A letter to my daughter: three stories

My darling girl

I need to tell you something. I see you struggling with maths. I see how hard it for you to focus on the problems of numbers and formulae that school maths offers you. You feel the pressure of the world around you, that your life will only work if you have a maths GCSE. It is the threshold to success. You have been persuaded that without it your choices will be severely limited. And yet it is so painfully difficult for you to focus, to remember, to do the type of thinking required.

I admire your determination to keep trying but I am dismayed at your struggle. It hurts to see your anxiety. I have never put pressure on you to be good at maths. I have always encouraged you to follow your passions, do the things you love, be interested in and engaged with the world. How did it come to this? Tears in the face of a sheet of maths questions. I haven’t been able to protect you from the pressure of a world that believes in and demands that every child needs to know the same thing whatever their skills, challenges and aptitudes.

I could say a lot to you about education, I have already, but now I want to tell you something else, something much bigger than my views on autonomous learning and the limits of curriculum.

It is about climate change. It is about how your future is going to be different from anything that we ever imagined. How can I find a way to talk with you about this?

A few years ago, when you were about 11, you asked, ‘Mum, is human extinction going to happen in my lifetime?’ You looked at me, earnest anxiety in your eyes. Are you going to tell me the truth? My heart broke a bit more. I held your gaze and acknowledged the size of the question and the deep fear of what it holds. What must it be like to be 11 and to be holding this possibility? I didn’t know the answer. To try to reassure you that everything would be fine would be a betrayal. This was my chance to show you once again that I would never leave you alone with your fears. That whatever you face I will be by your side, taking you seriously and holding you in love. I told you that human and all life is certainly under threat and that many people believe that human extinction is possible. I said that it is very unlikely to be in your lifetime although there will be big changes. I also told you that there are many many people working really hard to stop that happening, working together with fantastic ideas to meet the challenges ahead and to protect life.

Now you are a teenager and you are living with the big questions about life and your place in it. You are wondering if you even have a future and you are grappling with the pressure that if you do have a future, you need a maths qualification to engage with it.

I have not wanted to push you into being engaged with climate change. You see that it is my work and I hope that gives you the knowledge and reassurance that adults are working on this, taking responsibility and action. I want you to have the freedom to grow and develop with your own concerns and interests, to follow your curiosity, your heart. But I see you frightened of the future, hardly able to face the fear of everybody dying, pushing it away somewhere deep where you don’t have to think of it.

And I need to speak up about the maths.

This is what I want to tell you darling, this is the best truth I can find for you right now. There are three stories that are shaping our lives right now. You have always loved stories, I hope these ones make sense to you.

The first story is ‘keeping going as usual’. In this story, everything is as it has always been. (Not actually always of course, things used to be very different.) But in this story we are told that everything will stay as it is. Or rather, that things will change but in the same direction. More space travel, more artificial intelligence, more technology, more injustice everywhere.

In this story a maths GCSE is very important because it will open the way to further education, to more choice in the job market. It will allow you to succeed, to buy your own home, to have the family you want. Without it you will find it harder to get a good job. Maybe you would like to travel the world before you settle down. All of it is more possible with a maths GCSE.

Spending your adolescent years in stress and anxiety will be worth it because it is securing your future. This is not a time to enjoy yourself, it is a time to work hard, for your future. To open doors of opportunity which will otherwise be closed to you. Well, maybe you can enjoy yourself when you have finished your homework, especially if you are doing something that will be good for your CV.

The second story is a story of crisis and catastrophe. Climate disruption. Our world is crumbling. Our systems of business, economy and politics have destroyed everything. Humans are causing a mass extinction of species, the planet’s life systems are under threat. Drastic change is no longer avoidable. In this story we are in an emergency. What is the point of studying maths when you hate it? The world needs you to devote yourself to action to save the planet. Join the school climate strikes, demand change. Shout loudly enough for the adults to hear and take this seriously.

In this story, young people are having to take more and more responsibility to do the work the previous generations have avoided. Greta is the inspiration, the role model. A child who spent years depressed and anxious before she found her power to stand up and sit down. The fact that she is from the global north and white helped her to get the media coverage needed to impact the world when so many other young activists and indigenous elders from around the globe have been ignored.  Her clear anger is such a relief and a call to action to so many young people who feel betrayed by the determination of world leaders to live in the first story and ignore this second one. This story also holds a lot of fear and bleakness. What is the point of maths, of anything, if we are all going to die anyway? There is just no future, no point to anything. How do you live in the face of this?

Sometimes my darling, the world feels torn between these two stories. Either life is going to carry on as usual or everything will be destroyed. We have to choose which to live by and right now in our country we still have that choice although it feels more and more impossible. How does Covid sit with the ‘keeping going as usual’ story? It doesn’t. Everything has changed already, yet the government are still talking about ‘catching up’ on education by providing more maths classes.

The third story is vitally important. It is the story of change. In this story we know ourselves to be in a time of great change and we are invited to be part of it. We can join the millions of people around the world who are facing the challenges and finding ways to meet them. Creativity, connection and life. In this story we know that the way we have been doing things is no longer going to work and so we look for more beautiful alternatives. We recognise the preciousness of the only planet we have to live on and we work to protect it.

There have always been wise ways of living in connection with all life. In our culture we have lost our way. We can learn from traditional cultures and we can learn from new technology too. We need both. Darling, in this story, we need all the different things that people can bring. We don’t need everybody to know about algebra, just the people who love it and are willing to share their knowledge. We need everybody’s different strengths. In the same way that we need diverse ecosystems, we need diverse human systems. We are part of nature. The same rules apply to us.

This story is not naïve. We know that it is now too late to save all the species that have gone extinct. We know that there is huge loss and disruption ahead. It is a story of resilience. We can meet this challenge together. We can stand in strength and vulnerability and contribute to the new systems that will allow us to protect what we can. We can support each other to face the consequences of what we can’t protect. It is a story of grief, courage and love.

At this moment, these stories are all here. We are immersed in all three of them at various times. No wonder it is all so confusing. But I want you to see them all clearly so that you can have a choice. There is truth in all of them but which story do you want to live by? Which gives you most meaning and purpose? Which story gives you direction in your maths struggle?

You know well that I want to transform the education system. I am always going on about it. I want to rewrite the curriculum to include all the things that we are going to need in the face of the second and third story. The first story is no longer an option. There is no way on earth that we can keep going as we are. We need to question everything. Including the importance of universal maths qualifications. Instead I think we need to nurture the conditions for human and planetary resilience. We do that through warmth, acceptance and enjoyment of difference. Through the honouring and protection of all life.

I want you to learn about critical thinking, about local democracy, about land use, water protection, decision making, conflict resilience. I want you to learn about local food, wild medicine, community building, housing justice, the sharing of resources. I want you to learn how to deal with anxiety and grief and anger, to know the intricacies of your nervous system so that you can regulate yourself and have choice in your life. I want you to know how precious you are and how precious everybody else is. How you are part of the interconnected everything. I want you to know joy.

Listen to me going on about all the things I want you to learn! I am doing that same old thing that adults do, of thinking we know best what is good for you. What do you want to learn? How about we stop and ask that simple question?

My beautiful child, what do you love? What is the strength and skill you bring to this life? What do you want to become really good at? That is what we need of you. We need you to be truly yourself, to be as resilient as we can support you in being. If learning maths can help you with that then I am all for it. If not, then it is ok to let it go. There are more important things you need to be doing. Darling, you are not alone in this. We are all in this together, all connected. And I am at your side, sweet one, I am always here holding you in love.