Philosophy teacher Tim Jones had quitted his £39,000-a-year job in a secondary school in South London to protest against the continuous deterioration of the planet.
Jones quitted his job to help stop climate change with the environmental campaign group Extinction Rebellion and is urging more teachers to do the same.
The teacher also took part in full civil disobedience acts, such as organizing protests outside the Department for Education (DfE), blocking roads in London, and spraying paint on school walls, painting “teach the truth” on the walls.
Jones further called on students to join his cause, encouraging them to send a message to the government by going on strike and refusing to sit for their GCSE and A-level exams.
Extinction Rebellion is calling for dramatic action over the next decade, including a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2025. It is staging demonstrations in London and across the world.
Extinction Rebellion takes a tour of downtown Wellington to point out the coal industry stalwarts here and ask why they’re still there in the face of a climate emergency. Melanie Vautier @lollywalking and I report: https://t.co/27UzzvrdY9 @ExtinctionNZ @ExtinctionR @coalaction
— Tim Jones (@timjonesbooks) August 22, 2019
Other teachers quitting their jobs
Shulamit Morris-Evans, a former primary school teacher from London, who also quitted her job, said a sense of time running out compelled her to leave teaching because she became aware of how much needs to be done to protect the earth.
Tom Baxter, a primary school teacher from Sussex, recently also quitted his job. He was arrested by police during an Extinction Rebellion protest and released under investigation.
Louise Stafford, a history teacher at an Exeter secondary school, said she has also quitted her job, to begin canvassing for protection of the planet. Louise also said she met Jones and Baxter at the Extinction Rebellion teacher protest outside the DfE.
Finn Woodhill, a geography teacher in west London, also joined the movement. He is also taking things a little further by applying to create a sixth-form free school next year. Woodhill intends to teach ecological preservation through the climate and environmental lens.
Students also organizing protests
Students from Harvard and Yale universities, along with others around the globe have been staging protest demanding world leaders pay more attention to climate change.
Recently, UK Student Climate Network launched a new campaign Teach the Future, calling for policymakers to repurpose the entire education system around the climate emergency and ecological crisis.
