A campaign of student strike action to highlight climate change driven by two 14-year-olds from Castlemaine was given a megaphone when Prime Minister Scott Morrison dissed it in parliament this week.
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“We don’t support the idea of kids not going to school, to participate in things that can be dealt with outside of school,” Mr Morrison said in response to a query by Member for Melbourne, Adam Bandt.
“We do not support our schools being turned into parliaments. We do not support our schools being turned into parliaments. We think kids should be in school learning, whether it’s about those issues or maths, science, English, literature, Indigenous history, Australian history. That's what they should be there doing.
“What we want is more learning in schools and less activism in schools.”
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Mr Morrison, what is wrong with students engaging with the issues of the day? What’s wrong with them fighting for a future they will inherit, often from politicians more interested in their political survival today than what comes tomorrow? What is wrong with students making themselves heard in the only way they can, being too young to vote? It is antiquated thinking to silence them – of the “children should be seen and not heard” kind. That has already left a legacy of social ills. Ignore the young at your peril.
It is encourging to see student activism. They have learned not only literacy and numeracy at school, but critical thinking. They have absorbed the facts and made up their own minds. The protests are that skill in action. The lessons learnt from a day absent from school could last a lifetime, afterall there are many “classrooms” in life, not all of them confined to four walls.
The student climate-change protests in Bendigo and other cities at the start of November were just before the State Election. The Federal poll isn’t that far off. The students will be out again this Friday with their message to politicians to act now to save the planet. They wish they didn’t have to. They wish that climate change wasn’t a concern. And they wish, Mr Morrison, that you had supported them. We will be.
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