조국 자녀 특혜 논란과 그레타 툰베리 기후정의 운동 - 한국교육 이렇게 바꾸자

조국 사태의 '교훈'과 '정책적 과제'? 서울대를 비롯한 한국 대학은 그레타 툰베리 입학을 기꺼이 허용할 수 있는가? 

 

이런 질문을 던져야 한다. 그레타 툰베리 '웅변'을 들었다. 아래 사진에 나오는 소피아 마터 (12세)등 캐나다 초등학생들도 작년부터 '기후 정의' 시위에 동참하고 있다.

 

 좀 놀랬다. '너를 용서하지 않겠다'고 그레타 툰베리 첫 발언을 듣고. 전 세계에서 가장 많은 '돈'과 '신경 에너지'를 쓰는 한국 학부모와 학생들, 그러나 정작에 나이 30세가 넘으면 '학구열'은 대부분 소진되는, '첫끗발이 개끗발이 된 안타까운 조국'의 교육현실이다. 

 

- 난 한국 암기식 교육을 비하하고, 미국식이나 바칼레로아 주관식을 찬양하자는 게 아니다. 다 장단점이 있다. 

 

- 직업차별, 직종간 임금 격차, 신분제 자본주의로 타락한 시민사회를 고치지 않고서는 '대학 개혁'과 '입시 제도 개선'은 이뤄질 수 없다.

 

 - 그레타 툰베리의 주장과 활동에 대한 '이견'과 '비판'은 있을 수 있다. 하지만, 조국 논란에서 가장 큰 문제로 떠오른, 한국 교육 개혁에서, 놓치고 있는 것은, 초,중,고등학교, 대학시절에 학생들이 다양한 '준 사회 활동'을 그레타 툰베리처럼 할 수 있도록, 부모, 이웃, 학교 교사들이 바뀌어야 한다는 것이다.

 

 - '잘함' '못함' 의 기준은 인류가 있는 한 없어지지 않는다.

 

 (1) 잘함, 못함이 '시험' 결과로 나오더라도 '차별'이 있어서는 안된다. 적게 만들어야 한다 

 

(2) 지금 한국 교육은, '잘함' 기준들이 너무나 단순하다. 이것은 기성세대가 아주 '단세포'로 살고 있다는 것을 의미한다. 지금 의회에 있는 민주당, 자유한국당 등 의원들의 말투, 사고 가치관, 정책들은 획일적이고, 다양하지 않다. 

 

(3) 시험의 공정성도 중요하지만, 시험이 1개가 아니라, 다양하게 만들어야 하며, 그 공존들을 제도적으로 인정해줘야 한다. 

 

(4) 이를 위해서, 물질적인 조건이 갖춰져야 하고, 그 첫걸음이, 양육, 유치원, 초등, 중등, 고등, 대학교 등록금을 없애고, 국립,공립 운영을 해야 한다. 

 

(5) 한국 부모의 세계 최고 교육열을 탓하지 말라. 맹자 어머니도, 칼 마르크스 아버지도, 한국 부모들의 학구열을 3배쯤 능가한 사람들이었다. 문제는, 이 부모들의 에너지와 자식 사랑이, 오로지 '돌직구'만 있고, '커브, 체인지 업'은 없는 야구 투수를 키우면서, '내 자식은 류현진, 선동열을 능가하는 일류 투수가 될 것이다'는 필패의 믿음을 가지고 있다는 점이다. 

 

이 대표적인 예가 #우병우 아니었는가? 

 

내 친구, 급우, 이웃를 지배하지 않고서, 내 자녀의 '잠재력'을 '탁월하게 발현시키는' 그런 교육이 가능하다. 이런 교육 목표를 내걸고, 인류 역사상 가장 교육 에너지가 높은 한국 부모들이 다 같이 나서서, 학생들의 잠재력을 현실화시키기 위해서 노력하게 만들어야 한다. 

 

스웨덴의 그레타 툰베리(16세), 캐나다의 소피아 마터(12세) 와 같이 뭔가를 찾아서 자발적으로 활동하는 한국 아이들은 지금도 수없이 많다. 

 

어른들이, 현행 교육제도가 오히려 한국 아이들의 싹을 자르고 있다. 사회적 범죄였고, 지금도 범죄는 계속 되고 있다. 아이들을 기성제도가 만들어놓은 잣대로 '차별'하지 말고, 지속적으로 길게 관심을 가지고, '칭찬'과 '격려'를 할 수 있는 학교, 초,중,고,대학교를 만들어야 한다. 

 

100세 시대에 대학은 두 번, 세 번 자유롭게 들어가게 만들어야 할 때이다. 고등학교도 가기 싫으면 말고~ 다른 활동이 가능하면 학교가 아니어도 좋다.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morrison responds to Greta Thunberg by warning children against 'needless' climate anxiety

Australian PM says debate replete with disinformation and he wants to give children confidence they will have ‘an economy to live in’

 

Katharine Murphy in New York

 

 @murpharoo

Wed 25 Sep 2019 00.42 BSTLast modified on Wed 25 Sep 2019 10.35 BST

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Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has spoken out in response to a speech 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg gave at the UN, saying the climate change debate is subjecting Australian children to ‘needless anxiety’. 

 Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has spoken out in response to a speech 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg gave at the UN, saying the climate change debate is subjecting Australian children to ‘needless anxiety’. Composite: Stephanie Keith/Mick Tsikas/AAP/Getty

Scott Morrison has responded to an impassioned speech by the Swedish teenage climate activistGreta Thunberg at the United Nations by declaring the climate change debate is subjecting Australian children to “needless anxiety”.

 

The Australian prime minister, who will address environmental themes in his address to the UN general assembly on Wednesday, including ocean management, plastics, waste management and illegal fishing, was asked for his response to Thunberg’s excoriation of world leaders at this week’s climate action summit, when she accused the political class of failing the younger generations.

 

Morrison told reporters he acknowledged “how deeply people feel about this issue” but said the public debate was replete with disinformation about Australia’s climate change policies.

 

 

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“It often comes as news to people when I share with them Australia has the highest per capita investment in renewable energy of any country in the world,” Morrison said – in the process neglecting to mention that his predecessor Tony Abbott had tried to wind back the renewable energy target, which triggered an investment strike.

 

Morrison said he would use his looming address to the UN – his final public commitment before leaving New York for Australia on Wednesday – to address the lack of awareness about “the action Australia has been taking”.

 

“I do understand that people feel strongly about this, but I think we also have to take stock, we have to ensure we get a proper context and perspective,” Morrison said.

 

“I want children growing up in Australia to feel positive about their future, and I think it is important we give them that confidence that they will not only have a wonderful country and pristine environment to live in, that they will also have an economy to live in as well.

 

“I don’t want our children to have anxieties about these issues.”

 

Asked whether Australian children would be less anxious about the worst-case scenarios associated with climate change if Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions were falling instead of rising, and if the Morrison government would make a clear commitment to reaching net zero emissions by 2050, the prime minister said kids needed to be given “context and perspective”.

 

He acknowledged that he spoke to his own daughters, aged 10 and 12, about climate change. “We don’t have deep conversations about emissions reduction targets and what’s happening with the Kyoto protocol and Paris, but we talk about fossil fuels and we talk about what they learn at school, and I encourage them to have a passionate independent view about how they see the world, but I also give them a lot of context.

 

“I don’t allow them to be basically contorted into one particular view. I like them to make up their own mind but I also like to give them reassurance because the worst thing I would impose on any child is needless anxiety. They’ve got enough things to be anxious about.

 

“We’ve got to let kids be kids. We can’t have them growing up as mushrooms, but we’ve got to get a bit of context into this.”

 

Morrison said being present at the United Nations should also serve as a reminder that the world was fully capable of solving vexed problems and responding to existential threats. “Australia has dealt with so many issues in the past, and the world has dealt with so many difficult issues in the past, and here [at the UN in New York], we are reminded of that.”

 

 

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Australian observers in New York have told Guardian Australia Morrison’s failure to attend a UN climate action summit on Monday despite being in the US, and his apparent rejection of the need for Australia to do more to address its rising greenhouse gas emissions, had eroded goodwill for the country on the issue.

 

Bill Hare, the chief executive and senior scientist of Climate Analytics and a longtime adviser to countries at climate talks, has dismissed Morrison’s argument this week that China had to be treated as a developed economy in the context of climate change and embark on more ambitious emissions reduction as a “ridiculous fake argument”.

 

Hare said China, the world’s most populous country and biggest annual polluter, was not doing anywhere near enough to tackle the crisis, but was doing more than Australia on many measures. It had national policies in a number of areas – boosting renewable energy, energy efficiency, electric vehicles and efficiency in industry – where Australia did not.

 

Greenhouse gas emissions have been rising in Australia since the Coalition repealed Labor’s carbon price despite the country’s commitments to reduce pollution under the Paris agreement. Total national emissions have increased each year since 2014.

 

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The government says it will meet the commitments made under the Paris agreement, but its carbon pollution roadmap for doing so shows Australia is relying on a 367 megatonne abatement from carry-over credits (an accounting system that allows countries to count carbon credits from exceeding their targets under the soon-to-be-obsolete Kyoto protocol periods against their Paris commitment for 2030) to help meet the 2030 target.

 

The indicative roadmap for emissions reductions to 2030 includes an electric vehicle strategy that the government has not yet unveiled, and the government has also booked just under 100Mt of abatement to “technology solutions” that are not specified.

 

 

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Morrison signed a communique at the Pacific Islands Forum that included a commitment to “formulate and communicate mid-century long-term low greenhouse gas emissions development strategies by 2020” – but asked this week whether he would deliver on that undertaking, the prime minister hedged.

 

Renewables have boomed after rebounding from the Abbott government’s efforts to dismantle the renewable energy target, but a recent forecast from the industry warned that investment has slowed right down in the absence of policy certainty in climate and energy.

 

The Coalition abandoned a key policy mechanism for the electricity sector – the national energy guarantee – in the middle of the conservative-led strike on Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership.

 

The forecast from the Clean Energy Council says the large-scale RET, which winds down after 2020, led to 15,700MW of new capacity being financially committed over the past two years, with that generation either under construction or recently commissioned.

 

“But with the absence of policy certainty beyond the 2020 RET and a range of regulatory barriers to overcome, investment commitments in new generation have fallen dramatically this year,” it said. “Quarterly investment commitments in new renewable energy projects reached a high of over 4500MW in late 2018, but has since collapsed to less than 800MW in each of the first two quarters of 2019.”