Beyond green habits: childhood, inherited ecological damage, and the ethical limits of environmental education in Indonesia

This conceptual article argues that environmental education in Indonesian elementary schools often remains confined to a pedagogy of green habits, one that emphasises awareness, discipline, and small behavioural correction but offers children little language for understanding ecological damage as historically produced, unevenly distributed, and inherited across generations. In response, the article develops the concept of inherited ecological damage to name the pedagogical condition in which children enter school already living within damaged environments they did not create yet are often implicitly asked to morally manage. Using Indonesia as a source of theoretical reflection rather than merely a case context, the article shows how recurrent floods, land transformation, unequal vulnerability, and contemporary curriculum debates expose the ethical limits of behaviour-centred environmental education. It then proposes a justice-bearing ecopedagogical orientation grounded in explanation, bounded responsibility, and adult accountability. The argument does not ask schools to burden children with repair, but to offer them a more truthful and age-appropriate way of interpreting ecological disruption without collapsing into guilt, fatalism, or private virtue alone. The article concludes by outlining implications for curriculum, pedagogy, and future research in elementary education.