Marrianne Griffin has a vision to get Transition Town Training into mainstream education.

“I used to teach geography in secondary schools. I remember telling aclass of 1980s geology ‘O’ level pupils that the Middle East had hugeresources of oil yet limited resources of water, which would surelylead to conflict. I also started asking my pupils then what was made ofplastic & also what else oil was used for apart from fuel, and toremember what had been used before all these things came into ourlives.

In the last decade I have been anxious to see thegovernment start preparing these young people for Peak Oil transition,by introducing many forgotten practical skills into the curriculum ~not just in primary schools and KS3 in secondary schools, but ason-going education & training for all ages and also in universitiesand colleges. Reading the Transition Handbook, I am relieved that atlong last someone is taking all this seriously and starting to gear uplocal government to take some responsibility within the community forreskilling the population. But I feel we need to be educating teachersin this, so that they can teach the school children the skills theywill need in the future, and in doing so involve the parents too. Itneeds to be a national initiative, like it was in the 1940s duringwartime.”

On the Transition Towns website there is are 3 key aspects to Transition and

Higher Education:Universities OF Transition – places to learn all the technical and general skills around transition.

• likely to be virtual “universities”initially. This means it’s a list of available courses covering all thenecessary elements (delivered by institutions such as CAT, Schumacher,Amazonails, Non-violent communications etc
• over time, some educational establishments will redesigntheir curricula to offer a very wide range of courses covering allaspects of transition
• probably the closest to a “transition university” right nowis Cultivate in Ireland (www.cultivate.ie). They’re already workingwith most of the Irish transition initiatives.

For further information on transitions towns and education please visit :

transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/Research

Recently in Totnes a school has been running a Transitions Towns Training project, Hannah Mulder tells us more about it: “Transition Tales” is a project that’s been working in local schools in Totnes. Recently three hundred Year 7 students at King Edward Sixth Community College took part in the workshops, which seek to educate and inspire about the issues and solutions around peak oil and climate change. In the final workshop students film their imaginary local news stories from 2030, in a world in which we have successfully met the challenges we currently face and made a healthy transition.”

Image: Web Complete is
Here the students complete a web of interconnections within their local community, looking at how those connections might need to be strengthened or altered in the future.
Photo courtesy of Hannah Mulder & King Edward Sixth Community College