Learning in the Age of Climate Disasters: Teacher and Student Empowerment Beyond Futurephobia

431 Pages·2022·12.919 MB·English

by  Maggie Favretti

“So how does one teach hope and agency during our climate
crisis? Gifted educator Maggie Favretti provides some powerful
answers in this remarkable book. Read it, then teach it for the
sake of our future on earth.”
Tony Wagner, Senior Research Fellow, Learning Policy
Institute and best-selling author
“Young people know that we’re in the fight for our lives—for
our collective future. The climate crisis has contributed to the
mental health crisis among teens because we’ve responded so
inadequately. In this book Maggie Favretti outlines what school
could be if focused on our collective and regenerative resilience:
Personhood, People, Place, Purpose, Process, and Positivity.
This is a must read for school communities searching for what’s
next and what Favretti calls ‘cultures of coherence, belonging
and agency.’”
Tom Vander Ark, CEO, Getting Smart, author of
Difference Making at the Heart of Learning
“Learning in the Age of Climate Disasters offers a fresh and
empowering ecological view of design, infused with systems
thinking, and most importantly, community wisdom. This book
invites us to reimagine design-based solutions to societal and
environmental problems with a decolonial mindset. It is a gift of
change-making with an equity and justice lens.”
Yerko Sepúlveda, PhD, Educator, Diversity, Equity,
Inclusion, & Justice leader, Project Zero’s
Introduction to Maker-Centered Learning coach
“‘Process is not a linear or single pathway, but a tapestry of
potential for transformation that emerges from relationships
and collective knowledges…’ Yes, yes, yes! It’s what I found
myself saying as I read Learning in the Age of Climate Disasters.
Maggie Favretti offers profound intelligence and goodness in
her book and I am so grateful she is pointing the way to engage
learning and design mindsets to revitalize the Earth.”
Susie Wise, Author of Design for Belonging,
Founder of d.school K12 Lab
“In the face of the complex and overwhelming challenges we
face, youth and the adults that support and stand with them
need a vision for how to cultivate hope and empower action.
Favretti’s powerful and eloquent book provides just that.
Favretti explores the power of place, purpose, and processes
to offer a transformative vision for education in the age of the
climate crises. With love, creativity, and a deep sense of justice
and equity her narrative shines a light on an actionable pathway
of hope and possibility.”
Robin Cox, PhD, Royal Roads University Professor &
Program Head, Climate Action Leadership;
Director, Resilience By Design (RbD) Lab
“Learning in the Age of Climate Disasters tackles the specter of
climate change with moral clarity and abundant hope. By
centering the voices of children and educators, this inspiring
book illuminates the great power that exists within each of us to
save this precious planet we call home. This is a must read for
anyone searching for actionable guidance on how to respond to
crisis with courage.”
Lori Peek, Professor of Sociology and Director of the
Natural Hazards Center, University of
Colorado Boulder, U.S.A., co-author of
Children of Katrina
Learning in the Age of Climate
Disasters
Learn how to infuse learning with deeper purpose, connectedness, and
engagement, so students feel more empowered and less anxious about
their futures. In Learning in the Age of Climate Disasters, author and award-
winning teacher Maggie Favretti outlines the contexts and causes
of “futurephobia” and then offers Regenerative Learning strategies
rooted in nature’s principles for repair and redesign. She explains how
tending the soil and cultivating the roots of (re)generative power (Love,
Personhood, People, Place, Purpose, Process, Positivity) help us disrupt
degenerative hierarchical fragmentation. She also explores methods for
co-empowering youth creativity, agency, and hope. Chapters include
interviews with and contributions by children and young people, as well
as key takeaways (Seeds for Planting), and tools to help you implement
the ideas. With this book’s thought-provoking concepts, you’ll be able to
help students overcome eco-anxiety and find healing connection and
meaning for more sustained, regenerative change.
Maggie Favretti conspires with younger learners and collea-
gues from around the world to democratize and deepen
learning and to build agency for transformative systemic
change-making. Her next steps include Earth and indigenous
rights advocacy, and helping to further emancipatory and re-
generative learning and civic action networks in the interest of
peaceful and interrelated life. She plans to keep asking, what
kind of ancestor will I be?

Learning in the Age
of Climate Disasters
Teacher and Student Empowerment
Beyond Futurephobia
Maggie Favretti
Designed cover image: © Maggie Favretti
First published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Maggie Favretti
The right of Maggie Favretti to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Favretti, Maggie, author.
Title: Learning in the age of climate disasters : teacher and student
empowerment beyond futurephobia / Maggie Favretti.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Includes bibliographical
references. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2022025167 | ISBN 9781032105352 (hardback) | ISBN
9781032048086 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003215806 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Emotions and cognition. | Anxiety in children. | Future,
The‐‐Psychological aspects. | Environmental disasters‐‐Psychological aspects.
Classification: LCC LB1073 .F38 2023 | DDC 370.15/34‐‐dc23/eng/20220713
LC record available at https:/./l.ccn.loc.gov/2022025167
ISBN: 978-1-032-10535-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-04808-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-21580-6 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003215806
Typeset in Palatino
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
Access the Support Material: w.w.w.routledge.com/9781032048086
Note to readers: The weblinks in the eBook are not active. Please type or cut and
paste the entire URL into your browser in order to access the source
Contents
Support Material ...................................... ix
Author and Youth Contributor Bios .......................x
Dedication........................................... xvi
Preface............................................. xvii
1 Futurephobia and Renewal ........................... 1
Interview: Génesis Ramos Rosado ........................45
2 The Power of Love: Unity in the Universe ............ 51
3 Cultivating (Re)generative Power .................... 91
4 Personhood and the Power Within:
Coming Home to Ourselves ........................ 129
5 The Power of “People”: Kinship With the
Whole of Life ...................................... 170
6 The Power of Place: Belonging in Contexts .......... 211
Batey, Bomba, and the Regenerative Power of
Place-Based Learning in Puerto Rico ....................251
7 The Power of Purpose: Motivation,
Flow, Depth, and Meaning ......................... 256
8 Power-full Processes: Democratizing
How We Change ................................... 290
Interview: Jeltsin José Obregón .........................335
9 Power-full Positivity: Empowered Hope
and the Positive Civic Action Cycle ................. 345
viii ◆ Contents
10 An Invitation to Possibilities: Creating Power-full
Regenerative Learning Communities
and Networks...................................... 381
Acknowledgments ....................................391
References ...........................................399
Support Material
Bonus: There are several additional resources on our website to
accompany the book.
♦ Don’t Anticipate, Participate: Youth Perspective on the
Climate Crisis (Resource 1)
♦ Creating Listening Circles (Resource 2)
♦ Activities for Educators and Students to Help Invite
and Sustain Coherence (Resource 3)
♦ Design Process Benefits and Pitfalls (Resource 4)
♦ Reflections on Individual Growth (Resource 5)
To access these resources, visit the book’s product page at
w.w.w.routledge.com/9781032048086 and click on the link that
says “Support Material.”