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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now our climate story of the week, which we do every Tuesday on the show, and just in time for school to start a book about how educators can better approach climate education in the classroom. Of course, it's not new to think about youth in connection to the climate movement. Greta Thunberg made global headlines with her school strike in 2018, which began the movement Fridays for the Future. In the US, the youth-led Sunrise Movement has been mobilizing young people around climate change since 2017.

Most recently, and as we've covered on the show, a group of young people in Montana successfully won a lawsuit this summer against the state for developing fossil fuel projects without considering their impact on the climate. How should some of the people closest to you, their teachers, guide them in their desire to take action?

Our guest today, Tom Roderick, has some suggestions, and interestingly, his background is not in climate science. Tom Roderick was the founding director of the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility, and as seen as a national leader in the area of social and emotional learning for kids. He also developed programs such as the conflict resolution one known as the 4Rs--Reading, Writing, Respect, and Resolution. He retired from the Morningside Center in 2018. His new book is Teach for Climate Justice. Tom, thank you for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Tom Roderick: My pleasure, Brian, so glad to be here.

Brian Lehrer: You talked about the fact that when you were in education, you didn't focus on climate education, you were doing other things. Can you describe your background a little bit, and what kind of research you did to write a climate book?

Tom Roderick: Sure. I got involved in education through the civil rights movement in the '60s, and as a student, I set up tutoring programs for Black kids in Akron, Ohio, New Haven, and Philadelphia. Then I came to New York and got my master's in education from Bank Street College, and then taught in East Harlem for 10 years. In the early '80s, the arms race between the Soviet Union and United States was escalating. I got involved with an organization called Educators for Social Responsibility, started by educated concerned about the danger of nuclear war.

I've been concerned with human survival issues for a long time. Our work at Educators for Social Responsibility evolved over the years from what we call nuclear age education, to teaching kids peacemaking skills, to social emotional learning, to racial equity. We changed our name to Morningside Center about 10 or 12 years ago. I have a long career in educating for social responsibility, but while at Morningside Center, that was not our main focus, it was social and emotional learning, and racial equity. When I retired, I decided I want to work my way into the climate movement and that coalesced with the idea of creating this book, Teach for Climate Justice.

I spent four years researching as a whole field, of course, I'd been involved in climate movement going on demonstrations and so on, but not deeply involved since we'd focused mostly on racial equity, and social and emotional learning. In the course of researching the book, I talked with outstanding educators from around the country, interviewed them, and also with student activists, and I featured them in the book.

Brian Lehrer: The name of the book is, as you say, Teach for Climate Justice, not just climate change. What is climate justice as you define it?

Tom Roderick: Well, climate justice is a beautiful vision for the future. It's a world in which human activity has come into harmony with nature, and human wellbeing is a reality, not just for some, but for all. There are two billion people around the world who don't have clean water to drink. In our own country here, we have 40,000, who are homeless. We have half the country living from paycheck to paycheck. Three individuals have more wealth than the bottom half of the country put together. Our issue is not just saving the climate, but creating a just future for everybody.

Brian Lehrer: The full title of the book, I should tell the listeners is Teach for Climate Justice: A Vision for Transforming Education. I do see that it connects with those other areas that you were describing you've been involved with during your career. The first step you outlined is building a framework for social and emotional learning, which was largely where you focus your career in education. Can you explain where social and emotional learning connects with teaching climate justice?

Tom Roderick: Yes, so the climate crisis, as it unfolds, is going to raise lots of feelings. It's already doing so. Social emotional learning is about helping young people and adults understand and manage feelings. Kids learn skills in listening and assertiveness, in understanding and managing feelings, in resolving conflicts creatively, and in standing up for justice. Those are essential skills to have in facing the uncertain future that lies ahead, not to mention the current future that is very much upon us already.

At the same time, social and emotional learning programs at their best help create what we call brave spaces, where people can, adults and young people can share their feelings, can be listened to, and realize that they've got a community at their backs. At the same time, we need to ensure that the communities are equitable, that everyone is treated with respect, no matter what their background or racial background, or LGBTQ status or whatever, that they need to be respected, and that at the same time, that we're developing students social and emotional skills, we need to be having courageous conversations about race and introducing anti-racist practices.

The purpose I call that first chapter, Build the Beloved Community, Strong Hearts United for Climate Justice. That's the foundation that we all need as we face the future ahead. We need trustworthy relationships and tenacious communities of support. That's why social and emotional learning lies at the foundation of teaching climate justice.

Brian Lehrer: We are in our climate story of the week, which we do every Tuesday on The Brian Lehrer Show today with Tom Roderick, author of the new book, Teach for Climate Justice: A Vision for Transforming Education. As we head back into the school year, I think some of our regular listener teachers are already back in the classroom, some are not. If you are a teacher involved in any way with teaching about climate to your students, whether you're a science teacher or something else, we would love to hear from you.

We have time for a few phone calls in this segment. What do you think about Tom Roderick's connections, the connections he's making between social and emotional learning, between social justice and the science of climate change as points of intersection in curriculum. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 if you want to get in on the conversation in our remaining time in the next few minutes.

I noticed that one of the concepts you describe in the book is active hope. I find that really interesting because we've talked on this show before in our climate segments of the week, and I'm sure a lot of people, whether or not they're very focused on climate, are aware that there's a lot of climate anxiety among young people today. Some even say they're not sure they want to have kids, bring children into a world which is going to suffer an increasing number of climate disasters or just feeling anxious seeing the extreme weather events that seem to be taking place more frequently, and how they are tied to a year by year warming Earth that we're living on right now. When you address anxieties in the context of active hope, rather than act of fear as a useful emotion in motivating change, I'd be very interested in hearing you talk about your concept of active hope.

Tom Roderick: Active hope is not a feeling. It's not something you have. It's something you do. Throughout, woven throughout the book are stories of young people and of adults who practice active hope. It involves envisioning what we want the future to be, what we hope for, and then deciding how could I best contribute to bringing that about. Then it's rolling up your sleeves and getting to work.

Throughout history, there are people who dreamed. Maybe the dream seemed impossible at the time, but they got to work and moved humanity forward toward a more just society. In my book, for example, of course, social and emotional learning is key to addressing climate anxiety because it provides a place where in community, in school where people can share their feelings.

The other thing is, in terms of active hope, when kids have their social and emotional learning instruction, the teacher starts by engaging the kids in envisioning what do you want our classroom to be like. How are we going to treat each other here? What are the things you value in relationships, and how can that be part of our classroom? Right from the get-go, the kids are asked to envision what they hope for in the world, and then realize that they are responsible, that they have a role in bringing that about.

In a chapter on cultivating love and understanding of nature, kids get out into nature, experience nature, ask their questions, and so on. As of like older elementary kids, they might study pollination and they might study how the bees help the flowers and we help the flowers, and the flowers help us, and the flowers help the bees, and then they might learn that the bees are endangered because of certain pesticides that are being used. Then they take action to support the bees and to support people who are working against the use of pesticides.

Throughout the book, the children, young people learn of ways in which people are currently envisioning a positive future, and alternative to fossil fuels, for example, better ways of doing agriculture. The children, like in one classroom, they design wind turbines and learn the science of how to make an effective wind turbine. It's all about envisioning the future. It's about active hope. It's about action for a better world.

Brian Lehrer: The bees help the flowers and the flowers help the bees and the trees help the lantern flies, which we're going to talk about later in the show. That's just a little promo, throwing it in there. Here's a teacher calling in. Lauren in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lauren.

Lauren: Hi. Thanks so much for taking my call. I'm a huge fan. I feel like I could talk about this for weeks on end. I just wanted to agree with and echo what the guest speaker is saying. I'm a teacher. I've been teaching for 10 years now in East New York, Brooklyn, and I really think education is just so much the answer for everything. Obviously, I'm biased. I think that our youth really, it's like we really need to start with the way to handle and tackle climate change is through education and through changing habits of mind. We clearly need to change our behavior as humans.

I'm a firm believer that the earlier we start with our kids in the classrooms, outside of the classrooms in any way we can, building that connection with nature, teaching them sustainable habits, really having them understand from a natural way, their connection and interconnectedness, how everything is interconnected so that they can truthfully understand the impact of their behavior and the choices that they make. I'm so excited to read this book. Thank you so much for this conversation. I think we need legislation to make sure that climate education is everywhere and we need it now.

Brian Lehrer: Because you're so passionate about this, Lauren, can you take us into your classroom and just give us an example? I don't know where you teach or what grade you teach, but give us a very brief example of how you bring it into the classroom.

Lauren: Yes. Well, I will say without plugging myself, I'm actually starting a nonprofit also to try to tackle some of this on my own. In my own current classroom, I teach seventh grade. That's a test age. I don't know. Some of the things I do, like even just small stuff on the bottom of my chart, if we have charts in the classroom, I usually use like #MotherEarthLovesYou as a reminder.

The little things like if you didn't like the way your handwriting was on that page, you don't need to scrap the whole page and throw it away. Just uncrumple it, use the back. The small acts that we do like we want to avoid waste, we want to recycle, we want to be mindful of the things that we're using in the way that we're living. I teach English so I don't always get an opportunity to bring in super relevant climate stories, but I definitely try to bring it in with my day-to-day habits of mind and the way you would behave in that concern.

Brian Lehrer: Lauren, thank you. Thank you very much, and-

Lauren: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: -good luck out there if you're doing another turn in seventh grade this year. Let's end on this, segwaying from Lauren's call. Tom, because you are definitely a systemic, structural policy-oriented person, but your focus in a lot of the book seems to be largely on individual educators who you acknowledge are already taking on a lot, so why focus on individual educators rather than creating entire curricula or standards as your book-length shot at this topic?

Tom Roderick: Well, obviously it's important to create curricula and standards. Just want to give a shout-out to New Jersey, which was featured on your show a few-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Previous segment.

Tom Roderick: Yes, for what they're doing in incorporating climate education into the standards. What I have done in the book is to put out a vision of radical transformative climate education. Climate education that I think can really make a difference. There are outstanding educators around the country. They're the ones featured in the book. There's some 27 of them, including some student activists as well who are doing this and leading the way.

I think at the same time that we need efforts at the state school level to integrate to climate education into the standards, we need a vision of where we're going. My book is intended to guide curriculum development and teaching learning going forward. Yes, it starts with individuals, but my aim is to develop ever-expanding networks of those individuals who can then influence policy, but people need to be doing it at its best first before we can expand it to systems. My book aims to inspire people with a radical vision of what's needed, what our kids really need at this stage. I am setting up a website, and there's a great network in New York City called the Climate Resilience Education Task Force that is a network of people. Actually, we're going to be having an event on Climate Week in New York for educators. It's going to be 4:30 to 6:00 on Wednesday, September 20th, and so I see the book as just the beginning.

Brian Lehrer: That's our Climate Story of the Week with Tom Roderick, author now of Teach for Climate Justice: A Vision for Transforming Education. Thanks so much for sharing it with us.

Tom Roderick: Thank you, Brian. Pleasure to be on your show.

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