environment.
Environmental concerns are a cornerstone to many of the problems that we have
in the world today and more importantly the world of today is the world that we
are leaving for the youth of today.
It is not
uncommon to hear anyone say that “Children are our future,” yet we continue to
pollute the air, add toxins to the water, continue using large amounts of oil,
burn coal, and argue over concerns of climate change. Even if one does not
agree on some or any of these issues, many are a reality and can even be seen
from your backdoor or in your local newspaper. I am not going to argue that
racial, gender, sexual, and lingual issues are not important, they are, but I
find it troubling that we have huge environmental issues going on today and no
one is informing the youth of today of the world that they will be receiving.
Everyone in the world, including youth, deserve to know what we as a society
are doing to the planet and should be angered by what we are not doing.
As a person
who would position themselves as an environmentalist, I believe that it is our
job to get youth involved when it comes to the environment. The planet does not
belong to those in power or even those that have the right to vote, but to
every living being. We should be educating our youth about the concerns of the
environment and inviting them to the conversation. More importantly we should
be rekindling the lost relationships to nature and the natural world that our
society has lost. David Orr talks about the restructure of education, in creating
a model of education to emphasize biophilia. The education system has made
textbook learning the standard while ignoring the principles of nature where
those concepts have been learned. We are telling youth to learn rules and
formulas without even questioning ourselves if those are right or where they
came from. Orr argues, that in moving away from nature we have become unintelligent
as a society since we have stopped questioning the order of things and just
take things for what they are. I hope that there is a change in the way we
educate youth and begin to become students of the environment.