 What Have You Learned from a Child Today?
“And a little child shall lead them”. Certainly, children and youth have taken significant leadership in the climate crisis where leadership matters to us humans more than ever before. Greta Thunberg and many other young people around the world are leading with words and action and they are gaining more and more followers! As we reflect on whom we will elect to political office, or what companies we really want to support with our investments, or what energy changes we need to make in our homes and our lifestyles, let’s remember to consult the children around us. Good educators have always been teacher/learners and learner/teachers. When we listen to our children, grandchildren, and neighbour children we may, or may not, be surprised at the wisdom we hear. My son is no longer a little child, but I still value his insights. Here is a link to Story Soup Enterprise’s podcast for a short story called The Grace of a Child.
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 April 22 marks the 52nd Earth Day celebration. If you wish to acknowledge the occasion with a thought provoking, information packed and highly readable book, I recommend Michael E. Mann’s, The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet (in print or audio). Michael reminds us that though there is certainly urgency we also still have agency. He states that the deniers are now a fringe group replaced by the fossil fuel benefiters and other inactivists who proclaim that it is too late to do anything so we may as well give up! Michael Mann contends there is a great deal we can do but we must do it now! For solid information one of his several favourite sites is, Skeptical Science. On Twitter look for Guardian Environment @guardianeco.
Story Soup Enterprises’ video addresses the climate crisis through the arts is getting great reviews: “Looking at the theme of preserving the earth from different artistic points of view was thought provoking. … important message conveyed in a unique format. Beautifully done.” Susan and Gordon Fraser, developers of The Ravina Project, an environmental site Watch the video here.  Our climate crisis group’s discussions continued last week with lived stories of our own interactions with non-human creatures. Our personal stories were wide ranging and included tales of raccoons who have shared our back gardens and attics!, rabbits who reminded us they were more than pretty faces and, when brought indoors, had minds of their own, an African elephant with a steely eyed look backed up by several tons of body weight clarified her territorial boundaries and a lion cub (paws the size of Ping-Pong paddles) who was rejected by his mother at birth so being reared by human caregivers, could be petted and played with (at least for the moment!). But my favourite story was originally told by Thomas Berry (well known ecologist / theologian) and retold in our group as follows:
“A mother set her small daughter down on the deck of their home in the country with a bowl of milk and cereal. Mom went back into the house keeping an ear on the deck. A big, fat garden snake slithered up to join the little girl and the mother heard, ‘One for me and one for wormy … one for me and one for wormy’. Mom gently moved the harmless snake to the far end of the deck and provided a separate saucer of milk. When humans are not taught to fear or abhor nature, chances are they won’t.” These were all stories from our human point of view, but if you would like to hear a story from a raccoon’s perspective, here is a link to Story Soup Enterprises podcast for the story, Good Neighbours, written by Sally Armour Wotton and ready by Charles Wotton. |
