“The enemy traveled from my house”

To begin is no more agony

than opening your hand

June Jordan, “Who Look at Me” (Jordan 2021, p. 7)

People are bored with the climate crisis. They are sick of hearing about the end of the world. There are only so many affecting images of stranded polar bears and sea turtles trapped in plastic you can be expected to absorb, after all. Only so many burning forests and flooded cities. It has all become so normal, so ordinary, so (painfully) hard to ignore, so, well, boring. You become numb after a while. And, really, if we are honest, there is not a lot we can do about it anyway. Nobody in power is going to change the trajectory we find ourselves on, so why make a fuss? It makes you wonder whether there is any point in protesting. All this doom and gloom about the future, the climate naming and shaming, it does no good.

In some ways, it might be said, it does actual harm, making people and organisations more defensive and less willing to engage. Climate protestors are, thus, readily dismissed as naïve and over-emotional, their methods as short-sighted and counterproductive. More than that, their actions are frequently met with anger, denial, and derision, sentiments which encourage governments to ramp up surveillance and punishments for climate activists. Do these kids not realise how complex everything is, that there are other comparably weighty factors at play? We cannot just stop fossil fuel production, can we? Think of all those struggling billionaires! I recall the United States Treasury Secretary suggesting that climate activist Greta Thunberg should take an economics degree before commenting on the climate crisis (Cramer 2020). This would disqualify almost all of us from offering comment on public affairs, which, I suppose, is the point. Worried that extreme heat and air and water pollution are making your home region uninhabitable? Concerned about the floods that have made you and your neighbours homeless? Become an economist and then we can talk!

This kind of response to the climate crisis is becoming increasingly common. I hear it a lot. And it is, in an obvious way, very bad news because our boredom and detachment allow the burning of fossil fuels to continue pretty much unchecked. It represents an expression of hopelessness and frustration. But it is also an expression of privileged detachment, reflected not only in our day-to-day reactions to climate catastrophe but also in the ways in which we situate our policy demands and frame our conversations with the powerful. There is a growing feeling that there is not much mileage, politically speaking, in talking about the climate crisis, let alone making people with good intentions feel bad about their lack of action.

In a seminar the other day, while discussing a possible advocacy intervention in the field of lifelong education, a senior expert proposed toning down references to the climate crisis since they were likely to turn off the policymakers it was targeting. There was much agreement in the room. And, really, I suppose they have a point. What, at the end of the day, is there to say about it? We all know that things are bad, apart from a few right-wing conspiracy theorists (and perhaps, deep down, even them), and we risk alienating our partners and stakeholders if we keep on about it. There are other ways to get their attention, after all. We need to be clever. We need to compromise and find common ground.

This sort of thing matters because we are all to a degree at the mercy of how people with influence formulate what is important. These meanings are formed untidily, frequently with intent, often good, sometimes bad, shaped by the will of different actors, as well as by the compliance and indifference of others. In two decades working in adult education and lifelong learning I have seen the broader, more humanistic tradition I considered I belonged to become increasingly marginal, almost disappearing completely, because some people decided other things were important and other people went along with it.

Changes at national level were reflected internationally, as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Union took a lead in “defining lifelong learning as an instrument of competitiveness, economic growth and matching in the Labour market” (Kinnari and Silvennoinen 2023, p. 425). We adopted other people’s ways of talking and valuing, measuring, and deciding. We reframed our arguments for the necessity of lifelong learning in exclusively economic terms (ibid.), acknowledging that private accumulation had supplanted community wellbeing as the measure of success. We refocused our offer to fit this new agenda. We accepted things were different now. And when we were almost done and there was not much left to save, we raised our hands in protest but found ourselves unable to form the right words. Our mouths were so stuffed with other people’s meanings and values, we could no longer properly articulate our own. The things we choose to talk about and the ways in which we choose to talk about them are not, then, insignificant. They have real-world consequences, sometimes very unfortunate ones.

Policy advocacy, whether at national or international level, is typically a slow, incremental process, a dialogue between influential stakeholders, private and public-sector lobby groups, thought leaders, policymakers and civil servants. It is about persuasion, compromise and coalition-building and assumes shared understanding, intent and, to some extent, values. How well it works usually depends on the balance of power, how much common ground exists and how much influence the less powerful players can exert. Where little influence can be exerted and only the most powerful and privileged voices are heard (or, rather, listened to), it becomes particularly important that we retain the integrity of our language and values, rather than reshape them to accommodate others or to find a place in their agendas.

Part of the problem we face is that while circumstances have changed, the way in which we lobby and advocate for change has not. We continue to seek compromise and common ground even after it has become clear that no compromise is to be had and no common ground can be found. Organisations established with a clear mandate to improve people’s lives and give them better opportunities find themselves in increasingly murky waters once they start accepting large amounts of money from government and other funders. While people’s intentions are generally very good, organisational mission inevitably starts to take second place to staying solvent and protecting people’s jobs while bidding for funding in a competitive market in which original thinking, or thinking that is simply different or acknowledges awkward truths people would prefer not to talk about, is positively disadvantageous.

Steven Mnuchin’s criticism of Greta Thunberg (Cramer 2020) is interesting because it expresses the conviction of many of those who imagine they own and run the world that economic considerations supersede all others. I am not sure they really believe this themselves, but the assertion has proved hugely useful in stifling opposition and advancing the cause of neoliberalism in past decades. Only a cursory comparison of education policy documents published 50 years ago with those published today is necessary to reveal how much our language and priorities have changed. Education has been reshaped in terms of pseudo-market principles of competition and individualism. A focus on high-stakes testing, economic productivity and work-readiness, and a high tolerance of inequality, inequity and private-sector profiteering, has forced out such traditional educational values as cooperation, co-creation and citizenship. The pervasiveness of the language of markets and individualism has helped convince people that there is no alternative. You might not like it, but there is nowhere else you can go.

However, economics is no master science, and it is shaped by a distinct set of values, and other values, as they say on public television, are available. If our economic system harms the things we care about, we should find another one, not simply shrug our shoulders and adapt. When Mr Mnuchin talks about economists, he means, of course, those economists who share his own values. It would not be hard to find economists with different values, who share Ms Thunberg’s belief in low- or no-growth sustainable societies which foreground community wellbeing rather than individual accumulation and corporate profit. But these thinkers remain marginal figures at events such as the World Economic Forum in Davos and would be unlikely candidates for any past or future Trump cabinet.

There is a case, therefore, to be made for sticking to our values, especially in areas such as climate change where private influence is rife, and the fossil fuel industry has proven remarkably adept at blunting political will when it comes to climate action. The mistake we sometimes make is to think that change happens through compromise with power. In fact, if we consider the history of protest, from campaigns for women’s suffrage to the civil rights movement in the Unites States (and addressing the climate crisis demands a shift in power relations arguably greater than either of these), we find that major social change rarely comes simply through dialogue with the powerful.

Nothing really changes without mass protest, civil disobedience, and resistance. People are beaten up or sacked or thrown in jail or killed. These movements succeed precisely because they do not compromise. They start with people seeing that there is something they want to achieve and joining forces with others who want to achieve the same thing. They ask the same question and keep asking it. They are knocked down, but come back and stand up again in the same place. Someone is shot dead or put in hospital. Someone else takes their place. The principal challenge for education, and adult and non-formal education in particular in these times, is not to find ways to convince policymakers of its significance with respect to addressing climate change or to make a case for fostering green skills or for its role in promoting behaviour change. The challenge is rather to identify ways in which it can contribute to movements for social change, to make joint purpose with them and to inspire, support and empower people to realise their own contribution.

The psychic toll of being exposed to unfolding tragedy on a daily basis and being unable to do anything about it is obvious. Burnout is real. Climate anxiety is now recognised as a medical condition. But it is not one that can be adequately treated through medication or mindfulness training. One of the reasons we feel such a sense of hopelessness and detachment is that while we can very well see how everything could be different, change which is meaningful and sustainable looks impossibly difficult. This can seem like a kind of hard-won realism – the challenges we face are unprecedented, after all, and capitalist accumulation is so entrenched and pervasive – but at the same time the road is clear, and governments know what they need to do. They know too they are not currently doing enough. So, while quietism is understandable, it is also one of the factors responsible for our current malaise, a sort of self-fulfilling principle. Making things better requires work. It requires empowerment, disruption, confrontation. The activism of the climate protestors is the starting point. As Isabelle Fremeaux and Jay Jordan (2021) write in their pamphlet We are “Nature” Defending Itself: Entangling Art, Activism and Autonomous Zone – a sort of how-to guide for progressive trouble-makers – the challenge even for long-time activists is to give their activism roots, to make it a part of daily life, a practice grounded in continual struggle – a way of living. Through the “zad” – a “zone à défendre” created on 4,000 acres of illegally occupied wetland in France on which an international airport was to be built – they found that “a very different way for art, learning, resistance, and doing life in common was possible” (ibid., p. 4). Action of this sort, rather than therapy or pills, is the best available treatment for climate despair.

Of course, in talking about climate change we cannot ignore its geopolitical origins. Nor should we avoid talking about the ways in which we are implicated. Climate change is a racist phenomenon. It is a legacy of colonialism. It is not politically neutral. It has generations of blood on its hands. We in the wealthy Global North have an obligation to acknowledge these causes, as well as their effects. I am reminded of June Jordan’s poem “The bombing of Baghdad” (Jordan 2021, pp. 50–53), a lament for the victims of the United States-led bombing of Iraq, in which she recognises that however much she may regret what happened it remains true that “the enemy traveled from my house/to blast your homeland/into pieces of children/and pieces of sand” (ibid.).

It is a painful thing to consider, but we must acknowledge that many of the injustices of the past and present were/are perpetrated in our name, and that from these injustices grew the terrible and ongoing injustice of the climate crisis. Life is complex stuff after all, messy, discomforting, and endlessly unjust, full of false glory and buried bodies. But acknowledging that the enemy came ‘from our house’ need not point to quietism or shame or detached handwringing. As Jordan goes on to write, we must “sing the song of the living/who must sing against the dying” (ibid.). We need to reach deep into our reserves of compassion and care for the world and others. We must look at the world not through a filter of cultivated detachment, but with love and yearning and sadness and anger. Acknowledging our feelings of guilt, shame and grief can enlarge our capacities to care and thus help us to rediscover or reorient our moral compass. That means, among other things, turning out the occupying powers that have for too long roosted in our house, dominating education and causing us to stifle our passions and subvert our values. Our relationship with neoliberalism has long been a delusional and abusive one.

We cannot all win. Changing direction means challenging existing institutions and structures of power and privilege. It is not possible to save both us and them. The delusion of our time is that a compromise can be found that would enable us to prevent climate catastrophe and retain the same structures of economic and ideological domination. It should trouble us that those who are doing most to protect their wealth and the structures that support it privately understand this.

Climate protestors likewise appreciate that they are engaged in a high-stakes struggle with a kind of capitalist death cult (how else to describe those who wish to expand fossil fuel production when scientists already consider Earth to be “well outside the safe operating space for humanity” [Richardson et al. 2023, p. 1]?) which some time ago drew the battle lines of the conflict which is unfolding around us. They also know they are heavily outgunned and miserably under-resourced. They know too that they are risking their lives (Greenfield 2023). Yet, around the world, they turn up and make their voices heard.

Our best hope, I believe, lies not in asking governments to do more when they have shown they are not prepared to go nearly far enough, but in growing these communities of dissent and disobedience, turning them into places where people can live and work and do so differently, in accord with their values, creating a new sort of commons animated by solidarity and joint purpose. We must start working together, contributing in whatever way we can (and as Fremeaux and Jordan show, this need not mean gluing yourself to the road – it can be anything from creating art to teaching adults to preparing food). We cannot know how things will turn out or whether we will be successful. The important thing though is to begin, however awkwardly, however haltingly or problematically, to work towards something better that might, in time, help us grow beyond the current political stasis. The last thing we should do is stop saying these things because some people would rather not hear them.

The first article of this issue of the International Review of Education focuses, appropriately enough, on environmental education: “Éducation non formelle des orpailleurs à l’environnement et réduction de l’utilisation du mercure dans l’orpaillage : pour l’adoption de techniques d’extraction aurifère durables” [Non-formal environmental education for gold miners and reduction of mercury use in gold mining: Towards the adoption of sustainable gold mining techniques]. Clarisse Mbo and Simona Butnaro consider how non-formal environmental education of gold miners has supported the adoption of sustainable gold mining techniques in Cameroon. The use of mercury in artisanal mining has negative impacts on health and the environment and is being combated all over the world, including through awareness-raising and education, though with mixed success. The article presents an exploratory study addressing gold miners’ knowledge of the harmful effects of using mercury in gold mining, how they acquire this knowledge, and the conditions that should support their behaviour change. The authors collected data in the town of Bétaré Oya in Eastern Cameroon using a mixed-methods approach, interviews and questionnaires. Their study found that the gold miners already have some knowledge about the reasons why they should change their behaviour in their working environment. However, experts are needed to properly train them and develop their artisanal skills to adopt and maintain gold mining practices that require little or no mercury. The authors argue that it is necessary to consider intervention strategies based on non-formal environmental education to develop and consolidate miners’ skills towards sustainable artisanal mining.

The second article is the first of two to explore the challenges faced by teachers in shifting to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The role of motivational teaching techniques in adult distance learning programmes”, written by Inusah Salifu and Isaac Kofi Biney, examines motivational teaching techniques used by instructors of distance learning programmes to assist adult learners in achieving their educational goals. The authors investigated how instructors in a programme at a large university in Ghana applied the techniques, as well as the challenges they faced. The instructors were purposively selected for face-to-face individual interviews and classroom observations. Data were analysed using content, constant comparison and thematic approaches. The findings revealed that in their teaching of adults, the instructors used different motivational techniques, described in this research as patching, resting, piecemealing, shared learning and opportunity to try. Although the choice of techniques overlapped among the instructors in the sample, they each applied them differently to help their adult learners to learn effectively. The instructors also encountered challenges (teaching frustrations), such as learner absenteeism, unwillingness to accept change, disrespect and lack of preparedness. In light of these challenges, the authors recommend that open and distance learning (ODL) instructors in Ghana take advantage of professional development opportunities to keep up to date with techniques for managing complex adult learning environments and issues. Internationally, the findings of this study highlight the need for ODL providers around the world to regularly review their services to ensure that the challenges instructors and learners face are addressed in a timely manner. This will ensure that ODL remains a viable alternative mode of education, especially during exceptional circumstances such as the COVID-19 lockdowns.

The second article with a focus on teachers’ learning considers preschool teachers’ readiness to shift to online provision. “Greek preschool teachers’ readiness to teach online at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic”, written by Eleni Tympa, Vasiliki Karavida and Athina Charissi, examines the mobilisation of in-service teachers in Greece and their readiness to address teaching challenges while delivering online lessons. The study aimed to answer four research questions about teachers’ ICT knowledge and the ways in which they used technology for work purposes, as well as the difficulties they encountered while teaching online. Evaluation of the data resulted in three main findings: (1) holding an ICT training certificate did not have a significant impact on the implementation of new technologies in distance education; (2) support from local education authorities was an important factor of the transition to online teaching; and (3) Greek teachers did not feel fully prepared to teach online. The authors noted a lack of confidence among teachers, irrespective of past training or experience. They conclude by calling for continuing professional development opportunities for teachers, covering subjects such as effective use of technology, online teaching, and techniques for online evaluation and feedback. It would be desirable too, they argue, for educational institutions to offer additional support and resources to teachers to help them develop their confidence and skills in delivering distance education.

Our fourth article, “Beyond academic outcomes: The role of social and emotional learning in rethinking education quality in low-income countries”, authored by Deena Newaz, reflects on different notions of educational quality. The author argues that reliance on measuring tangible educational outcomes such as literacy and numeracy through large-scale standardised assessments has narrowed the definition of education quality and influenced education policy in low-income country contexts. Her article examines the cognitive outcomes-oriented notion of what is considered quality education, especially in low-income contexts, with a view to expanding ideas of quality beyond standardised measures of learning. The study considers, in particular, emerging literature on the role of social and emotional learning (SEL) in enhancing the quality of education and its contextualisation in low-income contexts. Two SEL case studies (from Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo) are also presented to explore the cultural adaptability and potential of SEL in non-Western contexts. Initial findings show the positive correlation of SEL not only with academic results but also with overall life outcomes with appropriate cultural contextualisation. Despite certain risks, the author argues, SEL can be useful in low-income settings to expand and reimagine education quality beyond standardised measurements, through a flexible approach that draws on local and global ideas and practices.

The next article also features Tanzania, this time with a focus on work readiness. “The role of work-integrated learning programmes in developing work readiness: Insights from Tanzania” is authored by Ramadhani Marijani, Jesper Katomero, Asha Hayeshi and Justine Kajerero. They investigate the role of work-integrated learning (WIL) programmes in developing work readiness among graduates in Tanzania, using Tanzania Public Service College (TPSC) as a case study. The researchers consider both students’ and employers’ perspectives on the programmes, using interviews, focus group discussions and a questionnaire administered to post-placement students, who were asked to respond to a number of learning and career-based questions. Participation in the programmes was found to be useful to students in terms of non-academic learning and career development, particularly when they had an opportunity to apply the generic skills learned in the classroom in the workplace, with the support of work and academic supervisors. Benefits were demonstrated in terms of students’ knowledge and skills, as well as their preparedness to meet the requirements of the workplace and the relevance of the tasks performed during placement. Noting the value of the programme to TPSC, the authors argue that efforts to impart cognitive and socio-behavioural skills to students should be given priority so as to prepare them for the changing nature of employment.

The final article in this issue also focuses on work and learning and takes as its starting point the experience of lockdown and the need to provide opportunities for skills development online. “Online work-based learning: A systematic literature review”, written by Bart Rienties, Blazenka Divjak, Francisco Iniesto, Katarina Pazur Anicic and Mirza Zizak, emerged in the context of an Erasmus + project entitled Relevant Assessment and Pedagogies for Inclusive Digital Education (RAPIDE).¹ Their article explores, first, which innovative technologies and online work-based learning (WBL) typologies are implemented in online WBL in higher education; and, second, to what extent there is evidence that online WBL is effective. From an initial pool of 269 studies identified from two datasets, the authors selected 13 studies, published between 2017 and 2021, which implemented and evaluated online WBL. Their review provides a detailed understanding of different design approaches to online WBL practices and their effectiveness in developing graduate skills. The study indicates a notably increased adoption of technology and online delivery of WBL, compared to reviews conducted for earlier studies. The findings indicate that most studies used descriptive, qualitative approaches to explore the lived experiences of participants, mostly from Australia. Substantial differences were found in the designs of online WBL practices and technologies, although there was limited robust evidence of effectiveness due to a lack of evidence-based evaluation approaches. The authors encourage WBL researchers to be more precise in their design parameters of online WBL, and to consider (quasi)experimental designs to measure the impact of their approaches. They conclude by highlighting the research gap in evaluating the effectiveness and impact of online WBL, noting the importance of including all relevant stakeholders (students, teachers and industry partners), considering the different parameters that have an impact on online WBL effectiveness, and including “a wider set of teaching methods, study areas, countries, and types of higher education institution beyond the current literature in order to provide a more comprehensive and inclusive overview on the effectiveness and impact of online WBL”.

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a reappraisal of many different aspects of education, including questions of value and purpose. For a fleeting moment, now no more than a fading memory, it seemed that it might be possible to rethink and reconfigure how we do education and reopen our economies and societies on a fairer, more just and inclusive basis. Peering through the portal of possible futures opened by the pandemic, we had an opportunity to reflect on what was important to us. Could the pandemic, as Bruno Latour (2021) suggests, be a kind of “dress rehearsal” for a different, more sustainable way of living, an incitement to prepare the world for climate change? Could this new sense of our interconnectedness and mutual dependency be translated into policy? Can we start to live in a way that does not damage the lives of others?

Alas, perhaps predictably, the old patterns of power and privilege quickly reasserted themselves. How far our naïve speculations were from reality was highlighted very effectively by an Australian CEO who remarked while on camera that mass unemployment should be used as a stick to discipline workers who had become “arrogant” in the wake of the COVID lockdown (Turnbull and Sherman 2023). “Build back better” has been exposed as little more than a euphemism for more of the same. Banks continue to invest trillions of dollars in the expansion of fossil fuel production in the Global South (Noor 2023) while Big Oil, all savagery and machismo, reports record profits (Bousso 2023). Educational and economic inequalities have widened (Wellcome 2021). Progress on the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), notably on eradicating poverty (SDG 1), reducing inequality (SDG 10) and promoting decent work (SDG 8), already far from sufficient, has either stalled or been thrown into reverse (Yuan et al. 2023). Things are not going well.

For those of us so far protected from the worst effects of climate change, the new normal is very much like the old one. I live in a city. I know that cities drive economic growth, but also that they are responsible for around three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions (UNEP n.d.). I know that the comfort and convenience come at a price, much of it paid by others, but I am, for the most part, oblivious to this, not indifferent but wilfully unaware. I have made peace with my ignorance. Like most of us, I have learned to live with moral awkwardness, largely by looking away or not thinking about it. Like others, I am uneasy. I am compromised too, I realise. My hands are not clean. I do not know if we can change. I do not know if I can change.

But I know that change is necessary and, as more and more people come around to the same view, there is some hope in that. Solidarity, one of the most derided values of the neoliberal imagination, emerged during the pandemic as something we could not do without, likewise the legions of low-paid workers who kept society functioning while most of us stayed at home behind closed doors. We are all connected, whether we like it or not. There is really no limit to the ways in which we can choose to live and work with each other. We do not need to make common cause with people who wish us harm or do not care if we die or are made homeless or stateless or cannot breathe the air or drink the water. Maybe, as June Jordan suggests, it is just a matter of beginning. I just need to open my hand.