3 minute read
The legacy of Donald Hughes, Sarah Ritchie 1
Editorial
The loss of local bookshops may be the result of commercial competition, but the loss of local libraries is conscious government policy. As Alison Kennedy’s article shows, the reach of the library and the librarian is infinite, and the need for guidance is as great as the need for having the resources in the first place. Pupils in schools with good libraries are very fortunate, but public libraries should and can reach every citizen. Whilst competition in the market place may be seen as a form of the struggle for the survival of the economically fittest, some of the by-products of commercialism red in tooth and claw are positively damaging to the planet. Meanwhile, the immensely privileged welfare state generation is witnessing the denial, either positively via austerity or passively through inertia, of the reasonable expectations of those that come after them.
In an interview in The Guardian published on 16th April, Kenneth Clarke described the recent ‘bizarre, day-by-day, incompetent manoeuvrings that are going on’ in Parliament about Brexit as being ‘like a parody version of student politics. The trouble is, the subject matter is of desperate importance to the wellbeing of the next generations.’ Pausing briefly to wonder which group would be the more offended by this somewhat Delphic comparison, it is certainly the case that ‘student politics’ are no longer what they were in Clarke’s days in the Cambridge Union. Student activists now come from the classroom as well as the campus, and pupils in schools are beginning to set their own political agenda, even striking to draw attention to climate change, the threats to the environment and the future of their world.
On 9th October 2012, fifteen year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot by a Taliban gunman because she campaigned for the right of girls to go to school. Her Nobel Peace Prize reflects not only the strength of the movement she has launched, but also the willingness of the international community to recognise the achievements of young people.
Following the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida on St Valentine’s Day 2018, survivor Emma Gonzalez joined with other students in launching the Never Again movement which continues to be a significant voice in political and civil issues in the United States.
Inspired by this, fifteen year old Greta Thunberg went ‘on strike’ from school in August 2018, sitting outside the Riksdag to demand that the Swedish government should implement the reduction of carbon emissions set out in the Paris Agreement. This has led to the international School strike for climate movement which is said to have reached a numerical peak of over a million on 15th March 2015, including 50,000 in the UK.
The wellbeing of the next generations is indeed of desperate importance and schools are crucial garrisons in the fight for the future of the planet.
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