Curiosity, critical thinking and agency as responses to the Australian Bushfire Crisis

The bushfire crisis that is currently impacting Australia is beyond devastating. The scale of these fires defies the imagination. For so long now we have lived with skies laden with smoke as a constant and inescapable reminder that this is not an ordinary summer. This is weather and drought at its most extreme. Our only salvation will be rain but this is not the season for that and the long term forecasts are not promising.

The news coming to us from the areas most impacted by the fires tells a story of heartbreak and loss. Lives have been lost. Countless animals have died what must surely have been cruel deaths. These fires will have pushed many much loved Australian species beyond the brink of extinction. Suffering abounds. There was a time not long past when the loss of one or two family homes to bushfire was newsworthy. This summer the number of families displaced and with no home to return to is in the hundreds and climbing rapidly. Thousands have been evacuated. Many have been forced to escape to the sanctuary of our coastal waters. Day has been transformed into night and the sky turned blood red. This is apocalypse now.

The impact of these bushfires will be felt by all Australians now and for a long time to come. One can not be untouched by the imagery and most will have close personal connections to the people and places directly impacted. Our young people, in particular, will be affected and will need special care in the weeks and months to come. For many, the return to school in early February will be challenging. Many will have been forced away from the communities they call home. Some will have lost loved ones. All will carry emotional scars from the imagery and the environment they have endured over summer. There will be much for schools to do as a support to the healing process. 

Alongside the emotional healing that will be required our students are bound to arrive back in our classrooms with many questions. They will have seen and heard the debate about our collective responses to the bushfire crisis. They will want to understand the connection between extreme climate events and climate change. They will want to know why some people continue to argue against anthropogenic global warming. They will have questions about the response of our politicians to the crisis and want to better understand our political systems. Our students will have opinions on what might be done and what they feel should be done. There will be those who are angry, those ready for a fight, those who are feeling disempowered and many who feel frightened. There will be questions about trust and of what the future might bring. They will want to know what they can do.

A good starting point will be nurturing their curiosity. If our young people become healthy skeptic who challenge claims with wisdom and sound evidence the world will be a better place for all. In these post-truth times when fake news is the new normal, a desire to understand the motivation behind bold claims become a critical life skill. Our children need to have the skills to question and interrogate claims made in the media and to become truth seekers. By helping our students to understand the scientific method and by showing them how science tests and re-tests knowledge we are equipping them with skills that will allow them to confront fake-news head-on. 

The ability to reason with evidence is a thinking move which can be enhanced by the use of appropriate thinking routines. Used effectively and with an understanding of the thinking required in a given situation brings structure to our thinking. Thinking routines bring a degree of order to our thinking that might otherwise be absent and can transform the challenging task of thinking well into a manageable process. When used in the classroom, thinking routines have the added benefit of making the thinking of our students visible. Students can work through the steps of a thinking routine independently or in small groups and capture the thinking which occurs in response to each step for later sharing. The thinking might be captured with pen and paper, on post-it notes or in a digital format. When we make the thinking of our students visible in these ways we create opportunities for further discussion and particularly in the realm of truth-seeking we require our students to reason with the evidence they have gathered. Empty claims are quickly debunked when students are asked to share their reasoning in a culture that values thinking and makes it visible. 

These thinking routines are particularly useful when the aim is reasoning with evidence. Learn more and find other routines here - Project Zero Thinking Routines

  • Connect, Extend, Challenge - How are the ideas presented Connected to what you already know? What new ideas are presented that Extend what you know? What is still Challenging for you about the new topic and/or its connection with prior learning? Use individually recording your responses on paper or in a group with each member responding to the three questions in turn.

  • Think, Puzzle, Explore - Answer these three questions: What do you Think you know about this topic? What questions or Puzzles do you have? How can you Explore this topic? When Exploring begin by looking for ways to expand on what you already know to maximise the benefits of your prior learning.

  • I used to think . . ., Now I think . . . - When you are reviewing a topic take time to include this simple routine. Start with 'I used to think . . . ' then move on to 'Now I think . . .'. Add power by combining with 'What connections are there between the two?'. This routine should help you identify connections with prior knowledge and allow you to identify which parts are entirely new.

  • I see (hear, feel, touch, taste), I think, I wonder - Open your senses to the experience and describe it, give voice to your thoughts as you explore with your senses, finish by asking questions that share what you have sensed and discuss how each sense added to your understanding

  • What makes you say that? - A powerful question for encouraging deeper thinking and one that works best when students learn that this question is not an attack on their thinking but is aimed at revealing more detail.

Armed with curiosity, a desire to seek the truth and the power to reason with evidence, our students will require a strong sense of agency. When we confront frightening and challenging circumstances we have choices to make. If we confront these challenges with a belief that we can influence our individual and collective trajectory, that we might shape our futures we demonstrate positive agency. 

“agency,” is the ability to make choices and direct activity based on one's own resourcefulness and enterprise. This entails thinking about the world not as something that unfolds separate and apart from us but as a field of action that we can potentially direct and influence. - 
Creating Cultures of Thinking - Ron Ritchhart

A sense of agency can be the best defence against the potential to feel overwhelmed and disempowered by the scale of the crisis. Helping our students to realise and act upon their desire to make the world a better place can result in powerful learning. Globally students are finding their voice and speaking truth to power. We need more of this and schools should not stifle this activism. 

In a democratic society where freedom of speech is protected, we are fortunate to have processes through which citizens and their communities can be heard. Helping our students to understand how our political system is structured, how the power of the powerful is managed by laws that protect all citizens is an important part of our role in preparing our students for their tomorrow. Student voice should not be something that is restricted to discussion of matters constrained to the school grounds. Our students will want opportunities to organise and present a collective response to what they have witnessed over this summer. Our students understand that the actions taken or not taken now will have profound consequences for their future and they know that they can not wait until they leave school to have a say in how we respond. 

Perhaps the traditional role of schools has been the maintenance of the status quo. This role might need to be challenged. This is not advocating for teacher activists but it is a likely consequence of a shift in focus from the transfer of knowledge to developing thinking dispositions. As we empower our students to be problem finders and truth seekers, we should expect that they will challenge the “way things are done here”. As our young people challenge the truth of claims made by those in power, it becomes inevitable that schools become the point of origin for their collective voice. If we are genuine in our desire to promote critical thinking, curiosity and student agency, we should not stand in the way of this. 

By Nigel Coutts

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