“One day, I was attacked by a donkey with a piece of wood firmly attached to its forehead. After the wood hit me, blood started dripping down from the middle of the donkey’s forehead… I was terrified and feared that at any moment, the injured donkey would charge towards me and kick me with its hooves. To my surprise, the donkey only came a little closer and stared into my eyes. Perhaps it wanted to ask me who I was? Am I a human and it a donkey?! This honest confession is from one of the authors of textbooks for the education system, presented at a conference on promoting environmental literacy and ethics in the official education system of the country, held on January 15, 2014 with the participation of textbook authors and hosted by the Environmental Protection Organization.”

One of the pastimes of children from poor layers of society in the 1940s and 1950s was to throw stones at stray dogs and torment animals in the absence of healthy entertainment. The dogs would howl in pain and the children would enjoy it. The elders would say that dogs have seven lives and tormenting them was a way to test their endurance. In folk tales, wild animals such as tigers, leopards, wolves, bears, etc. were portrayed as enemies of humans. The most exciting topic of family gatherings and night gatherings was the confrontation between humans and wild animals. Children would imagine a world without wildlife and believed it to be a safer world.

Self-centered and mixed with lies, the stories of hunters are sweet and exciting, holding one’s breath. For children, the important moment was when the hunter brought down the wild animal with a gunshot. In the end, in the stories of the grandmother as well, the wicked wolf, the cunning fox, the sharp-toothed panther, and the wild bear all received their just punishment for their actions and there was no mercy for them. A popular lullaby of those years seemed to be speaking with a gun, saying: “Gun! It’s a shame to shoot the deer, the deer is beautiful/ Gun! Your bullet belongs in the chest of the panther…” The belief was that attacking animals were lurking everywhere for humans. In reality, there was no proper understanding of animal behavior. Children grew up in such an environment and their beliefs took shape accordingly.

Only in some classic Iranian literary works such as Kalila and Dimna and Marzban Nameh, ethical and educational points have been expressed through the language of animals. The stories in which the lion is the king of the jungle and the relationships between animals are arranged based on a hierarchical pattern, and the new children’s literature, which is a modern phenomenon and based on child psychology, also portrays a completely different image of animals. In the scarcity of entertainment and recreation in the 1960s, foreign cartoons for children would captivate children and even adults in front of the television, and children would become familiar with lovable animal characters such as bears, lions, panthers, blue dogs, etc.

Modern children’s literature teachings do not have appropriate reflection in all aspects of life, including schools and families. While children’s perspective towards animals and nature has become more refined compared to previous generations, the mindset of teachers and official education programs still revolves around the past. As an example, in 1997, the principal of a school in district 2 of Tehran set a hamster on fire in front of students, which caused a lot of uproar in the media at that time.

Although the most attractive part of the environment for children is wildlife, environmental teachings are not limited to supporting the right to life for animals. Issues such as waste disposal, sewage disposal, air pollution, water and soil pollution, soil erosion, deforestation, desertification, ozone layer depletion, global warming due to increased air pollution, melting polar ice caps, the possibility of rising sea levels and the submergence of some residential areas, should be introduced into children’s literature through interesting stories and simple language. Including environmental topics in textbooks in a dry and boring manner may be the worst way to promote environmental concepts, as teachers say, “if you want to get a topic across to students, include it in the textbook!”

On the other hand, the closure of schools due to air pollution in Tehran and other major cities, although a precautionary measure and in line with health protocols, has a negative impact on environmental education. In fact, the more prolonged and severe the air pollution is, the more students’ enthusiasm and interest for learning decreases due to the increased number of closures. On days when the levels of pollutants are high, students and teachers are more interested in reading the news subtitles on TV, and when they hear about school closures due to air pollution, they shout with joy.

According to Article 189 of the Fifth Development Plan, all relevant organizations, including education, government media, and radio and television, are required to implement educational programs without receiving payment in order to promote public awareness and achieve sustainable development, in order to preserve the environment. The new memorandum of cooperation between the Environmental Protection Organization and the Ministry of Education is a step towards implementing this legal provision. This memorandum was signed on February 18th by Ali Asghar Fani, the Minister of Education, and Masoumeh Ebtekar, the head of the Environmental Protection Organization, with the aim of “promoting environmental culture in schools.” According to this memorandum, the culture, ethics, and environmental literacy will be promoted among the student community, and the level of social participation in environmental projects will increase.

Establishment of a post for the responsible expert and environmental specialist in the Health Office of the Ministry of Education, improvement of the quality and quantity of environmental education content in textbooks, design and implementation of environmental education programs for teachers, capacity building for quantitative and qualitative growth of student organizations in the field of environment, evaluation and measurement of the effectiveness of implemented educational-cultural programs in the field of environment, utilization of the human resources potential of the Ministry of Education for providing environmental education and promoting environmental culture and sustainable development, some of the commitments of the Ministry of Education in this memorandum of understanding. Preparation and presentation of educational content by the Environmental Organization for inclusion in publications of the Ministry of Education is another provision of this memorandum of understanding.

We must welcome the signing of such agreements, but at the same time, we must warn that these documents should not be archived in a corner. On the website of the Environmental Organization, there is still an image of the 88 agreement between the Ministry of Education and the Environmental Organization, signed by the highest authorities of the two institutions; the content of the December 88 and February 92 agreements is also very similar. The question is why the 88 agreement between the Environmental Organization and the Ministry of Education was not implemented, and if it was, what were its achievements and why they are not mentioned in the new agreement? What should we expect from the new agreement to achieve better results? Unfortunately, inter-sector agreements mostly remain on paper and are not implemented.

The reality is that in our schools, the prevailing thinking system among teachers and planners is still based on memory and mental training. The student must memorize information and in a process called written exams, provide answers that match the content of the books, with the measure of progress being the grade. In such a process, life skills education does not go beyond the minimum formalities and luxuries. Generally, the high volume of textbooks does not leave room for teachers and students to engage in unconventional discussions. If environmental education is included in textbooks, it becomes just another subject and if it is not included, there is no opportunity to address it in schools and it is not taken seriously by students and teachers, like non-graded subjects.

We can start with small and simple non-academic tasks in school; for example, we can teach children to throw away scraps of paper and disposable materials in the trash cans instead of littering in the schoolyard and classroom. Let’s assign a part of the school cleaning to groups of volunteer students. Let’s plant at least one tree in the yard of each school. Let’s put a few pots in each class. The educational instructors can hold nature camping trips and practically teach the children not to pollute water and soil, not to burn bushes, not to break tree branches, and to collect garbage upon their return. Let’s organize a hiking program to strengthen the children’s friendship with nature. These are small but effective actions. Of course, the key to the success of these programs is for teachers, managers, and instructors to receive sufficient training and truly be interested in environmental protection. One of the strengths of this agreement is the provision for environmental education for a number of teachers.