Courtesy of the National Post,
A couple in Laval, Que[bec] has sparked a fierce debate over how far schools should go to teach children about environmental responsibility after their six-year-old son was shut out of a kindergarten draw to win a stuffed animal because he had an environmentally unfriendly sandwich bag in his lunchbox.
Marc-Andr? Lanciault said he hadn?t heard of the school?s draw or any environmental policy until his wife, Isabel Th?or?t, was making their son F?lix a sandwich and he begged them not to put it in a plastic bag.
?He said, ?No mommy, you can?t do that. Not a Ziploc,? ? Mr. Lanciault said.
Through tears, the boy told his parents that the school had held a draw to win a stuffed teddy bear and only children who didn?t have any plastic sandwich bags could enter. The family normally uses Tupperware, but it was all in the dishwasher, and so they had packed their son?s ham sandwich in a plastic bag.
When Mr. Lanciault questioned his son?s teacher, she confirmed the school had staged the draw at a lunchtime daycare and that any student with a plastic sandwich bag was excluded. ?You know Mr. Lanciault, it?s not very good for the environment,? the teacher told him. ?We have to take care of the our planet and the bags do not decompose well.?
[Snip]
Schools tread into dangerous territory when they start enforcing environmental messages without understanding the complex scientific arguments behind them, said Jane Shaw, president of the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in North Carolina, and co-author of Facts, Not Fear: Teaching Children about the Environment, which was adapted for Canadian audiences. For instance, she said, the debate still rages over whether reusable dishes are really more environmentally friendly than disposable ones, taking into account the water and energy used to wash them.
?In the background to this is the idea that somehow we — meaning teachers and textbook writers — know what the environmental impact of something really is,? she said. ?Studies have shown it?s very difficult to know whether it?s better to use a china cup or a disposable plastic cup.?
Instead, she said, schools should focus on teaching kids the fundamentals of science so that they can explore environmental issues themselves and draw their own informed conclusions as they get older.
?They?re getting a lot of pabulum about recycling and what is green and that kind of thing,? she said. ?They?re not learning the basics of science, which in the long run is much more important.?
