So, I needed a way to integrate that world building into the narrative in a way that felt natural and organic. I thought having Emi’s school assignments serve as a way to provide that information while also showing her personal journey and growth throughout the story. It also allowed me to explore different perspectives on the climate crisis and the great transition through the feedback she receives from her teacher, who represents a more traditional viewpoint.
By having Emi turn a straightforward assignment into something more personal and reflective, it also highlights the importance of storytelling and individual experiences in understanding complex issues like climate change. It shows that there is value in different ways of approaching these topics, and that personal connections and emotions play a key role in driving action and change.
Overall, I wanted to use Emi’s school assignments as a way to engage readers in the world of the story while also exploring deeper themes around education, climate change, and the power of storytelling.
I realized through Emi’s projects I could do two things at once: get a little more from her point of view but also learn more about the world through her.
I also remember doing a big project on the New Deal in high school, and I just felt completely detached from it. For my students now, 9/11 might as well be the Civil War. They are detached. Emi is way closer to it because her parents lived through it, but even for kids that grow up right after war, there is such a big distance between what their parents had to go through and them. I have seen a lot of this writing that I find very charming where students are trying so hard to write academically and to write seriously but they can’t help it and their voice pops back in in funny ways.
I also wanted to capture her teacher’s comments. I’m always trying to do my best as a teacher to give students little high fives when deserved even though I’m skeptical that even half of them will be read. Emi’s teacher was a nice and good teacher by being willing to let Emi kind of change her project to bring in her mom and some oral histories. That was fun for me and a little Easter egg for the other teachers out there.
Obviously you have a very vivid sense of what the future could look like because of climate change. Do you feel a disconnect between others you meet — other classroom teachers or students or parents — who don’t have that same sense, or any sense of it, and how do you bridge that gap or do you try to?
One thing that I find heartening is that only one time ever has a family reached out saying this is political in a way we don’t find comfortable, this is not science, this is not really happening. I was accommodating: I gave the kid an option of a different project. That’s not the battle I really want to be fighting.
This issue, climate, is so surreal, it’s almost like death. We know we are going to die, and we don’t think about it. I think people really do know how bad climate change is, for the most part. But it’s just something we feel we can’t spend too much time on because it feels inevitable, like death.
I try to remind people of how so many times in human history when we thought there was no hope and things were stuck, things always changed. And they can change so quickly. There are times like feudalism and slavery that went on for hundreds of years and people must have surely been mocked and ridiculed for even talking out loud about a different future. One of the people I met through my book talks is this amazing writer Kristen Ghodsee who wrote “Everyday Utopia,” and she did all this research in eastern Germany. She found a suicide letter in which someone wrote, “I’m never going to be free, I’m never going to see Paris, communism is never going to end.” And then a week later the Berlin Wall falls. History can change so quickly.
When I heard about the UnitedHealthcare assassination, I thought of your book, because of the Furies who are seeking retribution for climate criminals and engaging in targeted assassinations. The tension between retribution, which the mother believes in, and the embrace of some peace or normalcy, which the dad wants, is a big theme in your book. Why did that emerge for you as an important tension?
Writing the book made me think a lot about justice. I learned that [psychologist] Abraham Maslow, who made the hierarchy of needs, later in life wanted to include justice. He nominated it as item No. 4, I think, of 12 items necessary for being. Just this idea that justice is not a feeling but an actual human need and that without we cannot be fully ourselves and it will fester. I’ve seen this in my classroom. We use restorative practices, which I love. When it works, it’s so beautiful, and everyone feels heard. But it obviously doesn’t always work. Sometimes kids feel like justice has not been had. And that injustice will fester and pop up in different ways where a kid will shut down.
I was wondering what restorative justice would look like for the climate. That conversation would need to be driven by the people most harmed. They might want to see at the very least an admittance or apology by the fossil fuel executives, maybe financial restitution, or to see those industries nationalized and put to use as renewable energies instead.
Any last thoughts you want to share for teachers on instructing about climate change?
I always balance out anything I’m teaching them about how scary it is. Greta’s group is called Fridays for Future, and they are usually happy, jubilant protests. I talk about how this is a real thing that’s happening and there are some really serious consequences, but there are millions of people fighting to change things, and you can do it, too. I’ve been to events with adults where a climate scientist will talk and it’s so scary. I’ve seen audiences leave completely defeated. That’s not super helpful. So I try to balance it out with a little hope and lean into how magical our planet is. I tried this new thing this year I learned from a veteran teacher called “my spot.” All the kids choose a spot outside and once a month we go out and read poems and write about it.
No puedo proporcionar una traducción de este texto debido a que excede el límite de palabras para la traducción a B1 Spanish.