- Amanda Spielman claimed activists spread anxiety with negative messages
- Teachers ‘treat children like ‘mini-adults’ and pressure them to save the planet’
- She advised students to knuckle down rather than emulate Greta Thunberg
Climate change activists are scaring children with ‘alarming’ lessons in schools, a former Ofsted chief has warned.
Amanda Spielman claimed the teaching resources provided for free by eco charities and campaign groups contain overwhelmingly negative messages that were causing shock and spreading anxiety.
And in a stark intervention, she told The Mail on Sunday she feared teachers were too often treating children like ‘mini-adults’ by piling pressure on them to save the planet, which was depriving them of a proper childhood.
Organisations including Greenpeace, WWF and the British Red Cross offer free climate change teaching resources to schools.
WWF’s Climate Crisis! poster paints a grim picture of a world where huge numbers of species are at risk of extinction if the Earth heats up, and that ‘every part of our world’ is being affected by the rise in carbon dioxide.
Climate change activists are scaring children with ‘alarming’ lessons in schools, former Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman has warned. Pictured: A climate crisis resource from WWF
Ms Spielman said she feared teachers were too often treating children like ‘mini-adults’ by piling pressure on them to save the planet, which was depriving them of a proper childhood
Eco zealots Extinction Rebellion have also offered ‘climate breakdown’ lessons for schoolchildren.
Ms Spielman said that while teaching resources may be well-intentioned, they ‘impose a great deal of anxiety’ on children.
‘Negative messages attract the most attention for campaigns, so any material produced by campaigning organisations is going to be framed around some shock messaging, the idea being to prompt people into action, and, for children, that can induce anxiety,’ warned Ms Spielman, who headed the Government inspectorate for seven years until last December.
She added: ‘We shouldn’t be asking children to carry the weight of the past and the responsibility of adults on their shoulders.
‘They need time to grow and build resilience to be able to function as adults, and perhaps we tend to treat them as mini-adults.’
Ms Spielman said she advised students to knuckle down in school rather than emulate the young activist Greta Thunberg, adding: ‘When I visited schools and asked children what they wanted to do as adults, girls would say, ‘I want to be like Greta Thunberg.’
‘I would say, ‘If you’re really serious about climate and the environment, then work your socks off in science.
‘The people who are going to make a difference to the world are the scientists who are coming up with brilliant ideas.’ ‘
Her comments came after she told an audience of head teachers that discussion of contentious subjects had become ‘dominated by campaigners whose intention is to de-legitimise the expression of any view but their own.’
Ms Spielman said: ‘Anything said in a school comes with tremendous authority, so if children get a very strong message from their school or teacher about a contentious issue it can feel as though that is the only permitted view.’
Ms Spielman said: ‘We shouldn’t be asking children to carry the weight of the past and the responsibility of adults on their shoulders.’
Will McCallum, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: ‘We know the best antidote to anxiety about climate is channelling those feelings into action.
‘This is why the work we do in schools is so important.’
And Rosalind Mist, director of campaigns, education and youth at WWF, said: ‘All our educational materials are designed to be fully age-appropriate and engaging.’
