School < cl i mate change

In response to planned school strikes by students across the country, Pakuranga College principal Michael Williams said the students' i mpact on climate change would be "probably zero" and the students would be "wasting good l earning time" and marked as truant i f they didn’t have their parents' permission to take the day off to strike. A 14- year- old student at his school, Holly Rowsell (find her father Vaughan featured on page 76) decided to pen him a l etter explaining why being marked truant i s wrong as students aren’t doing i t to wag class – they’re doing i t because the i ssue i mpacts so greatly on their future. “Having students being i nvolved i n this protest makes a huge difference as the youth's voices are often the most powerful. I feel as though we are also the most affected when i t comes to environmental i ssues as we have to l i ve with the consequences our whole l i ves and see the younger generations grow up l i ving with mistakes we could have fixed,” she wrote.

Why this matters: While an education i s unquestionably i mportant, climate change i s one of the most i mportant i ssues affecting humankind today. To take a stand on this by missing j ust one day of school i s something that has united the younger generation across the globe, l ed by the i nspiring 16- year- old Swedish student Greta Thunberg, who has since been nominated for the Nobel peace prize. We say more power to them – and that educators should be encouraging children to take control of their future.