LEARNING HOPE: WHEN THE STUDENTS TEACH THE TEACHER

Last term, I taught a university class on “Ethics and Climate Change,” using MORAL GROUND as a reader.  It was the most moving teaching experience of my life.  My students were mostly graduate students, most from the science and natural resource fields. They didn’t know, or need to know, much about ethics, but they all cared deeply about the future of the Earth.

Like any diligent professor, I began with a clear list of the goals of the course: To examine the moral issues that we face as the climate changes; to learn how worldviews and values, together with science, can shape decisions about what we ought to do; to reason cogently about our obligations to honor intergenerational rights and the rich abundance of life on Earth; and so to acquire the skills and concepts to navigate in the choppy waters of a global moral discourse of literally world-changing importance. But, as I soon learned, the most important outcome of the course was not on my list.

 

On the first evening, I asked the students to rank themselves on a scale of one to ten, where one meant they had no hope and ten meant they had no concerns.  The students fell on the downhill side of the middle range -- four to five. 

 

All term we read essays from the world’s most respected moral leaders and most beautiful writers, all calling for a moral response to climate change.  For ten weeks, we questioned each other, challenged the writers, debated the ideas and their real-life consequences.  The best discussions were the ones the students led.  
Laurie, a horticulture student, asked us all to pledge to make one positive change in our eating habits, and we did:  Eat no beef. Buy only local fruit. Raise your own vegetables. Swear off bottled water. Kate, a city planner, led us in a role-playing discussion about how the moral sentiments -- love of place, desire for legacy, concern for children -- can inform decisions in local government.  Allegra explained how she lived, worked, raised her children, and even went to college in another town, all without a car. Students shared recommendations for videos and books, they shared music, they shared their own experiences as activists, they shared homemade bread, they shared their hopes and fears, and as we read a child’s appeal for the future, they shared tears.

On the last day of class, we returned to the question of hope.  One by one, students told where they now stood on the scale between “no hope” and “no concerns.”  There wasn’t a dramatic difference between the start of the course and the end.  But every student had inched up on the hopefulness scale so that the class as a whole tipped over onto the uphill side of middle, say 5 to 6.  What accounts for the change?  Each student cited the same reason:  they were lifted by the energy of the class, which had become a community of people who cared as much as they did, and who were educating themselves to make a difference in the world. 

As for me, I will admit now, although I did not tell the students, that I began the term at a desperate starting point, a zero, there is no hope.  But in the presence of these dedicated young people, my spirits rose to the thin, trembling edge of hopefulness -- call it a four.  Who could not find hope in the open hearts and determination of these students? 
So I believe in the joy and power of moral discourse -- public discussions of our deepest values and highest aspirations.  I believe in the power of the essays in MORAL GROUND.  Most of all, I believe in my students.

All the materials from my course, and all the materials anyone would need to lead a similar set of discussions, are available to be downloaded from moralground.com -- Discussion Guide to MORAL GROUND: Ethical Actions for a Planet in Peril.  I hope you will go there and find the inspiration (and the practical steps) to create your open community of caring and hope.